There was nothing especially momentous about that half-hour’s practice of the scrubs. They hustled around and banged away and got very excited and were off-side every two minutes. And now and then they managed to give a fair imitation of team-work. Stillwell, who would have much preferred being up in the gymnasium talking over the afternoon’s game, went through with his task conscientiously enough, but he was chary with the whistle and many a foul went unpenalized. Of course, Toby let several shots get past him, especially in the first fifteen-minute half, when he was decidedly nervous every time the play approached his end of the rink. Later, he settled down and made one or two clever stops, one with his wrist. The latter was unintentional and deprived him of the use of that member for several minutes. But his team-mates applauded and so Toby didn’t mind. And after awhile the wrist stopped hurting some. On the whole, Toby put up a pretty fair game at goal that afternoon, doing better than the opposing goal-keeper by four tallies, a fact which Stillwell noted and later mentioned casually to Crowell. “Young Tucker played goal down there this afternoon,” he remarked. “Warren was off and I didn’t know who else to put in. He wasn’t half bad, Orson.” “Tucker? Oh, is that so? That reminds me that I meant to have Loring try him out at that very position. Glad you mentioned it. I’ll have a look at him. Lamson let two mighty easy ones get by to-day, and we could use another goal-tend if we had him.” Which conversation would have been remarkably cheering to Toby could he have overheard it at the moment. But he didn’t. What he did hear just then was Arnold telling him to “Hold still, you chump! I know it hurts, but this is good for it.” Whereupon Arnold rubbed the injured wrist harder and Toby grinned stoically. CHAPTER X WITH THE FIRST TEAM