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Data Analysis and Graphics Using R An Example based
Approach 1st Edition John Maindonald Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): John Maindonald, John Braun
ISBN(s): 9780521813365, 0521813360
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 Data Analysis and Graphics Using R, Third Edition

Discover what you can do with R! Introducing the R system, covering standard regression
methods, then tackling more advanced topics, this book guides users through the practical,
powerful tools that the R system provides. The emphasis is on hands-on analysis, graphical
display, and interpretation of data. The many worked examples, from real-world research,
are accompanied by commentary on what is done and why. The companion website has code
and data sets, allowing readers to reproduce all analyses, along with solutions to selected
exercises and updates. Assuming basic statistical knowledge and some experience with
data analysis (but not R), the book is ideal for research scientists, final-year undergraduate
or graduate-level students of applied statistics, and practicing statisticians. It is both for
learning and for reference.
This third edition takes into account recent changes in R, including advances in graph-
ical user interfaces (GUIs) and graphics packages. The treatments of the random forests
methodology and one-way analysis have been extended. Both text and code have been
revised throughout, and where possible simplified. New graphs and examples have been
added.

john maindonald is Visiting Fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Institute at the

Australian National University. He has collaborated extensively with scientists in a wide
range of application areas, from medicine and public health to population genetics, machine
learning, economic history, and forensic linguistics.
w. john braun is Professor in the Department of Statistical and Actuarial Sciences
at the University of Western Ontario. He has collaborated with biostatisticians, biolo-
gists, psychologists, and most recently has become involved with a network of forestry
researchers.
 Data Analysis and Graphics
Using R – an Example-Based Approach
Third Edition
 CAMBRIDGE SERIES IN STATISTICAL AND PROBABILISTIC
MATHEMATICS

Editorial Board

Z. Ghahramani (Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge)

R. Gill (Mathematical Institute, Leiden University)
F. P. Kelly (Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics,
University of Cambridge)
B. D. Ripley (Department of Statistics, University of Oxford)
S. Ross (Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering,
University of Southern California)
B. W. Silverman (St Peter’s College, Oxford)
M. Stein (Department of Statistics, University of Chicago)

This series of high quality upper-division textbooks and expository monographs covers
all aspects of stochastic applicable mathematics. The topics range from pure and applied
statistics to probability theory, operations research, optimization, and mathematical pro-
gramming. The books contain clear presentations of new developments in the field and
also of the state of the art in classical methods. While emphasizing rigorous treatment of
theoretical methods, the books also contain applications and discussions of new techniques
made possible by advances in computational practice.
A complete list of books in the series can be found at
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/series/sSeries.asp?code=CSPM
Recent titles include the following:
7. Numerical Methods of Statistics, by John F. Monahan
8. A User’s Guide to Measure Theoretic Probability, by David Pollard
9. The Estimation and Tracking of Frequency, by B. G. Quinn and E. J. Hannan
10. Data Analysis and Graphics Using R, by John Maindonald and John Braun
11. Statistical Models, by A. C. Davison
12. Semiparametric Regression, by David Ruppert, M. P. Wand and R. J. Carroll
13. Exercises in Probability, by Loı̈c Chaumont and Marc Yor
14. Statistical Analysis of Stochastic Processes in Time, by J. K. Lindsey
15. Measure Theory and Filtering, by Lakhdar Aggoun and Robert Elliott
16. Essentials of Statistical Inference, by G. A. Young and R. L. Smith
17. Elements of Distribution Theory, by Thomas A. Severini
18. Statistical Mechanics of Disordered Systems, by Anton Bovier
19. The Coordinate-Free Approach to Linear Models, by Michael J. Wichura
20. Random Graph Dynamics, by Rick Durrett
21. Networks, by Peter Whittle
22. Saddlepoint Approximations with Applications, by Ronald W. Butler
23. Applied Asymptotics, by A. R. Brazzale, A. C. Davison and N. Reid
24. Random Networks for Communication, by Massimo Franceschetti and
Ronald Meester
25. Design of Comparative Experiments, by R. A. Bailey
26. Symmetry Studies, by Marlos A. G. Viana
27. Model Selection and Model Averaging, by Gerda Claeskens and Nils Lid Hjort
28. Bayesian Nonparametrics, edited by Nils Lid Hjort et al
29. From Finite Sample to Asymptotic Methods in Statistics, by Pranab K. Sen,
Julio M. Singer and Antonio C. Pedrosa de Lima
30. Brownian Motion, by Peter Mörters and Yuval Peres
 Data Analysis and Graphics
Using R – an Example-Based Approach
Third Edition

John Maindonald
Mathematical Sciences Institute, Australian National University
and
W. John Braun
Department of Statistical and Actuarial Sciences, University of Western Ontario
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521762939
© Cambridge University Press 2003
Second and third editions © John Maindonald and W. John Braun 2007, 2010

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the

provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2010

ISBN-13 978-0-511-71286-9 eBook (NetLibrary)

ISBN-13 978-0-521-76293-9 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
 For Edward, Amelia and Luke
also Shireen, Peter, Lorraine, Evan and Winifred

For Susan, Matthew and Phillip

 Contents

Preface page xix

Content – how the chapters fit together xxv

1 A brief introduction to R 1
1.1 An overview of R 1
1.1.1 A short R session 1
1.1.2 The uses of R 6
1.1.3 Online help 7
1.1.4 Input of data from a file 8
1.1.5 R packages 9
1.1.6 Further steps in learning R 9
1.2 Vectors, factors, and univariate time series 10
1.2.1 Vectors 10
1.2.2 Concatenation – joining vector objects 10
1.2.3 The use of relational operators to compare vector elements 11
1.2.4 The use of square brackets to extract subsets of vectors 11
1.2.5 Patterned data 11
1.2.6 Missing values 12
1.2.7 Factors 13
1.2.8 Time series 14
1.3 Data frames and matrices 14
1.3.1 Accessing the columns of data frames – with() and
attach() 17
1.3.2 Aggregation, stacking, and unstacking 17
1.3.3∗ Data frames and matrices 18
1.4 Functions, operators, and loops 19
1.4.1 Common useful built-in functions 19
1.4.2 Generic functions, and the class of an object 21
1.4.3 User-written functions 22
1.4.4 if Statements 23
1.4.5 Selection and matching 23
1.4.6 Functions for working with missing values 24
1.4.7∗ Looping 24
x Contents

1.5 Graphics in R 25
1.5.1 The function plot( ) and allied functions 25
1.5.2 The use of color 27
1.5.3 The importance of aspect ratio 28
1.5.4 Dimensions and other settings for graphics devices 28
1.5.5 The plotting of expressions and mathematical symbols 29
1.5.6 Identification and location on the figure region 29
1.5.7 Plot methods for objects other than vectors 30
1.5.8 Lattice (trellis) graphics 30
1.5.9 Good and bad graphs 32
1.5.10 Further information on graphics 33
1.6 Additional points on the use of R 33
1.7 Recap 35
1.8 Further reading 36
1.9 Exercises 37

2 Styles of data analysis 43

2.1 Revealing views of the data 43
2.1.1 Views of a single sample 44
2.1.2 Patterns in univariate time series 47
2.1.3 Patterns in bivariate data 49
2.1.4 Patterns in grouped data – lengths of cuckoo eggs 52
2.1.5∗ Multiple variables and times 53
2.1.6 Scatterplots, broken down by multiple factors 56
2.1.7 What to look for in plots 58
2.2 Data summary 59
2.2.1 Counts 59
2.2.2 Summaries of information from data frames 63
2.2.3 Standard deviation and inter-quartile range 65
2.2.4 Correlation 67
2.3 Statistical analysis questions, aims, and strategies 69
2.3.1 How relevant and how reliable are the data? 70
2.3.2 How will results be used? 70
2.3.3 Formal and informal assessments 71
2.3.4 Statistical analysis strategies 72
2.3.5 Planning the formal analysis 72
2.3.6 Changes to the intended plan of analysis 73
2.4 Recap 73
2.5 Further reading 74
2.6 Exercises 74

3 Statistical models 77
3.1 Statistical models 77
3.1.1 Incorporation of an error or noise component 78
3.1.2 Fitting models – the model formula 80
 Contents xi

3.2 Distributions: models for the random component 81

3.2.1 Discrete distributions – models for counts 82
3.2.2 Continuous distributions 84
3.3 Simulation of random numbers and random samples 86
3.3.1 Sampling from the normal and other continuous distributions 87
3.3.2 Simulation of regression data 88
3.3.3 Simulation of the sampling distribution of the mean 88
3.3.4 Sampling from finite populations 90
3.4 Model assumptions 91
3.4.1 Random sampling assumptions – independence 91
3.4.2 Checks for normality 92
3.4.3 Checking other model assumptions 95
3.4.4 Are non-parametric methods the answer? 95
3.4.5 Why models matter – adding across contingency tables 96
3.5 Recap 97
3.6 Further reading 98
3.7 Exercises 98

4 A review of inference concepts 102

4.1 Basic concepts of estimation 102
4.1.1 Population parameters and sample statistics 102
4.1.2 Sampling distributions 102
4.1.3 Assessing accuracy – the standard error 103
4.1.4 The standard error for the difference of means 103
4.1.5∗ The standard error of the median 104
4.1.6 The sampling distribution of the t-statistic 105
4.2 Confidence intervals and tests of hypotheses 106
4.2.1 A summary of one- and two-sample calculations 109
4.2.2 Confidence intervals and tests for proportions 112
4.2.3 Confidence intervals for the correlation 113
4.2.4 Confidence intervals versus hypothesis tests 113
4.3 Contingency tables 114
4.3.1 Rare and endangered plant species 116
4.3.2 Additional notes 119
4.4 One-way unstructured comparisons 119
4.4.1 Multiple comparisons 122
4.4.2 Data with a two-way structure, i.e., two factors 123
4.4.3 Presentation issues 124
4.5 Response curves 125
4.6 Data with a nested variation structure 126
4.6.1 Degrees of freedom considerations 127
4.6.2 General multi-way analysis of variance designs 127
4.7 Resampling methods for standard errors, tests, and confidence intervals 128
4.7.1 The one-sample permutation test 128
4.7.2 The two-sample permutation test 129
xii Contents

4.7.3∗ Estimating the standard error of the median: bootstrapping 130

4.7.4 Bootstrap estimates of confidence intervals 131
4.8∗ Theories of inference 132
4.8.1 Maximum likelihood estimation 133
4.8.2 Bayesian estimation 133
4.8.3 If there is strong prior information, use it! 135
4.9 Recap 135
4.10 Further reading 136
4.11 Exercises 137

5 Regression with a single predictor 142

5.1 Fitting a line to data 142
5.1.1 Summary information – lawn roller example 143
5.1.2 Residual plots 143
5.1.3 Iron slag example: is there a pattern in the residuals? 145
5.1.4 The analysis of variance table 147
5.2 Outliers, influence, and robust regression 147
5.3 Standard errors and confidence intervals 149
5.3.1 Confidence intervals and tests for the slope 150
5.3.2 SEs and confidence intervals for predicted values 150
5.3.3∗ Implications for design 151
5.4 Assessing predictive accuracy 152
5.4.1 Training/test sets and cross-validation 153
5.4.2 Cross-validation – an example 153
5.4.3∗ Bootstrapping 155
5.5 Regression versus qualitative anova comparisons – issues of power 158
5.6 Logarithmic and other transformations 160
5.6.1∗ A note on power transformations 160
5.6.2 Size and shape data – allometric growth 161
5.7 There are two regression lines! 162
5.8 The model matrix in regression 163
5.9∗ Bayesian regression estimation using the MCMCpack package 165
5.10 Recap 166
5.11 Methodological references 167
5.12 Exercises 167

6 Multiple linear regression 170

6.1 Basic ideas: a book weight example 170
6.1.1 Omission of the intercept term 172
6.1.2 Diagnostic plots 173
6.2 The interpretation of model coefficients 174
6.2.1 Times for Northern Irish hill races 174
6.2.2 Plots that show the contribution of individual terms 177
6.2.3 Mouse brain weight example 179
6.2.4 Book dimensions, density, and book weight 181
 Contents xiii

6.3 Multiple regression assumptions, diagnostics, and efficacy measures 183

6.3.1 Outliers, leverage, influence, and Cook’s distance 183
6.3.2 Assessment and comparison of regression models 186
6.3.3 How accurately does the equation predict? 187
6.4 A strategy for fitting multiple regression models 189
6.4.1 Suggested steps 190
6.4.2 Diagnostic checks 191
6.4.3 An example – Scottish hill race data 191
6.5 Problems with many explanatory variables 196
6.5.1 Variable selection issues 197
6.6 Multicollinearity 199
6.6.1 The variance inflation factor 201
6.6.2 Remedies for multicollinearity 203
6.7 Errors in x 203
6.8 Multiple regression models – additional points 208
6.8.1 Confusion between explanatory and response variables 208
6.8.2 Missing explanatory variables 208
6.8.3∗ The use of transformations 210
6.8.4∗ Non-linear methods – an alternative to transformation? 210
6.9 Recap 212
6.10 Further reading 212
6.11 Exercises 214

7 Exploiting the linear model framework 217

7.1 Levels of a factor – using indicator variables 217
7.1.1 Example – sugar weight 217
7.1.2 Different choices for the model matrix when there are factors 220
7.2 Block designs and balanced incomplete block designs 222
7.2.1 Analysis of the rice data, allowing for block effects 222
7.2.2 A balanced incomplete block design 223
7.3 Fitting multiple lines 224
7.4 Polynomial regression 228
7.4.1 Issues in the choice of model 229
7.5∗ Methods for passing smooth curves through data 231
7.5.1 Scatterplot smoothing – regression splines 232
7.5.2∗ Roughness penalty methods and generalized
additive models 235
7.5.3 Distributional assumptions for automatic choice of
roughness penalty 236
7.5.4 Other smoothing methods 236
7.6 Smoothing with multiple explanatory variables 238
7.6.1 An additive model with two smooth terms 238
7.6.2∗ A smooth surface 240
7.7 Further reading 240
7.8 Exercises 240
xiv Contents

8 Generalized linear models and survival analysis 244

8.1 Generalized linear models 244
8.1.1 Transformation of the expected value on the left 244
8.1.2 Noise terms need not be normal 245
8.1.3 Log odds in contingency tables 245
8.1.4 Logistic regression with a continuous explanatory
variable 246
8.2 Logistic multiple regression 249
8.2.1 Selection of model terms, and fitting the model 252
8.2.2 Fitted values 254
8.2.3 A plot of contributions of explanatory variables 255
8.2.4 Cross-validation estimates of predictive accuracy 255
8.3 Logistic models for categorical data – an example 256
8.4 Poisson and quasi-Poisson regression 258
8.4.1 Data on aberrant crypt foci 258
8.4.2 Moth habitat example 261
8.5 Additional notes on generalized linear models 266
8.5.1∗ Residuals, and estimating the dispersion 266
8.5.2 Standard errors and z- or t-statistics for binomial models 267
8.5.3 Leverage for binomial models 268
8.6 Models with an ordered categorical or categorical response 268
8.6.1 Ordinal regression models 269
8.6.2∗ Loglinear models 272
8.7 Survival analysis 272
8.7.1 Analysis of the Aids2 data 273
8.7.2 Right-censoring prior to the termination of the study 275
8.7.3 The survival curve for male homosexuals 276
8.7.4 Hazard rates 276
8.7.5 The Cox proportional hazards model 277
8.8 Transformations for count data 279
8.9 Further reading 280
8.10 Exercises 281

9 Time series models 283

9.1 Time series – some basic ideas 283
9.1.1 Preliminary graphical explorations 283
9.1.2 The autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation function 284
9.1.3 Autoregressive models 285
9.1.4∗ Autoregressive moving average models – theory 287
9.1.5 Automatic model selection? 288
9.1.6 A time series forecast 289
9.2∗ Regression modeling with ARIMA errors 291
9.3∗ Non-linear time series 298
9.4 Further reading 300
9.5 Exercises 301
 Contents xv

10 Multi-level models and repeated measures 303

10.1 A one-way random effects model 304
10.1.1 Analysis with aov() 305
10.1.2 A more formal approach 308
10.1.3 Analysis using lmer() 310
10.2 Survey data, with clustering 313
10.2.1 Alternative models 313
10.2.2 Instructive, though faulty, analyses 318
10.2.3 Predictive accuracy 319
10.3 A multi-level experimental design 319
10.3.1 The anova table 321
10.3.2 Expected values of mean squares 322
10.3.3∗ The analysis of variance sums of squares breakdown 323
10.3.4 The variance components 325
10.3.5 The mixed model analysis 326
10.3.6 Predictive accuracy 328
10.4 Within- and between-subject effects 329
10.4.1 Model selection 329
10.4.2 Estimates of model parameters 331
10.5 A generalized linear mixed model 332
10.6 Repeated measures in time 334
10.6.1 Example – random variation between profiles 336
10.6.2 Orthodontic measurements on children 340
10.7 Further notes on multi-level and other models with correlated errors 344
10.7.1 Different sources of variance – complication or focus of
interest? 344
10.7.2 Predictions from models with a complex error structure 345
10.7.3 An historical perspective on multi-level models 345
10.7.4 Meta-analysis 347
10.7.5 Functional data analysis 347
10.7.6 Error structure in explanatory variables 347
10.8 Recap 347
10.9 Further reading 348
10.10 Exercises 349

11 Tree-based classification and regression 351

11.1 The uses of tree-based methods 352
11.1.1 Problems for which tree-based regression may be used 352
11.2 Detecting email spam – an example 353
11.2.1 Choosing the number of splits 356
11.3 Terminology and methodology 356
11.3.1 Choosing the split – regression trees 357
11.3.2 Within and between sums of squares 357
11.3.3 Choosing the split – classification trees 358
11.3.4 Tree-based regression versus loess regression smoothing 359
xvi Contents

11.4 Predictive accuracy and the cost–complexity trade-off 361

11.4.1 Cross-validation 361
11.4.2 The cost–complexity parameter 362
11.4.3 Prediction error versus tree size 363
11.5 Data for female heart attack patients 363
11.5.1 The one-standard-deviation rule 365
11.5.2 Printed information on each split 366
11.6 Detecting email spam – the optimal tree 366
11.7 The randomForest package 369
11.8 Additional notes on tree-based methods 372
11.9 Further reading and extensions 373
11.10 Exercises 374

12 Multivariate data exploration and discrimination 377

12.1 Multivariate exploratory data analysis 378
12.1.1 Scatterplot matrices 378
12.1.2 Principal components analysis 379
12.1.3 Multi-dimensional scaling 383
12.2 Discriminant analysis 385
12.2.1 Example – plant architecture 386
12.2.2 Logistic discriminant analysis 387
12.2.3 Linear discriminant analysis 388
12.2.4 An example with more than two groups 390
12.3∗ High-dimensional data, classification, and plots 392
12.3.1 Classifications and associated graphs 394
12.3.2 Flawed graphs 394
12.3.3 Accuracies and scores for test data 398
12.3.4 Graphs derived from the cross-validation process 404
12.4 Further reading 406
12.5 Exercises 407

13 Regression on principal component or discriminant scores 410

13.1 Principal component scores in regression 410
13.2∗ Propensity scores in regression comparisons – labor training data 414
13.2.1 Regression comparisons 417
13.2.2 A strategy that uses propensity scores 419
13.3 Further reading 426
13.4 Exercises 426

14 The R system – additional topics 427

14.1 Graphical user interfaces to R 427
14.1.1 The R Commander’s interface – a guide to getting started 428
14.1.2 The rattle GUI 429
14.1.3 The creation of simple GUIs – the fgui package 429
14.2 Working directories, workspaces, and the search list 430
 Contents xvii

14.2.1∗ The search path 430

14.2.2 Workspace management 430
14.2.3 Utility functions 431
14.3 R system configuration 432
14.3.1 The R Windows installation directory tree 432
14.3.2 The library directories 433
14.3.3 The startup mechanism 433
14.4 Data input and output 433
14.4.1 Input of data 434
14.4.2 Data output 437
14.4.3 Database connections 438
14.5 Functions and operators – some further details 438
14.5.1 Function arguments 439
14.5.2 Character string and vector functions 440
14.5.3 Anonymous functions 441
14.5.4 Functions for working with dates (and times) 441
14.5.5 Creating groups 443
14.5.6 Logical operators 443
14.6 Factors 444
14.7 Missing values 446
14.8∗ Matrices and arrays 448
14.8.1 Matrix arithmetic 450
14.8.2 Outer products 451
14.8.3 Arrays 451
14.9 Manipulations with lists, data frames, matrices, and time series 452
14.9.1 Lists – an extension of the notion of “vector” 452
14.9.2 Changing the shape of data frames (or matrices) 454
14.9.3∗ Merging data frames – merge() 455
14.9.4 Joining data frames, matrices, and vectors – cbind() 455
14.9.5 The apply family of functions 456
14.9.6 Splitting vectors and data frames into lists – split() 457
14.9.7 Multivariate time series 458
14.10 Classes and methods 458
14.10.1 Printing and summarizing model objects 459
14.10.2 Extracting information from model objects 460
14.10.3 S4 classes and methods 460
14.11 Manipulation of language constructs 461
14.11.1 Model and graphics formulae 461
14.11.2 The use of a list to pass arguments 462
14.11.3 Expressions 463
14.11.4 Environments 463
14.11.5 Function environments and lazy evaluation 464
14.12∗ Creation of R packages 465
14.13 Document preparation – Sweave() and xtable() 467
14.14 Further reading 468
14.15 Exercises 469
xviii Contents

15 Graphs in R 472
15.1 Hardcopy graphics devices 472
15.2 Plotting characters, symbols, line types, and colors 472
15.3 Formatting and plotting of text and equations 474
15.3.1 Symbolic substitution of symbols in an expression 475
15.3.2 Plotting expressions in parallel 475
15.4 Multiple graphs on a single graphics page 476
15.5 Lattice graphics and the grid package 477
15.5.1 Groups within data, and/or columns in parallel 478
15.5.2 Lattice parameter settings 480
15.5.3 Panel functions, strip functions, strip labels, and
other annotation 483
15.5.4 Interaction with lattice (and other) plots – the playwith
package 485
15.5.5 Interaction with lattice plots – focus, interact, unfocus 485
15.5.6 Overlaid plots with different scales 486
15.6 An implementation of Wilkinson’s Grammar of Graphics 487
15.7 Dynamic graphics – the rgl and rggobi packages 491
15.8 Further reading 492

Epilogue 493

References 495

Index of R symbols and functions 507

Index of terms 514

Index of authors 523

The color plates will be found between pages 328 and 329.
Other documents randomly have
different content
 “But Dan was a great believer in Kendall. Said he was the most
‘natural’ football player he had ever seen. And he also said”—Gerald
lowered his voice—“that unless something happened, like Kendall
getting hurt or leaving school, he would be captain before he got
through here.”
Harry whistled softly but expressively.
“And you know Dan doesn’t make mistakes,” added Gerald, his
fondness for his friend sounding in his voice.
“Looks as if he’d made one this time, though, doesn’t it?” asked
Harry with a smile.
“Why?”
“Why? Well, look.” Harry nodded to where Kendall was racing up
the field after a punt. “He’s only first sub now and next year is his
last, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And that’s why we’ve got to get busy.”
“Eh? Who? Get busy doing what?”
“Proving that Dan wasn’t mistaken,” replied Gerald quietly. “If
Kendall’s going to have the captaincy before he leaves here then
next year’s his last chance. And that means that he’s got to win it
this Fall.”
“Yes, but what did you mean when you said we’d got to get
busy?”
“Just that,” answered Gerald with a smile. “Dan said Kendall would
be captain. He expects him to be and wants him to be. Well, you
know I’m pretty fond of old Dan, and so it’s up to me to see that
things happen the way he wants them to.”
“But what the dickens can you do?” gasped Harry.
“I don’t quite know yet. But you can see what I have done. I’ve
brought Kendall over to my room where he will meet a lot of fellows
he ought to know. I want him to get close to the other fellows on
the team, for one thing, for it’s those fellows who will elect the
captain next month. Of course, it’s up to him to make good on the
gridiron, and I think he will. He will if I can make him, anyway!”
“But—but, look here, Gerald—that—that’s rank politics!”
“No, it isn’t,” replied Gerald, shaking his head gently. “It’s politics,
but it isn’t rank. It amounts to this, Harry: Kendall hasn’t the push to
get himself elected captain if left to his own efforts. But there’s no
reason why he shouldn’t be captain if he’s wanted——”
“But he won’t be!”
“Not if he’s left to himself, but I intend to see that he is wanted.
What I am conducting is a quiet campaign in the interests of Kendall
Burtis. If he does his part you’ll find when it comes time to elect a
captain for next year that they’ll be crying for Kendall!”
Harry viewed the other in rapt and admiring awe for a moment.
Then, doubtfully, “But it doesn’t seem to me that he’s got it in him to
be a good captain, Gerald. He—he isn’t a leader. I don’t say he can’t
play football, for I think he can, although even that’s got to be
proved a bit more, hasn’t it? But—well, it takes certain qualities to be
a good captain.”
“What are they?”
“Eh? Oh, I don’t know. Pluck, of course, and brains and—and
executive ability——”
“Whatever that is,” laughed Gerald. “Well, you can’t say Kendall
hasn’t pluck after the way he went overboard the other day without
being able to swim a stroke. And as for brains, well, you think a
minute.”
Harry nodded. “Yes, he’s got a good thinker, I guess.”
“And he can be wonderfully cool in an emergency,” continued
Gerald.
“How do you know that?”
 “By the way he stepped out on the field last year at the eleventh
hour, grabbed off the grand stand in a pair of long trousers and
hustled into a sweater, and stood there and kicked that goal with the
whole Broadwood team trying to get through and kill him.”
“Y-yes, but——”
“As for the other thing, what you call executive ability and what
the rest of us, who haven’t your visiting acquaintance with fine
English, call leadership, why, no, he hasn’t displayed any of that yet.
He hasn’t had a chance, I guess. That’s something we’ll have to
develop in him, or, at least, bring out. And he’s discouragingly shy.
He will have to get over some of that. I don’t expect to make him
popular in the general meaning of the word. That isn’t necessary. I
don’t think you can call Charlie Merriwell a very popular chap.”
“He isn’t, and it remains to be seen what sort of a captain he will
make. Simms ought to have had it.”
“Yes, Simms is popular, but he didn’t get the captaincy. I know of
at least two fellows on the team who don’t really like Merriwell and
who cast their votes for him because they knew he could play
football and believed he’d make a good captain and because they
respected him. See? Well, I mean to have Kendall prove that he can
play football, show that he can lead, and win the respect of the
fellows.”
“Gee, you’ve got a job! Sounds like a confidence game to me, too,
Gerald. Hanged if you aren’t deliberately setting to work to—to—
what’s that word?—to foist a captain on the school that they don’t
even know!”
“But they will know him before the time comes,” replied Gerald
confidently. “As for foisting”—he shrugged his shoulders—“it’s a fine
old word, Harry, but it’s in wrong. Dan has chosen Kendall for next
year’s captain; Dan knows; Kendall shall be captain. There it is in a
nutshell!”
“You’ve certainly got plenty of cheek,” laughed Harry. “And you
can bet I’ll be watching things with rapt attention, Gerald. I wish you
luck, and Kendall, too, but I’m very much afraid you’ll be
disappointed.”
“Perhaps. If we are we’ll stand it. There’s one thing you seem to
miss, though. You talk about standing by and watching things. I
have tried to convey the idea that you were in on the campaign,
Harry.”
“Me! What the dickens can I do?”
“I don’t know yet. I think you can be useful, however. Perhaps I’ll
make you head of the publicity department. Anyhow, I want your
help. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have told you all this. Because it’s got to
be kept a secret from everyone, Harry, and especially Kendall.”
“What? Isn’t he to know?”
“Not a word of it!”
“Then I don’t see how you can expect him to—to do things, to get
next to the fellows, to——”
“Don’t you see that if we told him he’d back out right now? He
hasn’t any more idea of getting the captaincy that he has of—of
flying. And even if he agreed to it he’d be so self-conscious all the
time that he’d make a horrible mess of it. No, you and I, and maybe
another chap before we’re through, must keep this to ourselves. No
one must even guess that we’re booming Kendall.”
“Sounds difficult,” Harry objected.
“Not very. There’s no reason why anyone should suspect that we
are doing it, is there? Just now Kendall Burtis is about the last fellow
anyone would think of as next year’s captain, isn’t he?”
“He certainly is,” agreed Harry, with conviction.
“Then why should anyone suspect that we’re pushing him for it?
Diplomacy, Harry, diplomacy! Also secrecy!”
“Two orders of each,” said Harry. “Well, it sounds sort of crazy to
me, but I’ll take a chance with you. And now, as the practice has
been over for some five minutes and as we’re about the only fellows
in sight, I’d like to move along. Even politicians have to eat, Gerald.”
 CHAPTER VIII
COTTON MAKES A WAGER

I often wonder what Kendall’s sensations would have been had he

learned of the plot to make him football captain. Disbelief, first of
all, I fancy, and then wonder and alarm, and, finally, absolute
stupefaction! But he never did learn, never so much as suspected
what was going on. There was no reason why he should. Number 28
Clarke had long been a popular place of gathering, as Kendall, who
had spent a year in the same corridor, well knew, and if it sometimes
seemed to him that the room was rapidly degenerating into a club it
never occurred to him that he had anything to do with it. He often
wished that Gerald was less popular, for the gatherings in Number
28 often seriously interfered with his studying. All kinds of fellows
came and went, and Kendall met them all sooner or later. Had he
given the matter special thought he might have remarked on the
fact that while the visitors represented about every interest in school
they were all fellows worth knowing, fellows who had made good in
one way or another, fellows whose words carried weight and who
held influence. They were by no means all football chaps, nor even
all athletic chaps. What Harry Merrow called “the High-Brow
Element” was well represented. At one time or another in that
month of October Gerald managed to attract to his room, and
always in the most natural and casual way, about all the prominent
fellows in Yardley. And Kendall thought it was very nice and enjoyed
meeting the visitors, and, having no ax to grind, was diffidently
polite and did more listening than talking. One evening after
Merriwell and Simms, of the football team, and one or two others
had been in and gone again Gerald took Kendall good-naturedly to
task.
 “Look here, Kendall,” he said, as they were getting ready for bed,
“it’s a fine thing to be modest and all that, but, as the negro said, ‘it
don’t get you nothin’!’ Why don’t you talk a little more?”
“Why, I—I guess I don’t think of anything to say, Gerald.”
“Rot! You talk more sense than most fellows when you do talk. I’m
not suggesting that you jabber just to make a noise, but you’re
overdoing the wise owl act, old man. Fellows may get it into their
heads that you don’t approve of their statements and remarks, you
see. Loosen up now and then, Kendall, loosen up!”
There was no more said, but the suggestion bore fruit. Kendall
really made an effort on the next occasion. He wasn’t exactly chatty,
but he hazarded an opinion now and then, and was both surprised
and flattered to find that what he said was listened to with at least a
show of interest. A chap who doesn’t talk often is pretty certain of a
hearing when he does say anything, and as Kendall seldom spoke
unless he had a remark of some value to offer he soon became
certain of his audience. But all this took time, and in the meanwhile
life was pretty busy with him and he had far more important affairs
to think of than polite conversation in Number 28.
St. John’s School came and departed with trailing banners. Kendall
played through two periods of that game and acquitted himself with
honor. Jennings Academy proved a harder conundrum for the
wearers of the Yardley blue. Jennings was a new opponent, having
been given a place on the schedule that Fall for the first time, vice
Carrel’s School. Jennings had Yardley pretty well scared for three
periods, during which she ran up ten points to the Blue’s five. But in
the final ten minutes Yardley buckled down and hammered her way
almost the length of the field and sent Simms dodging and twisting
across the line for another score. Luckily Fales barely managed to
place the pigskin over the bars in the try-at-goal, and Yardley nosed
out of the fray victor by one point. It was by this time well past the
middle of October, and the remaining contests, with Porter Institute,
Forest Hill, Nordham and Broadwood, were all of the major variety.
Yardley was to go away from home for the Porter game, and this
year it was Broadwood’s turn to entertain her rival, but the other two
games were to be contested on the Yardley field. The Nordham
game, for the reason that Nordham had trounced the Blue the
preceding Fall, was looked forward to with unusual interest and a
grim determination to wreak revenge. Not that Coach Payson meant
to endanger his chances of defeating Broadwood the week
afterward, or that any of the fellows wanted him to. However, if it
was in any way possible to square accounts with Nordham without
overexerting or injuring her players, Yardley meant to do it.
Football practice was no longer a romp, although Coach Payson
never allowed the work to become so severe as to be distasteful.
Many a day the players, First Team, Second Team and substitutes,
trailed back up the hill to the gymnasium tired in every muscle and
almost ready for mutiny. But always by the time they had had
supper the bruises were forgotten, the muscles had stopped aching
and their thoughts were set eagerly on the morrow’s practice. Of
course, there were the usual minor injuries to contend with during
the early season, the usual cases of overtraining, but no serious
setback to the progress of the team occurred. That progress was
slow and steady. More time than usual had been given this year to
the fundamentals. It was not until after the Jennings game that
tackling the dummy ceased to be a part of the afternoon
programme. Even then the stuffed figure continued to swing and
dance between the uprights and was occasionally visited by some
player who had failed to grasp the knack of stopping the runner. The
kickers, Kendall amongst them, held a half-hour of practice each day.
Simms, the quarter, was a fairly proficient drop-kicker but had never
showed much punting ability, and Payson meant he should learn the
art. Graduation had deprived the team of one or two fair punters,
and it was necessary to replace them. The material was not very
promising at the beginning of the season, if we except Kendall.
Kendall had proved himself a born kicker, but no coach wants to
depend on one man for the whole season. So Fales and Crandall and
Plant were added to the kicking staff, and by the middle of the
season Fales had become a drop-kicker of some ability and Plant
was getting off punts of forty and forty-five yards. But Kendall still
held his superiority in both lines.
It was the Monday after the Jennings game that Kendall ceased
being a substitute and took Fayette’s place at right half-back. The
change surprised no one, not even Fayette, I think, for the school
had all the Fall expected Kendall to make the team and had only
wondered why Payson had not placed him before. A player with
Kendall’s ability to punt, drop-kick or place-kick deserved a position
on the team even if his football ability ended there. But Kendall’s
didn’t, and he proved it time and again as the season wore on. He
was a daring runner with the ball, a brilliant ground-gainer, who
dodged and whirled through a broken field like a small cyclone, and
was as difficult to seize and stop! He was so dependable, in fact,
that when the First Team was in a tight place one was likely to hear
murmurs along the side-lines of, “Why don’t they give it to Burtis?”
But Kendall had his limitations, too, for at line-plunging he failed to
gain as did either Marion or Crandall. He was lighter than those
players and could not hit the line as hard. But if the opening was
there Kendall could knife himself through as well as anyone, and
once going he was harder to stop than the big Marion.
But if the Jennings contest decided favorably the fortunes of
Kendall it also brought disaster to the ambitions of another of our
acquaintances. Charles Cotton was dropped on that Monday. Others
went with him in that final cut, and I doubt if any deserved
banishment more than Cotton; and I’m sure none took it less
gracefully. Cotton’s soul was filled with bitterness and wrath and his
speech with condemnation.
Since that first unsuccessful visit to Number 28 Cotton had called
many times. Gerald bore with him for the sake of Kendall, and
Kendall, secretly weary to death of him and disliking him more and
more each time, tried his best to blame himself for the distaste he
felt for Cotton and, for fear he was doing that youth an injustice,
was as nice as pie to him. Cotton always seemed to know when
Captain Merriwell or other influential football fellows were in Number
28, and timed his visits by such knowledge. He “swiped” frankly and
assiduously. He tried his hardest to make a hit with Merriwell, but
only succeeded in making the captain loathe the sight of him. He
was boastful, sarcastic and far from kind-hearted, but for a while he
managed to make even Merriwell and, in a lesser degree, Gerald
believe in his football prowess. He never hesitated to praise himself
and his playing, and if one does that often enough and with
sufficient enthusiasm one will impress the audience. Unfortunately,
however, Cotton was unable to prove on the gridiron what he
proclaimed in the dormitory, and as elocution doesn’t win football
games Cotton’s career came to an end. He selected the evening of
the day of his demise to call on Kendall. Perhaps he hoped to find
Merriwell there and to make a plea for reinstatement. If so he was
disappointed, for only Gerald and Kendall were in the room when he
made his appearance.
“Well, I see you struck it, Burtis,” he announced after greetings
were over. “Very glad, I’m sure. You can play all around Fayette.”
“Thanks,” murmured Kendall. “It was just because I am a bit
handier at kicking than Fayette is that they gave me his place. He
may have me out again before the big game.”
“Pshaw, don’t you worry! Payson loves you; Merriwell does, too;
you’re popular. That makes a difference.”
“Just what do you mean by that?” asked Gerald, with a frown.
“Oh, you know well enough what I mean. A fellow hasn’t much
show here to make anything unless he’s got plenty of friends. Look
at me. I can play end as well as Fox can; better, for that matter; but
I get pitched out and he stays in. Fox has been here two years and
has a pull. I’m a new fellow and haven’t. That’s all.”
“If you can play better than Fox,” exclaimed Gerald impatiently,
“why the dickens don’t you?”
“I have! All the Fall! Ask any one.”
 “I don’t need to. I’ve watched practice myself almost every day
until a week ago, and I’ll tell you frankly, Cotton, you never showed
anything when I was looking!”
“I didn’t know you considered yourself an authority on football,
Pennimore. I thought running was your specialty.”
“It is, but I’ve played some football, and I’ve seen a heap of it,
and if you want my opinion I’ll tell you plainly that you play the
game about as well as a piece of cheese! I don’t want to hurt your
feelings, Cotton, but there’s no sense in making charges of
favoritism here. In this school a fellow wins on his merits, and when
you’ve been here longer you’ll realize it.”
“That’s your opinion,” growled Cotton. “You’ve always had
everything you wanted, and you think you’ve earned it all. I’ll bet
you that if you hadn’t known lots of the fellows who give out favors
you’d be just where you were when you came.”
Kendall, who had been listening with an anxious countenance,
attempted the rôle of peacemaker. “Well, you’ve got another year
yet, Cotton. I wouldn’t feel badly about it. After all——”
“Badly! Oh, I’m not breaking my heart,” replied Cotton, with a
sneer. “It’s no great honor to win your place by a pull. Besides, that
team will be beaten to a froth this year. Why, Broadwood will put it
all over them! You wait and see!”
“You’re one of the sort who doesn’t want to play on the losing
side, are you?” asked Gerald disdainfully. “Then I guess the team’s
well off without you, Cotton.”
Cotton turned toward Gerald with an angry light in his pale eyes,
but whatever the words were that sprang to his lips they never got
past. His reply to the taunt was so gentle that both Gerald and
Kendall stared in surprise. “I can take a licking as well as the next
fellow,” said Cotton quietly. “But I do think it’s a shame to keep good
players off the team and get beaten for it by Broadwood.”
 “The team’s no worse than last year’s,” replied Gerald, regaining
his good nature, “and that was good enough to lick old Broadwood,
my friend.”
“Yes, by a goal from the field! Broadwood had you beaten before
that.”
“What’s the odds? A field goal is a field goal, and we won. And
we’ll do it again this year.”
“Bet you don’t!”
“Bet we do! That is, I might bet if betting was allowed,” continued
Gerald with a chuckle.
“Well, what will you bet?” Cotton demanded eagerly.
“Not allowed,” responded Gerald. “Betting is barred.”
“You know you’d lose,” taunted the other.
Gerald’s eyes snapped. “Wait a bit, Mr. Cotton! Seems to me you
are pretty certain, considering that the game is a month away.”
“I am certain. Broadwood will make your team——”
“Why mine? Why not ours?”
“Well, our team, then! Broadwood will make it look like—like a
bunch of has-beens!”
“May I ask on what you base your judgment?” asked Gerald.
“On lots of things! On the players, and the coaching system——”
“You don’t approve of our coaching system?”
“I certainly don’t! Payson works the fellows like a lot of dray
horses, for one thing. And he’s old-fashioned, too. He sticks to old
formations and plays that were worn out when Walter Camp was a
baby. And look at the way he runs practice! Every fellow doing about
what he likes! When does he begin to teach team-play, I’d like to
know? In Saturday’s game there was about as much coördination”—
Gerald blinked—“as there is in a pack of hens!”
 “You mean a swarm of hens,” corrected Gerald gently. “Well, all
that may be true. I wish, anyway, you’d mention it to Payson; he
ought to be warned. But—but, my caustic and critical friend, we’ll
send Broadwood home with its tail between its legs!”
“Maybe, but you don’t believe it hard enough to bet anything on
it!”
“Merely because betting is not allowed and because I have been
taught, besides, that it isn’t nice. Still——” Gerald paused and
considered. “Still, we might perhaps come to an agreement that
would—er—add a personal interest to the outcome of the game. Let
me see, Cotton. I’ll tell you!” Gerald viewed him in mild triumph. “If
Broadwood wins I’ll invite you to spend Christmas recess with me in
New York and give you a good time, all differences and animosities
forgotten. On the other hand, if Broadwood is defeated you will—
what the dickens will you do?” Cotton opened his mouth to speak,
but Gerald went on. “I have it! If Yardley wins you will stand on the
steps of Oxford at five o’clock, give a cheer for Yardley, and proclaim
a certain passage from a play of one William Shakespeare which I
will indicate when the time comes.”
“That’s silly,” growled Cotton.
“Maybe; what’s the difference? Do you agree?”
“Yes. If Broadwood wins you’re to give me a week at your place in
New York at Christmas——”
“Ten days, if you like.”
“And if Broadwood loses I am to stand in front of Oxford Hall and
cheer for Yardley and say something out of Shakespeare.”
“At five o’clock on the day of the game. And you’re to cheer and
speak loud enough to be heard—er—at the farthest edge of the
stupendous throng.”
“It’s a bargain,” agreed Cotton, with a grin. “I expect to have a
pretty good time at recess. Much obliged. Now I’ll be going. I’m sort
of sorry for you, though, Pennimore.”
 “So shall I be if I lose,” laughed Gerald, as Cotton’s footsteps died
away down the hall.
“What is it you want him to repeat?” asked Kendall.
“If he loses? Why, nothing but that famous passage from Mr.
Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing.’ You remember the words
of our old friend Dogberry? ‘Masters, remember that I am an ass;
though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass!’”
 CHAPTER IX
HARRY SCENTS A MYSTERY

L ife wasn’t all football, however. There was a lot of studying to

attend to. Kendall was taking five courses, in preparation for that
college he might never reach: Latin, Greek, mathematics, English
and German. These made up a total of twenty-two hours a week.
French, physics and chemistry he was leaving to his senior year.
Luckily Kendall had the valuable gift of application, and application
might also be called the royal road to results. Certainly an ounce of it
is better than a pound of labor. Kendall was doing well in all his
courses. He was fond of languages and learned easily, German,
however, presenting a rather more difficult road than Greek or Latin.
It was in mathematics that he had to work hardest. There are some
who never manage to get themselves in sympathy with that science,
and Kendall was one of these. Geometry was his bugbear that year.
But, with the scholarship beckoning, he worked as hard as he knew
how and usually secured creditable marks. Although he had only
three hours of English, that course required a good deal of outside
reading; just now they were digging at Milton, with Shakespeare
looming ahead; and there were weekly compositions to be written,
and, of course, one never quite got away from rhetoric. So Kendall
had his hands full, and there were times when it seemed to him that
it would be the part of wisdom to give up football and devote all his
thought and time to digging for that scholarship. He didn’t, however,
although he became panicky pretty often and assured himself
discouragedly that he hadn’t the ghost of a show of winning even a
Sidney. The panicky moments became more frequent as the
Broadwood game drew near and as football made greater and
greater demands on his time and thought. (But when the awards
were made at the end of the term Kendall found that his fears had
been groundless, for he won the Gordon Scholarship after all. And
the pleasure he experienced in writing the news to his father more
than made up for all the labor he had gone through.)
Studying in his room in the evening wasn’t a very great success,
for, although the study hour was more or less strictly observed, the
gatherings there continued, and it was difficult to get the mind
settled on geometry or German, Latin or Greek when you had been
listening for an hour to a discussion of the afternoon’s practice.
Gerald, in his last year, had less to do than Kendall. He was taking
but four courses, found them easy and so had to study but little.
Kendall made use of the hours when he had no recitations to retire
to the library in Oxford, and most of his studying was done there.
And, aside from football, there were other athletic interests
demanding the attention of the school. The cross-country candidates
were training five days a week. The golf team was preparing for the
match with Broadwood. There was a Fall Handicap Tournament
going on at the tennis courts. Even the baseball diamonds were
occupied in fair weather. Boys who found no appeal in any of these
pursuits took to the water, and as long as the Winter held off the
river was dotted with canoes and skiffs, pair-oars and tubs. And yet,
back of all this, one event loomed fatefully, growing each day larger
and more portentous. That was the Big Game. All the athletic
industries culminated with the Broadwood contest; the eighteenth of
November marked the end of the Autumn season, and fellows had a
way of making promises to themselves like this: “After the
Broadwood game I’ll buckle down and get caught up with Latin”; or,
“When the Broadwood game’s over I’ll have more time for study.”
There was a subconscious spirit of nervous unrest pervading the
school that grew as the days went by. After the eleven had
journeyed away and returned with the scalp of Porter Institute the
season settled into its final stride, and only two games intervened
before the great test.
Yardley found Porter easy, and rolled up twenty-four points against
her opponent, meanwhile denying Porter the consolation of a single
score. The school declared that the team had found itself and that
the rest was easy. More knowing ones, taking Porter’s weakness into
consideration, found cause for doubts and criticisms. Twice Yardley
had had the ball within Porter’s ten-yard line and had failed to score.
There had been four bad fumbles. The team was still weak on
offense. If Broadwood was to be beaten the Blue must improve
vastly in the next three weeks. Thus the knowing ones. What Coach
Payson thought no one knew.
In the meantime Gerald’s campaign went forward and bore
results. Kendall made friends. Nowadays to walk from his room in
Clarke to a recitation room in Oxford entailed more greetings than
last year he would have been called on to accord in a month. He was
really surprised to find how many fellows he knew well enough to
stop and talk to, how many others demanded recognition, a word, a
nod or a wave of the hand. Of course, among the younger boys he
was a hero second only to Captain Merriwell himself, and the
Preparatory Class youth who won a word from Kendall hurried off to
tell the rest of the inhabitants of Merle of the talk he had had with
Burtis, describing just how Kendall had looked and just what he had
said, and, I’m afraid, enlarging a little on the incident. But that’s a
weakness not confined to Preparatory Class boys. Had you asked
some of Kendall’s fellow members of the team why they had taken a
liking to him it is probable that they would each have said about the
same thing—had they deigned to answer such a question at all!
“Burtis?” they would have said. “Oh, I don’t know. He’s a good sort,
don’t you think? Awfully quiet, of course, but has a lot of horse
sense. Doesn’t butt in, either. Not much on the handsome, but sort
of nice looking, too, somehow. Doesn’t have much to say about
what he has done or is going to do or can do; just goes ahead and
does it. Awfully square sort, I’d say. Besides, he certainly can play
football!”
Gerald was pretty busy nowadays with the Cross-Country Team.
He was captain of it and about the best performer. And so Kendall
saw less of him than during the first of the term. But they usually
spent the evenings together. Harry Merrow, also a member of the
Cross-Country squad, was very likely to turn up at Number 28 after
supper, and Kendall had grown to like him very much. There had
been another jaunt on The Dart since the day they had been lost in
the fog, but the second voyage had been an affair without incident.
Kendall had not yet become a proficient swimmer, principally
because he had had but three lessons in the art. It was very hard to
find time for anything just now. But he had managed thirty strokes
on the last occasion and had swallowed only about three quarts of
the Wissining River. Gerald and Harry had assured him that he had
done excellently, and Kendall promised himself that when Spring
came he would complete his education.
Another fairly frequent visitor to Number 28 was The Duke. The
Duke had a way of knocking subduedly and entering on tiptoe,
throwing fearful glances behind him and subsiding into a chair with a
long sigh of relief.
“Ha!” he would whisper hoarsely. “Again I have thrown him off the
track! Ah, the peace and quiet of this refuse!” (Perhaps it isn’t
necessary to explain that in The Duke’s language “refuse” meant
“refuge.”) He always pretended that Cotton was dogging his
footsteps and that it was only by extraordinary stealth and cunning
that he could escape his roommate. Once or twice it happened that
Cotton followed him later, and on those occasions The Duke would
throw up his hands, roll his eyes, and spend the rest of the time of
his visit sitting silent and staring at Cotton as though hypnotized.
Cotton still insisted that he had been badly used by coach and
captain and still predicted utter annihilation for the forces of Yardley.
Gerald’s wager soon became known of and occasioned a lot of
merriment. The Duke pretended to be—or perhaps really was—much
concerned. “My word, Gerald, suppose we really did get licked! Have
you paused to consider the fate you have—er—invited? Think of
having Cotton on your hands every hour for a week or ten days!
Breakfast, luncheon, dinner, Gerald! No time off for recitations! Oh,
woe is you!”
 Some of the other fellows, too, tried to alarm Gerald, declaring
that they wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Broadwood won this year.
Then they drew graphic word pictures of Gerald towing Charles
Cotton around New York in Christmas recess. “Whatever you do,
Gerald,” begged Bert Simms, “don’t take him to the Eden Musee!
When you went out you’d get arrested for attempting to steal one of
the wax figures!”
From all of which it will be seen that Mr. Cotton had unfortunately
not ingratiated himself to any extent with the habitués of Number
28. One evening about midway between the Porter and Forest Hill
games the room was pretty well filled. Merriwell and Simms and
Girard, of the football element, were present, and George Kirk,
captain of the golf team, had dropped in. These, with Gerald and
Kendall, pretty well taxed the seating accommodations. Naturally the
three subjects uppermost were football, cross-country running, and
golf. Kirk had been bewailing the loss to the golf team of Ned Tooker,
last year’s captain and star player, and had expressed himself as very
doubtful of the outcome of the match to be played at Broadwood the
following Saturday.
“Burtis, I thought you were going to play golf this year,” said Kirk.
“I am, I think, after the Broadwood game,” answered Kendall. “I
like it first-rate, Kirk, but there isn’t much time for it now, you know.”
“I suppose not. Maybe you’ll get in shape to play with us in the
Spring matches, though. It’s the hardest thing to get fellows to take
an interest in golf here!”
“Everyone wants to play football in the Fall and baseball in Spring,”
said Gerald. “You can’t get them to think of anything else, barring
track sports. We’ve had a dickens of a time this year getting enough
fellows together to make up the Cross-Country Team.”
“I thought you had lots of candidates,” said Charles Merriwell, a
good-looking, dark-haired fellow of nineteen. “Anyhow, you’re going
to win, aren’t you?”
 “Oh, I suppose we’ll win all right enough, but if we do it will be
because Broadwood’s weak this year. Our team doesn’t begin to
compare with last season’s.”
“That’s what they all say,” scoffed big Girard, the center. “You hear
that every year. Nothing ever compares with what we had last year.
It’s rot!”
“Not always,” replied Bert Simms. “Our team isn’t as good as last
year’s, and you know it, Pete.”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“Too light, for one thing. Broadwood’s got the heaviest team she
ever put on the field. Bet you she’ll outweigh us four pounds to a
man.”
“Oh, piffle! Look at O’Brien, their center; he’s a mite!”
“Well, he’s the only mite they’ve got, Pete. As for the back-field,
they’re tons heavier than we are.”
“Then we’ll make up for it by getting the jump on ’em,” said
Girard. “Weight isn’t everything.”
“Nice of you to say so,” murmured Simms, causing chuckles of
amusement from the others. Girard reached out with a big foot and,
hooking it around a leg of Simms’ chair, brought that youth to the
floor.
“Bert’s right, though,” declared Merriwell, when order had been
restored, “and we’ll find when Payson shows his new plays that
we’re in for a kicking game, with most of our gains on wide runs.
You’ll be busy that day, Burtis.”
At that moment there was a rap at the door and The Duke
entered, hands in pockets, whistling, his eyes roaming the ceiling,
elaborately careless. He had an old felt hat on the back of his head,
his coat was tightly buttoned and the collar was turned up, and a
false mustache, fiercely red, hovered uncertainly under his nose. A
burst of laughter greeted him. Once inside the room, however, his
demeanor changed. Turning swiftly, he threw himself against the
door and, as it crashed shut, quickly turned the key and leaned there
breathing heavily, his eyes darting about with a haunted and terrified
glare.
“What is it?” asked Merriwell. “Sherlock Holmes?”
“Old Sleuth,” suggested Gerald. “How did you cut your lip, Duke?”
Without replying The Duke leaned down and pressed an ear
against the keyhole. Then, apparently satisfied, he unlocked the
door and dramatically removed hat and mustache.
“Aha!” he exclaimed hoarsely; “foiled again!”
“Bet you he will be along inside five minutes,” laughed Gerald. “Sit
on the bed, Duke, and try to look like a pillow. Maybe he won’t
recognize you.”
The Duke followed the first part of the suggestion, but refused to
disguise himself as a pillow, even when Simms suggested that that
shouldn’t be a difficult stunt for anyone as feather-brained as The
Duke.
“Don’t trifle with me,” hissed The Duke. “I’m a der-esperate man!”
“Where’d you get the red mustache?” asked Girard. “Let’s see it.”
“Bought in the village,” replied The Duke as he tossed it over. “It
makes a perfect disguise, doesn’t it? I’m going to wear it to history
recitation to-morrow so Collins won’t know me and won’t ask for my
digest, which I have forgotten to prepare.”
“I stump you to,” said Simms. “If you will——” But the rest was
lost in the laughter caused by Girard’s appearance with the
mustache on. After that they all had to try it, and just as it finally got
around to Kendall there was another knock on the door.
“Ha!” muttered The Duke. “’Tis he! I am discovered! But I shall
sell my life dearly!”
 There was a moment of silence as the door swung slowly open,
and then, as Cotton walked in with fine dignity, a howl of laughter
went up. Only The Duke remained grave. Holding a pillow in front of
him, he gazed fiercely over the top of it, muttering and hissing.
Cotton paused in surprise. Simms was rolling on the bed in
convulsions and Girard was sprawled back in his chair, holding his
sides. Cotton viewed the scene at first with bewilderment and then
with distaste. A flush crept into his cheeks as he closed the door
behind him.
“Hello,” he said stiffly, “what’s the joke, you fellows?”
Kendall was the first to recover. “Oh, just some of Wellington’s
nonsense,” he replied hastily. “Sit down, Cotton.”
“Y-yes,” gurgled Gerald, “s-sit down somewhere if you can find
room. Sit on the bed there next to The Duke.”
The Duke lowered the pillow, his gaze fixed on Cotton with fearful
intensity. Then, as the latter passed around the table to reach the
bed, The Duke seized the false mustache from Kendall, clapped it to
his face and confronted Cotton superbly.
“Aha, James Mortimer!” he drawled, stroking one end of the
brilliant mustache. “So we meet again, do we? What have you done
with the che-ild?”
Cotton, who had suspected himself to be in some way the subject
of the laughter that had greeted him, was restored to equanimity. He
joined in the laughter that followed and made himself comfortable
on the bed.
“Where’d you get that thing?” he asked. “Let’s see how I’d look in
it, Duke.”
“Heaven forfend!” replied The Duke vehemently as he thrust it into
his pocket. “It wouldn’t become you, Charles, it really wouldn’t.”
Cotton smiled in the manner of one humoring a child or harmless
lunatic and turned to Merriwell. “How’s the team getting on?” he
asked.
 “Fair, thanks,” replied the captain without enthusiasm.
“Going to win on Saturday?”
“Hope to.”
“You’ll have to brace up your line, then. I was reading to-day that
Forest Hill has a wonderful attack this year.”
“What sort of an attack?” asked The Duke interestedly. “Not
mumps, I hope.”
“She’s got most of her last year’s team, hasn’t she?” asked Kendall
hurriedly.
“Blessed if I know,” answered Merriwell. “I guess Payson isn’t
much worried about it, though. I do hope we’ll trim Nordham,
though, fellows.”
“Oh, we’ll run away with her this year,” asserted Girard.
There was another knock on the door.
“Well, we’re some popular to-night,” said Gerald. “Come in!”
It was Harry Merrow. “Hello, everybody,” he greeted. “What is
this? A mass meeting?” Just then his gaze fell on Cotton and his
eyes narrowed suddenly, and for some time after he had perched
himself beside Gerald on the latter’s bed he continued to observe
Cotton curiously across the room. The conversation went on for a
minute or two. Then Harry whispered to Gerald, and the latter broke
in with:
“Cotton, I believe you haven’t met Merrow. He’s in your class, by
the way. Sorry; I thought you knew each other.”
Harry reached over Girard’s head and shook hands with Cotton.
“Glad to know you,” he said. “We’ve met before, though, haven’t
we?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Cotton. “I’ve only been here this Fall.”
“I mean before that,” said Harry. “Your face seems very familiar.”
 “How about his manner?” asked The Duke innocently. Cotton
flushed as he took his seat again.
“That’s an old joke,” he said contemptuously.
“How dear to my heart are the jokes of my childhood,” chanted
The Duke. “When fond recollection presents them to view!”
Harry, looking polite and incredulous, sat down again, but every
now and then he shot a puzzled glance at Cotton. The latter,
however, appeared to have forgotten Harry’s existence after the
introduction and steadily kept his eyes away from that youth. Soon
after, Merriwell and Girard took their departure, followed later by Kirk
and Simms. Cotton stayed on until at last The Duke, giving Gerald a
look of despair, said good night. Cotton left with him, and as soon as
the door was shut Harry broke out:
“I’d give a thousand dollars to know where I’ve seen that fellow!”
he declared.
“That’s a lot of money,” yawned Gerald.
“Not if you say it quick. But honest, fellows, that chap bothers me.
I know I’ve met him before and talked with him, but I can’t imagine
where it could have been. You remember, Gerald, that day at
practice I told you he looked familiar? Well, I was right. There’s—
there’s some mystery about Cotton.”
“Oh, he probably looks like someone else,” said Gerald soothingly.
“Although, to be strictly truthful, Harry, I never saw anyone who
looked just like him!”
“He knew to-night that I recognized him,” mused Harry, “and he
wouldn’t look at me once. Well!” He moved toward the door. “I mean
to find out. Good night, fellows!”
 CHAPTER X
THE SPY

H owever, Harry did not at once borrow The Duke’s red mustache
and go sleuthing. As curious as he was about Cotton, he was
much too busy these days to play detective, for, although he was
pretty certain of winning the cross-country race from Broadwood,
Gerald wasn’t taking any chances, and the way he and Andy Ryan
kept the team on the go was a caution.
The race was to be held, as usual, on the morning of the day of
the football game between the rivals, and over a course which might
be called neutral, lying as it did practically halfway between the two
schools. Broadwood Academy was situated some four miles from
Yardley on the other side of Greenburg and so far inland that at
Yardley they spoke of it humorously as a “freshwater college.”
Broadwood was slightly smaller than Yardley in point of enrollment,
but for all of that was an ideal rival, since she fought hard in every
competition and obligingly went down in defeat oftener than she
triumphed. There was no student now in Yardley who could recall a
Broadwood victory on the gridiron, although there had been some
heart-breaking struggles and alarmingly close scores. In baseball
Broadwood was not so obliging, although since John Payson’s advent
at Yardley she had experienced more defeats than victories. The
rivalry between the two preparatory institutions, both good ones,
was healthy. Yardley fellows simulated a contempt for the wearers of
the Green that they really didn’t feel, and Broadwood pretended
similar sentiments toward the Blue. In reality, however, each school
entertained a deep-seated respect for the other. While Yardley
graduates were likely to go up to Yale to complete their education,
Broadwood traditions favored Princeton.
 But while Broadwood usually excelled at hockey, garnered a full
share of the track and field honors, proved herself as good as her
rival at baseball, and accepted defeat on the gridiron only after the
gamest battles, she was weak at cross-country running and had
been beaten each of the few times that she had met Yardley. Gerald,
who would have liked to complete his hill-and-dale career and
celebrate his year as captain with a hard-fought victory, lamented
Broadwood’s weakness this year.
“I wish we might give them a handicap,” he confided to Harry that
Saturday morning as they went back to the gymnasium after a two-
mile jaunt. It was the day of the Forest Hill game, and partly
because it seemed fair to let the cross-country runners witness the
afternoon contest and partly because it was advisable to accustom
the team to morning work, since the race was to be run in the
forenoon, to-day’s work had started at ten-thirty. Gerald seemed as
fresh as when he had started out, and save for the disks of red
which had not yet faded from his cheeks, one would never have
suspected that he had led nine others over approximately two miles
of the hardest sort of going. Harry Merrow, however, showed the
pace. He had managed to finish fourth and was rather proud of
himself, although when Gerald had clapped him on the back at the
finish and congratulated him he had only smiled depreciatingly.
“We might give them a quarter-mile start,” proposed Harry, with a
laugh, in response to Gerald’s remark. “But I don’t see why you’re so
anxious to get beaten, Gerald.”
“I’m not, but I’d like to have the race a really close one. As it is,
we’re just as likely as not to finish the first four men ahead of them.
I’m pretty certain we will if you run as well as you did to-day.”
“I ought to do three or four minutes better on the eighteenth,”
said Harry. “How far behind you was I to-day?”
“About six minutes. And I did as well within three minutes as I
ever did,” said Gerald.
 Harry thought that over for a minute as they climbed the footpath
that affords a short cut to the gymnasium from the village road, and
before he had succeeded in figuring out what their relative positions
would probably be in the race Gerald introduced a change of
subject.
“How do you think the campaign is going, Harry?” he asked.
“Campaign? Oh, you mean Kendall’s. Why, pretty well, I think. But
I hear that there’s a good deal of talk of making Crandall captain.
He’s pretty popular, you know. And a good player, too.”
“That so? I hadn’t heard it. Well, Howard’s a fine chap, and if our
candidate loses he ought to make a good captain. Have you heard
talk of any other fellows for captain?”
“No, I guess not. Fales would take it if he could get it. So would
two or three others. Pete Girard, for one.”
“He’d be a wonder,” laughed Gerald. “No, I guess it will be up to
either Howard Crandall or Kendall. You haven’t heard Kendall’s name
mentioned, have you?”
“For the captaincy? No, but I don’t hear much of the talk. But
Kendall has certainly made good so far, hasn’t he? I mean with the
fellows. They all seem to like him. If he’d get busy and pull off some
brilliant stunt this afternoon or next week, or win the Broadwood
game with a field-goal, I guess he could have the captaincy, eh?”
“I think so. Unfortunately, we can’t advise him to get off any
gallery plays. He wouldn’t if we did. Besides, a fellow can’t make
opportunities. All he can do is to grab them when they come. I hope,
though, that Kendall will put up a good game to-day. It’s time the
fellows began to consider him as a possibility. If they don’t we’ll
have to drop a hint pretty soon.”
“You’re a regular old politician,” laughed Harry.
“Say diplomat,” said Gerald. “It sounds more respectable.”
 “Schemer is more like it,” responded Harry, as they entered the
gymnasium. “Something tells me that a shower is going to feel
mighty good.”
Half an hour later, when they rounded the front of Oxford, the Golf
Team was just setting off for Broadwood, after an early dinner, in a
three-seated carriage. George Kirk waved to them and then spoke to
the driver, and the carriage stopped. Kirk leaned out and called to
Gerald.
“Say, Gerald, do something for me? Find The Duke; he’s at the
telephone, I think, and tell him never mind about New York; I’ll call
up this evening.”
“Never mind about New York, you’ll call up this evening. All right,
George; I’ll tell him. Good luck! Go to it and eat ’em alive!”
Kirk nodded and waved, and the carriage went on down the drive.
“I suppose,” mused Harry as he followed Gerald back to Oxford,
“that Kirk is just as much excited about his old golf match as you
and I will be about the race two weeks from now. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Funny?” repeated Gerald as he ran up the steps. “Why?”
“Oh, funny to think it matters who wins a golf match!”
“It’s evident you’re not a golfer,” laughed Gerald. “I’ll bet that if
George’s outfit gets licked this afternoon he will be like a bear with a
sore head! There’s The Duke in the booth.”
The long-distance booth was halfway down the main corridor of
Oxford, and, although it was rather dim, they could descry a figure
behind the glass. It was dinner hour and Oxford was otherwise quite
deserted. Gerald walked down the corridor, Harry sauntering behind.
“Hi, Duke! Kirk says never mind about New York!” shouted Gerald.
The Duke looked very angry and red-faced behind the window as
Gerald drew near, and was gesticulating wildly. He was also saying
things, but what they were Gerald was still too far away to hear.
 “The Duke’s having a fit, Harry,” he announced interestedly. “Come
and watch him.”
“... Door ... lemme out....”
“What’s he saying?” asked Harry grinning as he realized The
Duke’s dilemma. Gerald shook his head.
“Can’t understand him. Can you? Seems quite worked up about
something, though.”
“Lemme out! Don’t be a fool! Can’t you see this blamed door’s
stuck?” And The Duke mouthed and grimaced behind the glass.
Gerald and Harry, maintaining a respectful distance, viewed him
gravely.
“Can’t get his number, I suppose,” said Harry sympathetically.
“Maybe he’s got hold of a live wire somehow. Anything wrong,
Duke?”
“You open this door, Gerald! I’m suffocating in here!”
“He wants you to open the door,” explained Harry brightly. “But do
you think you’d better? He looks a bit dangerous, doesn’t he?”
“Y-yes,” responded Gerald doubtfully. “Perhaps we’d better have
help in case he gets——”
But there was such a rattling of the door, such an assault on the
side of the booth that Gerald’s words were drowned. “I do hope he’s
hung up the receiver so that the operator can’t hear him,” said
Harry. “It might give the school a bad name.”
Gerald, at last taking pity on the prisoner, turned the door knob
and The Duke stumbled out, angry of countenance and incoherent
of speech.
“Wish you’d get yourself locked up in that blamed thing,” he
sputtered, “and see how you like it! It’s ninety-eight in there, and
you can’t breathe! Why didn’t you open that door before? Wanted to
be smart, I suppose?”
 “What’s the matter with the door?” asked Harry.
“It’s crazy, I guess. You can’t open it from inside to save your life.
It ought to be fixed.”
“Oh, I guess you didn’t go at it right,” said Harry soothingly. “Let
me try it.”
So Harry stepped into the booth and closed the door behind him,
The Duke’s expression of wrath changing slowly to a wicked grin.
Harry turned the knob inside and pushed. The door remained firm.
Then he tried again and with no better success. The Duke was
thoroughly enjoying himself now, applauding and encouraging.
Gerald observed smilingly. At last Harry gave it up.
“Can’t be did,” he announced from within in a smothered voice.
“Open her up, Gerald.”
Gerald looked inquiringly at The Duke and The Duke gazed
questioningly at Gerald. “Strange,” observed the latter, “that you
can’t hear what he says. Perhaps if he put his mouth to the keyhole
——”
“There isn’t any,” said The Duke.
“That’s so.” Gerald shook his head sadly. “I don’t see what he can
do then.”
Harry threatened them behind the glass. “You open that door, you
silly chumps! I want my dinner.”
“Did you get that?” asked The Duke.
Gerald shook his head. “Only a faint murmur. These sound-proof
booths are wonderful, aren’t they?”
“Marvelous! Who’d ever suppose that a person could be as near as
that and not be heard?”
Harry was now doing his best to kick a hole through the wooden
paneling, his expression an interesting mixture of amusement and
annoyance.
 “Listen!” said The Duke. “I think I hear a tapping!”
“He is probably trying to signal to us, the way they do in the
mines, you know, when they’re imprisoned.”
“I know. They let food down to them through pipes somehow,
don’t they? I wonder if we could get his dinner to him anyway? We
might telephone it, perhaps.”
“If you don’t open this door,” announced Harry desperately, “I’ll
break the glass and you fellows will have to pay for it. Fair warning!”
“I hear a little better now,” said The Duke. “Perhaps he wants to
come out, Gerald!”
“I wonder! How stupid of us! I’ll bet that’s it, Duke. Suppose we
open the door and see.”
“Silly asses!” grunted Harry as he emerged, warm and disgusted.
“It makes an awful difference who the joke is on, doesn’t it,
dearie?” asked The Duke sweetly.
“Somebody ought to tell someone about that,” said Harry, “and
have it fixed.”
“And someone had better get into commons before someone loses
someone’s dinner,” replied The Duke. “You fellows been in?”
“No, we were on the way when Kirk asked us to find you and give
you a message.”
“He was in a rush and asked me to call up his folks in New York
and say he’d telephone this evening. Couldn’t get the house, though.
Central said they didn’t answer. I wonder if he knew about that
door!”
“I don’t think so,” laughed Gerald as they ran up the steps of
Whitson. “He didn’t look to be in a very—very flippant mood.”
After dinner the three boys went up to Gerald’s room and loafed
until it was time to go to the game. They reached the field early, but
found the grand stand already nearly filled. Forest Hill School had
sent over nearly a half hundred rooters and these had taken
possession of one end of the stand and were already tuning up for
the afternoon’s vocal performance. A good many folks had come
over from Greenburg and, of course, Yardley had turned out to a
man. The crowds was still streaming on to the field when the Forest
Hill team trotted past the corner of the stand and crossed the
gridiron to throw off blankets along the further side-line. Gerald,
Harry and The Duke were idling by the ropes on the Yardley side
when “Perky” Davis, the football manager, stopped. Davis was a thin,
light-haired youth with an habitual expression of care and concern.
Just now he seemed more worried than ever, and the creases on his
forehead were many and deep.
“Look who’s here, Gerald,” he said in a low voice.
Gerald’s gaze followed the manager’s toward the grand stand.
“Who, Perky?” he asked.
“Gibson, of Broadwood; the fellow who substitutes at guard. See
him? The big chap with the light gray overcoat and the derby hat,
sitting next to the Forest Hill crowd. He’s here to spy on us. Probably
thinks we won’t recognize him. I wish he’d choke. We were going to
use four or five new plays to-day, too. I’ll have to tell Payson.”
“I remember him,” said The Duke. “He’s got his nerve, hasn’t he? I
think he sees us looking at him.”
“Let him,” muttered Davis. “It’s just like Broadwood to send spies
over here.”
“Seen any more?” asked Gerald.
Davis shook his head, searching the throng suspiciously. “Not yet.
Maybe he’s the only one. They wouldn’t send more than one, I
guess. He isn’t much of a player, but they say he’s a mighty clever
chap at sizing up things.”
“Well, I suppose they have a right to do it if they want to,” said
Gerald. “And we can’t very well put him out, can we?”
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