“Grease,” smiled Prescott.

“Nothing but grease?”

“Nothing much.”

“What kind of grease?”

“Elbow!”

“Now, stop your joshing,” ordered Dave promptly.  “No kind of muscular work is going to bring out a fuzzy rug like that on anyone’s skypiece.”

“But that’s just how I do it,” Dick insisted.  “Not a bit hard, either.  See here!  Just use your finger tips, briskly, like this, and stir your whole scalp up with a brisk massage.”

“How long do you keep it up?” demanded Dave, after following suit for some time.

“Oh, about ninety seconds, I guess,” nodded Prescott.  “You want to do it eight times a day, and wash your head weekly, though with bland soap and not too much of it.”

“Is that honestly all you do to get a Siberian fur wig such as you’re wearing?”

“That’s all I do,” replied Dick.  “Except—–­yes; there’s one thing more.  Go out of doors all you can without a hat.”

“The active curry-comb and the vanished hat for mine, then,” muttered Dave, with another envious look at Dick’s bushy hair.

Nor did Dave rest until the other chums all had the secret.  By the time that the football season opened Dick & Co. were the envy of the school for their heavy heads of hair.

With all the hard work of training, Coach Morton did not intend that the young men should be so busy as to have no time for recreation.  He understood thoroughly the value of the lighter, happier moments in keeping an athlete’s nervous system up to concert pitch.

Though the baseball training of the preceding spring had been “stiff” enough, Dick & Co. soon found that the football training was altogether more rugged.

In fact, Coach Morton, with the aid of Dr. Bentley as medical director, weeded out a few of the young men after training had been going on for a fortnight.  Some failed to show sufficient reserve “wind” after running.  A few other defectives proved not to have hearts strong enough for the grilling work of the gridiron.

All the members of Dick & Co., however, managed to keep in the squad.  In fact, hints soon began to go around, mysteriously, that Dick & Co. were having the benefit of some outside training.  Purcell came to young Prescott and asked him frankly about this report.

“Nothing in it,” Dick replied promptly.  “We’re having just the same training as the rest of the boys.  But I’ll tell you a secret.”

“Go on!” begged Purcell eagerly.

“You know the training rules—–­early retiring and all?”

“Yes; of course.”

“Well, we fellows are sticking to orders like leeches.  Every night, to the minute, we’re in bed.  We make a long night’s sleep of it.  Then, besides, we don’t slight a single particle of the training work that we’re told to do by ourselves.  We’ve agreed on that, and have promised each other.  Now, do you suppose all the fellows are sticking quite as closely to coach’s orders?”