CHAPTER XVII
The Long Gray Column
One small urchin there was, so small that he escaped notice ashe hung about hearing the word passed.
But that urchin was a Gridley boy who had raised the money tocome and see this game. The boy possessed the Gridley spirit.As fast as his legs would carry him he raced to dressing quarters,and there told what he had heard.
"Thank you, kid!" said Dick. "You're a good Gridley boy," andthen he continued:
"So that's the game, is it They're going to mob us, are they Iguess they can do it---but, fellows, keep in mind to pass someof the blows back! When we go down in the dirt be sure that someof the Fordham fellows have something to remember us by for manya day! I'm glad Hazelton has already been sent forward in anambulance."
As Dick finished dressing and waited for the others, he saw oneof the subs dropping a spiked shoe into an outer jacket pocket.
"What's that for?" Dick demanded sternly. "A weapon?"
"Yes," sheepishly admitted the other.
"Put it in your bag, then, and let it go on the baggage wagon.Fellows, we'll fight with nothing but fists, and only then ifwe're attacked."
"But those scoundrels will probably use brickbats," argued thefellow who had tried to drop the spiked shoe into his overcoatpocket.
"No matter," rang Dick's voice, low but commanding. "If we haveto, we'll fight for our lives as we fought for the game---on thesquare! Good citizens don't carry concealed weapons until calledupon by the authorities to do it."
"Bully for you, Prescott!" rang the voice of the coach.
"You here, Mr. Morton?" cried Dick, wheeling and seeking the submaster."Mr. Morton, you're not a boy, and you don't want to be mixedup in such affairs. Why don't you start-----"
"My place, Captain Prescott, is with the team I'm coaching," repliedthe submaster. "And I think the signs are that we're going toneed all the pairs of fists that we have, and, more, too."
The baggage wagon came to the door. Dick, Dave and Tom coollyloaded the baggage on. The wagon started off at good speed.
Then the two stages drove up to the door.
"Pile in, boys!" called one of the drivers.
Neither of the stage drivers was in the secret of what was likelyto 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. Therewas 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 thatDave, sitting beside Dick 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 nextcorner. They'll jump out when we get there."
"Let them!" muttered Dick. "They'll have to start it---but afterthey 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 oddsof 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 theFordham Military Institute. It was followed by a second company,a third and a fourth.
Then, by a further series of commands, one company was sent, onthe double quick, to march ahead of the first stage, while anothercompany fell in behind the second stage, while the other companiesformed and marched on either side of the stages.
While these hasty maneuvers were being carried out the fine-lookingyoung cadet major of the battalion lifted his fatigue cap to DickPrescott.
"Captain," called the boyish major, "you gave us such a fine exhibitionof gentlemanly football that we beg leave to show our appreciationby 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 Naturehad given them, but they, marched in solid ranks and stood fortwo hundred pairs of fists!
So Barnes's last hope of vengeance vanished. Even his own roughfollowers turned to eye him in disgust.
Before they left the grounds some of the Military School boyshad 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 passed the word quickly. Theyleft the grounds at once, but formed near by, on a side streetnear where they learned that Barnes and his rough mob lay in ambush.
"I declare, that's the neatest, most military thing I ever sawdone!" laughed Dave Darrin.
"And done by the boys you made fun of as sham West Pointers!"laughed Dick quizzically.
"But I didn't mean it," protested Dave, growing very red. "Theseare splendid fellows. Evidently they think that they, too, areentitled to say a word or two about the good name of Fordham."
"You didn't like the first look of these fellows, Dave, becausethey had started to cheer for Fordham High School. But did younotice that they cheered no more for Fordham after Reade answeredPhin Drayne so forcibly."
"It's a fact that these men didn't boost any more for Fordham,"assented 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 aboutus."
Phin Drayne wasn't. At this moment Phin was back at the militaryinstitute, his face twitching horribly as he packed his clothingin the trunk in which it had come.
For, almost instantly after Reade had called out, some of themilitary students around Drayne had demanded of him whether therewas a shadow of truth in what Reade had said.
Phin Drayne's "brass" had deserted him. He knew, anyway, thatthese 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 anyof 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 substitutes,escorted with so much pomp, attracted a great deal of notice inthe streets of Fordham.
People turned out to cheer them, and to wave handkerchiefs andribbons. For Fordham wasn't all bad or rough; not even the HighSchool. The roughest element in the school had captured football---thatwas 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 GridleyBand awaited the coming of the team. The fine sight made by thegray 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 Institute's battalion moved into lineof battalion front.
Dick feelingly thanked young Major Ransom.
"Oh, that's all right, Prescott," laughed young Ransom. "If wehadn't shown up at all you fellows would have given a goodaccount of yourselves. But we had to do it. Fordham is ourheadquarters, too, and the honor of the town, while we live andstudy here, means something to all of us. Don't gauge even theFordham High School by what happened to-day---or came nearhappening. There are some mighty fine fellows and a lot of noblegirls who attend Fordham High School. But Barnes---he's the curseof the school population of the town."
Three or four days later Dick 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 thatthe Military School cadets escorted us in
such formal manner tothe railway station attracted a lot of attention in Fordham.The principal of the High School there started a quiet investigationof his own. Barnes and two other fellows on the Fordham elevenhave been suspended from school until the School Board can takeup their cases and decide whether they ought to be expelled.The Fordham principal has also made it plain that next year'steam will have to be scanned by him, and that he'll keep out ofthe eleven any fellows who don't come up to the tests. There'sa jolly big row on in Fordham, and Barnes isn't having any sympathywasted on him you can just bet."
"It serves him and that whole football crew just right," blazedDarrin.
Hazelton's injury kept him out of school only a fortnight. Thesupposed break in his leg turned out to be only a sprain.
While school teams like that commanded by Barnes are rare, theyare found, now and then. Yet the fate of rowdy athletes in theschool world is usually swift and satisfying. Other schools refuseto compete with schools that are known to put out "rough-housemen."
Dick & Co. had laid by their togs. They had said farewell toschool athletics.
In the winter's basket ball they did not intend to take part.For the baseball nine, that would begin practice soon after thenew year, there was plenty of fine material in the lower classes.
"I feel almost as if I had been to a funeral," snorted Darrin,when he came away from the gym. after having turned in all histogs and paraphernalia.
"It's time to give the younger fellows a show," sighed Dick.
"You talk as though we were old men," gibed Dave.
"In the High School we are," laughed Dick. "We're seniors. Ina few short months more we shall be graduates, unless-----"
There he stopped, but Darrin didn't need to look at his chum.Both knew what that pause meant.