The Coach and Captain Hop MacLean and Danny Lord, who was first-string quarterback, and Slim Porter went off to Hawleyville early Saturday morning to see Munson play Kernwood and maybe get a line on her. Before he went Rusty told me I was to captain the team that afternoon. “The manager will look after things off the field, Gus,” he said, “and Thompson will play quarter. He knows what plays to use, so you’d better let him run things as much as possible. Munson will have some scouts here and we can’t afford to show our hand much. We’ll win if we can, but I’d rather we took a licking than show too much of our game. Do the best you can, Gus, and make your tackles good.” Joe’s folks arrived just after dinner in a shiny new car. Babe and I saw them from our window. That is, Babe saw them and I got a couple of peeks over his shoulder. He’d been sitting at the window for half an hour. The car stopped almost underneath and he nearly fell out, rubbering. Joe had made me promise to meet them, and so I went down. Babe wouldn’t, of course. You can’t steer him against a girl to save your life. Well, I haven’t much use for them either, but a chap’s got to be courteous. Joe introduced me all around and we set out to see the buildings, me walking with Aunt Emily and the girl. She was a right pretty girl, but sort of shy, and didn’t have much to say. Sort of small-town, you know. Wore her hair old-fashioned so you could see her ears plain. The aunt was a pleasant old dame and she and I got on swimming. Once she said: “Joseph tells me that you play on the football team, too, Mr. Billings,” and I said, “Yes’m, I get to play now and then.” “Well,” she said, smiling pleasantly, “we shall expect great things from you both to-day.” We steered them up to Joe’s room in Routledge after a bit, and pretty soon Joe’s roommate, Hal Norwin, came in and I beat it. Mr. Morris seemed to think that Joe ought to go and get ready to play, too, but I explained that he didn’t have to hurry because he wouldn’t get in until the second half. “You see,” I said, “we’re sort of saving him, Mr. Morris. If anything happened to Joe to-day we’d be in a pretty bad way next Saturday, wouldn’t we?” Then I winked at Hal, who was looking sort of surprised, and pulled my freight. It didn’t take us long to find that Munson wasn’t losing any tricks. Tom Meadows pointed out three of her fellows in the visitors’ stand just before the game started. “That biggest guy is Townsend, their left guard, and――” “You don’t have to tell me,” said I. “I’ve played against him. And the little fellow in the striped shirt is Quinn, the quarter, and the other goof is Taylor, the only back that made any gains against us last year. Well, I guess they won’t learn much here to-day, Tom.”