The band was stationed close to the ground, in the center of the stand reserved for the High School student body.  Off the right of the band rose four tiers of bright-faced, wholesome-looking High School girls.  To the left of the band sat the boys.

Across the field, on a much smaller stand, sat the hundred or so followers of the team from Cobber.  The Cobbers had no band.  Few feminine faces appeared on the Cobber stand.  The Cobber colors, brown and gray, floated here and there on the breeze in the form of small banners.

Gridley’s stand was brilliant with the crimson and gold banners of Gridley H.S.  These bright-hued bits of bunting waved deliriously as the band’s strains floated forth.

But as “Hail Columbia” belongs to all Americans, the Cobbers elected to flash their bunting, too.

Suddenly the music paused.  Then came pressing contempt for the hostile eleven:  “All coons look alike to me!”

Cobber’s friends took the hint in an instant.  To a man the visiting delegation arose, hurling out the Cobber yell in round, deep-chested notes.

Just outside the lines, behind a huge megaphone mounted on a tripod, stood Dick Prescott, cheer-master.  At his side was Dave Darrin, whose duties were likely to prove mainly nominal.

Dick swung the megaphone from left to right, as he called out through it: 

“Now, then—–­number seven!”

From the boy’s side came the prompt response, in slow, measured cadence, every word of it distinct: 

“C-O-B-B-E-R!  Born in misfortune!  Reared on trouble.  Grew to be a disgrace—–­and died in tears!”

Cobber’s friends had to “chew” over that.  They had nothing in their repertory of “sass” that seemed to fill this bill.

To return an inapt yell would be worse than silence.  So the visitors sat scowling at the field.

“Score one on Cobber’s goat,” grinned Dave Darrin.

Presently, after some whispering on the visitors’ stand, this rather lame one came from the college crowd: 

“C-O-B-B-E-R!  C-O-B-W-E-B!  Our trap for the foolish little fly!”

One of the few girls on the visitors’ stand rose to wave her brown and gray banner.  She slipped and fell through between the seats.

Quick as a flash Dave Darrin sprang to the megaphone, swinging it around at the enemy, and bawling this atrocious pun: 

“Now you spider!  But now you can’t!”

That brought a laugh, even from the visitors.  The hapless girl, with the help of some of her male friends, was hoisted up once more to a seat and safety.

“Look at the poor girl,” laughed Dick to Darrin.  “She’s wearing our colors now—–­crimson face and a gold locket under it.”

“If she wasn’t a girl, I’d yell that over to ’em,” laughed Dave.

The band was playing again, in its most rollicking rhythm, the old air from “Olivette,” “Then bob up serenely!”