In the meantime Dr. Bentley had called in a specialist.  Together the two medical men decided that Theodore Dodge had suffered only from an extreme amount of overwork; that the strain had momentarily unbalanced his mind, and had made the deranged man contemplate drowning himself.

By means of a modified form of the “third degree” Chief Coy, by this time, had succeeded in making the two vagrants confess that they had found Mr. Dodge, with his coat and hat off standing by the bank of the stream.  Guessing the banker’s condition, and learning his identity, the two men, though they did not confess on this point, had evidently coaxed the banker away to their shanty away off in the heart of the woods.  Undoubtedly it had been their plan to keep the banker under their own eyes, with a view of extorting a reward from the missing man’s family.  The judge of the local court finally decided to send both men away for six months on a charge of vagrancy.

And here the matter seemed to end.  Though Lawyer Ripley urged the prompt payment of the offered reward to Prescott and Darrin, Mrs. Dodge, influenced by her son, demurred.  At Mr. Pollock’s suggestion Dick and Dave promptly drew up and signed a paper releasing the Dodge family from any claim.  This paper was also signed by the fathers of the two boys, and forwarded to Lawyer Ripley.  That gentleman man returned the paper to Dick, with a statement that he might have something to communicate at a later date.

Tuesday morning, with many secret misgivings, Coach Morton, who was also one of the submasters of the High School, posted the call for the football squad.  The call was for three o’clock Thursday afternoon, at the gym.

“Humph!” was the audible and only comment of Bayliss, as he stood before the school bulletin board at recess and read the announcement.

“I guess the day for football here has gone by,” observed Porter sneeringly.

“Of interest to ragamuffins only,” sneered Paulson, as he turned away to join Fremont of the senior class.

“Listen to the wild enthusiasm over upholding the school’s honor in athletics,” muttered Dave, scowling darkly.

“We knew it was coming,” declared Tom Reade.

Abner Cantwell was still principal at Gridley High School, though that violent-tempered and unpopular pedagogue had been engaged, this year, only as “substitute” principal.  There were rumors that Dr. Thornton, the former and much-loved principal, would soon be in sufficiently good health to return.  So the Board of Education had left the way clear for dropping Mr. Cantwell at any moment that it might see fit.

Dick & Co. had gathered by themselves on this Tuesday, at recess.  They did not discuss the football call, nor its reception by the “soreheads,” for they had known what was coming.  Just before recess was over, however, there were sudden sounds of a riot around the bulletin board.