bscription papers had been printed and
were distributed. Every boy and girl in the school received one,
with instructions to bring it back, "filled out"---or take the
consequences.

Then the canvassing began.

Would it work? Dick & Co. felt that their own reputations hung
in the balance. And it was bound to be the case that some of
the students, though they took the papers, did a lot of prompt
"kicking" about it.

_Would it "work"_?

CHAPTER XIII

"THE OATH OF THE DUB"

For a full week the boys and girls of Gridley H.S. scoured the
town, trying their fortune everywhere that money was supposed
to lurk.

The great Thanksgiving game was coming on. Gridley was to play
the second team of Cobber University. This second team from Cobber
had beaten every high school team it had tackled for the two
preceding years.

Gridley, in this present year, had not met with a single defeat
in a total of nine games thus far played. In six of the games
the opponents had not scored at all.

But could Cobber Second be beaten?

The Cobber eleven was one of the finest in the country. Even
the second team was considered a "terror," as its record of unbroken
victories for two years testified.

So much awe, in fact, did Cobber Second inspire among the high
school teams that Gridley was the only outfit to be found that
dared take up the proposition of a Thanksgiving Day game with
the college men.

"Gridley can't win!" the pessimists predicted.

Even the heartiest well-wishers of Gridley H.S. felt, mournfully,
that too big a contract had been undertaken.

Dick & Co., however, under the inspiring influence of their leader,
were all to the hopeful.

"We'll win," Dick proclaimed, "because Gridley needs the game.
When Gridley folks go after anything they won't take 'no' for
an answer. That's the spirit of the town, and the High School
is worthy of all the traditions of the town."

"Talk's cheap, and brag's a good dog!" sneered Ripley.

Three sophomores who overheard the remark promptly "bagged" Fred
and threw him over the school yard fence.

"Come back with any more of that," warned one of the hazers, "and
we'll scour your intellect at the town pump."

Being a freshman, Prescott didn't say too much. Neither did his
chums. Yet what they did say was bright and hopeful. Their spirit
began to soak through the student body.

"You see, gentlemen," Coach Morton warned the football squad one
morning at recess, "y