The Half-Back   By: Ralph Henry Barbour (1870-1944)

A Story of School, Football, and Golf

By

RALPH HENRY BARBOUR

Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst

[Illustration]

TO EVERY AMERICAN BOY WHO LOVES HONEST, MANLY SPORT, THIS STORY IS DEDICATED.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. THE BOY IN THE STRAW HAT.

II. STATION ROAD AND RIVER PATH.

III. OUTFIELD WEST.

IV. THE HEAD COACH.

V. A RAINY AFTERNOON.

VI. THE PRACTICE GAME.

VII. A LETTER HOME.

VIII. THE GOLF TOURNAMENT.

IX. AN EVENING CALL.

X. THE BROKEN BELL ROPE.

XI. TWO HEROES.

XII. THE PROBATION OF BLAIR.

XIII. THE GAME WITH ST. EUSTACE.

XIV. THE GOODWIN SCHOLARSHIP.

XV. THE BOAT RACE.

XVI. GOOD BY TO HILLTON.

XVII. THE SACRED ORDER OF HULLABALOOLOO.

XVIII. VISITORS FROM MARCHDALE.

XIX. A VARSITY SUB.

XX. AN OLD FRIEND.

XXI. THE DEPARTURE.

XXII. BEFORE THE BATTLE.

XXIII. HARWELL vs . YATES THE FIRST HALF.

XXIV. HARWELL vs . YATES A FAULT AND A REQUITAL.

XXV. THE RETURN.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

A leap in the nick of time.

Joel's arrival at school.

His next drive took him cleanly over Rocky Bunker.

"Stay where you are; the fellows are bringing a boat".

The left guard bore down straight upon Joel.

Instantly the crimson crew seemed to lift their boat from the water.

DIAGRAMS.

Plan of Hillton Academy Golf Links.

Diagram of Second Play.

Diagram of Third Play.

Positions, Harwell vs . Yates.

CHAPTER I.

THE BOY IN THE STRAW HAT.

"How's craps, Country?"

"Shut up, Bart! he may hear you."

"What if he does, ninny? I want him to. Say, Spinach!"

"Do you suppose he's going to try and play football, Bart?"

"Not he. He's looking for a rake. Thinks this is a hayfield, Wall."

The speakers were lying on the turf back of the north goal on the campus at Hillton Academy. The elder and larger of the two was a rather coarse looking youth of seventeen. His name was Bartlett Cloud, shortened by his acquaintances to "Bart" for the sake of that brevity beloved of the schoolboy. His companion, Wallace Clausen, was a handsome though rather frail looking boy, a year his junior. The two were roommates and friends.

"He'd better rake his hair," responded the latter youth jeeringly. "I'll bet there's lots of hayseed in it!"

The subject of their derisive remarks, although standing but a scant distance away, apparently heard none of them.

"Hi, West!" shouted Bartlett Cloud as a youth, attired in a finely fitting golf costume, and swinging a brassie, approached. The newcomer hesitated, then joined the two friends.

"Hello! you fellows. What's up? Thought it was golf, from the crowd over here." He stretched himself beside them on the grass.

"Golf!" answered Bartlett Cloud contemptuously. "I don't believe you ever think of anything except golf, Out! Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night trying to drive the pillow out of the window with a bed slat?"

"Oh, sometimes," answered Outfield West smilingly. "There's a heap more sense in being daft over a decent game like golf than in going crazy about football. It's just a kid's game."

"Oh, is it?" growled Bartlett Cloud. "I'd just like to have you opposite me in a good stiff game for about five minutes. I'd show you something about the 'kid's game!'"

"Well, I don't say you couldn't knock me down a few times and walk over me, but who wants to play such games except a lot of bullies like yourself?"

"Plenty of fellows, apparently," answered the third member of the group, Wallace Clausen, hastening to avert the threatening quarrel. "Just look around you. I've never seen more fellows turn out at the beginning of the season than are here to day. There must be sixty here."

"More like a hundred," grunted "Bart" Cloud, not yet won over to good temper. "Every little freshman thinks he can buy a pair of moleskins and be a football man. Look at that fellow over yonder, the one with the baggy trousers and straw hat. The idea of that fellow coming down here just out of the hayfield and having the cheek to report for football practice! What do you suppose he would do if some one threw a ball at him?"