The Storyteller. THE GROUND RULES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2413, 30 January 1909, Page 11 (Supplement)

The Storyteller.

THE GROUND RULES.

(By Arthur (Somers Jkielio, in “flar per's Weekly/')

"Unmgli !" And Forrest hailed dm paper, a crumpled hall., into the fireplace. ‘Timigli!” , 'lie exclaimed again. as hesavJigoly rammed a charge into his unoffending pipe, struck a match, and furiously puffed away. ••What’s the matter, Jim?" I asked. •■Doesn't the news suit you? You seem kind of sore." "Suit me?" lie 'remarked, with a sneer. “Did yuh read tlr account oi the Yarvard-Male game?" "Sure!" J. replied; "and a bully good game it must have been, too. Just think of those Male youngsters, that only cast their first vote four years ago. holding the veteran Bryan supporters of Yarva-rd .to u tic score. Heroes —that’s what thov are! Finest -youngsters that ever tackled low or hurdled a grizzled veteran’s head. What?" "

•'•Nothin’ much/' replied Jim, ‘■unless you might be interested in an account of a series that I played in once —where we didn’t bar nothin’ except guns, and where there wasn't no trivial tie scores to take away the glory of a well-earned victory. And where, when even though a narrow-minded referee took away the purse from us, all fair-minded persons agreed that our opponents was quit-tens to take ada! witage of a technicality. “Yuh see, the N-bar ranch had just naturally trimmed us at about everything that summer. They’d even beaten us three straight games of baseball, and when the football season broke <upon us our boys of the Circle-three was hankerin’ for blood and revenge. So ; we sent ail insult!u and suave note to those tin-horn friends of ours, challengin’ them to game. They responded courteous and violent, tellin’ ns that while they hated to burglarise an infant’s candybag, yet times Avas hard and they needed the money, and if we cared to ,plny a series of three games aaMli nothin’ barred but guns for a little bet of a thousand dollars, each game to bo played on successive ‘Saturdays, why, they’d be just naturally charmed to use our money to endow a hospital to take care of o.ur lacerated remains.

“Well, as you can some easy .understand. that challenge avos accepted on the hot foot, and we didn’t lose no time in igoin’ into the strictest trainin.’ Why. some o’ the fellers was so dead interested that they even quit drinkiiv find smokin’, though, bein’ capt’in. I discouraged such lapses from normal llivin’, thin-kin’ tin; term might he overtrained. Signals and forward passes and such like practice kept us busy every night, and we was" in the pink o’ condition and confidence when two mights before the first game Ave got the news that them dasturds of the N-bar ranch .-as phinnin’ for ns. Can yu'h believe it? They -were outfitted with brass knuckles, three-ineli spikes oil their shoes, an' old wash-boilers hammered into mudguards lor their heads. ‘•'There wasn't one o’ the Mexican team that had been impressed into practisin’ with them but Avliat was kid up for re[Mirs. A course yuh can see my position. .1 was capt’in, and the boys' 1 -flocked around me, askin’ how f purposed offsettin’ them advantages with my naked ingenuity, soein that there wasn’t time to send for no armour. ‘•I had to think awful quick, but Avben J. elucidates my plan the boys just laughed <aud (laughed. Nothin, was barred, you remember, and my scheme avus simple and childlike. And we all slept fine the night before the first game. “Well,- .'v. -alien them N-bar roadagents trapped g pvly on to the field, all dreresdfike ohi Holy-Graders, they thought we’d drop dead with fright. Rut the fright stuff was on the other foot, for when my team come on. to the field with me, the full-back mounted on my old pinto pony, wit r long shiny spurs ready for action them quitters tried to file a protest riwht off. -But there was nothin

doin’- . “The annpire said that the ayee hionfc was that nothin’ was barred, and he couldn’t find anything in the regular rules that would justify a sportlovin’ gent in deprivin’ the spectators of the view of the massacre to which they had put <up then goo money. An’as ho toyed flovm ly nth Pis .run while lie emanated them vise woii. the (puttin' Xdiar gents was forced to go ahead with, the game \„> - a « a .gent of youc sagacity can -rta.Kl without 'W <lO a,ls Circle-three just evcrl.st.n ly T'Ut . crimp in the pride of the X-hais, so that Vy left the ever having had possession of the ball, made seventy touch-aowm on P my old pinto, and when any reckless gent attempted a livin’ tackle we walked on him to drive proper respect into-his (block. -A course, in gentlemanly • disputes over the field, some of mv hoys got damaged some, but wh.it'did we care wl.oi. we watched the score pile up and (realised that we had the first- leg on that thousand-, dollar bet?

But that first victory made us over-, confident. Yes, sir, I’m ashamed to state that 1 didn’t,give them X-bar

gents credit for enough ingenuity. All J did whs train af.l my boys to play football on their ponies, never dream in' but what that was the scheme that the dastards from across the range .would resort to.

“But how little we know of the infamy that- other minds can conceive! When we lined up for the sctrc.fid game our confidence that avc could outstrido our opponents was rudely shattered. Them low dogs had outfitted their ful-l-buek -with an automobile ! Yes, sir, the son of the superintendent of their ranch Avar hist out’, college, and he had lirascnted tin* team with his puff-waggon. Know in’ how little chance they had with us in a scientific game, they had resorted t ■ foul methods.

“A course I protested, hut whutdH the umpire do but remind me of tin agreement that nothin’ was barreoand then consult- the, regular rum book again, only io toll me that there was nothin’ in the ground ruf.es forbiddin’ the use of an automobile a-full-back.

“Sav, they beat us worse than we beat them the first game. A course all our ponies just everlastingly bo'jed, and avc couldn’t even hold them on the field, and after the automobile had run OA r er our goal-fine about ninety times the referee called the game, awarding it to the X-bars.

“Sav, yuh never in all your life saw so much -gloom in one place -as there wns in our diggings the next few days. A course, we didn't know whore to get a smoke-cart, and flic harrowin’ thought that them hounds Avas to take ear hard-earned money from us without even a show of a fight Avas enough to make all the boys unlimber their guns and -practise up on shootin’ fast *and accurate.

“For five mortal, nights I endured the crool pangs of Avakeful nights—an experience that I thought I had forever ducked v.lien I gave my wife the front door key and parted with her and a major portion of my left ear. Say, paid, it ivas somethin’ terrible! Here was t-lie honor of Circlethree 11 -restiiv" on* my shoulder.', and me not’-able to carry the-load. .Mournful faces greeted me everywhere, and my pc.p’lality was so undermined that a Digger Injun could ’a’ copped more votes than me if wo -were funniii’ id sheriff. Besides, I wanted a slice o’ that bet, so’s I could go Fast to Oil! alia and la roe a little ranienboo io •forget the troubles of cows.

• iSa the- Thursday night before the game, bein’ unable to do a clinch aa it It Morpheus, i lights a candle and pee-rusc-d a old paper that I found kickin round. lii'.-pii ation of genius 1 calls it. even though some narrow-minded gents might term it bull luck. How-

over. I didn't eaie about rest no more tbit balmy eve.

“For in the paper that I picked up there was a account of -a scientific sharp that avus conductin' experiments, so the paper caked it, in aerial navigation, -and his suicide-ground wasn’t but- fifty miles Irom the Ciroletiirce. Did I get a copper-rivetted hunch? D.bl I stuldlo my boss and quick -start out U> iliter vicAv this mo-dcni-thinkin’ gent? Did 1? Fon, you gamble your last case that I did, and that it -wasn’t much after noon the next day when 1 was interviewin’ him some serious.

“But AV'hcn 1 tell him-what 1 want lie goes plum crazy. Use his old flyin’-machire to win a game of football! ? Not much. “But I undersfiind these eccentric gents, -and I reason with him. I ex-

plain that it ain’t merely «• game, but there is also a little matter o’ a thousand dollars involved, not to mention the honor of the Circle-three. The upshot of it all was that he listens to

my' persuasion, and I clamp- with him the next two nights. It ain’t over and above necessary, I hope, to re-

mark that J don’t get no alocp those two nights, either, for it's necessary to keep the drop right on this -gent all the time.

He was persuaded to my way of thinkin’ all right, but he wasn’t con viiiced a. whole lot. “And back at tiro Circle-three,

where they hud done me the injustice to think that -I had been afraid to face defeat—where they had been oussin’ meisome sulphurioius —maybe they don’t give me the gladsome hand vilien 'I alight from the airship eaily Saturday mornin’ 1 And when the beauties of the whole scheme is laid before their enraptured vision, mnybe you think I coulkln’t have got jagged without spendin’ any money! What? ‘•We managed to hide the airship until just before the game. Then we •unanimously chose the professor as half-back, while J, as full-back, sat closely beside him in the little basket that swung from his airship.. And when wo. sailed on t’o the grounds those sheepmen from the X-bar nigh drop .down dead. “But we don’t delay the game. With the paralyse?, crowd looking on. tlie professor .and me just sweep down the field. Spike Manners, would toss I me the ball, the professor would 1 start the engine, -and bing-o! down the field we’d go ! And the scientific gent get so excited over the way his contraption- acted that he got o\ti his grouch, .and ployed great. He was the swellost interference that ever

! -‘And' 'where was X-bar’s helpless automobile ? A-d'.ingin’ tlu> ground, tihable, as the .prof said, to soar-'-the blue empyiial. Oh, it was groat! On ~ hundred anu ton touch-downs wo made before avc notice that the N-bar team was quitting the field. Then we slowed down, gave, tlhcni a farewell avliool of defiance, and the prof and I started back to liis Avorkshop. That was some football, wasn’t it? Makes your college playin’, ilook sick, doesn't it?”

** 11 is somewhat different,’ ’ I agreed •‘By tho .way, Avlrat did your team do with tlio money you won?” “That’s wluit made me disgusted a minute ago,” bo returned, “roadin. lioAv Hale lost her best player because of low studies. Technicalities Mm the life outa sport. .. AVhy, when 1 gob hack to the .'ranch-house tho -fellers was lost in gloom. Seems as how the refcrco give the game to tho X-Put.s. Said that airships was barred.” “But I thought the -agreement was that nothing was to be barred?” I exclaimed.

“Yes,’ 1 said Jim, “tho referee took ed at that side of it, but .when he consulted the regular rule-book, and found that all it talked about Avas ground rules, be- decided that the makers of the game, if they had ever intended Ilyin’-machines to lie used, wouldn’t never have been so blamed particular about callin’ them ground rules. Anyway., we won square, even if wo didn’ t collect tho bet.”