“You’d better do it, my boy. Get a good pair of goal-tender’s gloves and throw those away. Those aren’t thick enough to keep your hands warm, and you might very easily get a shot that would break a bone. Can you buy gloves in Greenburg now? You couldn’t when I was here.” “Yes, sir, they have them at Fessenden’s.” “Better attend to getting them before you play again. If you’d had a heavy pair on to-day you could have stopped that last shot and saved your team a goal, couldn’t you?” “I think so. It――it was pretty hard.” Toby had donned his coat and they were following in the wake of the others up the board-walk to the gymnasium. Toby didn’t know whether to try to fall behind or hurry ahead. It was scarcely conceivable that the coach wanted his company all the way up the hill! But Mr. Loring settled the matter himself just then. “How long have you been playing goal, Tucker?” he asked. “About three weeks, sir.” “Where’d you play before that? Point, I suppose.” “Yes, sir, a few days.” “Were you with the second last year? I don’t seem to remember you.” “No, sir, I wasn’t here last year.” “Oh, that’s it? But you played somewhere else, I suppose.” “No, I never played until last month, Mr. Loring.” The coach looked surprised. “Never played hockey at all? Well, but――you don’t want me to believe that you’ve learned all you know about playing goal in a month, Tucker?” “Yes, sir, but I’m afraid I don’t know very much,” responded Toby apologetically. “Hm, I don’t know. I’ve seen worse playing. When you learn to move a little bit quicker you ought to do pretty well.” The coach turned and surveyed Toby speculatively. “Pull that cap off a minute.” Toby obeyed, wonderingly. “Thought so! It’s red, isn’t it?” Toby flushed and swallowed hard. Then: “Brown, sir,” he answered firmly. The coach laughed. “Brown, is it? All right, Tucker, my mistake. I’m sorry.” “It’s all right,” murmured Toby, forgivingly. “Oh, I wasn’t apologizing,” retorted the coach, dryly. “I meant that I was sorry it wasn’t red. You see, Tucker, I have a theory that a goal-tend ought to have red hair.” Toby looked his surprise. “Why, sir?” he asked. “Because, Tucker, it has been my experience that fellows with red hair are fighters. When I played football I always looked the other team over for red-heads and if I saw one I kept close tabs on him. I don’t think I ever saw one yet that didn’t bear a lot of watching. Now you know why I’m a little disappointed in your case. Just at first, when you took your cap off, I thought there was a reddish tinge to your hair. Probably it was due to the sunset or the reflection from the snow or something.” There wasn’t any sunset, or, if there was, it wasn’t visible, and it was so nearly twilight that to talk of reflection from the snow was nonsense. Toby glanced at the coach suspiciously, but Mr. Loring’s face looked quite guileless.