Ten minutes later the small building on the edge of the field was thronged with joyous, excited boys in various stages of undress, who celebrated the victory with shrill jubilations, snatches of song, or exuberant outbursts of mere noise. The strain and tension of the afternoon were forgotten; nobody remembered the nearness of defeat in the recollection of that last splendid rally which had brought them all so much closer together.
On every hand fellows were comparing notes and talking over details of the struggle in eager fragments. "Remember the time--" "Say, how about that gain through center when Ted--" "Some run, wasn't it?"
"Oh, you Tommy!" shrilled Court Parker, catching Dale's eye. "Awful punk run that was--simply awful!"
Tompkins smiled back at him, but did not speak. He was luxuriating in the restful peace which comes after strenuous physical action and the consciousness of successful accomplishment. A feeling of intense pride in the troop filled him. "They're a corking lot of fellows--corking!" he said more than once under his breath as he looked around the room with shining eyes. "How they did get after that bunch in the last quarter! I--I wouldn't belong to any other troop for--for anything!"
Now and then, to be sure, his eyes strayed to the farther end of the room, where Ranny Phelps was having his swollen ankle bandaged by two of the most skilful exponents of first aid, and a faint touch of questioning crept into them. Since that breathless moment on the field when Ranny's efforts had left the way free for Dale, he had not spoken to the tenderfoot nor by so much as a glance recognized his existence. Dale wondered whether his mind was merely taken up with his injury, or whether the change that had come over him in the heat of the game had been only a temporary thawing.
As the days passed, the latter suspicion became a certainty. At their very first meeting, in fact, the tenderfoot found Ranny as aloof as ever. To be sure, Dale noticed that he no longer seemed to try to impress his attitude on the others in his patrol. Apparently without rebuke, stout Harry Vedder became quite friendly, and even Rex Slater and one or two others in the clique treated him with a good deal more consideration than they had before the game. But the leader himself made no effort to disguise his coolness toward the new-comer, and Dale presently found it hard to believe that the helping hand, the friendly voice, the touch of that muscular shoulder as they fought side by side on the field in the furious struggle against odds had been real.