As the days passed it began to look as if the pleasure he got merely in playing and in the belief that his efforts contributed a little to the good of the team was to be his sole reward. All that week he played left tackle on the scrub, save for half an hour or so on Friday when Ward tried him at right half, only to return him presently to his former position.
But if Dale was disappointed, he did not show it. He told himself that it was too soon to expect anything else. Sherman would naturally wish to try him out in every way before making a change in the line-up. So the tenderfoot kept himself vigorously to the scratch, growing more and more familiar with the various formations and carefully studying the methods of the fellows opposite him.
It was this latter occupation which brought the first faint touch of uneasiness regarding the strength of the team at large. He could not be quite sure, for of course ordinary practice seldom brings out the best in a player, but it seemed as if the fellows were a bit lacking in unity and cohesion. Of one thing at least he grew certain before he had been on the scrub two days. Wilks, at left tackle, was hesitating and erratic, with a tendency to ducking, which would have been even more apparent but for the constant support and backing of Ranny Phelps. The latter seemed not only able to play his own position with dash and brilliancy, but also to lend a portion of his strength and skill to support the wavering tackle. Whenever it was possible, he contrived to take a little more than his share of buffeting in the forward plunge, to bear the brunt of each attack. There were times, of course--notably when Ranny himself carried the ball--that this was impossible, and then it was that Wilks's shrinking became unmistakable.
"He's got cold feet," decided Tompkins, with the mild wonder of one to whom the game had never brought anything but exhilaration and delight. "They must be mighty good friends for Phelps to help him out like that!"
He sighed a little wistfully. Ranny was letting no chance slip these days to show his disapproval of the newest member of the troop. There were others, too, who followed his example and treated the tenderfoot with marked coldness. Even stout Harry Vedder, though occasionally forgetting himself in the heat of play, lacked the good-natured friendliness of that first day. To be sure, these were far from being a majority. They included practically only the members of Ranny Phelps's own patrol; the others had apparently accepted Tompkins as one of the bunch and continued to treat him as such. But Dale's was a friendly nature, and it troubled him a little, when he had time to think about it, to be the object of even a passive hostility.