got to know him. He’s – he’s rather a decent sort, after all. I didn’t take to him at first, of course, but – and I don’t say now that he’s the sort of chap you’d want to ask home and introduce to your people; he’s kind of free and easy, and you couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t drink the catsup out of the bottle or slap your governor on the back – but he’s – well, there’s something about him you can’t help liking,” he ended, with an apologetic tone.
“Maybe I would,” answered Allan, pleasantly. Hal looked surprised.
“He’s given up the class secretaryship, you know,” he announced.
“Why?”
“I don’t know for sure, but Poor says he told him it was because he didn’t think he’d be here much after the holidays.”
“Where’s he going?” asked Allan.
“Don’t know. Funny idea, to come to college for half a year. Maybe – ”
There were footsteps on the porch, the front portal opened with a crash, and an imperative knock sounded on the room door. Allan jumped to his feet. Could it be fire? he wondered, shooting a bewildered glance at Hal. He hurried to the door just as the hammering began again, more violently than before. Hal raised himself uneasily from the Morris chair, prepared for the worst. Allan called, “Come in!” and the door was flung open.
Entered Tommy Sweet!
“You thundering idiot!” bawled Hal. “I thought it was at least the Dean! You can make more – Hello, Burley! Glad to see you.”
“This is Mr. Burley, Allan,” Tommy was saying. “Brought him around ’cause I wanted you to know each other. Mr. Ware – Mr. Burley.”
Allan felt his hand enveloped in something large and warm and vise-like. He felt his fingers crushed together, thought he could hear the bones breaking – and still managed to smile painfully, but politely, the while. Then Burley had dropped his hand and was saying:
“I’ve wanted to know you ever since I saw you win that running race the other day. Came around here and left a card on you, but I guess you didn’t find it.”
Allan murmured his appreciation, but remained silent as to the “card.”
“I told Sweet here that you’d win that race. Offered to bet him anything he liked. He wouldn’t bet, though.” Peter Burley took the chair proffered by Hal and carefully lowered himself into it.
“They told me you carried me over to the tent,” said Allan. “Much obliged, I’m sure.”
“Welcome,” answered the other, heartily. “You didn’t weigh anything to mention.”
“Not as heavy as the freshman team, eh?” asked Tommy. Burley looked apologetically around the circle.
“I suppose every one’s heard of that fool thing?” he asked.
“Just about every one, I guess,” laughed Tommy.
“That comes of trying to do something you don’t know how to do. This fellow Smiths here came around to my shack the other day and said the class wanted me to play football because I weigh some. Well, ginger! I didn’t know anything about the thing, and I told him so. But he would have it that I must play. And look what happens! I make a measly show of myself right out there on the range in front of the whole outfit!”
“No harm done,” said Hal. “You did what you tried to.”
“No, I didn’t. There was a little cuss there in a Derby hat wouldn’t let me. I was going to take that half-backed fellow down to the other end and throw him over the line. That’s what I was going to do. They didn’t tell me I had to slap him on the chest and butt him with my head.”
“But, you see,” explained Allan, “he called ‘Down’ just when you began to lug him off.”
“That’s what they said. I was supposed to let go of him when he said that, but I just thought he was throwing up the sponge and wanted me to let him down. If I’d known he could have spoiled it by yelling ‘Down,’ I’d have held his mouth shut.”
This summoned laughter, and Burley glanced around at the others in wide surprise. Allan felt surprise, too. Was Burley really quite so unsophisticated as he seemed, he wondered, or – His glance met Burley’s. The big fellow’s right eyelid dropped slowly in a portentous wink. Allan smiled. His question was answered. While the others entered into an explanation and discussion of the rules and ethics of football, Allan studied the Westerner.
Peter Burley looked to be, and was, twenty years of age. In form he was remarkably large; he was an inch over six feet tall, and weighed 203 pounds. Nowhere about him was there evidence of unnecessary fat, but he was deep of chest and wide of shoulder and hips. His hands and feet were large, and the latter were encased in enormously heavy shoes.
When it came to features, Burley was undeniably good-looking in a certain breezy, unconventional way. (Allan soon found that Burley’s breeziness and absence of convention were not confined to his looks.) Burley’s hair was brown, of no particular shade, and his eyes matched his hair. His nose was big and straight and his mouth well shaped. His cheeks were deeply tanned, but showed little color beneath. His usual expression was one of careless, whimsical good nature, but there was an earnest and kindly gleam in the brown eyes that lent character to the face. He talked with a drawl, and pronounced many words in a way quite novel to Allan. But – and this Allan discovered later – when occasion required, he was capable of delivering his remarks in a sharp, incisive way that made the words sound like rifle-shots. At the present moment he was talking with almost exaggerated deliberateness.
“Sweet says you and he went to a preparatory school together,” he said, turning to Allan. “I wish my old man had sent me to one of those things. What was your school like?”
Allan told him of Hillton, and Tommy and Hal chimed in from time to time and helped him along. It was a large subject and one they liked, and half an hour passed before they had finished. Burley listened with evident interest, and only interrupted occasionally to ask a question.
“How’d you happen to come to Erskine?” asked Tommy, when the subject had been exhausted. Burley took one big knee into his hands and considered the question for a moment in silence.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said at last. “You see, I had a go at the university over in Boulder; that’s near Denver,” he explained, parenthetically. “But we didn’t get on very well together, the faculty and me, and I was always turning up at the ranch. Well, the old man got tired of seeing me around so much; said he’d paid for my keep at the university, and I’d ought to stay there and get even with the game. But, ginger! the corral wasn’t big enough. Every time I’d try to be good, something would come along and happen, and – first thing I knew, I’d be roaming at large again. So the old man said he guessed what I needed was to get far enough away from home so I wouldn’t back-trail so often; said there wasn’t much doing when I went to college Monday morning and showed up for feed Thursday night. First he tried taking my railroad pass away; but when I couldn’t scare up the money, I rode home on a freight. I got to know the train crews on the D. & R. G. pretty well long toward spring. When vacation came, we all agreed to call it off – the faculty and the old man and me. So I went up to Rico and fooled around a mine there all summer. When – ”
“What was the name of the mine?” asked Allan, eagerly.
“This
