rt in the athletic contests, a fact
he deplored many times, for he had the spirit of a warrior in his small
body.

"Anyhow, Sunday will be a good day to rest, and stay indoors, to avoid
all the cruel things that will be fired at a fellow Monday," grinned
Bristles.

"Say, don't talk like that, old man," remarked another of the group;
"seems like you might be getting all ready for a funeral. I don't like
it. Better do some boasting, and give us a chance to feel we're going to
carry Mechanicsburg right off her feet."

"Oh! I'm only taking out a little extra insurance, that's all," remarked
Bristles. "They all do it, you know. Never knew a feller to get licked
but he began to explain how it happened; and tell how if his foot had
been all right, or that stitch in his side hadn't caught him, he'd have
swept up the ground with all his rivals. I'm wondering what I'd better
mention right now as troubling me."

"But you just said you felt as fit as a fiddle?" protested Semi-Colon.

"So I do," answered Bristles; "but that don't matter. A feller may feel
fit, and yet have a sore toe; can't he? But, boys, if I get beaten
you're not going to hear me put up a whine. It'll only be because the
other feller is the better man."

"Bully for you, Bristles;" remarked a tall student, vigorously; "I
always knew you'd stand up and be counted. And just you make up your
mind you're going to bring home the bacon. We want every point we can
get, to beat Mechanicsburg out."

"Nobody seems to take poor old Paulding seriously," remarked Fred, who
was one of the noisy, enthusiastic group on the way to the recreation
field for a spell of warming up exercise; for school had been dismissed
on Thursday afternoon, giving this Friday preceding the meet as a
holiday for the scholars, owing to the great interest taken in the
affair, the trustees said, and also the fact that the other towns had
decided upon the same thing.

"Well, you never can tell," declared Dick Hendricks, who had come up
just in time to catch the last remark. "I've got private information
from below, and let me warn every fellow not to be cocksure about
Paulding. That fellow they've got coaching them is no slouch. He was a
college grad. just the same as our Mr. Shays; and they say he coached
Princeton for several years, away back."

"Oh! he's an old man, and a back number," observed Bristles,
contemptuously. "I heard he hasn't kept up with the procession, and that
his methods ar