llows,"
Darrin told himself, as he returned to the field. "They're all
A-1 athletes. Even if Gridley played a slugging game, it wouldn't
bear these Hallam boys down. As to speed and scientific points,
they seem to be our masters. Whatever we do against them, it
must be something seldom heard of on the gridiron something that
will be so brand new that they can't get by it."

Yet twice in the half that followed Gridley barely escaped having
to make a safety to save their goal line. Each time, however,
Dave wriggled out of it.

When there were but seven minutes left neither team had scored.

Gridley now had the ball for snap-back at its own twenty-five-yard
line.

The most that home boosters were hoping for now was that Gridley
would be able to hold down the game to no score.

Dave had been thinking deeply. He had just found a chance to
mutter orders swiftly.

Fenton, little, wiry and swift, was to-day playing at left end,
the position that Dick himself had made famous in the year before.

"Eighteen---three--eleven---seven---nine!" called Tom Reade, crisply.

The first four figures called off the play that Gridley was to
make, or to pretend to make. But that nine, capping all at the
end, caused a swift flutter in Gridley hearts. For that nine,
at the end of the signal, called for a fake play.

Yet the instant that the whistle trilled out its command every
Gridley player unlimbered and dashed to the position ordered.

Only three men on the team understood what was contemplated.
Coach Morton, from the side lines, had looked puzzled from the
moment that he heard the signal.

Dick Prescott, eager for his chum's success, as well as the team's,
stood as erect as he could beside Mr. Morton, trying to take in
the whole field with one wide, sweeping glance.

As Tom Reade caught the ball on its backward snap, he straightened
up, tucking the ball under his left arm and making a dash for
Gridley's right end.

Immediately, of course, Hallam rushed its men toward that point.

Yet the movements of Gridley's right wing puzzled the visitors.
For all of Dave's right flankers dashed forward, making an effective
interference.

Surely, reasoned Captain Forsythe, Tom Reade didn't mean to try
to break through by himself with the pigskin.

That much was a correct guess. Tom didn't intend anything of
the sort.

All in a flash Reade, as prearranged, dropped the ball, punting
it vigorously.

Up it went, soaring ob