“Use Prescott!” shouted one man hoarsely.

“Prescott!  Prescott!”

“Yah!  Dot’s all right.  Vot you t’ink Wadleigh has ein head for’ Leafe him und Bresgott alone, and dey hand you der game a minute in!” bawled the deep bass voice of Herr Schimmelpodt who, nearly alone of the Gridley boosters, believed that the home team needed no grand stand coaching.

“But they’ve only eight minutes left,” grumbled the man sitting to the left of Herr Schimmelpodt.

“Yah!  Dot’s all right, too,” retorted the German.  “Battles haf been won in less than eight minutes.  Read history!”

In two plays Captain Wadleigh had succeeded in advancing the pigskin less than two yards down the Filmore territory.

But now hats were thrown up in the air, and frantic yells resounded when it was discovered that Dick had the ball again, and that Darrin, Hudson, Wadleigh, quarter and left half were fighting valiantly to push him through the stubborn, panting line of Filmore High School.

It was a splendid fight, but a losing one.  Filmore was massing all its weight, wind and brawn, and Gridley lost the ball on downs.

An involuntary groan went up from the Gridley spectators.

Five and a half minutes left, and the ball in the enemy’s hands!  That settled the game.

The musicians looked at their leader, before taking the music from their instrument racks.

“Keep your music on,” called the leader.  “We of Gridley are sportsmen enough to play the victors off the field.”

The play was quicker and snappier than ever.  All the young men on both sides were using their last reserves of strength and wind.  Pike was making a ferocious effort to get the ball back and over Gridley’s goal line.

But Pike lost, after three plays, and Wadleigh’s men again grabbed the pigskin.

“Barely two minutes!” groaned the Gridley spectators, watches in hand.

Dick was seen glancing at Wadleigh and shaking his head almost imperceptibly.  But a hundred people on the grand stand saw that tiny shake, and, most of all, Pike took it in.

Wadleigh, before bending low over the ball held up thumb and forefinger of his right hand, formed in a circle, for a brief instant.  That sign meant: 

“Emergency signal code!”

Then he bent over to snap the ball back, and the figures that shot from quarter-back’s chest carried different values from those that any enemy could guess.

“Eight—–­eleven—–­four—–­ten!”

Then the ball went back to quarter, who started from a crouch without straightening up.

Gridley’s whole attack seemed to swing to the right.  Wadleigh, himself, from half-facing to right, took a long step toward right wing; then wheeled like a flash, and went plowing, onward, to the left.

Quarter, after the start, and ere Filmore could break through, had passed the ball to half, who, on a wild sprint, had passed it to Dick Prescott.