Page:Boys of Columbia High on the Ice.djvu/32

20 the west where the breeze hailed from, scores of boys and girls gathered around.

"Where's Hastings?" asked Frank, as he stepped onto the ice.

"Here! who wants me?" called a voice, and the captain of the Clifford High School football eleven, as well as leader in all athletic sports Clifford boasted, came skating up, carrying a fine hockey stick made of selected Canadian rock elm.

"Why, hello, Allen!" he went on, holding out a hand to each; "and you, too, Wallace. This is mighty nice in you coming up to call on us. If you'd only been a little earlier you might have seen a rattling game between the regulars and a picked seven. It was fast playing all the way through, and if we did win we had little to crow over. Still, two of our best players were away, and it always makes a hole in a team to put on substitutes not accustomed to the play."

"I've got something that I was commissioned to give you, Hastings," and Frank as he spoke drew out an envelope, while the skaters gathered near, despite the suspicious crackling of the strong ice.

Hastings tore off the end of the envelope. As soon as he had read the contents of the enclosure a grin of pleasure spread all over his face. Turning, he looked to the right and to the left at the