t that's in you,
and don't for one instant allow any personal disappointments to
unfit you. You'll do that, won't you?"

"Yes, sir."

Darrin certainly tried hard enough. Yet just as certainly the
Navy's boosters shook their heads when they watched Darrin's work
on the field.

"He has gone stale," they said. "The very worst thing that could
happen to the Navy this year!"

Then came the first game of the season---with Lehigh. Darrin
roused himself all he could, and his playing was very nearly up
to what might have been expected of him---though not quite.

The visitors got away with a score of eight to five against the Navy.

Next week the Lehighs went to West Point and suffered defeat at
the hands of the Army.

The news sent gloom broadcast through the Naval Academy.

"We get beaten by one of the smaller colleges, that West Point can
trim," was the mournful comment.

It did, indeed, look bad for the Navy!

CHAPTER V

DAN HANDS HIMSELF BAD MONEY

As the season went on it was evident that Dave Darrin was slowly
getting back to form.

Yet coach was not wholly satisfied, nor was anyone else who had
the triumph of the Navy eleven at heart.

Three more games had been played, and two of them were won by
the Navy. Next would come Stanford College, a hard lot to beat.
The Navy tried to bolster up its own hopes; a loss to Stanford
would mean the majority of games lost out of the first five.

True, the news from West Point was not wholly disconcerting to
the Navy. The Army that year had some strong players, it was
true; still, the loss of Prescott and Holmes was sorely felt.
Word came, too, in indirect ways, that there was no likelihood
whatever that the Coventry against Cadet Dick Prescott would be
lifted. It was the evident purpose of the Corps of Cadets, for
fancied wrongs, to ostracize Dick Prescott until he found himself
forced to resign from the United States Military Academy.

November came in. Stanford came. Coach talked to Dave Darrin
steadily for ten minutes before the Navy eleven trotted out on
to the field. Stanford left Annapolis with small end of the score,
in a six-to-two game, and the Navy was jubilant.

"Darrin has come back pretty close to his right form," was the
general comment.

For that Saturday evening Dan Dalzell, being now "on privilege"
again, asked and received leave to visit in town---this the more
readily because his work on the team had prevented his going out