“Your father gave us a message, Laura,” Dick murmured to the girl beside him.

“And you’re going to accept it?” asked the girl quickly.

“At any chance to be honestly away from work,” Dick promised fervently.  “Yet at my age a fellow must keep something of an eye toward business, too, Laura.”

“Yes,” she answered slowly, glancing covertly at the bronzed young face and the strong, lithe body.  “You’re nearing manhood, Dick.”

“Just about as rapidly as you’re growing into womanhood, Laura,” answered the boy.

Dave and Belle were chatting, too, but what they said wouldn’t interest very staid old people.

Gridley was prouder than ever of its athletic teams.  The great record in baseball, with Dick & Co. in the team, was something worth talking about.

Lest there be some who may think that a season of baseball with no defeats is an all but impossible record, the chronicler hastens to add that there are, through the length and breadth of these United States, several High School teams every year that make such a showing.

Yet, in baseball, as in everything else, the record is reached only by nines like the Gridley crowd, where the stiffest training, the best coaches and the best individual nerve and grit among the players are to be found.

Did Fred Ripley truly make good?

What else happened?

These and various other burning questions must now be answered in the chronicle of the time to which they belonged.  So the reader is referred to the next volume in this series, which is to be published at once under the caption:  “The High School Left End; Or, Dick & Co.  Grilling on the Football Gridiron.”

At the same time, no interested reader will allow himself to overlook the second volume in the “High School Boys’ Vacation Series,” which runs parallel with this present series.  All the wonderful summer vacation adventures that followed the sophomore year of Prescott and his chums will be found in the volume published under the title, “The High School Boys’ In Summer Camp; Or, The Dick Prescott Six Training for the Gridley Eleven.”  It is a thrilling story that no follower of the fortunes of these lads can afford to overlook.

THE END