Dick, "Mr. Morton must have an idea of what
is keeping some of the fellows back from the team?"

"If he does know, he isn't offering any information," returned
Harry Hazelton.

"I don't see any need for so much mystery," broke in Dave Darrin,
in disgust.

"Well, there is a mystery about it, anyway," contended Tom Reade.

"Then, before I'm much older, I'm going to know what that mystery
is," declared Dick.

"You're surely the one of our crowd who ought to be put on the
trail of the mystery," proposed Dalzell, with a laugh.

"Why?" challenged Prescott.

"Why, you're a reporter on 'The Blade.' Now mysteries are supposed
to constitute the especial field of reporters. So, see here,
fellows, I move that we appoint Dick Prescott a committee of
one for Dick & Co., his job being to find out what ails football---to
learn just what has made football sick this year."

"Hear! Hear!" cried some of the others.

"Is that your unanimous wish, fellows?" asked Dick, smiling.

"It is," the others agreed.

"Very good, then," sighed Prescott. "At no matter what personal
cost, I will find the answer for you."

This was all in a spirit of fun, as the chums understood. Yet
this lightly given promise was likely to involve Dick Prescott
in a good deal more than he had expected.

Readers of the preceding volumes in this series know Dick & Co.
so well that an introduction would be superfluous. Those to
whom the pages of "The High School Freshmen" are familiar know
how Dick & Co., chums from the Central Grammar School, entered
Gridley High School in the same year. How the boys toiled through
that first year as half-despised freshmen, and how they got some
small share in school athletics, even though freshmen were not
allowed to make the school athletic teams, has been told. The
pranks of the young freshmen are now "old tales." How Dick Prescott,
with the aid of his chums, put up a hoax that fairly seared the
Board of Education out of its purpose to forbid High School football
does not need telling again. Our former readers are also familiar
with the enmity displayed by Fred Ripley, son of a wealthy lawyer,
and the boomerang plot of Ripley to disgrace Prescott and brand
the latter as a High School thief. The same readers will recall
the part played in this plot by Tip Scammon, worthless son of
the honest old High School janitor, and how Tip's evil work resulted
in his going to the penitentiary for the better part of a ye