The High School Captain of the Team Part 14

Captain Forsythe, in full field toggery, came in, followed by the members of the visiting team, all as completely attired for work.

"We're really not intruding?" asked Forsythe, after he had stepped into the room.

"Not the least in the world," responded Dave heartily. "Mr. Forsythe.

let me introduce you to Mr. Morton, our coach, and to Mr. Prescott, the real captain of this tin-pan crowd of pigskin chasers."

"Oh, I mistook you for Prescott," replied Forsythe, as he acknowledged the introductions.

"No; I'm Darrin, the pewter-plate second captain---the worst you've got to fear to-day," laughed Dave, as he held out his hand.

"Why---what----anything happened?" asked Captain Forsythe, looking truly concerned.

"Captain Prescott has had his knee injured, and two of our other crack men are in bed, sick," replied Mr. Morton cheerfully. "Otherwise we're all quite well."

"Your captain and two other good men out?" asked Forsythe in real sympathy. "That doesn't sound fair, for we came over here prepared to put up the very best we had against you old invincibles. I'm awfully sorry."

"Captain Forsythe, we all thank you for your sympathy," d.i.c.k answered, "but Captain Darrin can lead at least as well as I can. I believe he can do it better. As for the team that we're putting in the field to-day, if you can beat it, you could as easily beat anything we could offer at any other time. So, as far as one may, with such courteous opponents as you are, Gridley hurls back its defiance and throws down the battle gage! But play your very best team, Captain Forsythe, and we'll do our best in return."

CHAPTER IX

Could Dave Make Good?

Dave Darrin, a good deal disheveled and covered with soil and perspiration on his face and neck, came striding in after time had been called on the first half.

Dave's generals.h.i.+p had kept Hallam Heights from scoring, but Gridley hadn't put away any points, either.

"You saw it all from the side lines, d.i.c.k?" Dave asked, as the chums, arm in arm, strolled into dressing quarters.

"Yes."

"What are your instructions for the second half."

"I haven't any."

"Your advice, then?"

"I haven't any of that, either. Dave, any fellow who can hold those young human cyclones back as you've done doesn't need any pointers in the game."

"But we simply couldn't score against them," muttered Darrin.

"So I know there's something wrong with my leaders.h.i.+p. What is it?"

"Nothing whatever, Darrin. It simply means that you're up against the hardest line to get through that I've ever seen Gridley tackle.

Why, yesterday I was looking over the record of these Hallam boys, and I find that they've already whipped two college second teams. But you'll get through them in the next Dave, if there's any human way of doing it. So that's all I've got to say, for I'm not out there on the gridiron, and I can't see things from the side line the same as you can on the ten-yard line. Perhaps Mr. Morton may have something to offer."

But the coach hadn't.

"You're doing as well as any man of Gridley could do, Darrin,"

the submaster a.s.sured the young second captain. "Of course, with Prescott at center, and yourself jumping around as quarter-back the team would be stronger. But in Prescott's enforced absence, I don't see how you can play any point of the line more forcefully than you've been doing."

But Dave, instead of looking puffed up, replied half dejectedly:

"I was in hopes you could both show me where I'm weak."

"You're not weak," insisted Coach Morton.

"That throws me back on thinking hard for myself," muttered Darrin.

Where a weaker man would have been pleased with such direct praise Dave felt that he was not doing his duty because he had not been able to lead as brilliantly as d.i.c.k had done in earlier games.

"Brute strength isn't any good against these Hallam fellows,"

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 d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k 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.