GARRY GRAYSON AT LENOX HIGH
OR
The Champions of the Football League
BY ELMER A. DAWSON
AUTHOR OF "GARRY GRAYSON'S HILL STREET ELEVEN,"
"GARRY GRAYSON SHOWING HIS SPEED,"
ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED BY_
WALTER S. ROGERS
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
Copyright, 1926, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Garry Grayson at Lenox High
[Illustration: "GET IN THERE, GRAYSON!" HE DIRECTED.]
CONTENTS
I STRAIGHT FOR THE ROCKS
II A GALLANT RESCUE
III THE MUDDY FOOTBALL
IV AN AWKWARD ENCOUNTER
V CONSTERNATION
VI FACING THE BULLY
VII TROMPET SHRUGG
VIII ON THE ANXIOUS SEAT
IX COUNTING THEIR CHANCES
X INTO THE FRAY
XI STRUGGLING AGAINST ODDS
XII TESTING THEIR METTLE
XIII IN THE LAST PERIOD
XIV GETTING A REPRIMAND
XV AN UNEXPECTED ALLY
XVI FIGHTING MAD
XVII WINNING HIS SPURS
XVIII LIKE A THUNDERBOLT
XIX GARRY GETS A SHOCK
XX HARD LUCK
XXI PLUNGING THROUGH
XXII FORGING AHEAD
XXIII JERRY INTERVENES
XXIV IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT
XXV VICTORY
GARRY GRAYSON AT LENOX HIGH
CHAPTER I
STRAIGHT FOR THE ROCKS
"Wonder if we'll be able to make the football eleven when we go to
Lenox High."
Rooster Long stopped drawing pictures in the dust with the toe of his
shoe and looked up at his companion inquiringly.
Garry Grayson, former captain and quarterback of the Hill Street
eleven, shook his head doubtfully.
"I don't think we have a Chinaman's chance of making the team our first
year in high," he replied. "Lenox will have plenty of material, good
seasoned material, to draw on from the three upper classes. No reason
why they should turn to the freshmen for recruits."
"Except that there are going to be some mighty good players among the
freshmen this year," chimed in another boy, who emerged from the house
at that moment and sat down on the step near which Garry was standing.
"Maybe I'm speaking out of my turn, and there are some who won't agree
with me--so much the worse for them--but I certainly think we turned
out some pretty good players last year, if you should ask me."
The speaker was Bill Sherwood, a tall, well-developed lad who had
played center on the Hill Street grammar school eleven, and was
affectionately known to his mates as "Big Bill."
"You said it," agreed Nick Danter, a rather rangy, well-knit youth who
lay stretched out at full length on the porch. "I'd go far enough to
say that some of them could give the high school fellows a pretty nifty
tussle at this minute."
"That goes not only for our Hill Street boys, but for some of the
fellows of the Cherry and Webster Street schools," put in Ted
Dillingham, stocky and muscular, as he leaned lazily against the
finishing post of the porch railing. "Look at Pete Maddern and Tom
Allison! They're no slouches when it comes to playing football, and I
hear they're going to high this fall."
The boys were gathered about and on the porch of the Sherwood summer
bungalow on the shores of picturesque Bass Lake, to which Garry
Grayson, Rooster Long, Nick Danter and Ted Dillingham had been invited
for a two week's stay, an invitation that they had gladly accepted, as
they were the warmest and most congenial of friends.
All of them had graduated from the Hill Street grammar school of Lenox
the preceding term, and were planning to enter the high school in the
fall. The summer was nearly at an end, and they were looking forward
eagerly to the new experience in store for them. Books, however, were
not foremost in their thoughts at the moment.
All of them were football players, loved the great game, and had
acquitted themselves well on the Hill Street football team that had won
the grammar school championship the preceding season from their rivals
of the Cherry and Webster Street schools. Garry Grayson especially had
proved himself a remarkable player for a boy of his age.
But, good as they had been on a grammar school eleven, they knew that
the high school was a different matter--all the difference, as Nick
Danter had at one time expressed it, that there was "between being big
frogs in a little puddle and little frogs in a big puddle."
But despite the cold water thrown on his hopes by his chums, Rooster
Long still held tenaciously to his ambition.
"I don't see why we can't make a try for the team, anyway," he
persisted, with a long face. "Just because we're freshmen doesn't say
we have to be dumbbells and sit back and take just whatever is handed
to us."
"Of course not," Garry agreed, with a touch of irony. "There's nothing
to prevent our making a noise and trying to draw the attention of the
upper classes to our humble position at the foot of the throne. Though,
of course, there's just a chance," he admitted, his eyes kindling,
"that our victories over Cherry and Webster may give us Hill Streeters
a little boost even with the high and mighty Lenox fellows."
"Gee, I sure would like to be on that team!" said Rooster, with a
yearning shake of his head. "They're just one degree below the college
teams."
"Come out of your trance!" admonished Bill Sherwood. "We won't have a
look in."
"I'm afraid you're right," agreed Garry. "If we get even as far as the
scrub this year we'll be lucky. Maybe they'll let us be doormats for
the regulars."
"Gee, you fellows are about as cheerful as a funeral!" cried Rooster,
giving a vicious kick to an unoffending stone. "You give me the
jim-jams. I've got to do something to get my mind off my troubles."
Bill Sherwood laughed lazily.
"Nothing to get so het up about, Rooster," he drawled. "We won't be the
only freshmen at Lenox High this fall, you know. There will be plenty
of others biting their nails on the sidelines and telling any one who
will listen that they could do a mighty sight better than those boobs
of regulars."
"They say that misery loves company, but that doesn't cut any ice with
me," and Rooster frowned mightily. "I'd rather dodge Lenox altogether
than to stand on the sidelines and watch the other fellows play."
"He's getting wild," observed the grinning Garry. He yawned and raised
his arms above his head in a luxurious stretch. "What do you say we go
in for a swim, Bill? That may help cool him off."
"Just what I was going to suggest, nothing else but," replied Bill,
rising with alacrity. "Come on, let's jump into our bathing suits."
This formality was accomplished in a very short time, and the boys were
soon out of the house and making a dash through the woods toward the
shimmering waters of Bass Lake.
The Sherwood bungalow boasted a private dock from which the lads often
went fishing and swimming. Bill had a canoe and also a cranky little
motorboat that usually spoke out of its turn.
"It goes when you think the motor's dead," Bill had said, when
describing the eccentric craft to his chums, "and it stops without the
sign of a reason just when everything seems in fine working order. The
only thing that has any effect on it is a good talking to, for it knows
its master's voice."
He threw out his chest pompously as he spoke, but doubled up promptly
when Garry poked him in the stomach.
"What do you think I am, a punching bag?" he demanded in an injured
tone.
"Oh, did I hit you?" asked Garry in mock contrition. "My hand must have
slipped."
At the moment the boys had no use for either craft, for on that
particular afternoon they intended to be in the water and not on it.
They sat for a time on the edge of the dock, basking enjoyably in the
sun, knowing that the warmer they got the more enjoyable would be the
plunge into the cool waters of the lake.
It was a pretty sheet of water, with numerous miniature bays and
jutting points to break the monotony of the shore line. There were many
summer bungalows like the Sherwoods' cuddled among the trees near the
shore of the lake, and on the north side was a fairly pretentious hotel.
On such a bright afternoon the lake was bound to be studded with the
boats of pleasure seekers. Canoes slipped with graceful, gliding
motion from one inlet to another, while motorboats of all descriptions
chugged busily over the gleaming surface.
"All this will soon be over," remarked Garry, with a shade of regret in
his voice. "I hate to see winter come."
"But before winter comes fall, and in the fall comes football," chanted
Bill.
Rooster Long gave his chum an injured look.
"I thought we came here to get our minds off of football for a while,"
he complained. "You fellows can do what you like, but I'm going in
swimming."
"You bet you are!" declared Garry, and gave Rooster a push that landed
him splashing and sputtering in the seven feet of water at the edge of
the dock.
Shaking the water from his eyes, Rooster shook a fist at the grinning
Garry.
"Come down here and try that again," he cried.
"Come up here and I will," retorted Garry.
He raised his hands above his head, bent his body in the form of a bow,
and clove the water with as clean and pretty a dive as one could wish
to see.
Coming to the surface, puffing and blowing, he found himself entwined
in a pair of strong arms that he discovered a moment later belonged to
Rooster.
Then ensued a hilarious, aquatic wrestling match, in which each of them
swallowed a good deal of water.
Bill stood on the end of the dock, rooting now for one, now for the
other of his guests, until in the excitement he lost his balance and
fell among them throwing the combatants into temporary confusion.
"He's busting up the fight!" gurgled Rooster. "Let's put him under."
And so, as often happens to the innocent bystander, Bill was set upon
by both Garry and Rooster and finally was forced to duck and swim some
distance under water to elude his tormentors.
"You had to run," called out Garry gleefully, and Bill shook a wet fist
at him.
"I didn't run, I swam," he returned, grinning. "I can lick you one at a
time, but two together are too many for me."
Ted Dillingham and Nick Danter had by this time come in with a splash,
but they had scarcely touched the water when Garry's muscles suddenly
became taut and he stared at an object out on the lake.
"Look at that motorboat!" he cried, as the other boys followed the
direction of his gaze. "Must be going fifty miles an hour."
"Some fool driving," remarked Bill carelessly.
"I'll say that he's a fool!" cried Garry excitedly. "Look, fellows,
he's heading straight for those rocks on the south shore!"
It was a moment before the other lads took in the seriousness of the
situation.
Then with a yell Bill Sherwood started swimming for the dock.
Garry guessed his intention, and reached there at the same moment, the
other boys close behind their comrades.
Bill jumped into his own eccentric motorboat, Garry tumbling in after
him. By the time he had loosened the rope that tied the boat to the
dock all five were on board.
For once the engine worked without protest. Bill, who was a master hand
at working the craft urged the cranky motor to its limit and headed the
nose of the boat toward the south shore.
The drivers of the strange motorboat were steering crazily, and those
in the small craft who found themselves in the way turned tail and
scuttled for cover.
"Why don't they turn out?" exclaimed Garry, in a frenzy of anxiety.
"Are they blind? Can't they see that they're heading right for the
rocks?"
"They're either idiots or they don't know how to run a boat," muttered
Bill, as he bent himself to the task of getting out of his engine all
the speed possible.
"Or else they've lost their heads and are too scared to try to steer at
all," commented Rooster. "Gee, but that was a close shave!" he added,
as the strange craft barely missed running down a canoe.
Bill's boat was now whizzing along like a comet, and the distance
between it and the other craft was rapidly diminishing. The boys could
now see quite clearly the inmates of the runaway vessel.
There were but two of them, boys apparently of about the age of Garry
and his chums, and they seemed to be arguing about the possession of
the wheel.
Garry made a megaphone of his hands and shouted:
"Turn out! You're heading for the rocks. Turn out!"
Even as he spoke there came a flash of fire, a sharp report, and the
motorboat crashed against the rocks!