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Title: The High School Left End
       Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron

Author: H. Irving Hancock

Release Date: June 23, 2004 [EBook #12691]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGH SCHOOL LEFT END ***




Produced by Jim Ludwig




THE HIGH SCHOOL LEFT END

or Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron

By H. Irving Hancock



CONTENTS

CHAPTERS
     I. Sulking in the Football Camp
    II. The Start of the Dodge Mystery
   III. Dick Stumbles on Something
    IV. The 'Soreheads' in Conclave
     V. At the End of the Trail
    VI. The Small Soul of a Gentleman
   VII. The Football Notice Goes Up
  VIII. Dick Fires Both Barrels
    IX. Bayliss Gets Some Advice
     X. Two Girls Turn the Laugh
    XI. Does Football Teach Real Nerve
   XII. Dick, Like Caesar, Refuses the Crown
  XIII. Bert Dodge "Starts Something"
   XIV. The "Strategy" of a School Traitor
    XV. A "Fear" for the Plotter
   XVI. "The Cattle Car for Yours"
  XVII. Facing the "School Cut"
 XVIII. "Prin." Gets in the Practice
   XIX. Laura and Belle Have a Secret
    XX. In the Line of Daring
   XXI. The Price of Bravery
  XXII. The Thanksgiving Day Game
 XXIII. Sulker and Real Man
  XXIV. Conclusion




CHAPTER I

SULKING IN THE FOOTBALL CAMP


"Football is all at sixes and sevens, this year," muttered Dave
Darrin disconsolately.

"I can tell you something more than that," added Tom Reade mysteriously.

"What?" asked Dick Prescott, looking at Reade with interest, for
it was unusual for Reade to employ that tone or air.

"Two members of the Athletics Committee have intimated to Coach
Morton that they'd rather see football passed by this year."

"_What_?" gasped Dick.  He was staring hard now.

"Fact," nodded Tom.  "At least, I believe it to be a fact."

"There must be something wrong with that news," put in Greg Holmes
anxiously.

"No; I think it's all straight enough," persisted Tom, shaking
his head to silence Holmes.  "It came to me straight enough, though
I don't feel at liberty to tell you who told me."

All six members of Dick & Co. were present.  The scene of the
meeting was Dick Prescott's own room at his home over the bookstore
kept by his parents.  The hour was about nine o'clock in the evening.
It was Friday evening of the first week of the new school year.
The fellows had dropped in to talk over the coming football
season, because the week had been one of mysterious unrest in
the football squad at Gridley High School.

Just what the trouble was, where it lay or how it had started
was puzzling the whole High School student body.  The squad was
not yet duly organized.  This was never attempted until in the
second week of the school year.  Yet it was always the rule that
the new seniors who, during their junior year, had made good records
on either the school eleven, or the second eleven, should form
the nucleus of the new pigskin squad.  Added to these, were the
new juniors, formerly of the sophomore class, who had shown the
most general promise in athletics during the preceding school
year.

Gridley High School aimed to lead---to be away at the top---in
all school athletics.  The "Gridley spirit," which would not accept
defeat in sports, was proverbial throughout the state.

And so, though the football squad was not yet formally organized
for training and practice, yet, up to the last few days, it had
been expected that a finer gridiron crowd than usual would present
itself for weeding, sifting and training by Coach Morton.  The
latter was also one of the submasters of Gridley High School.

Since the school year had opened, however, undercurrent news had
been rife that there would be many "soreheads," and that this
would be an "off year" in Gridley football.  Just where the trouble
lay, or what the "kick" was about, was a puzzle to most members
of the student body.  It was an actual mystery to Dick & Co.

"What is all the undermining row about, anyway?" demanded Dick,
looking around at his chums.  Dick was pacing the floor.  Dave,
Tom and Greg Holmes were seated on the edge of the bed.  Dan Dalzell
was lying back in the one armchair that the room boasted.  Harry
Hazelton was standing by the door.

"I can't make a single thing out of it all," sighed Dan.  "All
I can get at is that some of the seniors and some of our class,
the juniors, are talking as though they didn't care about playing
this year.  I know that Coach Morton is worried.  In fact, he's
downright disheartened."

"Surely," interjected Dick, "Mr. Morton must have an idea of what
is keeping some of the fellows back from the team?"

"If he does know, he isn't offering any information," returned
Harry Hazelton.

"I don't see any need for so much mystery," broke in Dave Darrin,
in disgust.

"Well, there is a mystery about it, anyway," contended Tom Reade.

"Then, before I'm much older, I'm going to know what that mystery
is," declared Dick.

"You're surely the one of our crowd who ought to be put on the
trail of the mystery," proposed Dalzell, with a laugh.

"Why?" challenged Prescott.

"Why, you're a reporter on 'The Blade.' Now mysteries are supposed
to constitute the especial field of reporters.  So, see here,
fellows, I move  that we appoint Dick Prescott a committee of
one for Dick & Co., his job being to find out what ails football---to
learn just what has made football sick this year."

"Hear!  Hear!" cried some of the others.

"Is that your unanimous wish, fellows?" asked Dick, smiling.

"It is," the others agreed.

"Very good, then," sighed Prescott.  "At no matter what personal
cost, I will find the answer for you."

This was all in a spirit of fun, as the chums understood.  Yet
this lightly given promise was likely to involve Dick Prescott
in a good deal more than he had expected.

Readers of the preceding volumes in this series know Dick & Co.
so well that an introduction would be superfluous.  Those to
whom the pages of "The High School Freshmen" are familiar know
how Dick & Co., chums from the Central Grammar School, entered
Gridley High School in the same year.  How the boys toiled through
that first year as half-despised freshmen, and how they got some
small share in school athletics, even though freshmen were not
allowed to make the school athletic teams, has been told.  The
pranks of the young freshmen are now "old tales."  How Dick Prescott,
with the aid of his chums, put up a hoax that fairly seared the
Board of Education out of its purpose to forbid High School football
does not need telling again.  Our former readers are also familiar
with the enmity displayed by Fred Ripley, son of a wealthy lawyer,
and the  boomerang plot of Ripley to disgrace Prescott and brand
the latter as a High School thief.  The same readers will recall
the part played in this plot by Tip Scammon, worthless son of
the honest old High School janitor, and how Tip's evil work resulted
in his going to the penitentiary for the better part of a year.

Readers of "_The High School Pitcher_" will recollect how, in
their sophomore year, Dick and Co. made their first real start
in High School athletics; how Dick became the star pitcher for
the nine, and how the other chums all found places on the nine,
either as star players or as "subs."  In this volume also was
told the story of Fred's moral disasters under the tyranny of
Tip Scammon, Who threatened to "tell."  How Dick & Co. were largely
entitled to the credit for bringing the Gridley High School nine
through a season's great record on the diamond was all told in
this second volume.  Dick's good fortune in getting a position
as "space" reporter on "The Morning Blade" was also described,
and some of his adventures as reporter were told.  The culmination
of Fred Ripley's scoundrelism, and his detection by his stern
old lawyer father, were narrated at length.  Perhaps many of our
readers will remember, the unpopular principal of the High School,
Mr. Abner Cantwell; and the swimming episode, in which every High
School boy took part, afterwards meekly awaiting the impossible
expulsion of all the boys of the High School student body.  Our
readers will recall that Mr. Cantwell had succeeded the former
principal, Dr. Thornton, whom the boys had almost idolized, and
that much of Mr. Cantwell's trouble was due to his ungovernable
temper.

During the first two years of High School life, Dick & Co. had
become increasingly popular.  True, since these six chums were
all the sons of families in very moderate circumstances, Dick
& Co. had been disliked by some of the little groups of students
who came from wealthier families, and who believed that High School
life should be rather governed by a select few representing the
move "aristocratic" families of the little city.

Good-humored avoidance is excellent treatment to accord a snob,
and this, as far as possible, had been the plan of Dick & Co.
and of the other average boy at the High School.

"Let us see," broke in Dick, suddenly, "who are the soreheads
in the football line?"

"Well, Davis and Cassleigh, of the senior class, for two," replied
Dave Darrin.

"Dodge, Fremont and Bayliss, also first classmen," suggested Reade.

"Trenholm and Grayson, also seniors," brought in Greg Holmes.

"Then there are Porter, Drayne and Whitney," added Dave.  "They're
of this year's Juniors."

"And Hudson and Paulson, also of our junior class," nodded Harry
Hazelton.

Dick Prescott had rapidly written down the names.  Now he was
studying the list carefully.

"They're all good football men," sighed Dick.  "All men whose
aid in the football squad is much needed."

"Drayne is the stuck-up chap, who uses the broad 'a' in his speech,
and carries his nose up at an angle of forty-five degrees," chuckled
Dan Dalzell.  "He's the fellow I mortally offended by nicknaming
him 'Sewers,' to mimic his name of 'Drayne.'"

"That wouldn't be enough to keep him out of football," remarked
Dave quietly.

Dick looked up suddenly from his list.

"Fellows," he announced, "I've made one discovery."

"Out with it!" ordered Dan.

"Perhaps you can guess for yourselves what I have just found."

"We can't," admitted Hazelton meekly.  "Please tell us, and save
us racking our brains."

"Well, it's curious," continued Dick slowly, "but every one of
these fellows---I believe you've given me all the names of the
'soreheads'"

"We have," affirmed Tom Reade.

"Well, I've just noted that every fellow on my sorehead roll of
honor belongs to one of our families of wealth in Gridley."

Dick paused to look around him, to see how the announcement impressed
his chums.

"Do you mean," hinted Hazelton, "that the soreheads are down on
football because they prefer automobiles?"

"No." Dick Prescott shook his head emphatically.

"By Jove, Dick, I believe you're right," suddenly exclaimed Dave
Darrin.

"So you see my point, old fellow?"

"I'm sure I do."

"I'm going to get examined for spectacles, then," sighed Dan plaintively.
"I can't see a thing."

"Why, you ninny," retorted Dave scornfully, "the football 'soreheads'
have been developing that classy feeling.  They wear better clothes
than we do, and have more pocket money.  Many of their fathers
don't work for a living.  In other words, the fellows on Dick's
list belong to what they consider a privileged and aristocratic
set.  They're the Gridley bluebloods---or think they are---and
they don't intend to play on any football eleven that is likely
to have Dick & Co. and a few other ordinary muckers on it."

"Muckers?" repeated Harry Hazelton flaring up.

"Cool down, dear chap, _do_!" urged Darrin, soothingly.  "I don't
mean to imply that we really are muckers, but that's what some
of the classy group evidently consider us."

"Why, they say that Cassleigh's grandfather was an Italian immigrant,
who spelled his name Casselli," broke in Dan Dalzell.

"I believe it, son," nodded Dave.  "Old Casselli was an immigrant
and an honest fellow.  But he had the bad judgment to make some
money in the junk business, and sent his son to college.  The
son, after the old immigrant died, took to spelling his name Cassleigh,
and the grandson is the prize snob of the town."

"And Bayliss's father was indicted by the grand jury, seven or
eight years ago, for bribery in connection with a trolley franchise,"
muttered Greg Holmes.

"Also currently reported to be true, my infant," nodded Dave sagely.
"But the witnesses against the elder Bayliss skipped, and the
district attorney never brought the case to trial.  Case was quashed
a year later, and so now the Baylisses belong to the Distinguished
Order of Unconvicted Boodlers.  That trolley stock jumped to six
times its par value right after the case against Bayliss was dropped,
you know."

"And, from what I've heard Mr. Pollock say at 'The Blade' office,"
Dick threw in, "the fathers of one or two of the other soreheads
got their money in devious ways."

"Why, there's Whitney's father," laughed Dan Dalzell.  "Did you
ever hear how he got his start thirty years ago?  Whitney's
brother-in-law got into financial difficulties, and transferred to
the elder Whitney property worth a hundred and twenty-five thousand
dollars.  When the financial storm blew over the brother-in-law wanted
the property transferred back again, but the elder Whitney didn't
see it that way.  The elder Whitney kept the transferred property,
and has since increased it to a half million or more."

"Oh, well," Dick interrupted, "let us admit that some of the fellows
on the sorehead list have never been in jail, and have never been
threatened with it.  But I am sure that Dave has guessed my meaning
right.  The soreheads, who number a dozen of rather valuable pigskin
men, are on strike just because some of us poorer fellows are
in it."

"What nonsense!" ejaculated Greg Holmes disgustedly.  "Why, Purcell
isn't in any such crowd.  Of course, Purcell's father isn't rich
beyond the dreams of avarice, but the Purcells, as far as blood
goes, are head and shoulders above the families of any of the
fellows on Dick's little list."

"If that's really what the disagreement is over," drawled Dan,
"I see an easy way out of it."

"Go ahead," nodded Dick.

"Let the 'soreheads' form the Sons of Tax-payers Eleven, and we'll
organize a Sons of poor but Honest Parents Eleven.  Then we'll
play them the best two out of three games for the honor of representing
Gridley High School this year."

"Bright, but not practicable," objected Dick patiently.  "The
trouble is that, if two such teams were formed and matched, neither
team, in the event of its victory, would have all of the best
gridiron stuff that the High School contains.  No, no; what we
want, if possible, is some plan that will bring the whole student
body together, all differences forgotten and with the sole purpose
of getting up the best eleven that  Gridley can possibly send
out against the world."

"Well, we are willing," remarked Darrin grimly.

"No!  No, we're not," objected Hazelton fiercely.  "If the snobs
don't want to play with any of us on the team, then we don't want
to play if _they_ come in."

"Gently, gently!" urged Dick.  "Think of the honor of your school
before you tie your hands up with any of your own mean, small
pride.  Our whole idea must be that Gridley High School is to
go on winning, as it has always done before.  For myself, I had
hoped to be on the eleven this year.  Yet, if my staying off the
list will put Gridley in the winning set, I'm willing to give
up my own ambitions.  I'm going to put the honor of the school
first, and myself somewhere along about fourteenth."

"That's the only talk," approved Dave promptly.  "Gridley must
have the winning football eleven."

"Well, the whole thing is a shame," blazed Reade indignantly.

"Oh, well, don't worry," drawled Dan Dalzell.  "Keep cool, and
the whole thing will be fixed."

"Fixed?" insisted Reade.  "How?  How will it be fixed?"

"I don't know," Dan confessed, stifling a yawn behind his hand.
"Just leave the worry alone.  Let Dick fix it."

"How can you fix it?" asked Reade, turning upon their leader.

"I don't know---yet," hesitated Prescott.  But, like Dan, I believe
there's a way to be found."

"Going?" asked Hazelton.  "Well, I'll trot along, too."

"Yes," nodded Greg.  "It's a shame to stay here, hardening Dick's
mattress when he ought to be lying on it himself.  It's time we
were all in bed.  Good night, Dick, old fellow."

Four of the boys were speedily gone.  Darrin, however, remained
behind, though he intended to stay only a few minutes.  The two
were earnestly discussing the squally football "weather" when
the elder Prescott's voice sounded from the foot of the stairs.

"Dick?"

"Yes, sir," answered the boy, throwing open the door and springing
to the head of the stairs.

"Mr. Bradley, of 'The Blade,' wants to talk with you over the 'phone.
In a hurry, too, he says.

"I'll be right there, Dad.  Coming, Dave?"

Darrin nodding, the two chums ran down the stairs to the bookstore.
Dick caught up the transmitter and answered.

"That you, Dick?" sounded the impatient voice of News Editor Bradley.

"This is Dick Prescott, Mr. Bradley."

"Then, for goodness' sake, can you hustle up here?"

"Of course I can."

"Ask your father if you can take up a late night job for me.
Then come on the jump.  My men are all out, and everything is
at odds and ends in the way of news.  I can't get a single man,
and I wish I had three at this minute."

"Dave Darrin is here.  Can I bring him along?"

"Yes; he's not a reporter---but he may be able to help.  Hustle."

"I'll be walking in through the doorway," laughed Dick, "by the
time you've hung your transmitter up.  Good-bye."  Ting-a-ling-ling!
"Now, Dave, get your father on the jump, and ask his leave to
go out on a late night story with me."

Fortunately there was no delay about this.  Dave received the
permission from home promptly enough.  The two youngsters set
out on a run.

What healthy boy of sixteen doesn't love to prowl late a night?
It is twenty-fold more fascinating when there's a mystery on
tap, and a newspaper behind all the curiosity.

The longing of these sturdy chums for mystery and adventure was
swiftly to be gratified---perhaps more so than they could have
wished!

News Editor Bradley was waiting for them in the doorway of "The
Blade" office, a frown on the journalistic face.




CHAPTER II

THE START OF THE DODGE MYSTERY


"This is the way it always goes," jerked out Bradley, as the two
High School boys hurried into the office after him.

"One of my men is sick, and the other two are somewhere---where,
I can't find out."

"All" his men sounded large enough; as a matter of fact, the only
reporters "The Blade" employed were three young men on salary,
and Dick Prescott, mainly as gleaner of school news.  Dick didn't
receive any salary, but was paid a dollar a column.

"What's happening, anyway?" Dick asked coolly.

"You know Theodore Dodge?" demanded Mr. Bradley.

"I know him when I see him; he never talks with me," Prescott
replied.

"Theodore Dodge is the father of a fellow in our senior class
at High School," Dave put in, adding under his breath, "and the
son is one of our football 'soreheads.'"

"Dodge has vanished," continued Bradley.  "He went out early this
morning, and hasn't been seen since.  Tonight, just after dark,
a man walking by the river, up above the bend, picked up a coat
and hat on the bank.  Letters in the pocket showed the coat to
be Mr. Dodge's.  The finder of the coat hurried to the Dodge house,
and Mrs. Dodge hurriedly notified the police,  asking Chief Coy
to keep the whole matter quiet.  Jerry (Chief Coy) doesn't know
that we have a blessed word about this.  But Jerry, his plain
clothes man, Hemingway, and two other officers are out on the
case.  They have been on the job for nearly three hours.  So far
they haven't learned a word.  They can't drag the river until
daylight comes.  Now, Prescott, what occurs to you as the thing
to do?"

"I guess the only thing," replied Dick quietly, "is to find
Theodore Dodge."

Mr. Bradley gasped.

"Well, yes; you have the right idea, young man.  But can you find
Dodge, Dick?"

"When do you go to press?"

"Latest at four o'clock in the morning."

"I think I can either find Theodore Dodge, or else find where
he went to," Prescott replied, slowly.  "Of course, that's brag---not
promise."

"You get us the story---straight and in detail," cried Bradley,
eagerly, "and there'll probably be a bit extra in it for you---a
good bit, perhaps.  If Dodge doesn't turn up without sensation
this is going to be our big story for a week.  Dodge, you know,
is vice-president and actual head of the Second National Bank."

"Whew!" thought Dave Darrin, to himself.  "It's easy enough for
any suspicious person to imagine a story!  But it might not be
the right one."

"Some time ago," asked Dick thoughtfully, "didn't you publish
a story about some of the big amounts of insurance carried by
local rich men?"

"Yes," nodded Bradley.

"I think you stated that Theodore Dodge carried more than any
other citizen of Gridley."

"Yes; he carries a quarter of a million dollars of insurance."

"Is the insurance payable to his widow, or others---or to his
estate?"

"I don't know," mused News Editor Bradley, a very thoughtful look
coming into his face.

"Well, it's worth while finding out," pursued Dick.  "See here,
suppose Dodge has been using the bank's funds, and found himself
in a corner that he couldn't get out of?  Then, if the insurance
money goes to his widow, it would be hers, and no court could
take it from her for the benefit of his creditors.  If it goes
to the estate, instead, then the insurance money, when paid over,
could be seized and applied to cover any shortage of the missing
man at the bank."

"So that-----?" interrogated the news editor, his own eyes twinkling
shrewdly.

"Why, in case---just in case, you understand---that Mr. Dodge
has gone and gotten himself into trouble over the bank's funds,
then it's probable that he has done one of two things.  Either,
in despair he has killed himself, so that either his widow or
the bank will be protected.  If the missing man didn't do away
with himself, then probably he has put up the appearance of suicide
in the hope that the officers of the law will be fooled of his
trail, and that either a wronged bank or a deserted wife might
get the insurance money.  Of course, Mrs. Dodge might even be
a party to a contemplated fraud, though that's not a fair inference
against her unless something turns up to make it seem highly probable."

"My boy," cried Mr. Bradley admiringly, "you've all the instincts
and qualities of the good newspaper man.  I hope you'll take up
the work when you get through the High School.  But now to business!"

"Where do you want me to go?  Where do you want me to take up
the trail?  Where it started, just above the river bend?  That's
out in the country, a mile and a half from here."

"Darrin," begged the news editor, "won't you step to the 'phone
and ring up Getchel's livery stable?  Ask the man in charge to
we want a horse with a little speed and a good deal of endurance."

While Dave was busy at the wire Dick and the news editor talked
over the affair in low tones.

"With the horse you can cover a lot of ground," suggested Bradley.
"And you're right about taking up the trail where it started.  In
half an hour, if you don't strike something big, you can drive back
here on the jump for further orders.  And don't forget the use of
the 'phone, if you're at a distance.  Also, if you strike something,
and want to follow it further, you can have Darrin drive in with
anything that you've struck up to the minute.  Hustle, both of you.
And, Darrin, we'll pay you for your trouble tonight."

Horse and buggy were soon at the door.  Dick sprang in, picking
up the reins.  Dave leaped in at the other side.  The horse started
away at a steady trot.

"I hope those boys have brains enough not to go right past the
story," mused Bradley, gazing after the buggy before he went back
to his desk.  "But I guess Prescott always has his head squarely
on his shoulders.  He does, in school athletics, anyway.  Len
Spencer is the man for this job, so of course Len had to be laid
up with a cold and fever that would make it murder to send him
out tonight."

Horse and buggy were soon at the door.  Dick sprang in, picking
up the reins.  Dave leaped in at the other side.  The horse started
away at a steady trot.

"I hope those boys have brains enough not to go right past the
story," mused Bradley, gazing after the buggy before he went back
to his desk.  "But I guess Prescott always has his head squarely
on his shoulders.  He does, in school athletics, anyway.  Len
Spencer is the man for this job, so of course Len had to be laid
up with a cold and fever that would make it murder to send him
out to-night."

"Dick," muttered Dave excitedly, "you've simply got to make good.
This isn't simply a little paragraph to be scribbled.  It's a
mystery and is going to be the sensation of the day.  This is
the kind of story that full-fledged reporters on the great dailies
have to handle."

"Yes," laughed Dick, "and those reporters never get flurried.
I'm not going to allow myself any excitement, either."

"No, but you want to get the story---all of it."

"Of course I do," Prescott agreed quietly.

"If you do this in bang-up shape," Dave went on enthusiastically,
"it's likely to be the making of you!"

"How?" queried Dick, turning around to his chum.

"Why, success on a big story would fairly launch you in journalism.
It would provide your career as soon as you're through High School."

"I don't want a career at the end of the High School course,"
Dick returned.  "I'm going further, and try to fare better in
life."

"Wouldn't you like to be a newspaper man for good?" demanded Dave.

"Not on a small-fry paper, anyway" replied Prescott.  "Why, Bradley
is news editor, and has been in the business for years.  He gets
about thirty dollars a week.  I don't believe Pollock, who has
charge of the paper, gets more than forty-five.  That isn't return
enough for a man who is putting in his whole life at the business."

"Thirty dollars has the sound of pretty large money," mused Dave.
"As for forty-five, if that's what Mr. Pollock gets, look at the
comfort he lives in at his club; and he's a real estate owner, too."

"Yes," Dick admitted.  "But that's because Pollock follows two
callings.  He's an editor and a dealer in real estate.  As for
me, I'd rather put all my energies into one line of work."

"Then you believe you're going to earn more money than Pollock
does?" questioned Dave, rather wonderingly.

"If I pick out a career for income," Dick responded, "I do intend
to go in for larger returns.  But I may go into another calling
where the pay doesn't so much matter."

"Such as what?"

"Dave, old fellow, can you keep a secret?"

"Bosh!  You know I can."

"A big secret?"

"Stop that!"

"Well, I'll tell you, Dave.  By and by there are going to be,
in this state, two appointments to cadetships at West Point.
Our Congressman will have one appointment.  Senator Alden will
have the other.  Now, in this state, appointments to West Point
are almost always thrown open to competitive examination.  All
the fellows who want to go to West Point get together, at the
call, and are examined.  The fellow who comes off best is passed
on to West Point to try his luck."

"And you think you can prove that you're the brightest fellow
in the district?" laughed Dave good-humoredly.

"There are to be two chances, and I think I can prove that I'm
one of the two brightest to apply.  And Dave!"

"Well?"

"Why don't you go in to prove that you're the other brightest
fellow.  Just think!  West Point!  And the Army for a life career!"

"I think I'd rather scheme to go to the Naval Academy, and become
an officer of the Navy," returned Dave slowly.  "The big battleships
appeal to me more than does the saddle of the cavalryman."

"Go to Indianapolis?" muttered Dick, in near-disgust.  "Well,
I suppose that will do well enough for a fellow who can't get
to West Point."

"Now, see here," protested Dave good-humoredly, though warmly,
"you quit talking about Indianapolis.  That's a favorite trick
with fellows who are cracked on West Point.  You know, as well
as I do, that the Naval Academy is at Annapolis.  There's a vacancy
ahead for Annapolis, too."

"Oho!  You've been thinking of that?" demanded Dick, again looking
into his chum's eyes.

"Yes."

"Yes; if I can come out best in a competitive examination of the
boys of this district."

"Two secrets, then---yours and mine," grinned Prescott.  "However,
it'll be easier for you."

"Why?"

"There aren't so many fellows eager to go to the Naval Academy.
It doesn't draw as hard as the Army does."

"The dickens it doesn't!" ejaculated Dave Darrin.

"No; the Navy doesn't catch young enthusiasm the way the Army
does.  You won't have so many fellows to compete with as I shall,"
said Dick.

"I'll have twice as many---three times as many," flared Darrin.
"The Naval Academy is the only real and popular school in the
United Service."

"Well, we won't quarrel," laughed young Prescott.  "When the time
comes we'll probably find smarter young fellows ahead of us, headed
for both academies."

"If you do fail on West Point-----?" quizzed Dave.

"_If_ I do," declared Dick, with a very wistful emphasis on that
"if," "then, after getting through High School I'll probably try
to put in a year or two of hard work on 'The Blade,' to help my
parents put me through college.  They're anxious to make me a
college man, and they'd work and save hard for it, but I wouldn't
be much good if I didn't try to earn a lot of the expense money.
One thing I'm resolved upon---I'm not going to go through life
as a half-educated man.  It is becoming more true, every year,
that there's little show for the man with only the half-formed
mind."

Then the two turned back to the subject that had brought them
out on this September night---the disappearance of Banker Theodore
Dodge.

"In a minute or two we'll be in sight of the river bend," announced
Darrin.

"There it is, now," nodded Dick, slowing down the horse and gazing
over yonder.  "Some one is there, and looking hard for something."

"Yes; I make out a couple of lanterns," assented Dave.  "Well"---as
Dick pulled in the horse---"aren't you going to drive over there?"

"That's what I want to think about," declared young Prescott.
"I want to go at the job the right way---the way that real newspapermen
would use."




CHAPTER III

DICK STUMBLES ON SOMETHING


A few moments later Dick Prescott guided the horse down a shaded
lane.  "Whoa!" he called, and got out.

"What, now?" questioned Darrin, as his chum began to hitch the
horse to a tree.

"I'm going to prowl over by the bend, and see who's there and
what they are doing."

Having tied the horse, Dick turned and nodded to his friend to
walk along with him.

"You know Bradley told us," Prescott explained, "that the police
do not know that Dodge's disappearance has leaked out to the press.
Most folks in Gridley know that I write for 'The Blade.' So I'm
in no hurry to show up among the searchers.  I intend, instead,
to see what they're doing.  By going quietly we can approach,
through that wood, and get close enough to see and hear without
making our presence known."

"I understand," nodded Darrin.

Within two or three minutes the High School reporter and his chum
had gained a point in the bushes barely one hundred and fifty
feet away from where two men and a boy, carrying between them
two lanterns, were closely examining the ground near the bank.
One of the men was Hemingway, who was a sort of detective on
the Gridley police force.  The other man was a member of the uniformed
force, though just now in citizen's dress.  The boy was  Bert
Dodge, son of the missing banker, and one of the best football
men of the senior class of Gridley High School.

"It's odd that we can't find where the trail leads to," the eavesdroppers
heard Hemingway mutter presently.

"I'm afraid," replied young Dodge, with a slight choke in his
voice, "that our failure is due to the fact that water doesn't
leave any trail."

"So you think your father drowned himself?" asked Hemingway, looking
sharply at the banker's son.

"If he didn't, then some one must have pushed him into the river,"
argued Bert, in an unsteady voice.

"And I'm just about as much of the opinion," retorted Hemingway,
"that your father left his hat and coat here, or sent them here,
and didn't even get his feet wet."

"That's preposterous," argued the son, half indignantly.

"Well, there is the spot, right there, where the hat and coat
were found.  Now, for a hundred feet away, either up or down stream,
the ground is soft.  Yet there are no tracks such as your father
would have left had he taken to the water close to where he left
his discarded garments," argued Hemingway, swinging his lantern
about.

"We've pretty well trodden down whatever footprints might have
been here," disputed Bert Dodge.  "I shan't feel satisfied until
daylight  comes and we've had a good chance to have the river
dragged."

"Well, of course, it is possible you know of a reason that would
make your father throw himself into the river?" guessed Officer
Hemingway, with a shrewd glance at the son.

"Neither my mother nor I know anything about my father that would
supply a reason for his suicide," retorted Bert Dodge stiffly.
"But I can't see any reason for believing anything except that
my poor dad must now be somewhere in the river."

"We'll soon be able to do the best that we can do by night," rejoined
Hemingway.  "Chief Coy has gone after a gasoline launch that carries
an electric search-light.  As soon as he arrives we'll go all
over the river, throwing the light on every part of the water
in search of some further clue.  There's no use, however, in trying
to do anything more around here.  We may as well be quiet and
wait."

"I can't stand still!" sounded Dodge's voice, with a ring of anguished
suspense in it.  "I've got to keep hunting."

"Go ahead, then," nodded the detective.  "We would, too, if there
were anything further that could be looked into.  But there isn't.
I'm going to stop and smoke until the launch heaves in sight."

Both policemen threw themselves on the ground, produced pipes
and fell to smoking.  But Bert Dodge, with the restlessness of
keen distress, continued to stumble on up and down along the
bank, flashing the lantern everywhere.

Presently Dodge was within sixty feet of where his High School
mates crouched in hiding.

Suddenly the livery stable horse, some four or five hundred feet
away, whinnied loudly, impatiently.

Natural as the sound was, young Dodge, in the tense state of his
nerves, started and looked frightened.

"Wh-what was that?" he gasped.

"A horse," called Hemingway quietly.  "Probably some critter passing
on the road."

"I wish you'd see who's with that horse," begged young Dodge.
"It may bring us news.  I'm going, anyway."

With that, swinging the lantern, Bert Dodge started to cut across
through the woods with its fringe of bushes.

Dave Darrin slipped away, and out of sight.  Before Dick could
do so, however, young Dodge, moving at a fast sprint, was upon
him.

Bert stopped as though shot when he caught sight of the other boy.

"Dick Prescott?" he gasped.

"Yes," answered Dick quietly.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to see what news there is about the finding of your father."

Hemingway had now reached the spot, with the other policeman some
yards to the rear.

"You write for 'The Blade,' don't you?" challenged Bert.

"Yes," Dick assented.

"And 'The Blade' people sent you here?" cried Bert Dodge, in a
voice haughty with displeasure.

"Perhaps 'The Blade' sent me here," Dick only half admitted.

"Sent you here to pry into other people's affairs and secrets,"
continued young Dodge impetuously.  Then added, threateningly:

"Don't you dare to print a word about this affair!"

Dick looked quietly at young Dodge.

"Did you hear me?" demanded Bert.

"Yes."

"Then what's your answer?"

"That I heard you, Bert."

"You young puppy!" cried Dodge, advancing threateningly.  "Don't
you address me familiarly."

"I don't care anything about addressing you at all," retorted
Prescott, flushing slightly under the insult.  "At present I can
make allowances for you, for I fully understand how anxious you
are.  But that is no real excuse for insulting me."

"Are you going to heed me when I tell you to print nothing about
my father's disappearance?" insisted young Dodge.

"That is something over which you really have no control," Dick
replied slowly, though not offensively.  "I take all my orders
from my employers."

"You young mucker!" cried Bert, in exasperation.  "You print anything
about our family misfortunes, and I'll thrash you until you can't
see."

"I won't answer that," Dick replied, "Until you make the attempt.
But, see here, Dodge, you should try to keep cool, and as close
to the line of gentlemanly speech and conduct as possible."

"A nice one you are, to lecture me on that subject," jeered Bert
Dodge.  "You---only a mucker!  The son of-----"

"Stop!" roared Dick, his face reddening.  He advanced, his fists
clenched.  "If you're going to say anything against my father
or mother, Bert Dodge, then stop before you say it!  Before I
break your neck!"

"Stop, both of you," interjected Hemingway, springing between
the white-faced High School boys.  "No blows are going to be struck
while members of the police department are around.   Dodge, of
course, you're upset and nervous, but you're not acting the way
a gentleman should, even under such circumstances."

"Then drive that fellow away from here!" commanded Bert.

"I can't," confessed the officer.  "He is breaking no law, and
has as much right to be here as we have."

"Oh, he objects to my saying anything against his father or mother,
but he's out tonight to throw all manner of slime on my father's
name," contended Bert Dodge.  His voice broke under the stress
of his pent-up emotion.

"You're wrong there, Dodge!" Dick broke in, forcing himself to
speak calmly.  "I'm here to gather the facts on a matter of news,
but I am not out to throw any insinuations over your father, or
anyone whose good name is naturally precious to you.  Sometimes
a reporter---even an amateur one---has to do things that are unpleasant,
but they're all in the line of duty."

"'The Blade' won't print a line about this matter," raged Bert
tremulously.  "Mr. Ripley is my father's friend, and his lawyer,
too.  Mr. Ripley will go to your editor, and let him know what
is going to happen if that scurrilous sheet-----"

Here Bert checked himself, for Dick had begun to smile coldly.

"Confound you!" roared Bert Dodge.  He leaped forward, intent
on striking the young junior down.  But Officer Hemingway pushed
Dodge back forcefully.

"Come, come, now, Dodge, we won't have any of that," warned the
officer.  "And, if you want my opinion, you're not playing the
part of a gentleman just now.  Prescott understands your state
of mind, however.  He knows you're so upset, your mind so unhinged
by the family trouble that you're doing and saying things that
you'll be ashamed of by daylight."

"I suppose, next, you'll be inviting this reported fellow to go
on the boat with us when it comes," sneered Bert Dodge.

"That would be for the chief to say.  Reporters are, usually,
allowed to go with the police.  Come, come, Dodge," urged Hemingway,
laying a kindly hand on the young man's shoulder, "calm down and
understand that Prescott is not offering to make any trouble,
and that he has been very patient with a young fellow who finds
himself in a heap of trouble."

"I can cut this short," offered Dick quietly.  "I don't believe
it would be worth my while, Mr. Hemingway, to ask the chief's
permission to go on the boat with you.  'The Blade' can find out,
later, whether you discover anything on the river."

"Where are you going, now?" demanded Bert unreasonably, as Prescott
turned away.

"Back to the horse and buggy," Dick replied coolly.

"Then I'm going with you, and see you start back to town," asserted
Bert Dodge.

Hemingway did not interfere, but, leaving his brother policeman
at the river's edge, accompanied young Dodge.  In a few minutes
they arrived at the spot in the lane where Dick had tied the horse.
Here they found Dave Darrin seated in the buggy.  Dave glanced
unconcernedly at them all, nodding to Hemingway way, who returned
the salutation.

"Now, I'll watch you start away from here," snapped Bert.

"All right, then," smiled Dick, climbing in, after unhitching,
and picking up the reins.  "I won't keep you long."

With that, and a parting word to the policeman, Dick Prescott
drove away.

"I saw Hemingway coming, and knew you wouldn't need me," Dave
explained with a laugh.  "So, to save Bert a double attack of
nerves, I slipped off in the darkness, and came here.  But what
on earth ails Dodge, anyway?"

"Why, for one thing, he's worried to death about the disappearance
of his father," replied Dick Prescott.

"I've seen people awfully worried before, and yet it didn't make
madmen of them," snorted Darrin.

"Well---perhaps-----"

Dick hesitated.

"Well----?" Darrin insisted, rather impatiently.

"I'm half inclined to think that Bert Dodge has been leading the
soreheads who sulk and  won't play football in the same team with
some of us common fellows," Dick laughed.  "If so, the very fact
of my being sent to look into the news side of his father's disappearance
would make Bert feel especially sore at me."

"By George, you've hit the nail right on the head there," cried
Dave.  "That's the trouble.  Bert has been leading a kick that
was aimed very largely at Dick & Co., and now it almost puts him
out of his head to find that Dick Prescott, of all the fellows
in the school, has been sent by 'The Blade' to gather the facts
concerning Theodore Dodge's mysterious disappearance---or death."

"Mr. Dodge isn't dead," replied Prescott slowly.

"What?  And say!  Do you realize, Dick, that you're letting the
horse walk?"

"I intended to," returned Dick.  "Whoa!"

"There's a boat coming up the river and showing a search-light,"
broke in Dave, pointing.

"I saw it.  That's why I stopped the horse.  It must be Chief
Coy's launch that he went after.  Yes; there it is, putting in
where we first saw Bert Dodge and the officers."

"Well, if you're not going to keep track of the launch, why don't
you hit a fast gait for the office?" queried Darrin.

"There is plenty of time yet," Dick replied, "and we've nothing
to report to the office yet.   I'm just waiting for that boat
to take on its passengers and get well away from the spot."

"Oh!" guessed Dave.  "Then you're going back and make your own
search of the place?"

"You're clever," nodded Prescott, with a low laugh.  "Yes; it
may be that Hemingway and his companion have made a fine search.
Or it may be that they've missed clues that a blind man ought
to see."

So the two High School boys sat there, in the buggy drawn up at
the side of the road, for the next fifteen minutes.  In that time
the launch took on the waiting passengers, and the light played
over all that part of the river, then started down stream.

Dick slowly headed the horse about, this time driving much closer
to the river's bank than he had done before.

"There's a lantern under the seat, Dave.  I saw it when we started
from 'The Blade' office.  Haul it out and light it, will you?"

For some minutes the two High School boys searched without much
result.  At last Dick and Dave began to move in wider circles,
away from the much-tramped ground.  Then, holding the lantern
close to the ground, Prescott moved nearer and nearer to the railway
track, all the while scanning the soil closely.

"Look there, Dave!" suddenly called Prescott.  "No-----Don't look
just yet," he added, holding the lantern behind him.  "But tell
me; you've often seen Mr. Dodge.  What kind of boots did he wear?"

"Narrow, pointed shoes, and rather high heeled for a man to wear,"
Darrin answered.

"Exactly," nodded Dick.  "Look there!"

Darrin bent down over a soft spot in the soil close to the railway
roadbed.  There were three prints of just such a boot as he had
described.

"You see the small heel print," continued Prescott, in a whisper.
"And you note that the front part of the foot makes a heavy impression,
as it would when the foot is tilted forward by a high heel."

"I don't believe another man in the town ever wore a pair of boots
such as made these prints," murmured Darrin excitedly.  "And they're
headed away from the river, toward the railroad!  And look here---other
footprints of a different kind!"

"You're right!" cried Prescott, holding the lantern closer to
the ground and scanning some additional marks in the soil.  "Coarse
shoes; one pair of 'em brogans!  Mr. Dodge had companions when
he went away from here."

"They may have been forcing the man somewhere with them," quivered
Darrin, staring off into the black night about them.

"No; not a sign of a struggle," argued Dick, still with his gaze
on the ground.  "No matter who Mr. Dodge's companions were, he
went with them willingly.  Gracious, Dave, but we were right in
believing the banker to be still alive!  Coat and hat at the water's
edge were a blind!  Mr. Dodge has his own reasons for wanting
people to think him dead.  He has  sloped away.  Here's the track.
Which way did he and the fellows go?"

"Away from Gridley," declared Darrin, sagely. "Otherwise, Mr.
Dodge would have been seen by some one who would remember him."

"We'll go up along the track, then."

This they did, but the roadbed was hard.  Besides, anyone walking
on the ties would leave no trail.  It was slow work, holding the
lantern close to the ground and scanning every step, besides swinging
the lantern out to light up either side of their course.  Yet
both lads were so tremendously interested that they pushed on,
heedless of the flight of time.

They had gone a mile or more up the track, "inching" it along,
when they came upon an unmistakable print of Mr. Dodge's oddly
pointed boot and narrow, high heel.  They found, too, the print
of a brogan within six feet of the same point.

"This is the way Dodge and his queer companions came," exulted
Dave.

"But I don't believe they followed the track much further," argued
Prescott, pointing ahead at the signal lights of a small crossing
station.  "If Mr. Dodge were trying to get away from public gaze
he wouldn't go by a station where usually half a dozen loungers
are smoking and talking with the station agent."

"We're lucky to have the trail this far," observed Dave Darrin.
"But we can't follow it accurately at night.  Say---gracious!
Do you know what time it is?  Half-past one in the morning!"

"Wow?" ejaculated Prescott, halting and looking dismayed.  "It'll
take us a good many minutes to get back to where we left the horse.
It'll be after two o'clock when we hit 'The Blade' office.  Dave,
we simply can't follow the trail further tonight.  But we must
strike it first thing in the morning.  It'll be a big thing for
'The Blade' to be the folks to find the missing banker and clear
the mystery up."

"Unless Dodge just kept on until he came to one of the stations,
and took a train.  Then the trail would be a long one."

"He didn't take a train tonight," returned Prescott, shaking his
head.  "If he wanted to disappear that would be the wrong way
to go about it.  He'd be recognized from the descriptions that
will go about broadcast.  No, sir!  Mr. Dodge must be hiding in
some of the big stretches of woods over yonder.  A regiment could
hide and be lost in the great woods."

"It's a trail I hate to leave," muttered Dave Darrin.

"But we've got to wait until daylight.  We can't do much in the
dark, anyway.  I've got to get back to 'The Blade' office.  Get
your bearings here, Dave.  To make doubly sure I'll cut a slice
out of this tie to mark the place where we found this print, for
it may be indistinct by daylight."

Marking the location Dick Prescott wheeled and began to hurry
back, followed by Darrin.  In due time they reached the buggy,
took the light blanket from the horse, unhitched and jumped in.
Fast driving took them to "The Blade" office.

"You didn't learn anything, did you?" questioned Bradley.

"Yes; we did," Dick informed him.  "The police, with their launch
didn't get any trace of Mr. Dodge, did they?"

"No," admitted the news editor.  "I've talked with Hemingway within
the last hour.  The police will begin dragging the river by daylight."

"They won't find the banker that way," chuckled Dick.  "He's alive."

"Have you seen him?" demanded the news editor.

"No; and I'm not going to say too much now, either," returned
Dick, with unusual stubbornness.  "But 'The Blade' wants to take
the keynote that Theodore Dodge is alive, and will turn up.  I
believe Dave and I are going to make him turn up during the next
spell of daylight."

"We surely are!" laughed Darrin.

Mr. Bradley pressed them close with questions, but neither boy
was inclined to reveal the secret of the trail along the railway
roadbed.

"We're going to keep it all as our own scoop," Dick insisted.
"And please, Mr. Bradley, don't post the police about our idea.
If you do, the police will get the credit.  If we keep quiet,
'The Blade' will get all the credit that is coming."

The news editor laid before Dick all the proofs and copy that
had been prepared so far on the absorbing mystery of the night.
Prescott made some newsy additions to the story, and through
it all took the confident keynote that the vanished banker would
soon be heard from in the flesh.

The work done, and Bradley having already seen to the return of
the horse to the livery stable, Dick and Dave went into an unused
room, where they threw themselves down on piles of old papers.
Tired out, they slept without stirring.  But they had left a
note for the office boy who was due at six o'clock to sweep out
the business office.

That office boy came in and called the High School pair at a few
minutes after six.  Dick's first thought was to instruct the boy
to telephone the Prescott and Darrin homes at seven in the morning,
sending word that the two boys were safe but busy.  Then Dick
hastily led the way to a quick-order restaurant near by.  Here
the boys got through with breakfast as quickly as they could.
That done, they bought sandwiches, which they put into their
pockets.

As they came out of the eating house the streets were still far
from crowded.  Laborers were going to their toil, but it was yet
too early for the business men of the city to be on their way
to offices, or clerks to the stores.

"Now, let's get out of the town in a jiffy," proposed Dick.  "We
don't want to have many folks observing which way we go.  We'll
travel fast right up along the railway track."

Once started, the two boys kept going briskly.  Both had been
drowsy at the outset, but the impulse of discovery had them in
its grip now, and fatigue was quickly forgotten.

Something more than half an hour after the start the boys halted
beside the tie that Prescott had whittled in the dark a few hours
before.

"There are the footprints," quivered Dave, staring hard.

"They're not as distinct as they were a few hours ago," replied
Dick.  "Still, I think we can follow them.  I'm glad they lead
toward the woods."

"Yes," Darrin agreed.  "The direction of the footprints shows
that Mr. Dodge and his companions didn't have any notion of boarding
a train and getting out of this part of the world."

Yet, though both of these young newspaper hounds were keen to
follow the trail, they did not find it any easy matter.  Dick
and Dave reached the edge of the woods.  Then, for a short time,
they were obliged to explore carefully ere they came again upon
one of the bootmarks of fastidious Banker Dodge.  It was a hundred
feet further on, in a bit of soft mould, that the next bootprint
was found.  Had these two High School boys been more expert trackers
they would have found a fairly continuous trail, but their untrained
eyes lacked the ability to see other signs that would have been
evident to a plainsman.

So their progress was slow, indeed.  They could judge only by
the direction in which each last footprint was pointed, and they
had to remember that one wandering through the woods might travel
over a course whose direction frequently changed.

"Dave," whispered Prescott, "I think we had better separate a
little.  We might go along about a hundred feet apart.  In that
way there is more chance that we'll come sooner upon the next
print."

There were perhaps six hundred feet into the woods, by this time,
and stood looking down at the fifth footmark they had found.

"All right," nodded Darrin.  "We're a pair of rank amateurs at
this kind of work, anyway."

"Amateurs or not," murmured Dick, with a smile?  "we seem to be
the only folks in Gridley who are on the right track in this mystery
at present."

"I'm full of misgivings, anyway," muttered Dave.

"Why?"

"I can't help feeling that we should have turned our news over
to Chief Coy or Hemingway.

"Again, why?"

"Well, if we lose our man now, we'll soon feel that we ought to
have turned the whole thing over to the police while the trail
was fresh."

"Dave, don't you know, well enough, that newspapers do more than
the police, nowadays, in clearing up mysteries?"

"This may be more than a mystery," hinted Dave.  "Even if we get
through to the end of this trail---or mystery we may find a crime
at that end."

"All the more need, then, for moving on fast.  See here, Dave,
I'll follow just the way this footprint points.  You get out a
hundred feet or so to the right.  And we'll move as fast as we
can, now."

The wisdom of this plan was soon apparent, for it was Dave Darrin
who discovered the next footprint.  He summoned Dick Prescott
with a sharp hiss.

"Yes; all right," nodded Dick, joining his comrade and gazing
down at one of the narrow bootmarks.  "But don't send a long signal
again, Dave.  We might be close, and warn some one out of our
way."

"What shall we do, then?"

"We'll look frequently at each other, and the fellow who discovers
anything will make signs to the other."

Three minutes later Dick Prescott crouched low behind a line of
bushes, his eyes glistening as he peered and listened.  Then he
began to make wildly energetic signals to Dave Darrin.

The head partner of Dick & Co. had fallen upon something that
interested him---tremendously!




CHAPTER IV

THE "SOREHEADS" IN CONCLAVE


Dave Darrin came stealing over, as soft-footed as any panther.

Dick did not turn around to look at his chum.  He merely held
up a cautioning hand, and Darrin moved even more stealthily.

In another moment Dave's head was close to his chum's, and both
young men were gazing upon the same scene.

"Davis and Fremont-----" whispered Darrin in his chum's ear.

"Bayliss, Porter and Drayne," Dick nodded back, softly.

"Trenhold, Grayson, Hudson," continued Darrin.

"All the 'soreheads,'" finished Dick Prescott for him.

"Or nearly all," supplemented Dave.

Indeed, the scene upon which these two High School boys gazed
was one that greatly interested them.

On a little knoll, just beyond the line of bushes, and on lower
ground, fully a dozen young men lounged, basking in the morning
sun, which poured through upon this small, treeless space.

Though the young men down in the knoll were not carefully attired,
there was a general similarity in their dress.  All wore sweaters,
and nearly all of them wore cross-country shoes.  Evidently the
whole party had been out for a cross country run.

Now, the dozen or so were eagerly engaged in conversation.

"It's too bad Purcell won't join us," remarked Davis.

"Yes," nodded another fellow in the group; "he belongs with us."

"Oh, well," spoke up Bayliss, "if Purcell would rather be with
the muckers, let him."

"Now, let's not be too rank, fellows," objected Hudson slowly.
"I wouldn't call all the fellows muckers who don't happen to
belong in our crowd."

"What would you call 'em then?" growled Bayliss angrily.  "Time
was when only the fellows of the better families expected to go
to High School, on their way to college.  Now, every day-laborer's
son seems to think he ought to go to High School-----"

"And be received with open arms, on a footing of equality," sneered
Porter.

"It's becoming disgusting," muttered Bayliss.  "Not only do these
cheap fellows expect to go to the High School, but they actually
want to run the school affairs."

"I suppose that's natural, to some extent," speculated Porter.

"Why?" demanded Bayliss, turning upon the last speaker in amazement.

"Why, the sons of the poorer families are in a majority, nowadays,"
returned Hudson.

"Say, you're getting almost as bad as Purcell," warned Porter.

"If I am, I apologize, of course," responded Hudson.

"I've no real objection to the sons of poorer men coming to the
High School," vouchsafed Paulson, meditatively.  "But you know
the cream, the finer class of the High School student body, has
always centered in the school's athletic teams.  And now-----"

"Yes; and now-----" broke in Bayliss harshly.

"Why, these fellows, who are not much more than tolerated in the
High School, or ought not to be, make the most noise at the meets
of the training squads," continued Paulson.

"And some of 'em," growled Fremont, "actually have the cheek to
carry off honors in scholarship, too.  Take Dick Prescott, for
instance."

"Oh, let the muckers have the scholarship honors, if that's all
they want," retorted Bayliss "A gentleman hasn't much need of
scholarship, anyway, if he's an all-around, proper fellow in every
other respect.  But the, gang that call  themselves Dick & Co.
are a fair sample of the muckers that we have to contend with."

"No," objected Fremont; "they're the very worst of the lot in
the High School.  Why, look at the advertising those fellows get
for themselves.  And not one of them of good family."

"Fellows of good, prominent families don't have to advertise themselves,"
observed Bayliss sagely.

It was plain that by "good" family was meant one of wealth.  These
young men had little else in the way of a standard.

"It makes me cranky," observed Whitney, "to see the way a lot
of the girls seem to notice just such fellows as Prescott, Darrin,
Reade, Dalzell---fellows who, by rights, ought to be through with
their schooling and earning wages as respectful grocery clerks
or decent shoe salesmen."

"But this talk isn't carrying us anywhere," objected Bayliss.
"The question is, what are we going to do with the football problem
this year?  We don't want to play in the same eleven with the
cheap muckers, and have 'em think they're the whole eleven.  The
call for the football training squad is due to go up some time
next week."

"Bert Dodge says-----" interrupted Paulson.

"Yes, Dodge is the fellow I wish we had here with us today," interposed
Bayliss.  "Dodge is the one we ought to listen to."

"Poor Dodge has his own troubles today," murmured Hudson.

"Yes; I know---poor fellow," nodded Bayliss.  "I wish we fellows
could help him, but we can't."

"I was talking with Dodge yesterday, before his own troubles broke
loose," went on Hudson.  "Dodge's idea is that we ought all to
keep away when the football squad is called.  Then Coach Morton
may get an idea of how things are going, and he may see just what
he ought to do."

"But suppose the muckers all answer the call in force?" inquired
Trenholm.  "What are we to do then?"

"We're to keep out of the squad this year," responded Bayliss
promptly.  "See here, either we fellows organize the Gridley High
School eleven ourselves, and decide who shall play in it, or else
we stay out and let the muckers go ahead and pile up a record
of lost games this year."

"That's hard on good old Gridley High School," murmured Hudson.

"True," agreed Fremont.  "But it'll teach the town, the school
authorities, the coach and after this year, that only the prominent
fellows in the school should have any voice in athletics.  Let
the muckers be content with standing behind the side lines and
rooting for the real High School crowd."

"Shall we put it to a vote?" asked Bayliss, looking about him.

"Yes!" answered several promptly.

"Then, as I understand it," continued Bayliss, "when the football
call goes up, we're all to ignore it.  We're to continue to ignore
the call, and keep out of the school football squad this year,
unless the coach and the Athletics Committee agree that we shall
have the naming of the candidates.  Is that the general agreement
among ourselves?"

"Yes!" came the chorus.

"Any contrary votes?"

Momentary silence reigned in this conclave of "soreheads."

"Yet," continued Bayliss, "we've started training among ourselves.
This morning's cross-country is part of our daily training.
If we have to refuse the football call, and stay out of the squad,
are we to drop our present training?"

"Hardly, I should say," responded Fremont.  "I have something
to suggest in that line.  If we can't go into what is really a
gentleman's eleven under the High School colors, I propose that
we organize an eleven of our own, and call ourselves simply the
Gridley Football Club.  We can bring out an eleven that would
put things all over any school team that the muckers could organize
without our help."

"We wouldn't play the muckers, would we?" demanded Trenholm.

"Certainly not!" retorted Bayliss, with contemptuous emphasis.

"We won't even know that a mucker High School team is on earth,"
laughed Porter.

"I think we understand the plan well enough, now, don't we?" inquired
Blaisdell, rising.

"We do," nodded Porter.  "And we'll all do our full share toward
bringing control of High School affairs back to the aristocratic
leadership that it once had."

"Hoist our banners, and let them proclaim: 'Down with the muckers!'"
laughed Hudson, rolling up the hem of his sweater.

"We want a good, not too fast but steady jog back to town," announced
Bayliss.

At the first sign that the "soreheads" were preparing to leave
the spot Dick had taken advantage of their noise to slip away.
Dave had followed him successfully.

Then, from another hiding place these two prowling juniors, grinning,
watched the "soreheads" move away at a loping run.

"We certainly know all we need to about that crowd," muttered
Dick, a half-vengeful look in his eyes.  "The snobs!"

"Oh, they're cads, all right," assented Dave.  "Yet that bunch
of fellows contains some of the material that is needed in putting
forth the best High School team this year!"

"Humph!" commented Dave disgustedly.  "Yet, Dick, I was almost
surprised that you would stop and listen, without letting the
fellows know you were there."

"It does seem sneaky, at first thought," Prescott admitted, almost
shamefacedly.

"Hold on there!" ordered Dave.  "I don't believe you'd do a thing
like that, Dick Prescott, unless you had an honorable reason for
it."

"I did it because the honor of the High School is so precious
to me---to us all," Dick replied.  "We want to put forth a winning
team, as Gridley High School has always done.  Now, these 'soreheads'
aim to defeat that by keeping a few of the best players off the
eleven.  I listened, Dave, because I wanted to know what the trouble
was, and just who was making it.  Now, I guess I know how to deal
with the 'sore-heads.' I'll make them ashamed of themselves."

"How?"

"One thing at a time, Dave.  In our excitement we've almost forgotten
that we started out to find Theodore Dodge and clear up the mystery
of his disappearance."




CHAPTER V

AT THE END OF THE TRAIL


"The further we go the more mysterious this becomes," mused Dick,
as he and Darrin stood together over a clump of faintly-marked
footprints, a quarter of an hour later.

"How does the mystery increase?" Darrin inquired.

"For one thing, we don't always find the bootmarks of the men
who were with Mr. Dodge.  Yet once in a while we do.  There are
the prints of all three.  When Theodore Dodge passed by this way
the other two men were with him, or had him in sight.  And our
course shows that the three were plunging deeper and deeper into
the woods.  But come along.  There must be an end to this, somewhere."

Ten minutes later Prescott and Darrin felt that they had come
to the end of the mystery.  For the faint trail had led them up
a slight, stony slope, and now the two boys lay flat on the ground.

Below them, in a bush-clad hollow, two miles from the world in
general, stood a little, old, ramshackle shanty.  The location
was one that seekers would hardly have found without a trail to
lead them to it.

To the door of this shanty a broad-shouldered, rough-looking and
powerful fellow of forty had just come.  The man, who was poorly
clad, wore brogans, and held in his right hand a weighty, ugly-looking
club.  The fellow was smoking a short-stemmed pipe, and now stood,
 with his left hand shading his eyes, peering off at the surrounding
landscape.

Dick and Dave hugged the ground more closely behind their screen
of bushes.

"It's all right, Bill," announced the lookout in the doorway.

"'Course this," growled a voice from the inside.  "Too far from
the main line o' travel for anyone to be spying around.  Besides,
no one guesses-----"

"Well, you can go to sleep if ye wanter, Bill.  I'm goin' ter
sit up and smoke."

With that the brogan-shod man disappeared inside the shanty.
Dick and Dave glanced at each other with eager interest.

"I wonder whether they have Mr. Dodge in there with them?" breathed
Dick, in his ear.

"If Mr. Dodge is in there he's keeping amazingly quiet," Darrin
responded doubtingly.

"Within a very few minutes," Prescott rejoined, "I'm going to know
whether Mr. Dodge is in that shanty."

"We found his footprint close enough near here," argued Dave.

"Yes, and I feel sure enough that Mr. Dodge is there.  But why
don't we hear something from him?  The whole business is so uncanny
that it gives one that creepy feeling."

For a full quarter of an hour the two chums remained hidden, barely
stirring.  From the shanty, at first, came crooning tones, as
though the man in brogans were humming over old songs to himself.
Occasionally there was a snore; evidently Bill was drowsing the
day away.

"Now, I'm going down there," whispered Dick.

"Look out the big fellow doesn't catch you," warned Darrin.  "I've
an idea he'd beat you to a pulp if he caught you."

"I'm not as big as he is," admitted Dick, grinning, "but I think
I might prove as fast as he on my feet."

As Prescott started to steal down into the hollow Dave reached
about him, gathering all the fair-sized stones within reach.

"If Dick has to come from there on the rim," soliloquized Darrin,
"a few stones hurled at the face of that ugly-looking customer
might hold him back for a while.  And I used to be called a pretty
fair pitcher!"

Prescott, in the meantime, was stealing around the shanty, applying
his eyes to some tiny cracks.

At last he turned, making straight and cautiously up the slope.

As he came near, Dick sent Dave a signal that made that latter
youth throb with expectancy.

"Yes!  We've found Theodore Dodge!" whispered young Prescott eagerly.
"He's in there, lying on the floor, bound and gagged."

"Whew!  And what is Mr. Brogans doing?"

"Sitting on the floors smoking and playing solitaire with a dirty
pack of cards.  The other rascal, Bill, is sleeping at a great
rate."

"What are we going to do now?"

"Dave, are you willing to stay here, hiding and keeping watch
on the place?"

"Surely," nodded Darrin, with great promptness.

"If the wretches should try to take Mr. Dodge away from here-----"

"I'll follow 'em, of course."

"And leave a paper trail," nodded Dick.

"Here is all the paper I have in my pockets," he added.

"I have some, too," muttered Dave.

"I'll be back as speedily as I can get help."

"You ought not to be gone more than an hour."

"Not as long as that, I hope.  Goodbye, Dave, and look out for
yourself."

After going the first hundred yards Dick Prescott let himself
out into a loping run, very  much like that used by the "soreheads"
in getting back to town.  With a trained runner the cross-country
style of running is suited for getting over long distances at
fair speed.

Twenty minutes later young Prescott reached a farm house in which
there was a telephone.  He asked permission to use the instrument.

"Go right in the parlor, and help yourself," replied the farmer's
wife.

As Dick rang on, and stood waiting, transmitter at his ear, he
first thought of calling for the police station.

"No, I won't, either," he muttered.  "This belongs to my paper.
Let them tip off the police.  Hello!  Give me 'The Blade' office,
Gridley, please."

Dick waited patiently a few moments.  Then:

"Hullo!  'The Blade?' This is Prescott.  Is Mr. Pollock there?
He is?  Good!  Tell him I want to speak with him."

Then Mr. Pollock's voice sounded over the wire.

"Hullo, Prescott!  Why aren't you on hand, with that big Dodge
story hanging over our heads?  Why, it brought me down hours before
fore my time."

"Pollock, I've found Dodge," replied Dick Composedly.  "At least,
Darrin and I-----"

"What's that!" broke in the editor's excited voice.  "You've found
Dodge?  Alive?"

As rapidly as he could young Prescott told the story.  Mr. Pollock
listened gladly.

"Now, where are you, Prescott?"

Dick told Mr. Pollock the name of the farmer from whose home he
was telephoning.

"Just you wait there, Prescott.  And, oh!---pshaw!  I came near
forgetting to tell you the biggest news of all---for you.  Mrs.
Dodge this morning offered a thousand dollars' reward for the
finding of her husband, dead or alive.  You'll get that reward---you
and Darrin!  But I've no more time to talk.  Stay right where
you are until I reach you."

Nor was it long before Dick, pacing by the farmyard gate, saw
an automobile approaching at a lively clip.  In it were the chauffeur
and Editor Pollock.

The latter waved his hand wildly when he caught sight If his High
School reporter.

Right begged this automobile sped another, in which sat Chief Coy,
Officer Hemingway and a uniformed policeman, in addition to the
chauffeur.

"We didn't lose much time, did we?" hailed Mr. Pollock, as the
first auto slowed up "Jump in, quick!  Show us the way."

"I suppose there's some excitement down in Gridley, about this
time?" laughed Dick, as the two autos raced along once more.

"Not a bit," replied the editor.  "And for the very simple reason
that no one knows that Dodge has been found."

"His family know it, of course?" queried Dick.

"No; not a word.  Chief Coy kept it quiet, and asked me to do
the same.  He didn't want the Dodge family all stirred up by false
hopes in case you had made a mistake.  The silence will keep 'The
Evening Mail' from learning the news for a while.  And I've had
our forms left standing.  We're all ready to run out an extra
---in case you haven't made a mistake, Prescott," added Mr. Pollock
quizzically.

Dick smiled resignedly at this implied doubt.  But the autos were
making fast time, and soon the machines had gone as far on the
way as they could be used.

"Now we'll have to get out and strike across country, through
the woods," Prescott called.

So far Dick had resolutely tried to keep out of his mind any thought
of that thousand-dollar reward.  It sounded too much like "Blood
money" to take pay for helping any afflicted family out of its
troubles.  Besides, it had been the glory of doing a piece of
bright newspaper work that had allured the two High School boys
at the outset.

"Yet a thousand dollars is---a thousand dollars!" Dick couldn't
help feeling, wistfully, as he piloted his party across fields
and through the woods.  "A thousand dollars!  Five hundred apiece
for Dave and me!  What a fearful big lot of money!  What we could
do with it, If we had it!  I wonder whether it would be right
and decent to take it?"

Then, as he neared the place where he had left his chum on post
Dick Prescott found other and anxious thoughts crowding into his
mind.

Was Dave Darrin, staunch and reliable Dave---still there, on
post, and unharmed?

Was Theodore Dodge there?  Were his captors still with him?




CHAPTER VI

THE SMALL SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN


A few minutes later all fears and doubts were dispelled.

Dave Darrin rose to greet the newcomers informing them, in a whisper,
that all was still well in the old shanty below.

He of the brogans and club heard a slight noise outside.  Swiftly
he rose and darted to the door, ready to pounce.

But he beheld the policemen, with the newspaper trio just behind
them.  More, Chief Coy and his subordinates had their revolvers
drawn.

"Howdy, gents?" was Mr. Brogans' greeting as he dropped his club
and tried to grin.

"Take care of him, Hemingway," directed Thief Coy, briefly.

"Me?" demanded Brogans, in feigned astonishment.  "What have _I_
done?"

The noise roused Bill, who sprang up.  But Bill must have found
the police wonderfully soothing, for he quieted down at once.

Both rascals were taken care of.  Then Theodore Dodge was found
lying bound and gagged on the floor.  A ragged, foul-smelling
coat had been substituted for the one that had been left at the
river's bank.  The banker looked up at the intruders with a stupefied
leer, betraying neither alarm or pleasure.

As soon as the two rough-looking fellows had been handcuffed Mr.
Dodge was freed, and his tongue also, but Chief Coy, after raising
the banker and questioning him, muttered:

"Clean out of his head.  Daffy.  Must have wandered away from
Gridley during a loony streak.  He isn't over it yet."

The two rough-looking ones protested loudly against being deprived
of their liberty.

"I don't really know that you fellows have done anything," admitted
Chief Coy.  "But I'm taking you along on suspicion that it was
you, and not Mr. Dodge himself, who bound and gagged him."

This retort, given with a great deal of dry sarcasm, silenced
the prisoners for the time being.

"We ought to have this out an hour before 'The Evening Mail' people,"
exulted Editor Pollock.  "Prescott, my boy, you're a born reporter!
And, Darrin, you're not much behind."  "Theodore Dodge found by
two "Blade" reporters!  That won't sound bad!"

The briefest questioning was enough to show that Theodore Dodge
was in no condition to give any account of himself.  He did not
reply with an intelligible word.  His eyes held only a vacant
stare.  It was as though memory and reason had suddenly snapped
within his brain.

"The doctors will want him," commented Chief Coy.  "And we can't
be hustling back a bit too soon."

It had been a gloomy morning at the home of Banker Dodge.

Through the night, none had slept.  Anxiety had kept them all
on the rack.

Mrs. Dodge, a thin and nervous woman, had gone from one spell
of hysterics into another, as morning neared.  A trained nurse
had to be sent for.

Then in a calm lull Mrs. Dodge had telephoned for Lawyer Ripley,
who lost his breakfast through the speed with which he obeyed
the summons of the distracted wife.

As a result of the lawyer's visit the reward of a thousand dollars
had been offered.

The house was quiet again.  Dr. Bentley, having been called for
the third time, had administered an opiate, and Mrs. Dodge was
sleeping.  The other members of the family tip-toed restlessly
about.

Bert Dodge felt in a peculiarly "mean" frame of mind that morning.
The young man simply could not remain in one spot.  The more
he had thought, through and through the night, the more he had
become convinced that his father had killed himself because of
some entanglement in the bank's affairs.

"And I'll be pointed out as the defaulter's son," thought Bert
bitterly.  "Oh, why couldn't the guv'nor think of some one besides
himself!  We'll have to move away from Gridley, of course.  But
the disgrace will follow us anywhere we may go.  Oh, it's
awful---awful!   Of course, I'm not in any way to blame.  But, oh!
What a disgrace!"

It was well along in the forenoon when Bayliss, returning homeward
in sweater and running togs, espied Bert's white, wan face near
the front door.  Bayliss signaled cordially to young Dodge, who,
glad of this kindliness at such a time, went down the walk to
the gate.

"No news of your father yet, I suppose?" asked Bayliss.

"No," sighed Bert.

"Too bad, old fellow!"

"Yes; the uncertainty is pretty tough on us all," Dodge replied.

"Oh, you'll hear before the day is out, and the news will be all
right, too," declared Bayliss, with well-meant cheeriness.  "Then
you'll be with us on the morning cross-countries again.  We missed
you a whole lot this morning, Bert."

"Did you?" asked young Dodge, brightening.

"Yes; and, by the way, we've decided on our course---for our set, you
know.  We're going to ignore the football call next week.  If Coach
Morton asks us any questions, then we'll let him know how the
land lies.  We won't try to make the High School team if the muckers
are allowed the same show.  We'll have a select crowd on the eleven,
this year, or else all of our set will stay off."

"The muckers have some good football men among them, too," grumbled
Bert.  "Of course  for that gang that call themselves Dick & Co
we can't any more than make guesses.  But some of them would be
handy on an eleven I guess."

"Yes; if they were not muckers," agreed Bayliss loftily.  "But
there are enough of our own kind to make as good an eleven as
Gridley High School ever had."

"It's a pity we can't get up our own eleven play the muckers,
just once, and beat them out for the right to represent Gridley."

"It wouldn't be so bad an idea.  But they might beat us," retorted
Bayliss dryly.  "So, on the whole, our fellows have decided not
to pay any heed whatever to Dick & Co. or any of the other muckers.
After this the line must be drawn, at High School, between the
gentlemen and the other kind."

"All plans looking in that direction will have my hearty support,"
pledged Bert Dodge.

"I know it, old fellow."

"It's queer that the question never came up before about the muckers,"
Bert mused.

"We never had Dick & Co. in school athletics, until last year,"
replied Bayliss significantly.

"That fellow, Prescott, is about the worst-----"

Bert Dodge stopped right there.  Bayliss, too, started and turned.
Around the nearest corner some folks were making a big noise.  Then
around the corner came two autos, while a crowd raced along on the
sidewalks.

"Hurrah!  Mr. Dodge is found.  Dick Prescott and Dave Darrin found
him!" shouted a score of urchins in the crowd.

Bert and Bayliss both gasped.  Then the autos slowed up at the
curb before the gate.  The police prisoners were still in the
second car.

Bert took a look, recognized his father, despite the strange look
in that parent's face.

"Help them bring my father in, Bayliss!" called young Dodge.
"I'll run to prepare the folks."

In another moment there was a turmoil of excitement inside the
Dodge house.  While the excitement was still going on Bert came
out to inform the crowd that both his father and mother needed
quiet and medical attendance.  Bert begged the crowd to go away
quietly.

Dick and Dave were standing before the gateway way while Editor
Pollock answered some of the queries of the crowd.

"Great luck for you fellows, Prescott and Barren!" called some
one in the crowd.  "You two will know what to do with a thousand
dollars' reward!"

Bert Dodge wheeled about like a flash, and facing Dave and Dick,
shouted:

"If that's what you two fellows are hanging around here for,
you'd better clear out!  Take it from me that you fellows will
get no thousand dollars, or ten cents, out of our family!"




CHAPTER VII

THE FOOTBALL NOTICE GOES UP


Mr. Pollock, usually a very calm man, wheeled upon young Dodge.

"My lad, when you find out what Prescott and Darrin have done in
the way of rescuing your father, you'll feel wholly ashamed of
yourself.  I don't believe either young man has given a second
thought to the reward."

People in a crowd take sides quickly.  Bert heard several muttered
remarks from the bystanders that made him flush.  Then, choking
and angry, he turned and darted for the house.

By this time Mr. Pollock, Dick and Dave were speeding for "The Blade"
office.

Already a run had started on the Second National Bank.  A crowd
filled the counting room and extended out onto the sidewalk.
Their depositors, largely small business men and people who ran
private check accounts, were frightfully nervous about their money.

Up to noon the bank paid all demands, though the accounts were
adjusted slowly, while the crowd grew in numbers outside.  At
noon the Second National availed itself of its privilege of closing
its doors promptly at that hour on Saturday.

Dick Prescott wrote with furious speed at "The Blade" office.
In another room Mr. Pollock wrote from the facts supplied by
Dave Darrin.  In half an hour from the time these three entered
the office the "Extra" was out on  the street---fifteen minutes
ahead of "The Mail," which latter newspaper contained very little
beyond the fact that Mr. Dodge had been found, and that he was
now under the care of his family.  "The Mail" stated that the
discovery had been made by "two High School boys" aiding the police,
and did not name either Dick or Dave.

On Monday the bank examiner arrived.  He made a quick inspection
of the bank's affairs, and pronounced the institution "sound."
The run on the bank stopped, and timid depositors began to bring
back their money.  The members of the Dodge family could once
more hold up their heads.

In the meantime Dr. Bentley had called in a specialist.  Together
the two medical men decided that Theodore Dodge had suffered only
from an extreme amount of overwork; that the strain had momentarily
unbalanced his mind, and had made the deranged man contemplate
drowning himself.

By means of a modified form of the "third degree" Chief Coy, by
this time, had succeeded in making the two vagrants confess that
they had found Mr. Dodge, with his coat and hat off standing by
the bank of the stream.  Guessing the banker's condition, and
learning his identity, the two men, though they did not confess
on this point, had evidently coaxed the banker away to their shanty
away off in the heart of the woods.  Undoubtedly it had been their
plan to keep the banker under their own eyes, with a view of extorting
a reward from the missing man's family.  The judge of the local
court finally decided to send both men away for six months on
a charge of vagrancy.

And here the matter seemed to end.  Though Lawyer Ripley urged
the prompt payment of the offered reward to Prescott and Darrin,
Mrs. Dodge, influenced by her son, demurred.  At Mr. Pollock's
suggestion Dick and Dave promptly drew up and signed a paper releasing
the Dodge family from any claim.  This paper was also signed by
the fathers of the two boys, and forwarded to Lawyer Ripley.
That gentleman man returned the paper to Dick, with a statement
that he might have something to communicate at a later date.

Tuesday morning, with many secret misgivings, Coach Morton, who
was also one of the submasters of the High School, posted the
call for the football squad.  The call was for three o'clock Thursday
afternoon, at the gym.

"Humph!" was the audible and only comment of Bayliss, as he stood
before the school bulletin board at recess and read the announcement.

"I guess the day for football here has gone by," observed Porter
sneeringly.

"Of interest to ragamuffins only," sneered Paulson, as he turned
away to join Fremont of the senior class.

"Listen to the wild enthusiasm over upholding the school's honor
in athletics," muttered Dave, scowling darkly.

"We knew it was coming," declared Tom Reade.

Abner Cantwell was still principal at Gridley High School, though
that violent-tempered and unpopular pedagogue had been engaged,
this  year, only as "substitute" principal.  There were rumors
that Dr. Thornton, the former and much-loved principal, would
soon be in sufficiently good health to return.  So the Board of
Education had left the way clear for dropping Mr. Cantwell at
any moment that it might see fit.

Dick & Co. had gathered by themselves on this Tuesday, at recess.
They did not discuss the football call, nor its reception by
the "soreheads," for they had known what was coming.  Just before
recess was over, however, there were sudden sounds of a riot around
the bulletin board.

"Tear that down!"

"Throw 'em out!"

"Raus mit!"

"The mean cheats!"

There was a surging rush of High School boys for the bulletin
board.

Bayliss and Fremont, both of the senior class, who had just posted
a new notice, were now trying to push their way through an angry
crowd of youngsters that had collected.

"They're no good!"

"A disgrace to the school!"

"Send 'em to Coventry!"

"No!  Handle 'em right now!"

There was another rush.

"Get back, you hoodlums!" yelled Bayliss, his face violet with
rage.

"I'll crack the head of any fellow that lays hands on me!" stormed
Fremont.

"Oh, will he?  Come on, then, fellows!"

Fremont was caught up as though by a cyclone.  Two or three fellows
seized him at a time, passing him down the corridor.  The last
to receive the hapless Fremont propelled him through the main
doorway of the school building.  Nor was this done with any gentle
force, either.

Bayliss, not attempting to fight, was simply hustled along on
his feet.

Out of one of the rooms near by rushed Mr. Cantwell, the principal---or
"Prin." as he was known, his face white with the anger that he
felt over what he regarded as a most unseemly disturbance.

"Stop this riot, young gentlemen!" commanded the principal sternly.

"Send in the riot call, like you did last year!" piped up a disguised,
thin, falsetto voice from the outskirts of the rapidly growing
crowd.  Quite a lot of the girls had gathered, too, by this time.

The principal turned around, sharply, as some of the girls began
to giggle.  But Mr. Cantwell was unable to detect the one who
had thus taunted him.

Coach Morton peered over the railing of the floor above.

"Mr. Morton!" called the principal.

"Yes, sir."

"Sound the assembling gong, if you please."

Clang!  clang!  clang!

The din of the gong cut their recess four minutes short, but not
one of the excited High School boys regretted it.  They had had
a chance to express themselves, and now fell in, filing down to
the locker rooms, then up the stairs once more to the assembly
room.  Bayliss and Fremont came in, joining the others.  They
were white-faced, but strove to carry their heads very high.

The sounding of the gong had stopped the circulating of the paper
that had been so angrily torn down from the bulletin board.  It
was in Dick Prescott's hands now.

The notice had announced the formation of a "select" party for
a straw ride for the young men and young women of the junior and
senior classes on Thursday afternoon, starting at two-thirty o'clock.
Invitations would be issued by the committee, after requests
for tickets had been passed upon by that committee.  Bayliss,
Fremont and Paulson signed the notice of the straw ride.

This was the means by which the "soreheads" chose to announce
that they would ignore the football squad call for Thursday.

Wisely, for once, the principal did not choose to question the
young men regarding the excitement attending the close of recess.
Studies and recitations went on as usual.

But feeling ran high.  The "soreheads" and their sympathizers
were known, by this time, to all the other young men of the student
body.  During the rest of the day's session many a "sorehead"
found himself being regarded with black or sneering looks.

Of course the self-elected "exclusive" set was not numerously
represented in the High School.  Most of the boys and girls did
not come from well-to-do families.  Some who did had refused to
have anything to do with the "sorehead" crowd.

The instant that school was dismissed that Tuesday afternoon scores
of the more boisterous boys rushed from the building, across the
yard, and double-lined the sidewalk leading from the gateway.

"Ugh!  ugh!  ugh!" they groaned, whenever any of the "soreheads"
tried to walk this gauntlet in dignified silence.

"Let's keep out of that, fellows," advised Dick, to his chums,
who grouped themselves about him.  "Groans and catcalls won't
smooth or soothe any hard-feelings."

"I don't blame any of the fellows for what they're doing to the
snobs," blazed Dan Dalzell indignantly.

"I don't say that I do, either," Dick replied quietly.  "But there
may be better ways of  teaching fellows that they should stand
by their school at all times."

"I'd like to know a better way, then," flared Tom Reade.

"Let's have it, instanter, Dick, if you've got one," begged Greg
Holmes.

"Yes; out with it, old chap," begged Harry Hazelton.

But Dick Prescott smiled provokingly.

"Perhaps, with the help of some of the rest of you," he replied,
"I shall be able to find a way of cooling some hot heads.  I hope
so, anyway."

"Dick has his plan all fixed, now," Dan whispered, hopefully,
to Tom.

"If he has," quoth Reade, under his breath, I wish he'd tell us
his scheme."

"Humph!" retorted Dan.  "You know Dick Prescott, and you know
that he never shoots until he has taken time to aim."




CHAPTER VIII

DICK FIRES BOTH BARRELS


"Oh---great Scott!" gasped Tom Reade, as he paused at an item in
"The Blade" the following morning.

That item had been written by Prescott.  There could be no doubt
about it in Reade's mind.

"What's the matter?" asked Tom's father.

"Oh, Dick has been paying his respects to a certain clique in
the High School, I take it," Tom replied, with a grin.  "I heard,
yesterday, that he was going to shoot into that crowd.  But---and
here's a short editorial on the same subject, too.  Wow!  Dick
has fired into the enemy with both barrels!"

A moment later Tom passed the paper over to his father.  Dick's
article read:

_There is a possibility that Gridley High School will not be in
the front ranks in football this year.  Those who know state that
a "sorehead" combination has been formed by the young male representatives
of some of our wealthier families.  These young men, having elected
themselves, so it is said, the salt of the earth, or the cream
of a new Gridley aristocracy, are going to refuse to play in the
football eleven this year.

Even young men who belong to "prominent" families may have some
gifts in the way of football ability.  Three or four out of the
dozen or more "soreheads" are really needed if Gridley High School
is to maintain its standing this year.   The remainder of the
"soreheads" may, with advantage to the High School eleven, be
excused from offering themselves.

The "soreheads," it is stated, feel that it would be beneath the
dignity of their families for them to play on an eleven which
must, in any event, be recruited largely from the sons of the
Gridley families less fortunately situated financially.

Strangely enough, though they don't intend to play football this
year, these "soreheads" have been training hard of late, one of
their practices being the taking of an early morning cross-country
run together.

The average young man at the High School is as eager as ever to
uphold the town's and the school's honor and dignity on the football
gridiron this year.  Whether the so-called "soreheads" will reconsider
their proposed course of action and throw themselves in with the
common lot for the upholding of the Gridley name and the honor
of the High School will have been determined within the next few
days.  It is possible, however, that this little coterie of self-appointed
"exclusives" will continue to refuse to cast their lot with the
commoner run of High School boys, to whom some of the "soreheads"
have referred as "muckers."  A Gridley "mucker," it may be stated
in passing, is a Gridley boy of poor parents who desires to obtain
a decent education and better himself in life._

"Is that article true?" demanded Tom Reade's father.

"Yes, sir," Tom responded.  "Dick wouldn't have written it, if
it hadn't been.  But turn over to the editorial column, and see
that other little bit."

The editorial in question referred to the news printed in another
column, and stated that this information, if correct, showed a
state of affairs at the High School that needed bettering.  The
editor continued:

_If there are in the High School any young snobs who display such
a mean and un-American spirit, then the thoughtful reader must
conclude that these young men are being unjustly educated at the
public expense, for such boys are certain to grow into men who
will turn nothing of value back into the community.  Such young
men, if they really need to study, should be educated at the expense
of their families.  Both the High School and the community can
easily dispense with the presence of snobs and snobbery._

"I guess there'll be some real soreness in some heads this morning,"
laughed Tom's father.

"Won't there!" ejaculated Tom, and hurried out into the street.
It did not take him long to find some of his chums and other
High School boys.  Those who had not seen "The Blade" read the
two marked portions eagerly.

Bert Dodge had "The Blade" placed before him by his sister.  Bert
read with reddening cheeks.

"That's what comes of letting a fellow like Dick Prescott write
for the papers," Bert stormed angrily.  "That fellow ought to
be tarred and feathered!"

"Why don't you suggest it to the 'soreheads'?" asked his sister,
quizzically.  Grace Dodge was an amiable, democratic, capable
girl who had gone through college with honors, and yet had not
gained a false impression of the importance conferred by a little
wealth.

"Grace, I believe you're laughing at me!" dared the young man
exasperatedly.

"No; I'm not laughing.  I'm sorry," sighed the young woman.  "But
I can imagine that a good many are laughing, this morning, and
that the number will grow.  Bert, dear, do you think any young
man can hope to be very highly esteemed when he sets his own importance
above the good name and success of his school?"

Bert did not answer, but quit the house moodily.  He encountered
some of "his own set," but they were not a very cheerful-looking
lot that morning.  Not one of the "soreheads" could escape the
conviction that Dick Prescott held the whip hand of public opinion
over them.  What none of them appreciated, was the moderation
with which young Prescott had wielded his weapon.

Dodge, Bayliss, Paulson and Hudson entered the High School grounds
together, that morning, ten minutes before opening time.  As the
quartette passed, several of the little groups of fellow students
ceased their talk and turned away from the four "soreheads."
Then, after the quartette had passed, quiet little laughs were
heard.

All four mounted the steps of the building with heightening color.

Before the door, talking together, stood Fred Ripley and Purcell,
whom the "soreheads" had endeavored to enlist.

"Good morning, Purcell.  Morning, Ripley," greeted Bayliss.

Fred and Purcell wheeled about, turning their backs without answering.

Once inside the building the four young fellows looked at each
other uneasily.

"Are the fellows trying to send us to coventry?" demanded Dodge.

"Oh, well," muttered Bayliss, "there are enough of us.  We can
stand it!"

Yet, at recess, the "soreheads" found themselves extremely uncomfortable.
None of their fellow-students, among the boys, would notice them.
Whenever some of the "soreheads" passed a knot of other boys,
low-toned laughs followed.  Even many of the girls, it proved,
had taken up with the Coventry idea.

"Fellows, come to my place after you've had your luncheons," Bayliss
whispered around among his cronies, after school was out for the
day.  "I---I guess there are a---a few things that we want to
talk over among ourselves.  So come over, and we'll use the carriage
house for a meeting place.  Maybe we'll organize a club among
ourselves, or---or---do something that shall shut us out and away
from the common herd of this school."

When the dozen or more met in the Bayliss carriage house that
afternoon there were some defiant looks, and some anxious ones.

"I don't know how you fellows feel about this business," began
Hudson frankly.  "But I've had a pretty hot grilling at home by
Dad.  He asked me if I belonged to the 'sorehead' gang.  I answered
as evasively as I could.  Then dad brought his list down on the
table and told me he prayed that I wouldn't go through life with
any false notions about my personal dimensions.  He told me, rather
explosively, that I would never be a bit bigger, in anyone's estimation
than I proved myself to be."

"Hot, was he?" asked Bayliss, with a half sneer.

"He started out that way," replied Hudson.  "But pretty soon Dad
became dignified, and asked me where I had ever gotten the notion
that I amounted to any more than any other fellow of the same
brain caliber."

"What did you tell him?  asked Bert Dodge, frowning.

"I couldn't tell him much," retorted Hudson, smiling wearily.
"Dad was primed to do most of the talking.  When he stopped for
breath mother began."

"It's all that confounded Dick Prescott's doings!  It's a shame!
It's a piece of anarchy---that's what it is!" muttered Paulson.
"On my way here I passed three men on the street.  They looked
at me pretty hard, and laughed after I had gone by.  Fellows,
are we going to allow  that mucker, Dick Prescott, to make us
by-words in this town?"

"No siree, no!" roared Fremont.

"Good!  That's what I like to hear," put in Hudson dryly.  "And
what are we going to do to stop Dick Prescott and turn public
opinion our ways"

"Why-----"

"We-----"

"The way to-----"

"We'll-----"

Several spoke at once, then all came to a full stop.  The "soreheads"
looked at each other in puzzled silence.

"What are we going to do?" demanded Fremont.  "How are we going
to hit back at a fellow who has a newspaper that he can use as
a club on your head?"

"We might have a piece put in 'The Evening Mail,'" hinted Porter,
after a dazed silence.  "That's the rival paper."

"Yes!" chimed in Bayliss, eagerly.  "We can write a piece and
get it put in 'The Mail.' Our piece can say that there has been
a tendency, this year, or was believed to be one, to get a rowdyish
element of the High School into the High School eleven, and that
our move was really a move intended to sustain the past reputation
of the Gridley High School for gentlemanly playing in all school
sports.  That  will hit Dick & Co., and a lot of others, and will
turn the laugh back on the muckers."

This proposition brought forth several eager cries of approval.

"I see just one flaw in the plan," observed Hudson slowly.

"What is it?" demanded half a dozen at once.

"Why, 'The Evening Mail' is a paper designed to appeal to the more
rowdyish element in Gridley politics.  'The Mail's' circulation is
about all among the class of people who come nearest to being
'rowdyish.'  So I'm pretty certain, fellows, that 'The Mail' wouldn't
take up our cause, and hammer our enemies with the word 'rowdy.' 'The
Blade' is the paper that circulates among the best people in Gridley."

"And Dick Prescott writes for 'The Blade'!"

A gloomy silence followed, broken by Bayliss's disconsolate query:

"Then, hang it!  What can we do?"

And that query stuck hard!




CHAPTER IX

BAYLISS GETS SOME ADVICE


On that fateful Thursday morning every High School boy, and nearly
every High School girl saw "The Blade."

The morning paper, however, contained no allusion whatever to
the football remarks of the day before.

Instead, there was an article descriptive of the changes to be
made out at the High School athletic field this present year,
and there were points and "dope" (as the sporting parlance phrases
it) concerning the records and rumored new players of other High
School elevens that were anxious to meet Gridley on the gridiron
this coming season.

Thursday's article was just the kind of a one that was calculated
to make every football enthusiast eager to see the season open
in full swing.

Again the "soreheads" came to school, and once more they had to
pass the silent groups of their fellow students, who stood with
heads turned away.  The reign of Coventry seemed complete.  Never
before had any of the "soreheads" understood so thoroughly the
meaning of loneliness.

At recess all the talk was of football.  None of this talk, however,
was heard by the "soreheads."  Whenever any of these went near
the other groups the talk ceased instantly.  There was no comfort
in the yard, that morning, for a "sorehead."

When school let out that afternoon, at one o'clock, Bayliss, Fremont,
Dodge and their kind scurried off fast.  No one offered to stop
them.  These "exclusive" young men could not get away from the
fact that exclusion was freely accorded them.

Fred Ripley, as had been his wont in other years when he was a
freshman, walked homeward with Clara Deane.

"Fred, you haven't got yourself mixed up at all with that 'sorehead'
crowd, have you?" Miss Deane asked.

"Not much!" replied Fred, with emphasis.  "I want to play football
this year."

"Will all the 'soreheads' be kept out of the eleven, even if they
come to their senses?" Clara inquired.

"Now, really, you'll have to ask me an easier one than that,"
replied Fred Ripley laughingly.

"I had an idea that all of the fellows whose families are rather
comfortably well off might be in the movement---or the strike or
whatever you call it," Clara replied.

"Oh, no; there's a lot of us who haven't gone in with the kickers---and
glad we are of it," Fred replied.

"Still, don't you believe in any importance attaching to the fact
that one comes of one of the rather good old families?" asked
Clara Deane thoughtfully.

"Why, of course, it's something to be quietly proud of," Fred
slowly assented.  Then added, with a quick laugh:

"But the events of the last two days show that one should keep
his pride buttoned in behind his vest."

As for the "soreheads" themselves, there weren't any more meetings.
As soon as they actually began to realize how much amused contempt
many of the Gridley, people felt for them, these young men began
to feel rather disgusted with themselves.

Across the street, and not far from the gymnasium building, was
an apartment house in which two apartments were vacant.  Being
well acquainted with the agent, Bayliss borrowed the key to one
of the apartments.  Before half past two that afternoon, Bayliss
and Dodge were in hiding, where they could look out through a
movable shutter at the gymnasium building.

"There go Prescott, Darrin and Reade," Bayliss soon reported.

"Oh, of course; they'll answer the football call," sniffed Dodge.
"It was over fellows just like them that the whole trouble started."

"And there's Dalzell, Hazelton and Hanshew.  Griffith is just
behind them."

"Yes; all muckers," nodded Dodge.

"There's Coach Morton."

"Of course; he has to attend," replied Dodge, coming toward the
shuttered window.  "But I'll wager old Morton isn't feeling over-happy
this afternoon."

"I don't know," grumbled Bayliss.  "There he is at the gym. door,
shaking hands with Dick Prescott and Dave Darrin, and laughing
pretty heartily."

"Laughing to keep his courage up, I reckon," clicked Bert Dodge
dryly.  "Morton knows he's going to miss a lot of faces that he'd
like to see there this year."

Then Dodge took up post at the peephole, while Bayliss stepped
back, yawning.

Several more football aspirants neared and entered the gym.  The
name of each was called off by Bert.

"This is the first year," chuckled Bayliss, "when Gridley hasn't
had a chance for a star eleven."

"I'll miss the game, myself, like fury," commented Dodge.  "All
through last season, when I played on the second eleven, I was
looking forward to this year."

"Now, don't you go to getting that streak, and quit us," warned
Bayliss quickly.  "Our set is going to get up its own eleven;
don't forget that!  And we're going to play some famous games."

"Sure!" admitted Dodge.  But there was a choke in his throat.

Just a few moments later Bert Dodge gave a violent start, then
cried out, in a voice husky with emotion:

"Oh, I say, Bayliss, look-----"

"What-----"

"_Hudson_!"

"What about him?"

"Quick!"

"Well, you ninny,"

"Hudson is going in the-----"

With a cry partly of doubting, partly of rage, Bayliss leaped
forward, crowding out Dodge in order to get a better view.

Hudson was actually ascending the gym. steps, and going up as
though he meant business.

"He's gone over to---to---them!" gasped Bert Dodge.

"The mean _traitor_!" hissed Bayliss.

Hudson did, indeed, brave it out by going straight on into the
gym.  As he entered some of the fellows already there glared at
him dubiously.  But Hudson met the look bravely.

"Hullo!" cried Dick.  "There's Hudson!"

Coach Morton heard, from another part of the gym.  Turning around,
the coach greeted tile reformed 'sorehead' with a nod and a smile.
Then some of the fellows spoke to Hudson as that young man moved
by them.  In a few  moments more, Hudson began to feel almost
at home among his own High School comrades.

Then Drayne, another 'sorehead,' showed up.  He, too, was treated
as though nothing had happened.  When Trenholm, still another
of the "soreheads," looked in at the gym., he appeared very close
to being afraid.  When he saw Hudson and Drayne there he hastened
forward.  By and by Grayson came in.  At the window across the
street Bayliss and Dodge had checked off all four of these "deserters"
and "traitors."

"Well, they'll play, anyway---either on school or on second,"
muttered Bert, to himself.  "Oh, dear!  Just think the way things
have turned out."

These four deserters from the "soreheads" were all out of that
very select crowd who did respond to the football call.

Promptly at three o'clock Coach Morton called for order.  Then,
after a very few remarks, he called for the names of all who intended
to enter the football training squad for this season.

"And let every fellow who thinks he's lazy, or who doesn't like
to train hard and obey promptly, keep his name off the list,"
warned the coach dryly.  "I've come to the conclusion that what
we need in this squad is Army discipline.  We're going to have
it this year!  Now, young gentlemen, come along with your
names---those of you who really believe you can stand Spartan
training."

"I think I might draw the line at having the fox---or was it a
wolf---gnawing at my entrails,  as one Spartan had to take it,"
laughed one youngster.

"Guess again, or you'd better stay off the squad this year," laughed
the coach.  "This is going to be a genuinely rough season for
all weaklings."

There was a quick making up of the roll.

"Tomorrow afternoon, at three sharp, you'll all report on the
athletic field," announced Coach Morton, when he had finished
writing down the names.  "Any man who fails to show up tomorrow
afternoon will have his name promptly expunged from the squad
rolls.  No excuses will be accepted for failure tomorrow."

There was a crispness about that which some of the fellows didn't
like.

"Won't a doctor's certificate of illness go?" asked one fellow
laughingly.

"It will go---not," retorted coach.  "Pill-takers and fellows
liable to chills aren't wanted on this year's team, anyway.  Now,
young gentlemen, I'm going to give you a brief talk on the general
art of taking care of yourselves, and the art of keeping yourselves
in condition."

The talk that followed seemed to Dick Prescott very much like
a repetition of what Coach Luce had said to them the winter before,
at the commencement of indoor training for baseball.

As he finished talking on health and condition Mr. Morton drew
from one of his pockets a bunch of folded papers.

"I am now," he continued, "going to present to each one of you
a set of rules, principles, guides---call them what you will.
On this paper each one of you will find laid down rules that
should be burned into the memories of all young men who aspire
to play football.  Do not lose your copies of these rules.  Read
the rules over again and again.  Memorize them!  Above all, put
every rule into absolute practice."

Then, at a sign, the young men passed before the coach to receive
their printed instructions.

"Something new you've gotten up, Mr. Morton?" inquired one of
the fellows.

"No," the coach admitted promptly.  "These rules aren't original
with me.  I ran across 'em, and I've had them printed, by authority
from the Athletics Committee.  I wish I had thought up a set of
rules as good."

As fast as they received their copies each member of the squad
darted away to read the rules through.  This is what each man
found on the printed sheet:

_"1. Work hard and be alive.
  2. Work hard and learn the rules.
  3. Work hard and learn the signals.
  4. Work hard and keep on the jump.
  5. Work hard and have a nose for the ball.
  6. Work hard all the time.  Be on speaking terms with the ball
every minute.
  7. Work hard and control your temper and tongue.
  8. Work hard and don't quit when you're tackled.  Hang onto the ball.
  9. Work hard and get your man before he gets started.  Get him
before the going gets good.
 10. Work hard and keep your speed. If you're falling behind
your condition is to blame.
 11. Work hard and be on the job all the time, a little faster, a
little sandier, a little more rugged than the day before.
 12. Work hard and keep your eyes and ears open and your head up.
 13. Work hard and pull alone the man with the ball.  This isn't a
game of solitaire.
 14. Work hard and be on time at practice every day.  Train faithfully.
Get your lessons.  Aim to do your part and to make yourself a
perfect part of the machine.  Be a gentleman.  If the combination
is too much for you, turn in your togs and call around during
croquet season."_

"What do you think of that, as expounding the law of football?"
smiled coach, looking down over Dave Darrin's shoulder.

"It doesn't take long to read, Mr. Morton And it ought not to
take long to memorize these fourteen rules.  But to live them,
through and through, and up and down---that's going to take a
lot of thought and attention."

To the four ex-"soreheads" not a word had been said about the
late unpleasantness, nor was this quartette any longer in Coventry.

Trenholm, Grayson, Drayne and Hudson were the four best football
men of the Bayliss-Dodge faction.  Now that they were to play
with the High School eleven all concerned felt wholly relieved.

As the young men were leaving the gym. that afternoon Coach Morton
found a chance to grip Dick's arm and to whisper lightly in his
ear:

"Thank you, Prescott."

"For what, Mr. Morton."

"Why, for what you managed to do to hold the school eleven together.
That was clever newspaper work, Prescott.  And it has helped
the school a lot.  I'm no longer uneasy about Gridley High School
on the gridiron for this season.  We'll have a team now!"

With a confident nod the coach strolled away.

As the gym. doors were thrown open the members of the new football
squad rushed out with joyous whoops.  Some of the more mischievous
or spirited actually tackled unsuspicious comrades, toppling their
victims over to the ground.  That line of tactics resulted in
many a "chase" that brought out some remarkably good sprinting
talent.  Thus the squad dissipated itself like the mist, and soon
the grounds near the school were deserted.

Bayliss and Bert Dodge went away to nurse a grievance that nothing
seemed to cure.

For these two, now that their strong line of resistance had been
broken, found themselves secretly longing, as had the four deserters,
for a place in the football squad.

Bert Dodge sulked along to school, alone that Friday morning.
Bayliss, however, after a night of wakefulness, had decided to
"eat crow."

So, as Dick, Dave and Greg Holmes were strolling along schoolward,
Bayliss overhauled them.

"Good morning, fellows," he called, briskly, with an offhand attempt
at geniality.

All three of the chums looked up at him, then glanced away again.

"Oh, I say, now, don't keep it up," coaxed Bayliss.  "We High
School fellows all want to be decent enough friends.  And how's
the football?  I don't suppose the squad is full yet.  I---I half
believe I may join and take a little practice."

"Thinking of it?" asked Dick, looking up coolly.

"Yes---really," replied Bayliss.

"See the coach, then; he's running the squad."

"Yes; I guess I will, thanks.  Good morning!"

Bayliss sauntered along, blithely whistling a tune.  He knew Coach
Morton would give him the glad hand of welcome for the squad and
the team.

"Oh, Mr. Morton," was Bayliss's greeting, as he encountered the
coach near the school building steps.

"Yes?" asked the submaster pleasantly.

"I---I---er---I didn't make the meeting yesterday afternoon, but
I guess you might put my name down for the squad."

"Isn't this a bit late, Bayliss?" asked the submaster, eyeing
the youth keenly.

"Perhaps, a bit," assented the confident young man.  "However-----"

"At its meeting, last night, Mr. Bayliss, the Athletics Committee
of the Alumni Association advised me to consider the squad list
closed."

"Closed?" stammered Bayliss, turning several shades in succession.
"Closed?  Do---do you mean-----"

"No more additions will be made to the squad this year," replied
the coach quietly, then going inside.

Bayliss stood on the steps, a picture of humiliation and amazement.

"Fellows," gasped Bayliss, as Prescott and his two chums came
along, "did you hear that?  Football list closed?"

"Want some advice?" asked Dick, halting for an instant.

"Yes," begged Bayliss.

"Never kick a sore toe against a stone wall," quoth Dick Prescott,
and passed on into the school building.




CHAPTER X

TWO GIRLS TURN THE LAUGH


By this time training was going on briskly.  Four days out of
every week the squad had to practice for two hours at the athletic
field.

There were tours of work in the gym., too.

Besides, it was "early to bed and early to rise" for all members
of the squad.

Even those who hoped only to "make second" were under strict orders
to let nothing interfere with their condition.

Three mornings in the week Coach Morton met all squad men for
either cross-country work or special work in sprinting.  And this
was before breakfast, when each man was on honor pledged to take
only a pint of hot water---nothing more---before reporting.
On the other mornings, football aspirants were pledged to run
without the coach.

Yet, with all this, studies had to be kept up to a high average,
for no man on the "unset" list could hope to be permitted to play
football.

Hard work?  Yes.  But discipline, above all.  And discipline is
priceless to the young man who really hopes to get ahead in life!

"You're not playing fair," Dave cried reproachfully to his chum
one day.

"Why not?" Prescott questioned mildly.

"You're using hair tonic!" Darrin asserted, with mock seriousness,
as he gazed at Dick's bushy mop of football hair.  "You're growing
a regular chrysanthemum for a top piece to your head."

"Oh, my hair, eh?" smiled Dick.  "Why, you can have as fine a
lot of hair if you want to take the trouble."

"Don't I want it, though?" retorted Darrin.  "What kind of tonic
do you use?"

"Grease," smiled Prescott.

"Nothing but grease?"

"Nothing much."

"What kind of grease?"

"Elbow!"

"Now, stop your joshing," ordered Dave promptly.  "No kind of
muscular work is going to bring out a fuzzy rug like that on anyone's
skypiece."

"But that's just how I do it," Dick insisted.  "Not a bit hard,
either.  See here!  Just use your finger tips, briskly, like this,
and stir your whole scalp up with a brisk massage."

"How long do you keep it up?" demanded Dave, after following suit
for some time.

"Oh, about ninety seconds, I guess," nodded Prescott.  "You want
to do it eight times a day, and wash your head weekly, though
with bland soap and not too much of it."

"Is that honestly all you do to get a Siberian fur wig such as
you're wearing?"

"That's all I do," replied Dick.  "Except---yes; there's one
thing more.  Go out of doors all you can without a hat."

"The active curry-comb and the vanished hat for mine, then," muttered
Dave, with another envious look at Dick's bushy hair.

Nor did Dave rest until the other chums all had the secret.  By
the time that the football season opened Dick & Co. were the envy
of the school for their heavy heads of hair.

With all the hard work of training, Coach Morton did not intend
that the young men should be so busy as to have no time for recreation.
He understood thoroughly the value of the lighter, happier moments
in keeping an athlete's nervous system up to concert pitch.

Though the baseball training of the preceding spring had been
"stiff" enough, Dick & Co. soon found that the football training
was altogether more rugged.

In fact, Coach Morton, with the aid of Dr. Bentley as medical
director, weeded out a few of the young men after training had
been going on for a fortnight.  Some failed to show sufficient
reserve "wind" after running.  A few other defectives proved not
to have hearts strong enough for the grilling work of the gridiron.

All the members of Dick & Co., however, managed to keep in the
squad.  In fact, hints soon began to go around, mysteriously,
that Dick & Co. were having the benefit of some  outside training.
Purcell came to young Prescott and asked him frankly about this
report.

"Nothing in it," Dick replied promptly.  "We're having just the
same training as the rest of the boys.  But I'll tell you a secret."

"Go on!" begged Purcell eagerly.

"You know the training rules---early retiring and all?"

"Yes; of course."

"Well, we fellows are sticking to orders like leeches.  Every
night, to the minute, we're in bed.  We make a long night's sleep
of it.  Then, besides, we don't slight a single particle of the
training work that we're told to do by ourselves.  We've agreed
on that, and have promised each other.  Now, do you suppose all
the fellows are sticking quite as closely to coach's orders?"

"I---I---well, perhaps they're not," agreed Purcell.

"Are you?" insisted Dick.

"In the _main_, I do."

"Oh," observed Prescott, with mild sarcasm.  "'In the main'!
Now, see here, Purcell, we High School fellows are fortunate in
having one of the very best coaches that ever a High School squad
did have.  Mr. Morton knows what he's doing.  He knows how to
bring out condition, and how to teach the game.  He lays down
the rules that furnish the sole means of success at football.
And you---one of our most valuable fellows---are following some
of his instructions---when they don't conflict with your comfort
or with your own ideas about training.  Now, honestly, what do
you know about training that is better than Coach Morton's information
on that very important subjects"

"Oh, come, now; you're a little bit too hard, Prescott," argued
Purcell.  "I do about everything just as I'm told."

"You admit Mr. Morton's ability, don't you?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then why don't you stick to every single rule that's laid down
by a man who knows what he is doing?  It will be better for your
condition, won't it, Purcell?"

"Yes, without a doubt."

"And what is better for you is better for the team and for the
school, isn't its"

"By Jove, Prescott, you're a stickler for duty, aren't you?" cried
Purcell.

He spoke in a louder tone this time.  Two girls who were passing
the street corner where the young men stood heard the query and
glanced over with interest.

Neither young man perceived the girls at that moment.

"Why, yes," Prescott answered slowly.  "Duty is the main thing
there is about life, isn't it?"

"Right again," laughed Purcell.

One of the girls looked swiftly at the other.  They were Laura
Bentley and Belle Meade, friends of Dick's and Dave's, and also
members of the junior class.

"Well, I'm going to take a leaf out of your book," pursued Purcell.
"I'm really as anxious to see Gridley High School always on top
as you or any other fellow can be."

"Of course you are," nodded Dick.  "The way you put our baseball
team through last season proves that."

"I'm going to be a martinet for training, hereafter," Purcell
declared earnestly.  "I'm going to be a worse stickler than old
coach himself.  And I'm going to exercise my right as a senior
to watch the other fellows and hold their noses to the training
grindstone."

"Then I'm not worried about Gridley having a winning team this
year," Dick answered.

"By Jove, you had a lot to do with that, too, didn't you, Prescott?"
cried Purcell.  "You put it over the 'soreheads' so hard that
we never heard from them again after we got started."

"You helped there, also, Purcell.  If you and Ripley and a few
others had gone over to the 'soreheads' it would have stiffened
their backbone and nothing could have made it possible, this year,
for Gridley High School to have an eleven that would represent
all the best football that there is in the grand old school."

In the first two years of their school life Dick and Dave had
spent many pleasant hours in the society of Laura and Belle.
So far, during the  junior year, the chums had had but little
chance to see the girls, for the demands of football were fearfully
exacting.

Laura, being almost at the threshold of seventeen years, had grown
tall and womanly.  Bert Dodge began to notice what a very pretty
girl the doctor's daughter was becoming.  So, one afternoon while
the football squad was practicing hard over on the athletic field,
Bert encountered Laura and Belle as they strolled down the Main
Street.

Lifting his hat, Dodge greeted the girls, and stood chatting with
them for a few moments.  To this neither of the girls could object,
for Bert's manners, with the other sex, were always irreproachable.

But, presently, Laura saw her chance.  She did not want to be
rude, but Bert's face had just taken on a half-sneering look at
a chance mention of Dick's name.

"You aren't playing football this year, Bert?" Laura asked innocently.

Bert quickly flushed.

"No," he admitted.

"Of course everyone can't make the eleven," Belle added, with
mild malice.

"I---I don't believe I'd care to," Dodge went on.  "I---you see---I
don't care about all the fellows in the squad."

"I don't suppose every boy who is playing on the squad is a chum
of everyone else," remarked Laura.

"Such fellows as Prescott, for instance, I don't care much about,"
Bert continued, with a swift side glance at Laura Bentley to see
how she took that remark.  But Laura showed not a sign in her
face.

"No?" she asked quietly.  "I think him a splendid fellow.  By
the way, he and Dave Darrin haven't received the reward for finding
your father, have they?"

Bert gasped.  His face went white, then red.  He fidgeted about
for an answer.

"No," he replied, cuttingly, at last, "and I don't believe they
ever will."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," cried Laura in quick contrition.  "I
didn't know that it was a tender spot with you, or your family."

"It isn't," Bert rejoined hurriedly.  "It simply amounts to this,
that the reward will never be paid to a pair of cheeky,
brazen-faced-----"

"Won't you please stop right there, Mr. Dodge?" Laura asked sweetly.
"Mr. Prescott and Mr. Darrin are friends of ours.  We don't like
to hear remarks that cast disrespect in their direction."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," answered Bert, trying not to be stiff.
But he was ill at ease, leaving the girls very soon after.

Yet, in his hatred for Dick and Dave, young Dodge resolved upon
a daring stroke.  He enlisted Bayliss, and the pair sought to
"cut out" Prescott and Darrin with Laura and Belle.

Neither Dick nor Dave was in love.  Both were too sensible for
that.  Both knew that love affairs were for men old enough to
know their own minds.  Yet the friendship between the four young
people had been a very proper and wholesome affair, and much pleasure
had been derived on all sides.

Nowadays, however, Bert and Bayliss managed to be much out and
around Gridley while the football squad was at practice.  Almost
daily this pair met Laura and Belle, as though by accident, and
the two young seniors usually managed, without apparent intrusion,
to walk along beside Laura and Belle, often seeing the pair to
the home gate of one or the other.

"You two fellows want to look out," Purcell warned Dick and Dave,
good-naturedly, one day.  "Other fellows are after your sweet-hearts."

"I wonder how that happened," Dick observed good-humoredly.  "I
didn't know we had any sweethearts."

"What about-----" began Purcell, wondering if he had made a mistake.

"Please don't drag any girls' names into bantering talk," interposed
Dave, quickly though very quietly.

So Purcell said no more, and he had, indeed, meant no harm whatever.
But others were  noticing, and also talking.  High School young
people began to take a very lively interest in the new appearance
of Dodge and Bayliss as escorts of Laura and Belle.

Then there came one especially golden day of early autumn, when
it seemed as though the warm, glorious day had driven everyone
out onto the streets.  Dodge and Bayliss met Laura and Belle,
quite as though by accident, and manifested a rather evident
determination to remain in the company of the girls as long as
possible.

Finally Laura halted before one of the department stores.

"Belle, there's an errand you and I had in mind to do in there,
isn't there?" Laura asked.

"May we have the very great pleasure, then, of your leave to wait
until you are through with your shopping?" spoke up Bert Dodge quickly.

Laura flushed slightly.  Just then more than a dozen of the football
squad, coming back from the field, marching solidly by twos, turned
the corner and came upon this quartette.  There were many curious
looks in the corners of the eyes of members of the squad.

Despite themselves Dick and Dave could feel themselves reddening.

But Laura Bentley was equal to the emergency.  "Here come the
school's heroes---the fellows who keep Gridley's High School banner
flying in the breeze," she laughed pleasantly.

Both Dodge and Bayliss started to answer, then closed their lips.

"Won't you please excuse us, boys?" begged Laura, in her usual
pleasant voice.  "Here are Dick and Dave, and Belle and I wish
to speak with them."

From some of the members of the football squad went up a promptly
stifled gasp that sounded like a very distant rumble.

Dick and Dave, looking wholly rough and ready in their sweaters,
padded trousers and heavy field shoes, stepped out of the marching
formation as though obeying an order.

The chums looked almost uncouth, compared with the immaculate,
dandyish pair, Dodge and Bayliss.  The latter, with so many amused
glances turned their way, could only flush deeply, stammer, raise
their hats and---fade