As for Tony he was quite unconscious of anything save that he was enjoying himself immensely; that Betty Wilson was an extremely attractive girl, a thoroughly “good sort,” as Kit had said; and that he wished there were more frequent occasions when the girls came to Deal. He was not sentimental, so that he did not imagine that he had fallen in love. The day of the game was a perfect one for football, cool and gray, with no wind blowing. The teams were in fine condition, and the Boxford boys, who had come over in the old-time coach across the hills, looked tremendously big and strong. Tony was still playing end, the position to which he had been so unexpectedly assigned in his Third Form year, and in which, through no fault of his own, he had been the means of losing the game. To be sure in the following year, when the circumstances of that defeat had been made rather generally clear, he had redeemed himself by good playing and they had won, but he felt a keen desire this year to blot out forever, if it might be, the bitter memory of that first Boxford game. He wanted, quite selfishly he told himself,—and perhaps he was thinking a little of Betty—to win a game as definitely as he had lost one. As the team stepped out onto the field that afternoon, resplendent in their red sweaters with the big black D across the breast, and he sniffed the cool air and heard the chorus of Deal cheers ring down the lines, he lifted his head like a good hunter keen for the chase, and a thrill of determination went through him like a shiver. They must win! Billy Wendell had the ball under his arm as they came onto the field. Immediately he tossed it to Kit, prominent to the spectators for his shock of yellow hair and his bright red cheeks despite the fact that this was his first appearance on the school team. Kit tossed it to Barney Clayton, who muffed it, and then made a quick dive and fell on it very much as a kitten plays with a ball of yarn.... So for fifteen minutes or so the preliminary practice went on, until the boys were well warmed up for the strenuous work of the game. Then came the shrill note of the referee’s whistle; the two captains met in the center of the field; the Boxford boy called and won the toss, and the two teams trotted out to their places for the kick-off. There were roars from the two grand-stands, the antiphonal ringing-out of the Deal and Boxford cheers; another blast from the referee’s whistle, and Kit, who was playing center, gave the ball a kick that sent it sailing down the field to within five yards of the Boxford goal posts. A Boxford back caught it, but Tony downed him in his tracks.