"Pile in, boys!" called one of the drivers.
Neither of the stage drivers was in the secret of what was likely to happen down the road.
The start was made, the horses moving barely faster than a walk.
By this time the athletic field was practically deserted. There was no sign of the presence of the Fordham High School team, nor of the bad element that Barnes had enlisted.
It was not until the stages had proceeded nearly four blocks that Dave, sitting beside d.i.c.k on the driver"s seat of the first stage, caught sight of some bobbing heads further up the road.
"There they are," whispered Dave. "Lying in wait at the next corner. They"ll jump out when we get there."
"Let them!" muttered d.i.c.k. "They"ll have to start it---but after they do-----!"
The stages had almost reached the next corner. Grinning, or scowling, according to individual moods, the roughs streamed out into the, street.
Gridley boys steeled themselves for a conflict, hopeless in odds of five to one!
At this point a clear voice sounded in the distance.
"A Company, left wheel, march!"
Around another corner near by came a company of boys from the Fordham Military Inst.i.tute. It was followed by a second company, a third and a fourth.
Then, by a further series of commands, one company was sent, on the double quick, to march ahead of the first stage, while another company fell in behind the second stage, while the other companies formed and marched on either side of the stages.
While these hasty maneuvers were being carried out the fine-looking young cadet major of the battalion lifted his fatigue cap to d.i.c.k Prescott.
"Captain," called the boyish major, "you gave us such a fine exhibition of gentlemanly football that we beg leave to show our appreciation by marching as your escort of honor to the station."
The rough crowd in the street had fallen back to the sidewalks, a savage mutter going up at the same time.
The Military School boys were without arms, save those Nature had given them, but they, marched in solid ranks and stood for two hundred pairs of fists!
So Barnes"s last hope of vengeance vanished. Even his own rough followers turned to eye him in disgust.
Before they left the grounds some of the Military School boys had heard a whisper or two of what Barnes planned.
The soldier is drilled to fair play, and to detestation of cowardice.
These young military students pa.s.sed the word quickly. They left the grounds at once, but formed near by, on a side street near where they learned that Barnes and his rough mob lay in ambush.
"I declare, that"s the neatest, most military thing I ever saw done!" laughed Dave Darrin.
"And done by the boys you made fun of as sham West Pointers!"
laughed d.i.c.k quizzically.
"But I didn"t mean it," protested Dave, growing very red. "These are splendid fellows. Evidently they think that they, too, are ent.i.tled to say a word or two about the good name of Fordham."
"You didn"t like the first look of these fellows, Dave, because they had started to cheer for Fordham High School. But did you notice that they cheered no more for Fordham after Reade answered Phin Drayne so forcibly."
"It"s a fact that these men didn"t boost any more for Fordham,"
a.s.sented Dave. "By the way, I have one clear notion in my head!"
"What is it?"
"That Phin Drayne isn"t marching in these close gray ranks about us."
Phin Drayne wasn"t. At this moment Phin was back at the military inst.i.tute, his face twitching horribly as he packed his clothing in the trunk in which it had come.
For, almost instantly after Reade had called out, some of the military students around Drayne had demanded of him whether there was a shadow of truth in what Reade had said.
Phin Drayne"s "bra.s.s" had deserted him. He knew, anyway, that these comrades could dig up his past record at Gridley very quickly.
Drayne knew that his days at Fordham were over.
"It was all my confounded tongue, too," muttered Phin dejectedly.
"If I had kept my tongue behind my teeth I don"t believe any of the Gridley fellows would have noticed me, or said anything.
Oh, dear! I wonder where I can go next!"
In the meantime the Gridley High School team and subst.i.tutes, escorted with so much pomp, attracted a great deal of notice in the streets of Fordham.
People turned out to cheer them, and to wave handkerchiefs and ribbons. For Fordham wasn"t all bad or rough; not even the High School. The roughest element in the school had captured football---that was all. Some of these boys belonged to the wealthier families, and had been brought up to believe they could do as they pleased.
This was the High School in which Phin Drayne naturally belonged.
Down at the railway station the Gridley crowd and the Gridley Band awaited the coming of the team. The fine sight made by the gray military escort brought a hurricane of cheers from the Gridleyites.
Just at the nick of time the leader of the band bethought himself, and signaled his musicians. As the stages drew up the band played, and the Fordham Military Inst.i.tute"s battalion moved into line of battalion front.
d.i.c.k feelingly thanked young Major Ransom.
"Oh, that"s all right, Prescott," laughed young Ransom. "If we hadn"t shown up at all you fellows would have given a good account of yourselves. But we had to do it. Fordham is our headquarters, too, and the honor of the town, while we live and study here, means something to all of us. Don"t gauge even the Fordham High School by what happened to-day---or came near happening. There are some mighty fine fellows and a lot of n.o.ble girls who attend Fordham High School. But Barnes---he"s the curse of the school population of the town."
Three or four days later d.i.c.k asked Darrin:
"Did you hear the outcome of the Fordham affair?"
"No," Dave admitted.
"I just heard it all up at "The Blade" office. The fact that the Military School cadets escorted us in such formal manner to the railway station attracted a lot of attention in Fordham.
The princ.i.p.al of the High School there started a quiet investigation of his own. Barnes and two other fellows on the Fordham eleven have been suspended from school until the School Board can take up their cases and decide whether they ought to be expelled.
The Fordham princ.i.p.al has also made it plain that next year"s team will have to be scanned by him, and that he"ll keep out of the eleven any fellows who don"t come up to the tests. There"s a jolly big row on in Fordham, and Barnes isn"t having any sympathy wasted on him you can just bet."
"It serves him and that whole football crew just right," blazed Darrin.
Hazelton"s injury kept him out of school only a fortnight. The supposed break in his leg turned out to be only a sprain.
While school teams like that commanded by Barnes are rare, they are found, now and then. Yet the fate of rowdy athletes in the school world is usually swift and satisfying. Other schools refuse to compete with schools that are known to put out "rough-house men."
d.i.c.k & Co. had laid by their togs. They had said farewell to school athletics.