"Safety first!" shrieked that cheery collegian, stowing his banjo in the closet and making a strenuous but futile effort to dive head-first beneath the bed, being forcibly restrained by Beef, who clung to his left ankle.

"Say, to what am I indebted for the honor of this call? Why, when I got back to Bannister, you fellows gushed, 'Oh, we're so glad you're back, Hicks, old top; we missed even your saengerfests,' and when I start one--"

"Hicks," p.r.o.nounced Butch Brewster grimly, holding the genial offender by the scruff of the neck, "you tantalizing, aggravating, irritating, lunatical, conscienceless degenerate! You a.s.sa.s.sin of Father Time, you disturber of the peace, heed! Scoop Sawyer is writing to Jack Merritt, to tell about the football team, and Bannister's chances of the Championship; he wants to tell Jack all about this Thor! Now, you have acted like Herman-Kellar-Thurston long enough, and hear our final word. Read Scoop's letter, and if when you finish its perusal you fail to give us full information, and answer all questions about Thor--"

"The football team will toss you in a blanket until you do!" finished Monty Merriweather, "We intended to wait until after the scrimmage, but Butch evidently believes we should end your bothersome mystery as once, and--"

"'Curiosity killed the cat!'" grinned T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.; then seeing the avenues and boulevards of escape were closed, but fighting for time, "let me peruse said missive indited by our literarily overbalanced Scoop. I am reluctant to dispel the clouds of mystery, but--"

Scoop Sawyer thrust the typewritten pages of the letter--composed on the battered old typewriter in the editorial sanctum of the Bannister Weekly--into Hicks' grasp and with a grin, that blithesome youth read:

Bannister College, Sept, 27.

DEAR OLD JACK:

There is so much to tell you, old pal, that I scarcely know where to start, but you want to know about the football eleven, so I'll write about T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., and his 'Billion-Dollar Mystery,' as he calls it; about Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy. You well know what a scatter-brained wretch Hicks is, and how he dearly loves to plot dramatic climaxes--to mystify old Bannister. Just now Hicks has the campus as wrathful as it is possible to be with that lovable youth; he has originated a great mystery, and achieved a seemingly impossible feat, and instead of explaining it, he swaggers around like a Hindoo mystic enshrouded in mystery and the fellows are wild enough to tar and feather the incorrigible villain!

To get off to a sprint-start, up in Camp Bannister, before college opened, when the squad was in training camp, Butch Brewster says that Coach Corridan one day, before Hicks, expressed a fervid ambition to find a huge, irresistible fullback--

Here the chronicle must hang fire, while T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., grinning at the wrath his mysterious behavior aroused, peruses those sections of Scoop Sawyer's epistle telling of two scenes already described; first, the one in the Camp Bannister grub-shack, where Head Coach Corridan blue-printed the Gargantuan athlete he desired, and the blithesome Hicks confidently requested that the Herculean task be left to him; second, the scene of intense excitement on the campus the night that the missing Hicks returned personally conducting that mountain of muscle, the blond-haired Thor.

Having grinned at these descriptions, the pestiferous Hicks scanned a picturesque description by Scoop of the events that transpired between that memorable night and the present invasion of the sunny Senior's room by the indignant squad.

--Naturally, Jack, old Bannister was intensely curious to know who this "Thor" could be, and how Hicks unearthed such a giant. But, instead of swaggering a trifle, as he inevitably does, and saying, 'Oh, I told you just to leave it to Hicks!' then telling all about it, after accomplishing what everyone believed a ridiculously impossible quest, he maintains that provokingly mysterious silence, and John Thorwald (we know his name, anyway) stolidly refers us to Hicks. So where Thor originated or how under the sun Hicks got on his trail, after making his rash vow to corral a mighty fullback, is a deep, dark mystery.

Now for Thor himself. Words cannot describe that Prodigious Prodigy; he must be seen to be believed! We do know that he is John Thorwald, and of distinctly Norwegian descent, so that calling him after the mythic Norse G.o.d is extremely appropriate. And he is reminiscent of the great Thor, with his vast strength and prowess. Thanks to T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, love of mystery, and of tantalizing old Bannister, we know nothing of Thorwald's past, but we are sure he has lived and toiled among men, to possess that powerful build. I can't describe him, old man, without resorting to exaggeration, for ordinary words and phrases are utterly inadequate with Thor! Conjure up a vision of Gulliver among the Lilliputians and you can picture him towering over us. He is a Viking of old, with his fair features and blond hair. Probably twenty-five years old, he has a powerful frame and prodigious strength, he dwarfs such behemoths as Butch and Beef, and makes such insignificant mortals as little Theophilus and myself seem like insects!

Thor is so big, Jack, that when he gets in a room, he crowds everyone into the corridor, and fills it alone. No wonder Hicks telegraphed to knock out the part.i.tions between five rooms to make s.p.a.ce for Thor! When he stands on the campus he blots out several sections of scenery, and the college disappears, giving the impression he has swallowed it. Thor is a slow-minded being, but possessed of a grim determination. To get an idea into his mind requires a blackboard and Chautauqua lecturer, but once he masters it, he never lets go; so it will be with football signals, once let him grasp a play, he will never be confused. He is simply a huge, stolid giant. He has a bulldog purpose to get an education, and nothing else matters. As for college spirit, the glad comradeship of the campus, he has no time for it; he pays no attention to the fellows at all, only to Hicks.

His devotion to that wretch is pathetic! He follows Hicks around like a huge mastiff after a terrier, or an ocean leviathan towed by a tug-boat; he seems absolutely helpless without T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., and so we have a daily Hicks' personally conducted tour of Thor to interest us. Briefly, Jack, John Thorwald is a slow-moving, slow-minded, grimly bulldog giant, who has come to Bannister to study, and as for any other phase of campus existence, he has never awakened to it!

Now for the football story: Well, the day after Hicks' sensational arrival, which I described, Coach Corridan, Captain Butch Brewster, Beef, Buster, Pudge, Monty, and Roddy with yours truly, went to Thor's room in Creighton just before football practice. We found that Colossus, who had matriculated as a Freshman, aided by Hicks, patiently masticating mental food as served by Ovid. Coach Corridan said, 'Come on, Thorwald, over to the Gym.; we'll fix you out with togs, if we can get two suits big enough to make one for your bulk! Ever play the game?' 'I play some,' rumbled Thor stolidly, never raising his eyes from his Latin. 'Don't bother me, I want to study. I have not time for such foolishness. I am here to study, to get an education!' 'But,' urged the coach earnestly, 'you must play football for your Alma Mater, for old Bannister. Why, you--you must, that's all!' Thor gazed at Hicks questioningly--I forgot to add that insect's name--and asked, 'Is it so, Hicks? I got to play for the college?' And when Hicks grinned, 'Sure, Thor, it must be did. Bannister expects you to smear the other teams over the landscape,' that blond Norwegian Viking said, 'Well, then, I play.'

All Bannister turned out to behold the "Prodigious Prodigy" on the football field. Somewhere--Hicks won't divulge where--Thor has learned the rudiments of the game. With that bulldog tenacity of his, he has learned them well.

Hence he was ready for the scrubs, and in the practice game it was a veritable slaughter of the innocents. The 'Varsity could not stop Thor.

Remember 'Ole' Skja.r.s.en, the big Swede of George Fitch's 'Siwash College'

tales? Thor, after the ten minutes required to teach him a play, would take the ball and just wade through the regulars for big gains. The only way to stop him was for the entire eleven to cling affectionately to his bulk, and then he transported them several yards. He is a phenom, a veritable Prodigious Prodigy, and maybe old Bannister isn't wild with enthusiasm.

His development will be slow but sure, and by the time the big games for the championship come, he will be a whole team in himself. Right now he goes through daily scrimmage as solemnly as if performing a sacred rite. He doesn't thrill with college spirit, but as for football--

Leaving Hicks to read the rest of Scoop Sawyer's long missive, terminating with indignant condemnation of the sunny youth's love of mystery, the terrific enthusiasm roused at old Bannister by the daily appearance on Bannister Field of Thor, and his irresistible marches through the 'Varsity, must be chronicled and explained.

Not for five seasons, not since the year before Hicks, Pudge, Butch, Beef and the others of 1919 were Freshmen, had the Gold and Green corraled that greatest glory, The State Intercollegiate Football Championship! In Captain Butch's Soph.o.m.ore year, he had flung his bulk into the fray, training, sacrificing, fighting like a Trojan, only to see the pennant lost by a scant three inches, as Jack Merritt's forty-yard drop-kick for the goal that would have won the Championship struck the cross-bar and bounded back into the field. And the past season-old Bannister could still vision that tragic scene of the biggest game.

The students could picture Captain Brewster, with the Bannister eleven a few yards from Ballard's goal-line, and the touchdown that would give the Gold and Green that supreme glory. One minute to play; Deacon Radford had given Butch the pigskin, and like a berserker, he fought entirely through the scrimmage. But a kick on the head had blinded him, in the melee--free of tacklers, with the goal-line, victory, and the Championship so near, he staggered, reeled blindly, crashed into an upright, and toppled backward, senseless on the field, while the Referee's whistle announced the end of the game, and glory to Ballard. Even then, after the first terrible shock of the loss, of the cruel blow fate dealt the Gold and Green two successive seasons, the slogan was: "Next year--Bannister will win the Championship--next year!"

It was now "next year!" Losing only Jack Merritt, Babe McCabe and Heavy Hughes from the line-up, and having Monty Merrlweather and Bunch Bingham, fully as good, Coach Corridan's Gold and Green eleven, before the season started, seemed a better fighting machine than even the one of the year before. But when the irrepressible T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., in some mysterious fashion making good his rash vow to produce a smashing full-back that can't be stopped, towed that stolid, blond Colossus, Thor, to old Bannister, enthusiasm broke all limits!

Ma.s.s-meetings were held every night. Speeches by Coaches, Captain, players, Faculty, and students, aroused the campus to the highest pitch; every day, the entire student-body, with The Bannister Band, turned out on Bannister Field to cheer the eleven, and to watch the Prodigious Prodigy perform valorous deeds, like the G.o.d Thor. "Bannister College--State Championship!"

was the cry, and with the giant Thor to present an irresistible catapulting that could not be stopped, the Gold and Green exultantly awaited the big games with Hamilton and Ballard.

And yet, the stolid, unemotional, unawakened Thor, on whom every hope of the Championship was based, whom all Bannister came out to watch every day, practiced as he studied, doggedly, silently. It was evident to all that he hated the grind, that he wanted to quit, that his heart was not in the game, but for some cause, he drove his Herculean body ahead, and could not be stopped!

"Now, you abandoned wretch," said Butch Brewster grimly, as the happy-go-lucky Hicks finished Scoop's letter, and glanced about him wildly seeking a way of escape, "in one minute you will tell us all about John Thorwald, alias 'Thor,' or be tossed sky-high in a blanket by the football squad, and please believe me, you'll break all alt.i.tude records!"

"Spare me, you banditti!" pleaded Hicks, reluctant to cease torturing Bannister with his Billion-Dollar Mystery, yet equally unwilling to aviate from a blanket heaved by the husky athletes. "Why seek ye to question the ways of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.? You have your Prodigious Prodigy--your smashing full-back is distributing the 'Varsity over the scenery with charming nonchalance that promises dire catastrophe for other teams, once he makes the regulars, so--"

At that dramatic moment, just as Butch Brewster glanced at Hicks'

alarm-clock, to start the minute of grace, a startling interruption saved the gladsome youth from having to make a decision. A heavy, creaking tread shook the corridor, and the squad beheld, looming up in the doorway, Thor.

He was not in football togs, and as he started to speak his fair face as stolid and expressionless as that of a sphinx, Captain Butch Brewster stepped toward him.

"Thor!" he exclaimed, seizing the blond Colossus by the arm, "You aren't ready for the scrimmage; hustle over to the Gym. and get on your suit."

But John Thorwald, as pa.s.sive of feature as though he announced something of the most infinitesimal importance, and were not hurling a bomb-sh.e.l.l whose explosion, was to shake old Bannister terrifically, spoke in a matter-of-fact manner: "I shall not play football--any more,"

"What!" Every collegian in Hicks' room, including that dazed producer of the Prodigious Prodigy, chorused the exclamation; to them it was as stunning a shock as the nation would suffer if its President calmly announced, "I'm tired of being President of the United States. I shall not report for work tomorrow." Bannister College, ever since the night that Thor arrived on the campus, had talked or thought of nothing but how this huge, blond-haired Hercules would bring the Championship to the Gold and Green; his prodigies on the gridiron, his ever-increasing prowess, had aroused enthusiasm to fever heat, and now--

"I was told wrong," said Thor, shifting his vast tonnage awkwardly from one foot to the other, and evidently bewildered at the consternation caused by what he believed a trifling announcement, "I understood that I had to play football, that the Faculty required it of me, and the students let me think so. I have just learned from Doctor Alford that such is not true, that I do not have to play unless I choose, hence, I quit. I came to college to study, to gain an education. I have toiled long and hard for the opportunity, and now I have it, I shall not waste my time on such foolishness."

Then, utterly unconscious that he had spoken sentences which would create a mighty sensation at old Bannister, that might doom the Gold and Green to defeat, lose his Alma Mater the Championship, and bring on himself the cruel ostracism and bitter censure of his fellows, John Thorwald lumbered down the corridor. A moment of tense silence followed and then Captain Butch Brewster groaned.

"It's all over, it's all over, fellows!" he said brokenly, "Bannister loses the Championship! We know it is impossible to move Thor on the football field, and now that he has said 'No!' to playing football, dynamite can not move him from his decision."

Then, crushed and disconsolate, the football squad filed silently from the room, to break the glad news to Coach Corridan, and to spread the joyous tidings to old Bannister. When they had gone, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., staring at the figurative black cloud that lowered over his Alma Mater, strove to find its silver lining, and at last he partially succeeded.

"Anyway," said Hicks, with a lugubrious effort to grin, "Thor's announcement shocked the squad so much that I was not forced to explain my Billion-Dollar Mystery!"

CHAPTER V

HICKS MAKES A DECISION

"In the famous words of Mr. Somebody-Or-Other," quoth T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., "something has got to be did, and immediately to once!"

Big Butch Brewster nodded a.s.sent. So did Head Coach Patrick Henry Corridan, Beef McNaughton, Team Manager Socks Fitzpatrick, Monty Merriweather, Dad Pendleton, President of the Athletic a.s.sociation, and Deacon Radford, quarter-back, also Shad Fishpaw, who, being Freshman Cla.s.s-Chairman, maintained a discreet silence. Instead of the usual sky-larking, care-free crowd that infested the cozy quarters of the happy-go-lucky Hicks, every collegian present, except the ever-cheerful youth, seemed to have lost his best friend and his last dollar at one fell swoop!

"Oh, yes, something has got to be did!" fleered Beef McNaughton, the davenport creaking under the combined tonnage of himself and Butch Brewster, "But who will do it? Where's all that Oh-just-leave-it-to-Hicks stuff you have pulled for the past three years, you pestiferous insect?

Bah! You did a lot; you dragged a Prodigious Prodigy to old Bannister, enshrouded him in darkest mystery, and now, when he pushed the 'Varsity off the field and promised to corral the Championship, single-handed, he puts his foot down, and says, 'No--I will not play football!' Get busy, Little Mr. Fix-It."

"Oh, just leave it to Hicks!" accommodated that blithesome Senior, with a cheeriness he was far from feeling. "You all do know why Thor won't play football; it is not like last season, when Deke Radford, a star quarter-back, refused either to play, or to explain his refusal. Let me get an inspiration, and then Thor will once again gently but firmly thrust entire football elevens down the field before him!"

As evidence of how intensely serious was the situation, let it be chronicled that, for the first time in his scatter-brained campus career, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., did not dare strum his banjo and roar out ballads to torture his long-suffering colleagues. Popular and beloved as he was, the gladsome youth hesitated to shatter the quietude of the campus with his saengerfest, knowing as he did what a terrible blow Thor's utterly astounding announcement had been to the college.