Again Wolcott took his practice opposite Laughlin. The head coach was most of the time behind the second; and though he kept close watch on the general game, he always had one eye on Laughlin and Lindsay. Wolcott had lost something of his fear of his redoubtable antagonist. As the game advanced, he discovered that though he could not stand before the captain in a contest of strength, Laughlin was inclined to be slow, and when once started in a given direction could not quickly change his course. With this new light to guide him, he succeeded in giving the dread guard a most lively and absorbing ten-minutes bout. At the end of that time Lauder took him out and put him in Butler’s place on the first. In the signal practice that followed the general game, Lindsay found himself still occupying Butler’s position.
“He must play with the first from this time on,” said the coach that evening, as he discussed Lindsay’s case with Laughlin. “We’ve only ten days more of good practice left, and that allows us little enough time to work him well into the attack. He’s good enough on the defence now.”
“I suppose you’re right,” responded Laughlin; “but I’d like to have one or two more tries at him. He’s the toughest proposition I’ve struck this year. The second’s been the making of that fellow. If we had put him on the first as soon as he began to show what was in him, he wouldn’t be half so good.”
“Give me that man for two years, and I’d make him the greatest guard that ever played!” cried Lauder, who had the true trainer’s enthusiasm for his pet athlete. “Light as he is, he’s a match for ’most any man twenty pounds heavier, and he’s growing all the time. Why, he’s all you can handle now, and just think how green he is!”
“That’s the trouble with Wolcott,” said Laughlin, thoughtfully, “he’s had so little experience. The Hillbury game is a pretty hard strain on a green man. If he only keeps his head!”
“He’ll do it, I’m sure,” the coach answered with confidence. “He’s a natural player, and fellows of that kind play by instinct; they think more with their nerves than with their minds. We’ll see how he gets along with that Harvard Second man.”
The game with the Harvard Second was at the same time Wolcott’s glory and his undoing. He had opposite him a player of the familiar college type,—big, strong, experienced, well versed in the tricks of the trade, but without the power or the brains or the temperament necessary to make a first-class varsity man. He played a game of smash and drive, much like that which Wolcott had learned to expect from Butler,—high in the air and slow. The ease with which the Seaton left guard did the work expected of him set the coaches on the side-lines dancing with joy. So unsuccessful was the bulky Harvard man in stopping his troublesome opponent that toward the end of the second half he lost his head or his temper; and in his struggles, by accident or design, one of his fists landed smartly on Wolcott’s nose. As luck would have it, in the same scrimmage, Wolcott also received a hard, numbing blow in the leg from some heavy Harvard boot. Though the limping fellow protested that he was quite able to play, Laughlin, fearing to take risks with a valuable man, sent him to the side-lines and called in Butler to finish the game.