1922 Cedrus Yearbook

(Continued From Page 7R) WHO IS THE HERO? posely. At any rate, Dick must have heard, for when he returned a minute later, we saw by the look on his face that something was about to happen. For about ten seconds he stood near the door, his eyes fastened on Ted,and then he walked resolutely to where Bill was sitting. "I think you'd better put Al in for the next half," he said quietly. "He—he can get more out of the team than I can." But Bill only shook his head. "No," he answered shortly. "I want you to stay where you are." We were looking at Dick wonderingly, with a new born respect in our eyes; for there wasn't a fellow in the room who didn't realize at that moment that Dick had been ignorant all along of why he had beaten Al out in the fight for quarter. His next words proved it. "You'll have to play Al," he repeated, "I'm through." Bill glanced swiftly around the room at us and then said, dully:"All right, Al will start for us in the next half." So Al rushed out with the others when the whistle blew; and before we had played five minutes, the change in the Riverside eleven was apparent. The team found itself. Driven on by some dynamic force in Al's nature, we slashed and plunged our way down the field, brushing aside all opposition riding roughshod over the Glendale defense, until the last white line was trampled beneath our feet and we rushed pell- mell over the goal. Twice more during the remaining half, we repeated that triumphant march down the field, and while the Riverside stands went into ecstasies of cheering Dick sat huddled in his blanket, his dry eyes staring unseeingly at the ground. After the game he quickly dressed and sought to escape. He imagined that he was disgraced,that they had thought all along that he had known he was being favored by Bill, and had not said a word in protest. Then suddenly the noise ceased and he heard some one speaking. .It was Bill, his chum, the captain of the team. "Last summer, when we were together up in the mountains," Bill was saying, with something of a quiver in his voice, "Dick climbed down the side of a mountain and saved me from falling several hundred feet to the rocks below, where I was hanging. I can't tell you about that now, but Dick saved my life, and I resolved then and there to pay him back somehow. I didn't say any- thing to him, but when the season started I had decided that Dick would be quarter on the varsPy. That was why I kept Al off and put Dick in all the games;and until to- day, I didn't think it would make much difference to anyone, except Al. It was wrong, of course, and I guess I've been a pretty rotten captain; but I just want to say this: "Dick didn't know anything about it, and if Ted hadn't said something between halves I would have kept him in and let the team lose. That was the way I was going to pay Dick back. But he wouldn't stand for it; he—he was squarer than I am,and he is really the fellow who won the game for us. And I am nothing but a rotter, and I'm sorry for what I've done." His voice broke, and he sat down suddenly. You could have heard a pin drop in that room for a space of about thirty seconds; and then some one started to clap and the clapping continued. But who knows whom the clapping was for? Al had swallowed his medicine like a man and hadn't said a word; Bill had stood up before us all and taken the burden of blame on his own shoulders; and Dick had made the only amends possible and had given up his own ambition for the good of the team. So who was the hero for whom they were clapping? Walker Taylor. 117