Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/99

 word, or perhaps a brief halt while the coach stared silently toward the First Team players, kept the incentive in mind. They were there to mold themselves into a first-class fighting unit so that they might meet the friendly enemy on fairly even terms, and so serve as the whetstone against which the latter was to be shaped and edged into a conquering weapon. But—and they dwelt relishingly on this—if the whetstone sometimes proved too hard for the steel, why, so much the better for every one! In other words, duty demanded that they prove themselves a worthy foe, and inclination kept a full jump ahead of duty! There were no personal grudges being nursed: no player on the Scrub had a bone to pick with any member of the other team; but there was, nevertheless, the conviction, shared by all, that the wisdom of the Head Coach's selections had yet to be proved, and it was up to them to show that proof didn't exist! In such a spirit, then, the Wyndham Scrub Team—or "Mr. Babcock's Team," as the Lantern called it—started forth.

The first meeting of the Scrub and the First took place in a drizzle of rain and, partly for that reason, but more especially because Mr. Otis's charges had a game the next day, the encounter was slow and tame. There were two scrimmages of some ten minutes each, the first with the first-string line-up, and the second with the substitutes. Play was continually stopped by the Head Coach for criticism and instruction, the ball was brought back half a dozen times because something had not gone just right, and, finally, when the