Page:The plastic age, (IA plasticage00mark).pdf/95

Rh “Damn it to hell, he ought to- It ’ll be a stinkin1 shame if he don’t.” Would Raleigh’s line be able to stop Slade’s end runs? Slade I Slade! He was the team, the hope and adoration of the whole college.

Three days before the “big game” the alumni be¬ gan to pour into town, most of them fairly recent graduates, but many of them gray-haired men who boasted that they had n’t missed a Sanford-Raleigh game in thirty years. Hundreds of alumni arrived, filling the two hotels to capacity and overrunning the fraternity houses, the students doubling up or seeking hospitality from a friend in a dormitory. In the little room in the rear of the Sanford Pool and Hilliard Parlors there was almost continual ex¬ citement. Jim McCarty, the proprietor, a big, jovial, red-faced man whom all the students called Mac, was the official stake-holder for the college. Bets for any amount could be placed with him. Money from Raleigh flowed into his pudgy hands, and he placed it at the odds offered with eager San¬ ford takers. By the day of the game his safe held thousands of dollars, most of it wagered at five to three, Raleigh offering odds. There was hardly an alumnus who did not prove his loyalty to San¬ ford by visiting Mac’s back room and putting down a few greenbacks, at least. Some were more loyal than others; the most loyal placed a thousand dol¬ lars—at five to two.