CHAPTER I

“Kicker” Drayne Revolts

“I’m going to play quarter-back,” declared Drayne stolidly.

“You?” demanded Captain Dick Prescott, looking at the aspirant in stolid wonder.

“Of course,” retorted Drayne.  “It’s the one position I’m best fitted for of all on the team.”

“Do you mean that you’re better fitted for that post than anyone else on the team?” inquired Prescott.  “Or that it’s the position that best fits your talents?”

“Both,” replied Drayne.

Dick Prescott glanced out over Gridley High School’s broad athletic field.

A group of the middle men of the line, and their substitutes, had gathered around Coach Morton.

On another part of the field Dave Darrin was handling a squad of new football men, teaching how to rush in and tackle the swinging lay figure.

Still others, under Greg Holmes, were practicing punt kicks.

Drayne’s face was flushed, and, though he strove to hide the fact, there was an anxious look there.

“I didn’t quite understand, Drayne,” continued the young captain of the team, “that you were to take a very important part this year.”

“Pshaw!  I’d like to know why I’m not,” returned the other boy hotly.

“I think that is regarded as being the general understanding,” continued Dick.  He didn’t like this classmate, yet he hated to give offense or to hurt the other’s feelings in any way.

“The general understanding?” repeated Drayne hotly.  “Then I can tell the man who started that understanding.”

“I think I can, too,” Prescott answered, smiling patiently.

“It was you, Dick Prescott!  You, the leader of Dick & Co., a gang that tries to boss everything in the High School!

“Cool down a bit,” advised young Prescott coolly.  “You know well enough that the little band of chums who have been nicknamed Dick & Co. don’t try to run things in the High School.  You know, too, Drayne, if you’ll be honest about it, that my chums and I have sometimes sacrificed our own wishes to what seemed to be the greatest good of the school.”

“Then who is the man who has worked to put me on the shelf in football?” insisted the other boy, eyeing Dick menacingly.

“Yourself, Drayne!”

“What are you talking about?” cried Drayne, more angry than before.

“Don’t be blind, Drayne,” continued the young captain.  “And don’t be silly enough to pretend that you don’t know just what I mean.  You remember last Thanksgiving Day?”

“Oh, that?” said Drayne, contemptuously.  “Just because I wouldn’t do just what you fellows wished me to do?

“I was there,” pursued Captain Prescott, “and I heard all that was said, saw all that was done.  There was nothing unreasonable asked of you.  Some of the fellows were a good bit worried as to whether you were really in shape for the game, and they talked about it among themselves.  They didn’t intend you to over hear, but you did, and you took offense.  The next thing we knew, you were hauling off your togs in hot temper, and telling us that you wouldn’t play.  You did this in spite of the fact that we were about to play the last and biggest game of the season.”