On the football field, with his dogged determination, his bulldog way of hanging on to things until he mastered them, big Thor progressed slowly, and surely; the past Saturday, against the heavy Alton eleven, the blond Freshman had been sent in for the second half, and, to quote an overjoyed student, he had "busted things all up!" It seemed simply impossible to stop that terrible rush of his huge body. Time after time he plowed through the line for yards, and old Bannister, visioning Thor distributing Hamilton and Ballard over the field, in the big games, literally hugged itself. And yet, despite Thorwald's invincible prowess, despite the vast joy of old Bannister at the chances of the Championship, some intangible shadow hovered over the campus. It brooded over the training-table, the shower-rooms after scrimmage, on Bannister Field during practice; as yet, no one had dared to give it form, by voicing his thought, but though no youth dared admit it, something was wrong, there was a defective cog in the machinery of that marvelous machine, the Gold and Green eleven. "'Oh, just leave it to Hicks," quoth that sunny youth, at length, turning from the window; "I'll solve the problem, or what is more probable, Theophilus may stir that sodden hulk of humanity, after awhile. I won't worry about it, for that gets me nothing, and it will all come out O.K., I'm positive!" At this moment, just as T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., picked up "Treasure Island" again, he heard drifting across the corridor from the room opposite, in Butch Brewster's familiar voice: "--Yes, I'll win three more Bs'--one each in football, baseball and track; next spring, I'll annex my last B at old Bannister, fellows--" His _last_ B--The words struck the blithesome Hicks with sledge-hammer force. Big Butch Brewster was talking of his last B, when he, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had never won his first; with a feeling almost of alarm, the sunny youth realized that this was his final year at old Bannister, his last chance to win his athletic letter, and to make happy his beloved Dad, by helping him to realize part of his life's ambition--to behold his son shattering Hicks, Sr.'s, wonderful record. His final chance, and outside of his hopes of winning the track award in the high-jump, Hicks saw no way to win his B.