Harmon viewed him bewilderedly. Then he laughed with a suggestion of embarrassment. “Thanks,” he murmured. “Guess your school isn’t missing much, though.” He turned his gaze and busied himself with getting his ticket ready for the conductor. Bob, opposite, viewed him with flattering attention. He saw a boy of apparently seventeen years, well if not heavily built, with clean-cut features, quiet gray-blue eyes and brown hair. He was not particularly good-looking, but his somewhat serious and self-confident expression would have brought a second glance from anyone. Then, too, when he smiled he looked very likable. Bob’s thought was, as he turned his gaze away: “Thinks well of himself, but doesn’t put on any airs. Doesn’t do much talking, but thinks a lot. Looks like he’d be mighty shifty on his feet and pretty hard to stop if he once got started.” When the conductor had taken their tickets and gone on, Bob said: “I suppose you’ll be going out for the Kenly team, Harmon.” “I think I’ll have to try for it, but I guess I won’t stand much of a show.” Harmon smiled deprecatingly. Bob frowned slightly. It was all right, he reflected, to be modest, but there was no sense in being a humbug! Joe laughed. “Oh, I dare say you’ll get by,” he said, faintly ironic. After a moment he added lightly: “If they turn you down, come over to us. I’ll promise you a place!” Harmon smiled politely, and Bob leaned across to him. “Better take him up, Harmon,” he said. “Joe’s our captain, you know.” Harmon looked with slightly more interest at Joe. “Really?” he asked. “I’ll have to remember your offer then.” But the joking tone in his voice indicated that he wasn’t taking the suggestion very seriously. While his head was turned, Bob surreptitiously reversed the leather tag that hung from the handle of the kit-bag at his feet. Behind the little celluloid window the named stared out distinctly: Gordon Edward Harmon. “Yes, we’re both guards,” Joe was saying when Bob sank back in his seat again. “In fact, all three of us are, for that’s Proctor’s position, too.” “Oh, I’m only a sub,” disclaimed Martin, “one of the ‘also-rans.’” “‘The Three Guardsmen,’” laughed Harmon. “I guess I read about you fellows once.” “Wasn’t there a fourth one?” asked Bob. “I never could see why that fellow Dumas called the story ‘The Three Guardsmen.’” “That’s right,” said Martin. “D’Artagnan made the fourth.” “Maybe D’Artagnan was a back,” suggested Joe, chuckling. “Guess he was quarter-back,” said Martin, “for he usually ran the game!” Bob shifted his feet and stretched. “Guess I’ll walk through and see if any of the fellows are aboard,” he said. “Want to come along, Joe?”