The Long Gray Column
One small urchin there was, so small that he escaped notice as
he hung about hearing the word passed.
But that urchin was a Gridley boy who had raised the money to
come 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," and
then he continued:
"So that's the game, is it They're going to mob us, are they I
guess they can do it---but, fellows, keep in mind to pass some
of the blows back! When we go down in the dirt be sure that some
of the Fordham fellows have something to remember us by for many
a day! I'm glad Hazelton has already been sent forward in an
ambulance."
As Dick finished dressing and waited for the others, he saw one
of 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 if
we're attacked."
"But those scoundrels will probably use brickbats," argued the
fellow who had tried to drop the spiked shoe into his overcoat
pocket.
"No matter," rang Dick's voice, low but commanding. "If we have
to, we'll fight for our lives as we fought for the game---on the
square! Good citizens don't carry concealed weapons until called
upon 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 mixed
up in such affairs. Why don't you start-----"
"My place, Captain Prescott, is with the team I'm coaching," replied
the submaster. "And I think the signs are that we're going to
need all the pairs of fists that we have, and, more, too."
The baggage wagon came to the door. Dick, Dave and Tom coolly
loaded 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 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 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 next
corner. They'll jump out when we get there."
"Let them!" muttered Dick. "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 Institute. 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 Dick
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 passed 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 Dick quizzically.
"But I didn't mean it," protested Dave, growing very red. "These
are splendid fellows. Evidently they think that they, too, are
entitled 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,"
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 about
us."
Phin Drayne wasn't. At this moment Phin was back at the military
institute, 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 "brass" 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 substitutes,
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 Institute's battalion moved into line
of battalion front.
Dick 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 noble
girls who attend Fordham High School. But Barnes---he's the curse
of 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 that
the Military School cadets escorted us in such formal manner to
the railway station attracted a lot of attention in Fordham.
The principal 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 principal 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."
Dick & Co. had laid by their togs. They had said farewell to
school athletics.
In the winter's basket ball they did not intend to take part.
For the baseball nine, that would begin practice soon after the
new 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 his
togs 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. In
a 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.