The last campus practice was half over, the bleachers were crowded. Across the field the confirmed fiends were standing along the ropes to get a nearer view of that tangle of human bodies, not a movement of which escaped them. On the side-lines the privileged advisers, from rubbers and Freshman manager up to associate coach, squatted on the adobe, careless of their clothes. The whole University had come out. An air of sorrow hung over everything, the rooters were silent, and the teams played listlessly. Frank Lyman went over where the wildest howlers usually sat. "Boys," he said, "we can't send the men away like this, it would take them a week to get over it. We must have some yelling. We're not honoring the memory of Blake this way. Do you know what his last words were? He said to Professor Diemann, 'They know I never was a quitter.' Do you think he would like a practice like this?" Then the crowd started up and gave the yell as one man, and the others joined in until something like the usual demonstration arose about the field, and the 'Varsity, feeling the inspiration, bent down and hammered away at the Scrubs as they meant to do against the Blue and Gold on Thanksgiving day. Here and there a fraternity dog, showing his head between a pair of golf-clad knees, joined the quick, sharp yell of the people about him with an imitation that raised a laugh. When the bleachers were still just before a big play, one could hear in the breathless silence the slap of the canvas suits, the thud of heavy shoes, the sniffling of men just out of a scrimmage. Far across the bay, the hills that were cool and blue when practice began, grew luminously red in the level light of the dying rays; against the fading color of the west, the power-house chimney rose picturesquely dark; the swift, elusive twilight of California settled down on Santa Clara's broad acres, so that Diemann had to stare hard to follow Ashley's play. Then the whistle sounded, sharp in the still air, and the teams came trotting to the side-lines to take their sweaters and caps from devoted admirers and to stroll off, arm over shoulder, with people who minded not in the least the campus dirt those heroes had been gathering. Diemann took Ashley's arm. "Let's walk together," he said. The substitute fullback had been playing hard ball. The gloom hanging over the first half of the practice had affected him strongly and he had flung himself into the game, trying to forget, to cast off the foolish sense of an implied reproach. Diemann could see that he was very tired. He made him lean upon him, and they started for the Hall. Suddenly he realized that the football man was not answering questions, that the weight on his own shoulder was growing heavier. He glanced up into Ashley's face; there was an absent look in the man's eyes. "Fred!" whispered Diemann sharply in his ear. "Yes?" answered the fullback; then he shook himself and said: "It's chilly, Die, I'm wet. Let's get in."