On sailed hat and football for some three feet, the hat managing to run upside down.

R-r-r-rip!  The force with which the football was traveling impaled the hat on a picket at the side of the stand.  Then, as if satisfied with fits work, the football struck and bounded back, landing at the principal’s feet.

For one moment Mr. Cantwell was dumb with amazement.

Then he saw his impaled hat and realized the extent and tragedy of his loss.  The angered man went white with wrath.

“What ruffian did that!” he roared.

But the boys, unable to hold in any longer, had let out a concerted though half-suppressed “whoop!” and now came running to the spot.

“Who kicked my hat off?” demanded the principal, pointing tragically to the piece of headgear, through the crown and past the rim of which the picket now stood up as though in triumph.

“You—–­you got in the way of—–­the ball, sir,” explained Drayne, trying hard to keep from roaring out with laughter.

“But some one kicked the ball my way,” insisted the principal, with utter sternness.  “Don’t tell me that no one did!  That football could not By through the air without some one propelling it.  Now, young gentlemen, who kicked that ball?”

“I did, Mr. Cantwell,” admitted Dick, pushing his way through the throng.  “And I’m very sorry that anything like this has happened, sir.”

“On, you did it, oh?” demanded the principal, eyeing the young man witheringly.  “And you actually expect an apology to restore my new and expensive hat to its former pristine condition of splendor?”

“I didn’t know you were there, sir,” Dick explained.  “You didn’t appear until just after I had kicked the ball.”

“Prescott is quite right, Mr. Cantwell,” put in Coach Morton.  “None of us knew you were here in the passage until the ball had been kicked—–­not, in fact, until the ball was almost upon you.”

“Then, when you saw me, why didn’t you call out to warn me?” demanded the principal, still fearfully angry, though trying to keep back unparliamentary language.

“I did call out, sir,” replied Dick.  “There was mighty little time to think, but I called out the two quickest words I could think of.”

“What did you call?” demanded the principal.

“I yelled ‘low bridge!’”

“A most idiotic expression,” snorted the principal.  “What on earth does it mean, anyway?”

“It means to duck, sir,” Prescott answered.

“Duck?” retorted Mr. Cantwell, glaring suspiciously at the sober-faced young left end.  “Now, what on earth does ‘duck’ mean, unless you refer to a web-footed species of poultry?”

“Prescott was rattled, beyond a doubt, Mr. Cantwell,” interposed Coach Morton.  “So was I—–­the time was so short.  All I could think of as to call out to you by name.”

“With the result that I looked your way—–­ and lost my row hat,” snapped the principal.  He now turmoil to take the spoiled article off the paling.  He looked at it almost in anguish, for he had been very proud of that glossy article.