er forfeit the game
and walk off the field."

Besides being coach, Mr. Morton was also manager. At his call
the team would have left the field instantly, despite any other
orders from the referee. It always makes a bad showing, however,
for a team to leave the field on a claim of foul playing.

"All out for the second half!" sounded a voice in the doorway.

The Gridley boys went, fire in their hearts, flame in their eyes.

CHAPTER XVI

Gridley's Last Charge

"Remember, Captain Barnes!" called the referee significantly.

"Why don't you talk to Prescott, too?" demanded the Fordham captain
sulkily.

"I don't need to."

"You----don't---need to?" demanded Barnes, opening his eyes in
pretended wonder.

"No; Prescott and his fellows have a magnificent reputation for
fair play, and they've won it on merit."

"You're down on us," growled Captain Barnes.

"I'm only waiting till I can put my finger on some slugging to
stop the game and hand it to Gridley," retorted the referee, with
a snap.

"Be mighty careful, fellows; be clever," whispered the Fordham
captain to his most "dependable" men.

"Are we going to throw the game?" demanded the slugger who had
so angered Hudson.

"No; but don't get caught at anything. Better not do anything.
We've got those milk-diet infants eight to nothing now. Play
their own kind of kindergarten game as long as we can hold the
score without rough work."

Barnes's own instructions would have sufficiently stamped his
team, had these orders been heard by anyone else.

At the beginning of the second half Fordham played a much more
honest game, and Gridley began to pick up hope that fairness might
prevail hereafter.

Gridley's own game, in the second half, was as swift and scientific
as it had ever been. By sheer good playing and brilliant dashes
Dick and his men carried the ball down the field, losing it once
on downs; but after the first ten minutes of the half they kept
the pigskin wholly in Fordham territory.

Back and forth surged the battle. Fordham, despite its greatly
superior weight and bulk, was not by any means superior when under
the utmost watchfulness of a referee avowedly anxious to penalize.

Yet, until the game was nearly over, Fordham managed to keep the
ball away from its own goal line.

Then, while the lines reformed and Dick bent over to snap back,
Dave Darrin called out a signal that electrified the whole Gridley
line. It called for one of