e."

All six members of Dick & Co. were present. The scene of the
meeting was Dick Prescott's own room at his home over the bookstore
kept by his parents. The hour was about nine o'clock in the evening.
It was Friday evening of the first week of the new school year.
The fellows had dropped in to talk over the coming football
season, because the week had been one of mysterious unrest in
the football squad at Gridley High School.

Just what the trouble was, where it lay or how it had started
was puzzling the whole High School student body. The squad was
not yet duly organized. This was never attempted until in the
second week of the school year. Yet it was always the rule that
the new seniors who, during their junior year, had made good records
on either the school eleven, or the second eleven, should form
the nucleus of the new pigskin squad. Added to these, were the
new juniors, formerly of the sophomore class, who had shown the
most general promise in athletics during the preceding school
year.

Gridley High School aimed to lead---to be away at the top---in
all school athletics. The "Gridley spirit," which would not accept
defeat in sports, was proverbial throughout the state.

And so, though the football squad was not yet formally organized
for training and practice, yet, up to the last few days, it had
been expected that a finer gridiron crowd than usual would present
itself for weeding, sifting and training by Coach Morton. The
latter was also one of the submasters of Gridley High School.

Since the school year had opened, however, undercurrent news had
been rife that there would be many "soreheads," and that this
would be an "off year" in Gridley football. Just where the trouble
lay, or what the "kick" was about, was a puzzle to most members
of the student body. It was an actual mystery to Dick & Co.

"What is all the undermining row about, anyway?" demanded Dick,
looking around at his chums. Dick was pacing the floor. Dave,
Tom and Greg Holmes were seated on the edge of the bed. Dan Dalzell
was lying back in the one armchair that the room boasted. Harry
Hazelton was standing by the door.

"I can't make a single thing out of it all," sighed Dan. "All
I can get at is that some of the seniors and some of our class,
the juniors, are talking as though they didn't care about playing
this year. I know that Coach Morton is worried. In fact, he's
downright disheartened."

"Surely," interjected