Say, you’re a great one, Prescott, to throw us down in this way,” chaffed Drayne, as Dick strolled into dressing quarters.

“Oh, come, now!” broke in Darrin impatiently.  “It’s bad enough, Drayne, to have to play side partner to you in the biggest game in the year, without having to listen to your fat-headed criticism of better men.”

Drayne flushed, and might have retorted, had not Wadleigh broken in, in measured tones, yet with much significance in his voice: 

“Yes, Drayne; cut out all remarks until you’ve made good.  Of course you are going to make good, but talk will sound better after deeds.”

Most of the fellows who were togging were uneasy.

They wanted, with all their hearts, to win this day’s game.  First of all, the game was needed in order to preserve their record for unbroken victories.  Then again, Filmore High School was a team worth beating at any time and Filmore boosters had been making free remarks about a Gridley Waterloo.

So there was a feeling of general depression in dressing quarters.

Dick Prescott, with his dashing, crafty, splendid, score-making work at left end, had become a necessity to the Gridley eleven.

“It’s the toughest luck that ever happened,” grumbled Hazelton, right guard, to Holmes, right tackle.  “And I don’t believe Drayne is in anything like condition, either.”

“Now, see here, you two,” broke in Captain Wadleigh behind them, as he gripped an arm of either boy, “no croaking.  We can’t afford it.”

“We can’t afford anything,” grinned Hazelton uneasily.

“Oh, of course, we’re going to win today –­Gridley simply has to win,” added Holmes hastily.

“Yes; you two look as though you had the winning streak on,” growled Wadleigh, in a low voice.  “For goodness’ sake come out of your daze!”

“Do you think yourself that Drayne is fit?” demanded Hazelton.

“He’s the fittest man we have that can play left end,” retorted Wadleigh.

“Knocking, are you?” demanded Drayne, coming up behind them.  “Nice fellows you are!”

“Oh, now, see here, Drayne, no bad blood,” urged Wadleigh.  He spoke authoritatively, yet coaxingly, too.  “Remember, we’ve got to keep all our energies for one thing today.”

“Well, I’m mighty glad you two don’t play on my end of the line,” sneered Drayne, looking at Hazelton and Holmes with undisguised hostility.

“Cut it, Drayne.  And don’t you two talk back, either,” warned Wadleigh sternly.

“Oh, acknowledge the corn, Drayne,” broke in Hudson, with what he meant for good humor.  “Just say you’re no good and let it go at that.”

There was a dead silence, for an instant, broken by one unidentified fellow, muttering in a voice that sounded like a roar in the silence: 

“Drayne?  Humph!”

“There you go!  That’s what all of you are saying to yourselves!” cried Drayne angrily.  “For some reason you idiots seem to think I’m in no shape today.  Hang it, I’m sorry I agreed to play.  For two cents I wouldn’t play.”

“Drayne can be bought off cheaply, can’t he?” remarked one of the fellows.

The last speaker did not intend that his voice should reach Drayne, but it did.

“Say, you fellows all have a grouch on, just because I’m playing today!” quivered the victim of the remarks.  “Oh, well, never mind I’ll cure your grouch, then!”

Seating himself on a locker box, Drayne began to unfasten the lacings of his shoes.

“Here, man!  What are you doing?” demanded Captain Wadleigh, bounding forward angrily.

“Curing the grouch of this bunch,” retorted Drayne sulkily.

“Man alive, there’s no time to fool with your shoes now!” warned the team captain.

“I’m not going to need this pair,” Drayne rejoined.  “Street shoes will do for me today.”

“Not on the gridiron!”

“I’m not going on the field.  I’ve heard enough knocking,” grumbled Drayne.

A dozen of the fellows crowded about, consternation written in their faces.

Prescott was known not to be fit to play.  Only the day before Dr. Bentley had refused to pass him for the game.  Hence Drayne, even if a trifle out of condition, was still the best available man for left end.

“Quit your fooling, Drayne!” cried two or three at once.

“Quit your talking,” retorted Drayne, kicking off his other field shoe.  “I’ve done all my talking.”

Truth to tell, Drayne still intended to play, but he wanted to teach these fellows a lesson.  He intended to make them beg, from Wadleigh down, before he would go on to the finish of his togging.  Drayne knew when he had the advantage of them.

“Don’t be a fool, Drayne,” broke in Hudson hotly.

“Or a traitor to your school,” added another.

“Be a man!”

In Drayne’s present frame of mind all these appeals served to fan his inward fury.

“Shut up, all of you!” he snapped.  “I’ve listened to all the roasting I intend to stand.  I’m out of the game!”

Several looked blankly at “Hen” Wadleigh.

“Whom have you to put in his place?” Grayson demanded hoarsely.

Drayne heard and it was balm to his soul.  He started to pull off his football trousers.

Outside, the band started upon a lively gallop.  The crowd began to cheer.  It started in as a Gridley cheer.  Then, above everything else, rang the Filmore yell of defiance.

Just at this moment Coach Morton strode into the room.  Almost in a twinkling he learned of the new complication that had arisen.

“Captain Wadleigh, who is to play in Drayne’s stead” demanded the coach rather briskly.

“Under certain conditions,” broke in Wayne, “I’ll agree to play.”

“We wouldn’t have you under all the conditions in the world!” retorted Mr. Morton.  “A football eleven must be an organization of the finest discipline!”

Drayne reddened, then went deathly white.  He hadn’t intended to let the matter go this far.

“Who is your best man for left end, captain?” insisted Mr. Morton.  “You’ve got to decide like a flash.  Your men ought to be out in the air now.”

There was a blank pause, while “Hen” Wadleigh looked around over his subs.

“Will you let me play?”

There was a start.  Every fellow in the room turned around to stare at the speaker.

It was Dick Prescott, who started eagerly forward, his face aglow with eagerness.

“You, Prescott?” cried Mr. Morton.  “But only yesterday Dr. Bentley reported that your lungs had not sufficiently recovered.”

“I know, sir,” Dick laughed coolly; “but that was yesterday.

“It would be foolhardy, my boy.  If you went out on the field, and any exceptional strain came up, you might do an injury to your lungs.”

“Mr. Morton,” replied the team’s left end, very quietly, “I’m willing to go out on the field –­and do all that’s in me, for old Gridley –­if it’s the last act of my life.”

“Your hand, Prescott!” cried Mr. Morton, gripping the boy’s palm.  “That’s the right spirit of grit and loyalty.  But it wouldn’t be right to let you do it.  It isn’t necessary, or human, to pay a life for a game.”

“Will you let me go on the field if Dr. Bentley passes me today?” queried Prescott.

“But he won’t.”

“Try him.”

Mr. Morton nodded, and some one ran out and passed the word for Dr. Bentley, who acted as medical director in the School’s athletics.

Within two minutes the physician entered dressing quarters.

Coach Morton stated Prescott’s request.

“Absurd,” declared Dr. Bentley.

“Will you examine me, sirs” insisted Prescott.

With a sigh the old physician opened his satchel, taking out a stethoscope and some other instruments.

“Strip to the waist,” he ordered tersely.

Many eager hands stretched out to aid Dick in his task.

In a few moments the young athlete, the upper half of his body bared, stood before the medical examiner.  For his height, weight and age Prescott was surely a fine picture of physical strength.

But Dr. Bentley, with the air and the preformed bias of a professional skeptic, went all over the boy’s torso, starting with a prolonged examination of the heart action and its sounds.

“You find the arterial pressure steady and sound, don’t you,” asked Dick Prescott?

“Hm!” muttered Dr. Bentley.  “Now, take a full breath and hold it.”

Thump! thump! thump! went the doctor’s forefinger against the back of his other hand, as he explored all the regions of Dick’s chest.

A dozen more tests followed.

“What do you think, Doctor?” asked Mr. Morton.

“Hm!  The young man recovers with great rapidity.  If he goes into a mild game he’ll stand it all right.  If it turns out to be a rough game-----”

“Then I’ll fare as badly as the rest, won’t I, Doctor?” laughed Dick.  “Thank you for passing me, sir.  I’ll get into my togs at once.”

“But I haven’t said that I passed you.”

Dick, however, feigned not to hear this.  He was rushing to his locker, from which he began to haul the various parts of his rig.

“Is it a crime to let young Prescott go on the field?” asked Coach Morton anxiously.

“No,” replied Dr. Bentley hesitatingly.  “It might be a greater crime to keep him off the gridiron today.  Men have been known to die of grief.”

Probably a football player never had more assistance in togging up for a game.  Those who couldn’t get in close enough to help Dick dress growled at the others for keeping them out.

“You seem uneasy, Coach,” murmured Captain Wadleigh, aside.

“I am.”

“I can’t believe, sir, that a careful man like Dr. Bentley would let Prescott go on at left end today, if there was good reason why Prescott shouldn’t.  As we know, from the past, Dick Prescott has wonderful powers of recuperation.”

“If Prescott should go to pieces, Captain, whom will you put forward in his places”

“Dalzell, sir.  He’s speedy, even if not as clever as Prescott or Drayne.”

“I’m glad you’ve been looking ahead, Captain.  Out I hope Prescott will hold out, and suffer no injury whatever from this day’s work.”

Was Dick anxious?  Not the least in the world.  He was care free –­jubilant.  The Gridley spirit possessed him.  He was going to hold out, and the eleven was going to win its game.  That was all there was to it, or all there could be.

In the first two or three days after his injury at the fire Dick had traveled briefly in the dark valley of physical despair.

To be crippled or ill, to be physically useless –­the thought filled him with horror.

Then young Prescott had taken a good grip on himself.  Out of despair proceeded determination not to allow his lungs to go down before the assault of smoke and furnace-like air.

Grace Dodge was not, as yet, well on the way to recovery, but Dick Prescott, with his strong will power, and the grit that came of Gridley athletics, was now togging hastily to play in the great game –­though he had not, as yet, returned to school after his disaster.

Out near the grandstand the band crashed forth for the tenth time.  Gridley High School bannerets waved by the hundreds.  Yet Filmore, too, had her hosts of boosters here today, and their yells all but drowned out the spirited music.

“Here come our boys!  Gridley!  Gridley!  Gridley!  Wow-ow-ow!”

“Hurrah!”

Then the home boosters, who had read Drayne’s name on the score card took another look at their cards –­next rubbed their eyes.

“Prescott at left end!” yelled one frenzied booster.  “Whoop!”

Then the Gridley bannerets waved like a surging sea of color.  The band, finishing its strain, started in again, not waiting for breath.

“Prescott, after all, on left end!”

Home boosters were still cheering wildly by the time that Captain Pike, of Filmore High School, had won the toss and the teams were lining, up.

Silence did not fall until just the instant before the ball was put in play.

Drayne, with his headgear pulled down over his eyes, and skulking out beside the grand stand, soon began to feel a savage satisfaction.

Something must be ailing the left end man after all, for Dick did not seem able to get through the Filmore line with his usual brilliant tactics.

Instead, after ten minutes of furious play, Filmore forced Gridley to make a safety.  Then again the ball was forced down toward Gridley’s goal line, and at last pushed over.

Gridley hearts, over on the grand stand and bleacher seats, were beating with painful rapidity.  What ailed the home boys?  Or were the Filmore youths, as they themselves fondly imagined, the gridiron stars of the school world!  Filmore, like Gridley, had a record of no defeats so far this season.

It was a hard pill for Captain Wadleigh and his men to swallow.

In the interval between the halves the local band played, but the former dash was now noticeably absent from its music.

The Gridley colors drooped.