ad encouragingly.

"Yes; Prescott, by all means! You can't do better."

"Yes, you can! And you fellows know it!" shouted Dick.

His face glowed with pleasure and pride, but he tried to show,
by face, voice and gesture, that he didn't propose to take the
tendered honor.

"Prescott! Prescott!" came the insistent yell.

Above the clamor Coach Morton signaled Dick to come forward to the
platform.

"Won't you take it, Prescott?" inquired the coach.

"I've no right to, sir."

"Then tell the team why you think so."

As soon as coach had secured silence Dick, with a short laugh,
began:

"Fellows, I don't know whether you mean it all, or whether you're
having a little fun with me. But-----"

"No, no! We mean it! Prescott for captain! No other fellow
has done as much for Gridley High School football!"

"Then I'll tell you some reasons, fellows, why I don't fit the
position," Dick went on, speaking easily now as his self-confidence
came to him. "In the first place, I'm a junior, and this is my
first year at football. Now, a captain should be a whole wagon-load
in the way of judgment. That means a fellow who has played in
a previous season. For that reason, all other things being equal,
the captain should be one of the seniors who played the gridiron
game last year."

"You'll do for us, Prescott!" came the insistent call.

"For another thing," Dick went on composedly, "the captain should
be a man who plays center, or close to it. Now, I'm not heavy
enough for anything of that sort. In fact, I understand I'm cast
for left tackle or left end---probably the latter. So, you see,
I wouldn't be in the right part of the field. I don't deny that
I'd like to be captain, but I'd a thousand times rather see Gridley
win."

"Then who can lead us to victory" demanded Dave Darrin briskly.

Dick promptly. "He's believed to be our best man for center.
He played last year; he knows more fine points of the game than
any of us juniors can. And he has the judgment. Besides, he's
a senior, and it's his last chance to command the High School
eleven."

"If Wadleigh'll take it, I'm for him," spoke Dave Darrin promptly.

Henry Wadleigh, or "Hem," as he was usually called, was turning
all the colors of the rainbow. Yet he looked pleased and anxious.

There was just one thing against Wadleigh, in the minds of Hudson
and some of the others. He was a boy of poor family. He belonged
to what the late but routed "sor