CHAPTER II
A VISITING CARD

When Allan Ware recovered enough to take an interest in things he found himself lying in the dressing-tent with some one – it afterward proved to be Harris – striving to draw a coat from under him. No one was paying any special attention to him, and the tent was filled with the hard breathing of the runners, who were now only intent upon getting into their clothes. Allan took a deep breath and obligingly rolled over so that Harris could have his coat. Then he sat up.

He had not fainted at the end of the race; it is very seldom that a runner loses consciousness, no matter how hard or prolonged the struggle has been. The collapse is produced by oppression of the chest, less frequently of the heart in particular, and the consequent difficulty of breathing is the most painful feature of it. Allan had been dimly aware from the moment he pitched into the throng until now of what had passed, but his interest in events had been slight; he knew that arms had reached out and saved him from falling and that some one – a very strong some one, evidently – had picked him up like a feather and carried him the short distance to the tent. Allan wondered, now that he could breathe again without exertion, who the fellow had been.

Every one was intent upon dressing and no one looked as though expecting thanks. Rindgely, still blowing like a porpoise, was balancing himself on one leg and trying to thrust the other into his trousers, while he explained to Hooker that the track was like mush and no one should be expected to run on it. Hooker, looking amused, grunted as he pulled his shirt over his head. Allan scrambled to his feet and began to dress. He couldn’t help wondering what the others thought of his victory; it seemed rather important to him, but he had never won a race before, although he had taken part in a good many, and so it probably appeared more wonderful than it really was. The trainer stuck his head in at the door.

“Hurry up, now,” he commanded. “Get up to the gym, and don’t be afraid of the water when you get there.”

This familiar formula met with the usual groans and hoots, and Kernahan grinned about the tent. Starting to withdraw his bullet-shaped head with its scant adornment of carroty hair, the trainer’s eyes fell on Allan. He picked his way over the tangle of legs.

“Well, are you done up?” he asked. Allan shook his head.

“That’s the boy, then!” continued Billy, heartily. “You’d better come out Monday and we’ll see what you can do. Did you ever run much?”

“Some,” answered Allan, “at school.”

“Well, you see me Monday.”

When the trainer had gone, Hooker called across:

“Say, Ware, you’re done for now.”

“How’s that?” asked Allan.

“Why, when Billy takes a fancy to you, he just merely works you to death. You weigh when you get over to gym and then weigh again, say, three weeks from now. You won’t know yourself.”

A laugh went up. Rindgely chimed in with:

“You’ll find your work different from winning a mile with a couple of hundred yards handicap.”

Allan had only had one hundred and twenty, but he didn’t think it worth while correcting Rindgely, who was evidently rather sore over his defeat. Harris unexpectedly took up for him.

“He didn’t have that much handicap, Larry; and if he had, it wouldn’t have made any difference to you, you old ice-wagon. What was the matter with you, anyhow?”

Rindgely entered into elaborate explanations, which concerned the state of the track, the injustice of the handicapping, and many other things, and Harris laughed them to scorn.

“Oh, you’re just lazy,” he jibed. “Your name’s Lazy Larry.”

A howl of delight went up, and Allan looked to see Rindgely become angry. But, after a moment of indecision, he added his chuckle to the general hilarity. Allan turned to Harris.

“I was rather done up after the run,” he said, “and some fellow must have lugged me over here. Did you happen to see who he was?”

“Yes; one of your class, a whopping big fellow named Burley. Know him, don’t you?”

Allan shook his head thoughtfully.

“Well, you will when you see him.”

Harris picked up his togs and hurried off. Allan would have liked to walk back with him to the gym, but he thought the junior might think him “fresh” if he offered his company, and so he started back alone. It was almost dark now, and the lights in the college yard and in the village were twinkling brightly when he reached the corner of Poplar Street and turned down that elm-roofed thoroughfare toward his room. Poplar Street ends at Main Street in a little triangular grass-grown space known as College Park, and Allan’s room was in the rambling corner house that faces the park and trails its length along Main Street. Allan thought his address sounded rather well: “1 College Park” had an aristocratic sound that pleased him. And since he had been unable to secure accommodations in one of the dormitories, he considered himself lucky to have found such comfortable quarters as Mrs. Purdy’s house afforded.

His room was large, with two windows in front reaching to the floor and four others arranged in couples along the side, and affording a clear view of the college yard, from McLean Hall to the library. The fact that former denizens had left comfortable window-seats at each side casement was a never-failing source of satisfaction to the new occupant of what the landlady called the “parlor study.” In Allan’s case, it was study and bedroom too. Next year Allan meant to room in the Yard, and for the present he was very well satisfied.

His occupancy of less than a month had not staled the pleasure derived from knowing himself sole owner of all the apartment’s array of brand-new furniture, carpeting, and draperies. To-night, after he had lighted all four of the burners in the gilded chandelier above the table, he paused with the charred match in hand and looked about him with satisfaction.

The carpet was beautifully crimson, the draperies at the windows were equally resplendent, if more variegated in hue, the big study-table shone richly and reflected the light in its polished top, and the more familiar objects on the mantel and on the dark walls, accumulations of his school years, seemed to return his gaze with friendly interest. To-night, with the knowledge of his victory on the track adding new glamour to the scene, it seemed to Allan that his first year of college life was destined to be very happy and splendid.

He stayed only long enough to change collar and cuffs, and then, with a boy’s cheerful disregard of economy, left the four lights flaring and hurried across Main Street to Brown Hall and dinner.

The afternoon’s work had put a sharp edge on his appetite, and, having nodded to one or two acquaintances, he lost no time in addressing himself to the agreeable task of causing the total disappearance of a plate of soup. His preoccupation gives us an excellent opportunity to make a critical survey of him without laying ourselves open to the charge of impoliteness.

Allan Ware was eighteen years old, a straight, lithe lad, with rather rebellious brown hair and a face still showing the summer’s tan. His features were not perfect by any means, but they were all good, and if you would not have thought of calling the face handsome, you would nevertheless have liked it on the instant. There was a clearness and steadiness about the brown eyes, a gentleness about the mouth, and a firmness about the chin which all combined to render the countenance attractive and singularly wholesome. It was a face with which one would never think of associating meanness. And yet to jump to the conclusion that Allan had never done a mean act would have been rash; he was only an average boy, and as human as any of them.

Allan had come up to Erskine from Hillton without heralding; he was not a star football player, a brilliant baseball man, nor a famous athlete; he had always run in the distances at the preparatory school principally because he liked running and not because he believed himself cut out for a record breaker. His afternoon’s performance had been as much of a surprise to him as to any. At Hillton he had been rather popular among his set, but he had never attempted to become a leader. His classmates had gone to other colleges – many to Harvard and Yale, a few to Columbia and Princeton, only one to Erskine. Allan had chosen the latter college to please his mother; his own inclinations had been toward Yale, for Allan had lived all his life in New Haven, and was blue all through.

But Allan’s grandfather had gone to Erskine – his name was one of those engraved on the twin tablets in the chapel transept, tablets sacred to the memories of those sons of Erskine who had given their lives in the struggle for the preservation of the Union – and Allan’s father had gone there, too. Allan couldn’t remember very much about his father – the latter had died when the boy was ten years old – but he sympathized with his mother’s wish that he also should receive his education under the elms of Centerport.

His family was not any too well supplied with wealth, but his mother’s tastes were simple and her wants few, and there had always been enough money forthcoming for the needs of his sister Dorothy, two years his junior, and for himself. If there had been any sacrifices at home, he had never known of them. At Hillton he had had about everything he wanted – his tastes were never extravagant – and the subject of money had never occupied his thoughts. At eighteen, if one is normal, there are heaps of things far more interesting than money. One of them is dinner.

Allan was much interested in dinner to-night. He even found it necessary to indulge in a couple of “extras,” in order to satisfy a very healthy appetite. For these he signed with an impressive flourish. When the last spoonful of ice-cream had disappeared he pushed back his chair and went out. In the coat-room he found a dark-complexioned and heavily built youth in the act of drawing on a pair of overshoes.

“Couldn’t find my boots,” explained Hal Smiths, “so I put these over my slippers. Wait a minute and I’ll go along.”

They left the hall together and walked briskly toward Main Street. Allan and Hal Smiths had never been particularly intimate at Hillton, but as they were the only two fellows from that school in the freshman class, they had naturally enough felt drawn toward each other since they had reached Erskine. During the last week, however, Hal had been making friends fast, and as a consequence Allan had seen less of him. Hal had quite a reputation, gained during his last year at Hillton, as a full-back, and he was generally conceded to be certain of making the freshman football team, if not the varsity second. To-night Hal was full of football matters, and Allan let him talk on uninterruptedly until they had reached the corner. There:

“Come on down and play some pool,” suggested Hal.

But Allan shook his head. He liked pool, but with a condition in mathematics to work off it behooved him to do some studying.

“I’ll play some other night,” he said. And then: “Say, Hal,” he asked, “do you know a chap in our class named Burley?”

“Pete Burley? Yes; what about him?”

“Oh, nothing. What’s he like?”

“Like an elephant,” answered Hal, disgustedly. “A big brute of a chap from Texas or Montana or somewhere out that way.” Hal’s ideas of the West were rather vague. “Met him the other day; struck me as a big idiot. Well, see you to-morrow.”

Hal swung off down Main Street and Allan turned toward his room, feeling quite virtuous for that he had resisted temptation in the shape of pool and was going home to toil. When he opened his door a sheet of paper torn from a blue-book fluttered to the floor. There was a pin in it and it had evidently been impaled on the door. Allan held it to the light and saw in big round, boyish characters the inscription:

“Pete Burley.”