Cobber lost its temper just a bit, now, before the smiling faces of these High School boys.  Some rough playing followed, but the home boys kept their tempers.

Soon Ben Badger signaled another fake kick formation.  That was Gridley’s specialty for this game, one long planned and worked for.  Quarter-back Winters again got the ball.  With a handsome forward pass he made it Thompson’s, and it went to the enemy’s seven-yard line.

“Question—–­four!” appealed Cheer-Master Prescott, through the megaphone.

Back from twenty boys on the home stand came the heavy query: 

"Where’s Cobber?  Where’s Cobber?"

From all the rest of the H.S. fans came the roaring answer: 

“Lost!  Suitable reward and no questions asked!”

Then the Cobber fans hurled back this hint: 

"Brag’s a great dog,
Brag’s a smart dog,
Brag’s a good dog, but-----
Look out for the cat!"

Cobber now developed their own famous bulldog tactics.  From the seven-yard line Gridley moved the ball less than two yards in three plays.  Cobber got the ball, and then other things began to happen.  Cobber’s big fellows worried the ball back for eleven yards.  Then the visitors, who carried thirty per cent. more weight, began with heavy mass plays.  Gridley began to go down, to double up and collapse before that heavy, rough play, in which fatigue, not speed was the object of the opponents.

It was not scientific play, but it was grueling on the High School boys.  Even confident Dick Prescott’s heart began to sink.  Coach Morton was breathing hard.

Unless Gridley could hold the enemy’s rush back effectively enough to get the ball once more on downs, the college boys seemed likely to rush it right over the High School goal line.

Had Cobber tried any kicks, Gridley would have had the ball, and would have known what to do with it.  But Captain Halsey knew that.  He depended, now, wholly on heavy mass rushes and plays.

Yet the Gridley boys were by no means asleep—–­or lazy.

“I won’t tire our men all out in the first half,” muttered Badger to himself.  “But I won’t let them stroll through our line.”

Even the heavy Cobber men, though they advanced doggedly, did not make any too great progress.

Down at the Gridley fifteen-yard line the High School boys developed their greatest stubbornness and strength.  So well did they oppose the college boys that, by preventing progress in three successive plays, the home boys again got the ball.  They could not move it sufficiently far forward, however.  Cobber took the ball again.

“Better let up on the cheers, don’t you think, sir?” Dick inquired.

“Yes,” nodded Coach Morton.  “It would only worry our boys now, and they’ve got enough on their minds as it is.”

Again Cobber took the offensive.  At the next down a man had to be sent from the field, and a substitute sent out.  But the casualty went to Cobber, not to the High School team.  That fact gave the major part of the audience grim satisfaction.