n all the tog-bags.

A few minutes later the other fellows arrived.

"Say, which team is it we're fighting to-day?" demanded Hudson.
"Harvard, or Yale?"

There was general grumbling comment.

"I think," insisted Tom Reade, "that the Fordham team wouldn't
like to stand a searching hunt into the eligibility of some of
their players."

"They've surely brought in some who are not regular, fair-and-square
High School students," contended Dan Dalzell.

There was much more talk of this sort, some of the Gridley boys
insisting that Fordham ought to be compelled to account for the
size and seeming age of some of the home players.

"We're up against a crooked line-up, or I'll give up," muttered
Greg Holmes.

"Now, see here, fellows," laughed Captain Dick. "I don't believe
in making any fuss beforehand. We'll just go ahead and take what
comes to us."

"It would be too late to make a kick after we've played," cried
some one.

"You fellows," continued Dick, "make me think of what I heard
Mr. Pollock say to Wilcox, chairman of the campaign committee
back home."

"What was that?" demanded half a dozen.

"Why," chuckled Prescott, "Mr. Pollock said to Wilcox: 'Now, see
here, there's always a chance that the election will go our way.
So never yell fraud until after the election is over.'"

"I guess that's the wisest philosophy," laughed Coach Morton,
who had taken no part in the previous conversation.

"If that's the Fordham team," continued Dick, "it's one of pretty
sizable fellows. But we'll do our plain duty, which is to pile
out on to the field and proceed to stroll through any line that
is posted in our way."

Just before the Gridley youngsters were ready to go out for preliminary
practice the big Fordham fellows came off the field.

"Hullo!" piped Dave, as the Gridley boys strolled out to the gridiron.
"You ought to feel happy, Dick. There's a big section of West
Point over on the grand stand."

Nearly two hundred young men in black and gray cadet uniforms
of the United States Military Academy pattern sat in a solid block
at one point on the grand stand.

"No, they're not West Pointers," sighed Dick. "See here, those
fellows, of course, are students at the Fordham Military institute.
They wear the West Point uniform. And that's the military school
that Phin Drayne went to."

"The sneak!" grunted Dave. "I wonder if he's over in that bunch,
now."

"I'm not even enough interested to wonder," return