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They were all far too interested in hockey to pay more than passing attention to the stranger and Joe presently retired from the group and donned his skates. By the time he was ready for the ice Steve Arbuckle had blown his whistle and fourteen eager youths were racing and twisting about after the flying puck. In front of the First Team’s goal Sam Craig, sweatered and padded, leaned on his broad-bladed stick and calmly watched. Then a Second Team forward somehow stole the puck from under Captain Morris’s nose and, digging the points of his skates, slanted down the rink, dodging and feinting, until only the point remained between him and goal-keeper. Behind him the pursuit sped, but he was due for a shot if he could fool the point, and fool the point he did. Away slid the puck to the right, the charging Second Team forward twirled, recovered as the point missed his check, got the puck again before the coverpoint could reach it and charged straight at goal from the right.

Sam Craig, still apparently calm and unflustered, refused the challenge to go out and meet him. Instead, he closed his padded knees together, held his stick across his body and waited. The Second Team player shot from six feet away, shot hard and straight. There was a thud, the puck slammed against Sam’s knee and was gently brushed aside as Sid Morris, skating like a whirlwind, rushed past, hooked it expertly, swung around behind the goal and set off again down the ice. The Second Team forward, who had so nearly scored, was already back in line, quite untroubled by his failure, and Joe identified him as Strobe. Sidney lost the puck a moment later and the whistle shrilled for off-side. Joe watched until the First Team had finally penetrated the adversary’s defence and scored its first goal and then went off up the pond to skate. Since most of the fellows were watching the hockey he had the upper reaches of the ice practically to himself.