reddening cheeks and, amid the smiles of the others, went back to his
place trying to decide whether, if he could have his way, the coach
should perish by boiling oil or by merely being drawn and quartered. But
after that it was a noticeable fact that the men clung to the ball when
they got it as though it were a dearly loved friend.

Later, passing down the line in front from end to end, the head coach
threw the ball swiftly at the feet of one after another of the
candidates, and each was obliged to drop where he stood and have the
ball in his arms when he landed. When Mills came to Neil the latter was
still nursing his resentment, and his cheeks still proclaimed that
fact. After the boy had dropped on the ball and had tossed it back to
the coach their eyes met. In the coach's was just the merest twinkle, a
very ghost of a smile; but Neil saw it, and it said to him as plainly as
words could have said, "I know just how you feel, my boy, but you'll get
over it after a while."

The coach passed on and the flush faded from Neil's cheeks; he even
smiled a little. It was all right; Mills understood. It was almost as
though they shared a secret between them. Alfred Mills, head football
coach at Erskine College, had no more devoted admirer and partizan from
that moment than Neil Fletcher, '05.

Next the men were spread out until there was a little space between
each, and the coach passed behind the line and shot the ball through,
and they had an opportunity to see what they could do with a pigskin
that sped away ahead of them. By careful management it is possible in
falling on a football to bring almost every portion of the anatomy in
violent contact with the ground, and this fact was forcibly brought home
to Neil, Paul, and all the others by the time the work was at an end.