ther man alive.

On the night after Teeny-bits had practiced for the first time with the
"big team", Bassett knocked on Campbell's locked door.

"Who is it?" demanded Campbell, and slipped the catch when he heard
Bassett's voice. As soon as the "Whirlwind" had stepped inside, Campbell
went over to the window and resumed the occupation in which he had been
engaged when Bassett had interrupted him. From the window sill he took a
smoldering cigarette and, holding it in his cupped hand so that the glow
could not be seen from outside, sucked in, and after a moment cautiously
blew the smoke out into the night air. Bassett watched him in silence
for a moment and then he said:

"They slipped something over on you, didn't they?"

"What can you expect?" was Campbell's reply. "But I can tell you
this--if I don't get a fair show pretty quick, I'm going to quit--and
I'll not only quit playing football, but I'll say good-by for a lifetime
to Ridgley School. I'm not going to be the goat much longer--you can bet
your gold pieces on that."

"You'd have been on the first team already if it hadn't been for
Teeny-bits," said Bassett.

"Some day I'm going to show that fellow up," said Campbell. "It makes me
sick the way the whole crowd falls for him."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well you watch and see!"

"Got any plan?"

"Not yet."

"I have--one that will work this time." Bassett looked at his friend
keenly and seeing that Campbell's face betrayed skepticism he prepared
himself mentally to exercise the same talents that had made his father,
Blow-Hard Bassett, a successful seller of mining stock.

* * * * *

The game with Wilton, on the last Saturday in October, was the first
hard test of the season. The outcome of the struggle with Wilton had
always been taken at Ridgley as an indication of the probable result of
the game with Jefferson,--the final athletic event of the year and the
crisis of the football season. If Ridgley pushed back the sturdy Wilton
team and snatched victory from the wearers of the purple, then there
were reasonable grounds for hoping that three weeks later there would be
a bonfire on the campus and a midnight parade to celebrate a victory
over Jefferson, the ancient and honored foe of Ridgley. If, on the other
hand, Wilton showed an impertinent disregard for the best line that
Ridgley could assemble and carried their impertinence to such an extreme
as to romp home with