“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.