CHAPTER I
CAPTAIN AND COACH
Although the store had reopened for business only that morning several customers had already been in and out, and when the doorway was again darkened momentarily Russell Emerson looked up from his task of marking football trousers with merely perfunctory interest. Then, however, since the advancing figure, silhouetted flatly against the hot September sunlight of the wide-open door, looked familiar, he eased his long legs over the edge of the counter and strode to meet it.
“Hello, Cap!” greeted the visitor. The voice was unmistakable, and, now that the speaker had left the sunlight glare behind him, so too was the perspiring countenance.
“Mr. Cade!” exclaimed Russell. “Mighty glad to see you, sir. When did you get in?”
Coach Cade lifted himself to the counter and fanned himself with a faded straw hat. “About two hours ago. Unpacked, had a bath and here I am. By jove, Emerson, but it’s hot!”
“Is it?”
“‘Is it?’” mimicked the other. “Don’t you know it is?” Then he laughed. “Guess I was a fool to get out of that bath tub, but I wanted to have a chat with you, and I’m due at Doctor McPherson’s this evening.” He stopped fanning his reddened face and tossed his hat atop a pile of brown canvas trousers beside him. “Johnny” Cade was short of stature, large-faced and broad in a compact way. In age he was still under thirty. He had a pleasantly mild voice that was at startling variance with his square, fighting chin, his sharp eyes and the mop of very black and bristle-like hair that always reminded Russell of a shoe brush. The mild voice continued after a moment, while the sharp eyes roamed up and down the premises. “Got things fixed up here pretty nicely,” he observed commendingly. “Looks as businesslike as any sporting goods store I know. Branched out, too, haven’t you?” He nodded across to where three bicycles, brave in blue-and-tan and red-and-white enamel, leaned.
“Yes,” answered Russell. “We thought we might try those. They’re just samples. ‘Stick’ hasn’t recovered from the shock of my daring yet.” Russell laughed softly. “Stick’s nothing if not conservative, you know.”
“Stick? Oh, yes, that’s Patterson, your partner here.” Mr. Cade’s glance swept the spaces back of the counters.
“He’s over at the express office trying to trace some goods that ought to have shown up three days ago,” explained Russell. “How have you been this summer, sir?”
“Me? Oh, fine. Been working pretty hard, though.” The coach’s mind seemed not to be on his words, however, and he added: “Say, that blue-and-yellow wheel over there is certainly a corker. We didn’t have them as fine as that when I was a kid.” He got down and walked across to examine the bicycle. Russell followed.
“It is good-looking, isn’t it? Better let me sell you one of those, sir. Ought to come in mighty handy following the squads around the field!”
Coach Cade grinned as he leaned the wheel back in its place with evident regret. “Gee, I suppose I’d break my silly neck if I tried to ride one of those things now. I haven’t been on one of them for ten years. Sort of wish I were that much younger, though, and could run around on that, Cap!”
“You’d pick it up quickly enough,” said Russell as he again perched himself on the counter. “Riding a bicycle’s like skating, Mr. Cade: it comes back to you.”
“Yes, I dare say,” replied the other dryly. “Much the same way, I guess. Last time I tried to skate I nearly killed myself. What are you trying to do? Get a new football coach here?”
Russell laughed. “Nothing like that, sir. What we need isn’t a new coach, I guess, but a new team.”
“H’m, yes, that’s pretty near so. I was looking over the list this morning on the train and, well – ” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Looks like building from the ground up, eh?”
“Only three left who played against Kenly.”
“Three or four. Still, we have got some good material in sight, Cap. I wouldn’t wonder if we had a team before the season’s over.” The coach’s eyes twinkled, and Russell smiled in response. He had a very nice smile, a smile that lighted the quiet brown eyes and deepened the two creases leading from the corners of a firm mouth to the sides of a short nose. Russell Emerson was eighteen, a senior at Alton Academy this year and, as may have been surmised, captain of the football team.
“Seen any of the crowd lately?” asked the coach.
“No. I ran across ‘Slim’ once in August. He was on a sailboat trying to get up the Hudson; he and three other chaps. I don’t think they ever made it.”
“Just loafing, I suppose,” sighed the coach. “I dare say not one of them has seen a football since spring practice ended.”
“Well, I don’t believe Slim had one with him,” chuckled Russell. “I guess I ought to confess that I haven’t done very much practicing myself, sir. I was working most of the time. Dad has a store, and he rather looks to me to give him a hand in summer.”
“You don’t need practice the way some of the others do,” said Mr. Cade. “Well, we’ll see. By the way, we’re getting that fellow Renneker, from Castle City High.”
