CHAPTER XII

DEFEAT

Monday was an easy day for both First Team and Scrub, but on Tuesday the hard grind began again. "Cocky" never let a session go by without trotting his squad over to the tackling dummy, and Clif, for one, had grown to hate that limp and headless object with an almost passionate intensity. Perhaps this was largely because his tackling was not of the best and didn't seem to improve with practice. Mr. Babcock frequently told him that he would never become a really good end until he could make his tackles surer. Secretly, though, Clif considered that he did as well as Jeff Adams, who had asserted his right to the left end position, and a heap better than a lot of the others. He wished he might convince Mr. Babcock of it!

The field was a busy place now, for the third gridiron was in use by the class teams, and from around the corner of East Hall floated frantic shouts and commanding bellows and the thud of booted balls. Practice over there was intensive, for, since there were four squads and but one gridiron, they worked two teams at a time, limiting that time to an hour.

On Monday the Scrub was enlarged by the addition of Joe Craigie, a guard candidate released by Coach