But even this exercise may lose its terrors after a while, and when at
the end of an hour or more the lads were dismissed, there were many
among them, who limped back to their rooms sore and bruised, but proudly
elated over their first day with the pigskin. Even to the youth in the
straw hat it was tiresome work, although not new to him, and after
practice was over, instead of joining in the little stream that eddied
back to the academy grounds, he struck off to where a long straggling
row of cedars and firs marked the course of the river. Once there he
found himself standing on a bluff with the broad, placid stream
stretching away to the north and south at his feet. The bank was some
twenty feet high and covered sparsely with grass and weeds; and a few
feet below him a granite bowlder stuck its lichened head outward from
the cliff, forming an inviting seat from which to view the sunset across
the lowland opposite. The boy half scrambled, half fell the short
distance, and, settling himself in comfort on the ledge, became at once
absorbed in his thoughts.

Perhaps he was thinking a trifle sadly of the home which he had left
back there among the Maine hills, and which must have seemed a very long
way off; or perhaps he was dwelling in awe upon the erudition of that
excellent Greek gentleman, Mr. Xenophon, whose acquaintance, by means of
the Anabasis, he was just making; or perhaps he was thinking of no more
serious a subject than football and the intricate art of punting. But,
whatever his thoughts may have been, they were doomed to speedy
interruption, as will be seen.

Outfield West left the campus behind and, with the little white ball
soaring ahead, took his way leisurely to the woods that bordered the
tiny lake. Here he spent a quarter of an hour amid the tall grass and