Through bloody cut lips, Harold insisted breathlessly, "No—I—feel—fine."
"Good boy," smiled Trask with relief, and patted the dislocated pad on Harold's right shoulder.
"That was—a—dandy—tackle," Harold stammered.
"Thanks," said Trask.
The captain walked over to Coach Cavendish and engaged him in a whispered conversation, nodding over toward Harold a couple of times. Mike for a time disagreed. But finally he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that it was Trask's funeral after all.
Cavendish turned toward the players. "That's all for to-day," he growled. "Report to-morrow as usual at two." He blew his whistle. Then he turned to Harold. A grudging smile of admiration for the Freshman's grit flickered across Mike's rugged face for an instant.
The coach bent over to pick up the damaged tackling dummy and carry it into the field house. But worn out as Harold was, the Freshman was still alert enough to realize that a mighty man like Mike Cavendish shouldn't be forced to perform menial tasks like toting tackling dummies. Harold reached down as quickly as his aching back permitted and took the piece of apparatus
