wall and, tackled sharply, dropped the ball. The loose spheroid oozed out from the wildly groping fingers and rolled lazily out upon the cinder running track bordering the football field. Dan Sheldon, never one to rush madly into rough mêlées, was free and not four feet from the ball. But the cinders of the track looked very sharp and menacing. Dan ran over and gingerly attempted to pick the ball up with his fingers. He missed, tried again, missed again. Then a heavy body came hurtling through the air. Mershon, center on the first Freshman team, had thrown his two hundred and ten pounds upon the ball, cinders notwithstanding, and had folded it lovingly to his capacious abdomen.
Hardly had Sheldon recovered from the shock of being knocked galley-west by Mershon when a more deadly menace descended upon him.
"What's the matter with you, Percy, eh?" came a deep, bulldoggy voice at his head. "Afraid to soil your lily white fingers, eh?"
Dan looked up into the red, unshaven, angry face of Mike Cavendish. Mastodonic in size, shaggy as a bear, Mike looked as if he was undecided whether to eat Dan whole or tear him apart with his clawlike fingers.
Dan stammered, "But—the ball was on the cinders. I—I thought I had time to pick it
