own side of the field.

Trill-ll! The first half was over.

"Sam, can you do better? Do you want to go back on the job?"
asked Ben Badger.

"No," replied the Gridley captain. "It's been tough on us, but
you've done everything that I could have done. I'm satisfied,
and I believe the coach is."

"We'll ask him," proposed Badger.

Morton was hurrying toward his boys. The coach's face was impassive.
For all his looks showed he might have been congratulating himself
on a winning.

"No; there's no need to change captains," decided the coach.
"It's like changing a horse in mid-stream. I don't see, Badger,
that you're lost any tricks that Edgeworth could have made.

"What's our weak point?" asked Ben.

"There isn't much of a weak point, anywhere, as far as your play
goes," Mr. Morton responded. "In many respects your play has
been better than Cobber's. Weight is your poor point."

Nevertheless the coach made several suggestions in the time that
was allowed him.

"Whenever you get a proper chance, Captain, and have the ball,
open up the play as much as you can. Don't give Cobber a chance
to bump you any when it can be avoided."

In the meantime the Cobber fans, as was their right, were hurling
the most abusive cheers and taunts. Dick, as cheer-master, allowed
this to pass until nearly the end of the intermission. At last
he gave the sudden call through the megaphone:

"Twenty-three!"

The number sounded ominous; so did the cheer that was designated
by it. The Gridley H.S. boys on the grand stand responded hardly
more than half-heartedly:

_"Com-pan-nee served first!
That's our steady rule!
Manners the best are taught
In Gridley school!

"But he who waits laughs best!
'Tis but a distance short
'Twixt laugh and weep---
Your joy'll be short!"_

"H.S. cheer!" exhorted Prescott, at once.

It came, with a more thundering volley. Yet Gridley folks stirred
uneasily.

"That's what comes of putting a freshman, without judgment, on
the calling job," muttered Fred Ripley sarcastically.

The whistle blew. Cobber got the ball, and kept it moving. Once
there was a brief setback when Gridley got the pigskin and sought
to push it back. After four yards, however, Cobber took it and
moved down the field with it.

It seemed impossible to offer effective resistance to the heavy
college men now.

Gridley hearts sank from sheer weight. Gridley had met more
than its match!

CHAPTER XVI

THE