Wolcott laughed, not at Tompkins, but from pure joy of heart. At the moment there flashed into his recollection the words Laughlin had uttered when the possibilities of football had first presented themselves to the new boy. “It’s a great thing to win a Hillbury game; it’s fine just to play in one, but to win,—win fairly and squarely, because you’re a better team and know more football,—why, it’s like winning a great battle.” He understood it now, understood it all; and his face sobered as he contrasted the joy of an accomplished victory with the uncertainty and discouragement of the heavy task which Phil was facing, as captain of the nine, with but a scanty nucleus of a beaten team to support him. Some such thought must also have entered Tompkins’s ecstatic brain, for he turned toward Phil, who was staring in solemn vacancy out across the tracks, and dropped his hand affectionately on the ball player’s shoulder. “It won’t happen again, will it, Philly? You’re going to give us a winning nine!” “I’m going to try to,” replied Phil, quietly. How he tried, and what came of the trying, will be told among other things, in the next volume of the series, “With Mask and Mit.” End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Line, by Albertus T. Dudley