ridiculous prophecy! 'Just leave it to Hicks!' Well, that means the problem
goes unsolved, for though I confess he is brilliant, and his so-called
'inspirations' have helped old Bannister; when it comes to rushing out and
lassoing a smashing. Herculean full-back--bah!"

Ten minutes later, when Coach Corridan and the Gold and Green squad climbed
the bluff to the field back of Camp Bannister, for morning signal drill,
their last memory was of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., arrayed in radiant
vestiture, his chair tilted against the bunkhouse--the chords of the banjo,
and his foghorn voice drifting to them on the warm September air:

"Oh, father and mother pay all the bills (plunk-plunk)
And we have all the fun (plunkety-plunk)
With the money that we spend in college life!"

Two hours afterward, as a tired, perspiring squad scrambled down the bluff,
and made for the cool waters of Lake Conowingo, a mysterious silence,
like a mighty wave, literally surged toward them. Camp Bannister seemed
deserted, the sun was still shining, the birds sang as cheerily as ever,
but instinctively the collegians felt an indescribable loneliness, a sense
of tremendous loss.

"Hicks!" shouted Butch Brewster, loudly, his voice shattering the
stillness. "Hicks--ahoy! I say, Hicks--"

Old Hinky-Dink, a letter in his hand, hobbled from the cook-tent toward
them; like a sinister harbinger of evil he advanced, grinning deprecatingly
at the squad:

"Mistah Hicks am gone!" he announced importantly. "He done gib me fo' bits