Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/271

 *hold on, though, 8 was a cross-buck with left half carrying. Gradually memory returned, although to the end of the journey six plays eluded him. He might have asked Whitemill or Cotter, but he was ashamed to. Besides, there would be time enough on the bench in which to refresh his memory.

When the busses passed through a village there was loud cheering, not only for Wyndham but for anything else that captured interest. At Peyton a much bewhiskered citizen leaning against a post in front of the general store made an instant hit. Three royal cheers were given for "Ostermoor"—though how the fellows knew his name must remain a mystery—and the surprised gentleman was the recipient of many compliments. Between the villages opportunities for "razzing" were fewer but never neglected. A faster car, passing a bus, was pursued by indignant cries of "Speedhound!" "Oooh, wait till I tell the Constabule!" "Hey, Mister! You're hittin' twenty!" "Oh, you Dare-devil!" "You pesky city folks, you!" All this, Clif found, helped you to forget that your luncheon, as light as it had been, had become a leaden lump and that there was a spot somewhere between the nape of your neck and the top of your head that felt like a small lump of ice!

At Cotterville they pulled up in front of a small yellow frame building at the edge of the athletic field. Across a wide stretch of still green turf the school buildings peered back at them from behind nearly leafless trees. It was twenty minutes past one then,