But while the chief had said nothing about how to get it, he had said plenty about what would happen if he returned without it. That was the way with editors, Jimmy reflected glumly. No gratitude. Just a hunk of ice for a heart. Who was it had given the Rocket a scoop on the huge gambling syndicate which had tried to buy a victory for the Earth team? Who was it had broken the yarn about the famous jewel-ship robbery off the orbit of Callisto when a governmental clique—which later went to the Moon penal colony—had moved Heaven and Earth to suppress the story? Who had phoned the first flash and later written an eye-witness story that boosted circulation over 6,000 copies concerning the gang murder of Danny Carsten? No one other than James Russell, reporter for the Evening Rocket.
And yet, here he was, chasing a team list with sulphurous threats hanging over his head if he failed.
Jimmy tiptoed into the coach’s office. He wasn’t used to getting his news this way and it made him nervous.
There were papers on the desk. Jimmy eyed them furtively. Maybe among them was the list he sought. With a quick glance about the room, he slithered to the desk. Rapidly he pawed through the papers.
A footstep sounded outside.
Moving quickly, the reporter sought refuge behind a steel locker than stood in one corner of the room. It was an instinctive move, born of surprise, but Jimmy, chuckling to himself, realized he had gained an advantageous position. From his hiding place, he might learn where the list was kept.
Coach Snelling strode into the room. Looking neither to right nor left, he walked straight ahead.
In the center of the room he disappeared.
The reporter rubbed his eyes. Snelling had disappeared. There was no question about that, but where had he gone? Jimmy looked about the room.
There was no one there.
Slowly he eased himself from behind the locker. No one hailed him.
He walked to the center of the room. The coach had disappeared at just about that point. There seemed to be nothing unusual in sight. Standing in one spot, Jimmy slowly wheeled in a circle. Then he stopped, stock-still, frozen with astonishment.
Before him, materializing out of nothing, was a faintly outlined circular opening, large enough for a man to walk through. It looked like a tunnel, angling slightly downward from the floor level. It was into this that Coach Snelling must have walked a few moments before.
With misgivings as to the wiseness of his course, Jimmy stepped into the mouth of the tunnel. Nothing happened. He walked a few steps and stopped.
Glancing back over his shoulder he could see nothing but the blurred mouth of the tunnel behind him. He reached out his hands and they encountered the walls of the tunnel, walls that were hard and icy-cold.
Cautiously he moved down the tunnel, half-crouched, on the alert for danger. Within a few steps he saw another mouth to the tunnel ahead of him, only faintly outlined, giving no hint into what it might open.
Momentarily he hesitated and then plunged forward.
He stood gaping at the scene before him. He stood in a wilderness, and in this wilderness, directly in front of him, was a football gridiron. Upon the field were players, garbed in Gold and Green uniforms, the mystery team of the Earth. On all sides of the field towered tall, gnarled oaks. Through a vista he could see a small river and beyond it blue hills fading into an indistinct horizon.
At the farther end of the field stood several tents, apparently of skins, with rudely symbolic figures painted upon them in red and yellow. Pale smoke curled up from fires in front of the tents and even where he stood Jimmy caught the acrid scent of burning wood.
Coach Snelling was striding across the field toward him and behind him trailed several copper-colored men dressed in fringed deerskin ornamented with claws and tiny bones. One of them wore a headdress of feathers.
Jimmy had never seen an Indian. The race had died out years before. But he had seen pictures of them in historical books dealing with the early American scene. There was no doubt in his mind that he was looking upon members of the aboriginal tribes of North America.
But the coach was close now.
Jimmy mustered a smile. «Nice hideout you have here, coach,» he said. «Nice little place for the boys to practice without being disturbed. That tunnel had me fooled for a while.»
Coach Snelling did not return the smile. Jimmy could see the coach wasn’t overjoyed at seeing him.
«So you like the place?» asked the coach.
«Sure, it’s a fine place,» agreed Jimmy, feeling he was getting nowhere with this line of talk.
«How would you like to spend a few weeks here?» asked the coach, unsmilingly.
«Couldn’t do it,» said Jimmy. «The chief expects me back in a little while.»
Two of the brawny Indians moved forward, laid heavy hands on the reporter’s shoulders.
«You’re staying,» said the coach, «until after the game.»
Hap Folsworth stepped up to the editor’s desk.
«Say,» he demanded, «did you send Russell out to get the team line-up?»
The editor looked up. «Sure I did, just as you asked me to. Isn’t that petrified newshound back yet?»
The sports-writer almost foamed at the mouth. «Back yet!» he stormed. «Don’t you know he never gets back on time? Maybe he won’t get back at all. I hear the coach is out after his blood.»
«What’s the matter with the coach?»
«Russell asked him if he was going to use the same three plays this year he has used for the last ten,» explained Hap.
«I don’t know what I can do,» said the editor. «I might send one of the other boys down.»
Hap snorted. «Mister,» he said, «if Russell can’t get the story, none of your other men can. He’s the best damn reporter this sheet has ever had. But someday I’m going to kick his ribs in just to ease my feelings.»
The editor rustled papers and grumbled.
«So he’s at it again,» he mused. «Just wait until I get hold of that booze-soaked genius. I’ll pickle him in a jar of bocca and sell him to a museum. So help me, Hannah, if I don’t.»
Something was holding up the game. The largest football crowd ever to pack the stadium at the Martian city of Guja Tant rumbled and roared its displeasure.
The Martian team already was on the field, but the Earth team had not made its appearance.
The game would have to start soon, for it must be finished by sundown.
The Terrestrial visitors, otherwise, would suffer severely from the sudden chill of Martian twilight, for although the great enclosed stadium held an atmosphere under a pressure which struck a happy medium between air density on Earth and Mars, thus affording no advantage to either team, it was not equipped with heating units and the cold of the Martian night struck quickly and fiercely.
A rumor ran through the crowd.
«Something is wrong with the Earth team. Rule Eighteen. The Board of Control is holding a conference.»
A disgruntled fan grumbled.
«I knew there was something wrong when the members of the Earth team were never announced. This stuff the newspapers have been writing about a new mystery team must be right. I just thought it was some of Snelling’s work, trying to scare the Martians.»
His neighbor grumbled back.
«Snelling is smart all right. But psychology won’t win this ball game. He’d better have something to show us today after all that’s been written about the team.»
The Martian stands shouted wild battle cries of the olden days as the Red Warriors went through their preliminary practice on the gridiron.
About the stadium lay the colorful Martian city with its weird architecture and its subtle color blending. Beyond the city stretched the red plains, spotted here and there with the purple of occasional desert groves. The sun shone but dimly, as it always shone on the fourth planet.