The Mark of the Knife

"What's the idea?" he had said. "Why don't you come in the front door like a human being?"

He had expected an answer in harmony with his question, but to his surprise the person in the window had immediately scrambled out, jumped down five feet to the ground and had lost no time in running out of sight around the corner of the building. Fred Harper had peered out of the window, still thinking that he had been the victim of a prank, and had not noticed the loss of his silver sailing trophy until he had turned on the electric lights and had seen that the place where it stood on the mantelpiece was vacant. He had then dashed out of the dormitory in the hope of intercepting the fugitive as he crossed the campus, but no one was in sight except his schoolmates returning from Lincoln Hall. To these he reported his loss, and a dozen of the Ridgleyites made a hurried search of the campus; they investigated all the shaded corners and unlighted doorways but found nothing that in any way offered a clew to the identity of the mysterious thief.

Within a week a dozen other thefts had been reported, and no little talk went the rounds of the school. Poor Jerry, the grizzled old-timer, who for years had been general helper to Slocum, the head janitor, was an object of suspicion in the eyes of some of the newcomers at Ridgley. There was no doubt about it, Jerry did have a most fearsome cast of features. Mr. Stevens, the English master, once remarked that he looked like an "amiable murderer." It was an apt description. Jerry had an expansive smile, but it was bestowed only upon those Ridgleyites – masters and pupils – who, for some subtle reason, loomed high in his esteem. All others he glowered upon with an expression ferocious and uncompromising. It was said that Doctor Wells was head of the school six months before he gained the reward of the smile that Jerry bestowed on the elect. But Jerry's heart was in the right place, and the older members of Ridgley School laughed to scorn the suggestion that he had any connection with the thefts.

"I'd as soon suspect my own father as Jerry!" said Snubby Turner, "but that gives me an idea."

What the idea was he revealed to no one except Jerry himself. For some reason Jerry had taken a great liking to the genial Snubby, and when he received a call from that young man down in his basement room, his seamed features took on an expression that might have caused Mr. Stevens to add the adjectives happy and harmless to the "amiable murderer."

"I have an idea, Jerry," said Snubby. "You know some one's been getting away with a lot of valuable truck from the fellows' rooms. It would be an awfully clever stunt to catch him. Why don't you snoop around and find out who it is?"

"There's ijeers and ijeers," said Jerry. "I got my ijeers too. I ain't got no need to snoop around. I got eyes an' ears as are uncommon good, even though I been usin' the same ones for nigh on to seventy year. I got my own ijeers as to who's sneak-thieving this school and bime-by somebody's goin' to get ketched."

"What are your ideas?" asked Snubby. "Do you know who's doing it?"

But old Jerry had no further enlightenment for his friend, even when Snubby pressed him further. "I got eyes an' ears," said the old man, "an' I got my ijeers too."

Doctor Wells referred to the mystery indirectly one morning at chapel. "How foolish it is for any of us to believe that we can commit a wrong and escape the penalty merely because no one sees us," he said. "Every evil deed leaves its heaviest mark not on the victim of it but on the misguided person who performs it. Once in a while something happens at our school that proves anew that old, old truth."

There was absolute silence in the hall; every one knew to what the head was referring.

But other incidents of more stirring nature were under way at Ridgley School. As the impending struggle for football honors with Jefferson drew nearer, each day seemed to be more strongly charged with suspense and excitement until the very air that wafted itself among the maples and elms, which were now dropping their red and yellow leaves on the campus, seemed electric with possibilities both glorious and disastrous.

Since the game with Wilton, Teeny-bits had practiced regularly with the first squad and more than once had demonstrated that his ability to run with the ball was above the average. White, whose place he had taken in the Wilton game, recovered from his slightly sprained ankle, however, and resumed his old position as left half-back. Teeny-bits continued to be a substitute.

Tracey Campbell, who likewise had been promoted to the first team, seemed to have regained the attention of Coach Murray. On the Saturday that followed the tie game with Wilton, Ridgley journeyed to Springfield to play Prescott Academy. Ridgley won the game by the score of 17 to 0, but more than once had to fight to keep the light but active Prescott team from scoring. Both Teeny-bits and Campbell played through the whole fourth quarter and, to an impartial observer, might have seemed to display a nearly equal ability. Five minutes before the end of the game, however, Teeny-bits brought the spectators to their feet by catching a punt and dodging through half the Prescott team for a gain of fifty-five yards before the home quarter-back forced him over the side line. The spectacular thing about the run was that Teeny-bits somehow wriggled and squirmed out of the grasp of four Prescott players who successively had at least a fair opportunity to tackle him. The play did not result in a touchdown, for Prescott recovered the ball on an attempted forward pass and the game soon came to an end.

Coach Murray seemed to be pretty well satisfied with the playing of the Ridgley team. "What I liked best," he said on the way back, "was that you played an intelligent game – you took advantage of your opportunities – but let me add in a hurry that you will have to play better and harder football than you've played yet when you meet Jefferson."

On the same Saturday, Jefferson performed in a manner that brought no encouragement to Ridgley. With Norris, the mighty full-back, leading the team, Jefferson had "snowed under and buried", as one newspaper put it, the lighter Dale School eleven, which previously had won some little attention by its development of the open game, especially forward passing. Against Jefferson, Dale seemed helpless. She was stopped before she could get started; her players kept possession of the ball only for brief moments, and as soon as it came again into the hands of the bigger team another procession toward a touchdown started. The final score was 69-0, nine touchdowns and three drop kicks.

Of the nine touchdowns, Norris had made six, which was said to establish a record for school games in the state. Three goals were missed.

At Ridgley the name of Norris became a thing of dread; the leader of the Jefferson team had assumed the proportions of a Goliath.

"I'll bet Neil Durant can stop him," Fred Harper loyally declared to a group on the steps of Gannett Hall. But there was no great assurance in his voice and the answer that came back revealed the doubt that was in every one's mind.

"He can if any one can."

Teeny-bits was walking up from the locker building with Neil Durant after practice when the captain surprised him by saying:

"I used to know Norris; we used to go to a day school in Washington together."

"You did!" exclaimed Teeny-bits. "What was he like?"

"It was four or five years ago and we were young kids, but I remember that Norris was gritty as the dickens; he used to play quarter-back then; of course he's developed a lot since those days."

Somehow that little incident seemed to change Teeny-bits' state of mind toward Norris; he had been unconsciously thinking of him as scarcely a human being, rather as a super-athlete who was virtually invincible. He began to develop a great desire to play against him, and then suddenly something happened that seemed to make what had been a remote possibility almost a certainty.

Ten days before the big game, during a scrimmage in front of the scrub's goal line, White's weak ankle gave way sharply beneath him with the result that the bone was cracked and White was out of the game for the season. It was a heavy blow to the team; White had never been a spectacular player, but by hard work he had earned the reputation of being the "Old Reliable" of the team. Neil Durant and Ned Stillson were better at running with the ball and played perhaps more brilliantly, but White was steady and sure. His team-mates called him "a bear at secondary defense." He had an uncanny way of guessing where a play was coming through, and he made it his duty to plant himself in front of it, – and to stop it. If he had had more of leadership in his personality, he might have made as good a captain as Neil Durant made.

Coach Murray and Neil helped him off the field, plainly showing their disappointment and sympathy.

"Two of you fellows help White over to the locker building and 'phone for Doctor Peters to come down with his car," said the coach, addressing a group of substitutes at the side lines.

Teeny-bits jumped forward, but the coach said:

"Let some one else do that, Teeny-bits. I want you out on the field."

Teeny-bits walked back to the scrimmage line with the captain and the coach. A moment ago he had been a substitute; now suddenly he had become a regular. The other members of the team had a word of encouragement for him, but it was impossible for them to hide completely their belief that a disaster had come upon the eleven. Teeny-bits was a good substitute, they all acknowledged, but as a regular against such a team as Jefferson, well, he was too light in spite of his quickness and grit.

After a quarter of an hour of practice, Coach Murray sent Teeny-bits back to the side lines and called Tracey Campbell out. A few minutes later he recalled Teeny-bits and put the team through a long signal drill in which the new plays that he had been developing were practiced again and again. Those two maneuvers on the part of the coach indicated plainly enough that he had chosen Teeny-bits as regular left half-back in the place of White and that he had selected Tracey Campbell as first substitute.

At the end of practice Mr. Murray asked Neil and Teeny-bits to stay on the field for a few minutes.

"Three or four weeks ago, Teeny-bits," said the coach, "I looked upon you as an interesting possibility for the team next year. Now you've landed on the eleven, and I'm sure you can make good. You're quick and you've got a good eye for plays, but I want you to make up your mind that you are going to show us something that you never thought you had in you. I have an idea for a surprise play that I'm going to build around you. It may prove to be pretty important in the game with Jefferson. I want you to work on change of pace and shifting direction. Neil has both better than you have, and we'll depend on him and Ned to carry the ball a good part of the time; then if we can trust you to do the rest, things will look hopeful as far as our offense goes."

For half an hour Neil went through a practice with Teeny-bits that was intended to give the new member of the team greater flexibility as a runner with the ball.

"You see," said Coach Murray, "it's like this: if a fellow runs straight ahead with the ball he makes a clear target for the tackler – in other words he's an 'easy mark.' But if he's shifty and is able to fool the enemy by putting on a little extra steam at just the right moment or by slowing down in such a way that the tackler doesn't know what to expect, he has a tremendous advantage.

"Now suppose, for example, that the opposing end comes in swiftly toward you when you have started for all you're worth around his territory. If you have something in reserve which you can turn on just at the instant he's reaching for you and if you rely furthermore on a good straight arm to take care of him when he gets too close, the chances are that you'll go through to open ground. When I was in college I remember two fellows who came out for the team. One was the 'varsity sprinter and could cover a hundred yards in ten flat. The other was a fellow of about the same build who didn't have as much speed – I think the best he could do in the century dash was eleven or eleven and a half – yet that first man failed to make the team and the other fellow, who would have been left far behind in a sprint, was a regular on the eleven for three years and could always be relied upon to do his share in carrying the ball. He had a way of running straight at a tackler and then shifting direction in such a manner that you couldn't seem to bring him down. And then, of course, he was clever in using the straight arm and he always ran with high knee-action. When you tackled him it felt just as if you were tackling a man with a dozen legs, all of which were going up and down like the piston rod on a steam engine.

"Now you get down there in the middle of the field, Teeny-bits, and try to pass Neil and me. See what you can do to keep us guessing and when you use your straight arm remember to throw your hips; don't stand up stiff like a wooden Indian target."

Teeny-bits followed directions and again and again came down upon the coach and the captain, remembering their instructions to shift, to use his straight arm, to dodge, to change his pace and to exercise every stratagem that differentiates the skilful back-field runner from the novice. He felt that he was learning real football and took each bit of advice that was offered with an intense concentration.

"I wish you could have seen some movie pictures of one of the college games that I saw last year," said Coach Murray. "It showed better than any talk could show just what I mean by change of pace. The back that made the greatest gains of any man on the field had an uncanny way of eluding tacklers. The films showed how he did it. Again and again he slowed down just before the opposing tackle reached him – when they were running the film slowly it looked almost as if he stopped – and then, when the tackler leaped forward to bring him down, that shifty runner would slip around like a fox leaping away from a dog, and on he would go, leaving the tackler sprawling on the ground. Now try it again!"

Teeny-bits put his whole soul into this practice and at the end of the half-hour felt that he was making real headway.

"You're getting it great," said Neil Durant, as they walked back to the campus together. "The coach is wonderful on helping a fellow; and you can always be sure that what he says is exactly right. When he was in college he made the All-American team two years in succession."

The game at the end of the week – the next to the last of the season – was played in the midst of a steady drizzle on a muddy field. Dale School, which had fallen such an easy victim to Jefferson, visited Ridgley and went home defeated, 21-7. Coach Murray instructed the quarter-back to use only straight plays – to reveal none of the strategy that he had been drilling into the team during the past few weeks. Ridgley made three touchdowns in the first two quarters, one each by Neil Durant, Ned Stillson and Teeny-bits. At the beginning of the third quarter Mr. Murray sent in one substitute after another until finally big Tom Curwood and Teeny-bits were the only regulars left. Tracey Campbell then took Teeny-bits' place.

With an entire team of substitutes on the field Ridgley was at first able to hold her own against Dale, but presently the visiting team seemed to see its opportunity and by persistent rushing crossed the Ridgley goal line. Had it not been for the strong playing of Tracey Campbell, the Dale team might have scored at least another goal; Campbell was the main strength of the substitutes and again and again stopped the rushes of the Dale regulars. There was no question about Campbell's right to the place of first substitute back.

After the game, Coach Murray announced the probable line-up of the team for the Jefferson contest. There were no surprises. Neil Durant, Ned Stillson and Teeny-bits were to play in the back-field with Dean, the regular quarter-back.

That week-end Tracey Campbell went home to the "mansion" on the hillock. After the game with Dale he approached Neil Durant and invited the captain to be his guest. He did not say that he was acting under orders from his father. The elder Campbell was ambitious for his son to be prominent, as befitted the scion of a man who had made a million. He had written a letter to Tracey that week in which he had devoted two pages to advice in the matter of "getting ahead." One of his bits of instruction ran as follows:

"There's one lesson you've got to learn right now – the lesson of politics. Every big man knows how to use his friends to help him along. Don't let the other fellow beat you out by getting the inside course. Get the jump on him. Now this football business is just like any other business – you've got to use friends. I want you to ask that Durant fellow home over the week-end. He must have influence with the coach. Bring some others too, if you want to."

Campbell put his invitation as casually as he could. "The old man wants me to bring some one home with me this week-end," he said. "Don't you want to come? Thought we could go to a show in Greensboro and to-morrow we'll tour around in the car."

Durant looked at Campbell keenly, but he showed neither surprise nor indifference. "It's mighty good of you to ask me," said the captain, "but I can't make it; I've got to study to-night, and to-morrow I think I'd better stay at the school. Much obliged, though!"

"Sorry. Some other time will be just as good."

Campbell spoke in an off-hand manner, but his words did not express the thoughts in his mind.

It was the faithful Bassett who finally went home with Campbell and accompanied him to the theater in Greensboro. At dinner Bassett put in a few words of praise for Tracey and phrased them in such a way that without telling any actual falsehoods he gave the impression that the game with Dale had been an important one and that Tracey had been chiefly responsible for saving Ridgley from defeat.

Tracey took the compliments gracefully and even denied that he had done quite as much as Bassett asserted.

"You mustn't be too modest, Tracey," declared Mrs. Campbell in her shrill voice. "Take the credit that's due you. I suppose this means you've won the letter that you talk so much about."

"You know about as much football as a porcupine, Ma!" exclaimed Tracey. "A fellow has to play in the Jefferson game to get his R."

"Well I'm glad you've proved that you've got the goods," declared Campbell, senior. "If you do as well in the big game I might be favorable toward giving you that racy runabout you've been nagging me to buy you."

CHAPTER VI

DISCOVERIES

That third week in November at Ridgley School was like the home stretch in a mile race. The finish was in sight and the victory could be lost or won by what was about to take place. The Ridgley team was trailing – every one admitted that – but by a magnificent burst of speed it might yet come abreast of its rival – and might even snatch the victory. Nothing is impossible; we can do it if we have the spirit: that was the word on every one's lips – spirit not alone in the team but in the heart of every son of Ridgley, – such a spirit through the whole school that those eleven fellows in whom rested the entire hope of several hundred should go on the field with the conviction that however well the Jefferson team played, the Ridgley team would play better.

There were mass meetings at which Coach Murray and Neil Durant and prominent members of the team spoke. All of them made the point that victory depended on the spirit of the whole school as well as on the team. At the meeting on Monday night in Lincoln Hall after Neil Durant had spoken, some one in the crowd yelled, "We want Teeny-bits," and the cry was instantly taken up by others until in the space of a few seconds the whole hall was resounding to the concerted clamor for the smallest and the newest member of the eleven.

There was some little delay, for Teeny-bits, surprised and dismayed, had settled himself lower in his seat, hoping thereby to escape detection until a demand had started for some other member of the team. But the Ridgleyites who were sitting beside him yelled, "Here he is!" and Neil Durant, perceiving him at last, leaped down from the platform and laid hold on him with vigorous hands. In a second or two Teeny-bits was standing up there facing the school with such a shout of greeting ringing in his ears that his head swam a little. There was no room for the slightest doubt that the sons of Ridgley liked this quiet, unassuming, new member of the school and that they admired his manner of saying little but doing much. The school would have excused Teeny-bits if he had stammered a bit and sat down to cover his embarrassment, but there was no need for excuses of any sort. Teeny-bits suddenly found that he had something to say and he said it in a manner that brought the already enthusiastic crowd to its feet.

"I want to tell you," he said, "that I'm glad Jefferson has such a good team; every one says it's the best their school has ever produced. That's something worthy to strive for – to beat their best ever– and I know that every member of our team has his mind and heart and soul made up to meet Jefferson more than halfway and to fight so hard for Ridgley that when the game is over there'll be shouting and bonfires on our hill."

That was all Teeny-bits said but he spoke with a manner that almost brought tears to the eyes of those loyal sons of Ridgley whose faces were turned up toward him where he stood in the bright lights of the platform. A hoarse shout of confidence and satisfaction shook the hall.

Instead of jumping down and returning to his seat, Teeny-bits left the platform by the back way and hurried out of the building by the rear door. He wanted to be alone just then. The November night air was cool on his flushed face and he strode swiftly toward his room, thinking of all the things that had happened to him in the few short weeks since he had come to Ridgley and of all the friends he had made. Never had he seen the campus so deserted; every one was at the mass meeting, it seemed. There were lights only in the entries of the dormitories. He took a short cut across the tennis courts and approached Gannett Hall from the rear.

When the grayish-white bulk of the building was only twenty-five yards away, Teeny-bits heard a sudden sound that caused him to gaze upward. What he saw instantly dispelled from his mind the pleasant thoughts in which he had been absorbed. A window in the third story was open; stretching downward from it was one of the fire-escape ropes with which each room was equipped. Some one was letting himself downward by sitting in the patent sling and allowing the rope to slide slowly through his hands. Teeny-bits stepped behind one of the beech trees that grew close to the building. While he watched, the person on the rope came down even with the second story. There he paused, resting his feet on the ledge of a window. In a moment he had raised the sash and had climbed inside.

Teeny-bits remained behind the tree, peering upward and wondering if he had hit upon the solution of the mystery of the petty thefts. Inside the room on the second floor a dim light shone for a moment and then went out; the thief was using a flashlamp. Teeny-bits' first thought was to notify some one in authority, but he quickly made up his mind that he would do better to observe developments and to stay on watch until the thief should come out.

Close to the wall of the building grew some shrubs which seemed to offer a better vantage point from which to watch. Teeny-bits stepped quickly among them and crouched down so that, as seen from above, the dark shadow of his body would seem to be part of the shrubbery. Looking upward he could see any object on the side of the building outlined clearly against the starlit sky. Two or three minutes after he reached this new place of concealment a foot was thrust out of the second story window above him; some one climbed out and after closing the window began to clamber swiftly upward, using his hands on the rope and his feet against the wall.

Teeny-bits at once recognized the person who was performing this suspicious-appearing bit of acrobatics but he was astounded by his discovery. The person who was fast making his way upward, who even now had reached the third story and was climbing into the open window, was none other than Snubby Turner, the genial and innocent-appearing quarter-back of the scrub team. In the first place it was almost unbelievable that Snubby with his tremendous interest in the approaching football game should be absent from the mass meeting; in the second place it seemed even more incredible to Teeny-bits that this friend of his should be guilty of stealing the property of his schoolmates.