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.”