“You seem to be pretty hep on D. Webb.” Hollet cocked a supercilious eye.
“I’ve been out with him two or three times. I think he’s extra special.” She challenged him to disapprove.
“Mean lad on that samba stuff?”
“Mmm, hmm.”
“Pitches quite a line on the git-tar, huh?”
“Uh, uh. Strictly a zither man.” She stacked a row of ticket envelopes. “Why so curious all of a sud!”
“My interest in you, light of my life. Hate to see you wasting your sweetness on a lone wolf with such an… um… vague and uncertain background.”
She rose, planted fists on hips, elbows akimbo. Her eyes slitted. “Precisely what are you getting at, Lin Hollet!”
“Webb’s kind of a mystery man.” He was amused at her anger. “Nobody knows anything about him. Around the campus, I mean. Hasn’t joined any fraternity. Rooms by himself. Doesn’t buddy up with his classmates—”
“How awful!” Her eyes opened wide in mock alarm. “You think he ought to be psychoanalyzed or something!”
“Something.” He agreed, imperturbably. “You remember Stan Llewellyn of the News called up to get the lowdown about Webb, for his colyum?”
“So…?”
“I put it up to Dan. Did he give me any dope? Not enough to shove in your eye. Bunch of mahooly about spending his vacations working in the lumber mills in northern Michigan, log-spinning or birling or whatever it is you do in hobnailed boots!”
“I suppose there are sportswriters who would call that ‘color.’ I could be mistaken.”
He flicked ashes at a bronze tray. “It occurred to me the Dean’s office would have enough to fill in, on him. I gave them a buzz. And what do you think!”
Marla clapped both fists to her cheeks, dramatically. “He’s a fugitive from a chain gang!”
Hollet pulled down the corners of his lips. “Might be for all they know. They don’t have any card on him. His application isn’t on file in the registrar’s office. There’s not even any record of his credits from the University of Michigan, which he was supposed to have attended, last year. All they have is a notation: Webb, D. Confidential. See Dean.”
She thought quickly. “The Dean’s abroad. Geneva.”
“Exactly. Made it a little more difficult. But Old Slewfoot Hollet stuck to the trail. I dropped a line to Ann Arbor.”
Marla came over beside him. “You’re going to quite a lot of trouble about him, aren’t you?”
“Business of this office, star-eyes. To keep track of our budding amateurs. The authorities in Michigan wrote back there was no student registered there last year by the name of Webb.”
Marla sat down, slid an envelope in her machine, began typing. “If I tell you the truth, will you keep it under cover?” She asked, in a hushed voice.
“Huh?”
“He’s really a member of the French underground, still being pursued by Gestapo agents for putting arsenic in Goering’s cream puffs. If they learn where Dan’s hiding…” she drew a finger across her throat, shuddering.
The assistant to the Athletic Director reached for the letter he’d taken from the envelope marked Personal. “It might be a kidding matter, my honey bunny, if it weren’t for the trivial item called eligibility. We’re under obligation to competing colleges not to run in ringers on them. Take a slant at this.” He tossed it to her.
She read it. It was from the office of the Principal of the Petosky High School. It expressed regret that no record had been found of any Webb who had attended that institution except a Laurence Webb who had graduated in 1937 and was now engaged in the undertaking business in a nearby town.
“Oh! For the love of—” she came up out of her chair, giggling. “Why don’t you just ask Dan to explain, straight out, instead of beating ’round the bush like this! He isn’t the kind to lie about anything he’s done.”
“We’ll ask him all right,” Hollet said. “Before he goes on the field for Southern, again.”
The sun beat down on eleven men, ringed about by the coaching staff and a dozen second-string replacements. But the coaches wore light baseball pants and T-shirts… and the B’s weren’t being raced through their paces at this blazing speed, Dan beefed silently.
Sweat ran down him in rivulets. Sweat got in his eyes.
“Fifty,” panted Coco. “Left shift. Webb, Go!”
“Zip it up!” roared Mason Boyd.
“Get some drive in it!” ordered Yokum.
“Faster!” barked Stoney over the amplifier. “You act like you’re dead on your feet!”
The Friday signal drill. Dan would rather have scrimmaged all day than go through an hour of this relentless pace.
A line buck. A sweep. The wide reverse. Delayed off tackle. A pass. End around. No pause that refreshes. Just jump and bump. And over again.
It wouldn’t have hit Dan so hard except for the terrific heat.
“This Califunny weather gets me down.” he wheezed to Everson.
“That won’t be all that’ll get you down, tomorrow, if you don’t shake the lead outa your baggy pants, clowner.” The team captain had been surly.
Maybe it was just that Everson and some of the others were touchy on account of this tropical weather. Or… maybe there was a certain undercurrent of resentment against him. Dan wondered about that.
Coco was more than friendly. Ship Morey razzed him amiably enough. Dommy Dominque was openly admiring. Yet the others…?
Dan was a soph and Everson was a senior, of course. So were some of the linemen. That might make for a certain reluctance to accept a new man, particularly a transfer.
Then, too, he wasn’t any native son while most of the gang were. Dan wasn’t even a Westerner.
He’d only been at Southern a few weeks; the majority of the squad had been mixing with others at the university a couple of years, at least. Dan was the Johnny-Come-Lately. Yeah. That would account for any rough edges, naturally.
Who you kiddin’, Danny! You know there’s something more than that! You know what it is, too! You’re not one of the bunch. You’re an outsider, and what did you expect? You don’t talk about yourself, so how can they get to know you? You clam up every time any one of them begins to show an ordinary, friendly curiosity about you. Why would they warm up to you? Give me one good reason why!
“Try that 90,” Stoney yapped.
They worked it neatly. Dan shot the ball toward the sideline pocket with a short, sharp wrist-snap. Ship couldn’t have missed it blindfolded.
VII
Coco took them across-field with an end run; they rehearsed 90 on the other side with Coddington catching. Dan laid the oval in there, right across Coddy’s chest.
In scrimmage, it hadn’t gone that smoothly. It wasn’t the fool-proof, surefire ground gainer the professionals pulled off. But it would do, in a pinch. And that’s the only place Stoney wanted them to use it.
“The defensive half knows you can’t get past him,” the head coach had told Ship. “He’s got you pinned to the sideline so you can’t get loose. Out of habit, he’ll let you make that small gain rather than risk another receiver’s racing in from nowhere and grabbing a pass behind him, for a score. But don’t use it too often… or he’ll get out of the habit of letting you get away with it.”
They’d need 90 against Stanford, he’d warned them. The White Indians were coming down from Palo Alto with a line that could break up a herd of stampeding buffalo, an overhead attack that was spectacular, and a sweet total of 89 points against 14 for their opponents in the first three games.