Chapter X: A Coward’s Trick

“Three cheers for Fairfield!”

“Rah! Rah! Rah!--Elmwood!”

“Three cheers for Holwell!”

There were shouts, cries and cheers of joy at the victory on the part of our hero’s followers, while there was corresponding gloom in the camp of their unsuccessful rivals.

“Great work, old man!” complimented Tom’s captain. “You did the trick for us!”

“It was an accident. I just managed to get the ball, and run,” explained Tom.

“Lucky for us you did. It was an accident that might have counted heavily against us. What was the matter with you, Sam, in passing the ball?”

“Aw, it wasn’t my fault. It slipped. Anyhow our full-back had his hands on it, and he dropped it.”

“I did not!” declared that player. “You didn’t pass it to me fairly.”

“That’ll do!” interrupted the captain sharply. “We don’t want any quarrels. Besides, we won the game.”

Tom was surrounded by a joyous crowd of his chums, and other admirers, as the team raced from the field, and the throng of spectators filed out of the stands.

“Well, how do you feel?” asked Jack of his chum, as they were in their room together, after a refreshing bath in the gymnasium.

“Great! I expect I’ll be a little lame and stiff tomorrow though. Somebody gave me a beaut dig in the ribs.”

“And I guess our whole team, and half of the other one, was piled on me at one stage of the game,” remarked Jack ruefully, as he rubbed his back reflectively. “But it was a glorious win all right. And how you did run, Tom!”

“I just had to, to make that touchdown.” And then the two boys fell to talking of the game, playing it all over again in detail.

“I just thought Sam would be mean enough not to give you a chance,” remarked Jack.

“Oh, maybe it wasn’t intentional,” replied our hero, who did not like to think ill of anyone.

“Get out! Of course it was. Ask any of the fellows. But he fooled himself. That fumble spoiled his plans, and you grabbed your opportunity.”

“And the ball too,” added Tom, as there came a knock on their door.

“Come!” called Jack, and Bert Wilson and George Abbot entered.

“Came to pay our respects,” spoke Bert. “How does it feel to be hero? Aren’t your ears burning, with the way the fellows are talking about you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Why should his ears burn?” asked George. “Is it because he--”

“Now you quit, or I’ll fire the dictionary at you,” threatened Bert. “I told you I’d bring you in on one condition, and that was that you wouldn’t be a question box.”

“But I just wanted to know,” pleaded George.

“Then look it up in an encyclopedia,” directed Jack, with a laugh. “I’m not going to answer any more questions.”

“I hope you get a chance next game,” said Tom to Bert. “Maybe you will after the fumble Sam made.”

And Bert did. For there was a conference between the Freshman captain and coach that night, which resulted in Sam being sent back to the scrub. He protested mightily.

“It wasn’t my fault--that fumble,” he declared.

“I think it was,” spoke the coach. “Anyhow you didn’t run the team as well as I thought you would. Why, you didn’t give Fairfield half a chance, and he showed what he could do when he did get a show.”

“Aw, he can’t play football.”

“I think he can. Anyhow, you’ll shift back, but if you do good work I’ll play you on the regular team again before the season is over.” And with this Sam had to be content.

Football practice was resumed on Monday, and the team seemed to do better with the change in quarter-backs. There was a match in the middle of the week, and again Elmwood won handily, Jack Fitch distinguishing himself by a long run, while Tom made some star tackles, once saving a touchdown by catching the player a short distance from the goal.

“I’ll get even with Fairfield yet!” threatened Sam to Nick. “He needn’t think he can run things here.”

“Go in and do him,” advised his crony. “Can’t you pick a quarrel with him, and have it out?”

“I’ll try. If you see a chance, sail in and lick him.”

“I will,” promised Nick, but Sam’s chance came sooner than he expected, or, rather, he made the opportunity.

There is a certain fine powder, a sort of a pepper-snuff so fine that it can not be seen floating about, yet which, if scattered about a room, will irritate the eyes, nose and throat in a marked degree. Sam bought some of this powder, and making it up into a small paper parcel, he watched his chance to slip it into Tom’s handkerchief pocket.

“He’ll pull it out in class,” Sam explained to Nick, “and set the whole room to sneezing. I’ll try and have him do it in Latin recitation, and Skeel won’t do a thing to him, for Tom sits in the front row, and the prof. will see him.”

“Suppose Fairfield catches you?”

“I’ll take care that he doesn’t,” declared Sam, and he was lucky enough to bring about his cowardly trick undetected. As the students went into the Latin class, presided over by Professor Skeel, Sam slipped the sneezing powder into Tom’s pocket, on top of his handkerchief. It was quickly done, and, in the press, our hero never noticed it. Then Sam quickly joined one of his classmates, with whom he was more or less thick, to prevent detection.

The recitation was about half over, and Tom, who had been called on, had made a failure, for a very hard question, and one he had never dreamed would be brought up in class, was asked him.

“Remain after the session, and write me out fifty lines of Cæsar,” ordered the mean instructor. Tom shut his laps grimly. A little later he pulled out his handkerchief, and, as might have been expected, the powder flew out, scattering from the paper. A few moments later a boy began to sneeze, and soon the whole room was doing it--even the professor.

Now Professor Skeel was no simpleton, if he was mean, and he at once detected the irritating powder. He realized at once that some one had done it for a trick, and he had seen the paper fall from Tom’s pocket, as the stuff scattered.

“Fairfield!” he exclaimed angrily, “did you scatter that powder?”

“Not intentionally, sir.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I did not know it was there. Some one must have put it in my pocket for a joke.”

“Nonsense! Do you expect me to believe that?” the professor asked sharply of Tom.

“It’s the truth, sir.”

“Preposterous! I don’t believe you!”

“Sir!” exclaimed our hero, for he was not in the habit of being told that he spoke an untruth.

“Don’t contradict me!” stormed the teacher. “I say you did it on purpose--er--a-ker-choo! On purpose--ker-choo! I have known it to be done before, in other classes, but never in mine. I will have no nonsense! Ker-choo!”

The professor was having hard work to talk, for he sneezed quite often, as, in fact, did every one in the class.

“This foolishness will have to stop!” he declared. “I am certain you put that powder in your own pocket, Fairfield.”

“I did not, sir.”

“Ha! Did any one here put that powder in Fairfield’s pocket?” asked the professor.

Naturally the guilty Sam did not answer.

“There, you see!” exclaimed Mr. Skeel, triumphantly. “I knew you did it--ker-choo! But I have no doubt others may have been implicated, and I will punish the whole class. You will all of you write me out a hundred lines of Cæsar.”

“That is not fair, sir,” spoke Tom boldly.

“What! You dare to tell me that!” stormed Mr. Skeel.

“It is not fair,” insisted Tom. “Either I alone am responsible, which I deny, or some one else is. I assure you, sir, that no one in the class entered with me into any trick to do this thing.”

“I don’t believe you. The whole class will be punished unless the guilty one confesses--and that includes you!” and the professor looked angrily at Tom.

Sam, of course, would not admit his part in the affair, and as it was impossible to have the class remain longer in the powder-infested room, the students were dismissed. But Professor Skeel would not remit the punishment.

“Say, this is tough luck--to have to write out all that Latin, for something we didn’t do,” complained Frank Nelson.

“I should say so,” added Harry Morse. “Why don’t you own up to it, Fairfield, and save our hides.”

“Because I didn’t do it intentionally.”

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“Say, if Tom says he didn’t do it, he didn’t,” declared Jack.

“I guess that’s right,” agreed Harry. “Excuse me, Tom,” and, to the credit of Tom’s classmates, one and all expressed their belief in his innocence. That is, all but Sam, and he kept quiet, avoiding our hero. But, to ward off suspicion, Sam growled louder than anyone about the task.

“I’d like to get hold of the fellow who used that powder,” complained Ed. Ward.

“You won’t have to look far for him, I guess,” said Jack, in a voice that only Tom heard.

“Do you think Sam did it?” asked Tom.

“I sure do. But you want to be certain of your proof against him before you accuse him!”

“I will,” declared Tom. “I’ll do a bit of detective work.”

But he had no clews to work on, and, though he was sure his enemy had made him and the others suffer, he could prove nothing, for the paper in which the powder was wrapped was blank.