“Your eleven is all ready to line up in the field, now, Captain,” announced coach, one afternoon not long after, as the squad came out from dressing quarters for practice.

“I’m glad you think so, sir,” replied Dick, a flush of pleasure mantling his cheeks.

“You have every man in fine condition.  Condition couldn’t be better, in fact, for those of the men who are likely to get on the actual battle line.  And all the work is well understood, too.  In fact, Captain, you can all but rest on your oars during the next fortnight, up to your first game.”

“Hadn’t we better go on training hard every day, sir?” inquired the young captain.

“Not hard,” replied coach, shaking his head.  “If you do, you’ll get your men down too fine.  Now, there’s almost more danger in having your men overtrained than in having them undertrained.  Your men can be trained too hard and go stale.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Dick nodded thoughtfully.

“Yes,” continued coach, “and I’ve seen school teams that suffered from training down too fine.  Boys can’t stand it.  They haven’t as much flesh in training down hard, and they haven’t as much endurance as college men, who are older.  Captain, you will train your men lightly, three afternoons a week.  For the rest, see to it that they stick to all training orders, including diet and hygiene and no tobacco.  But don’t work any of the men hard, with an idea of getting them in still better shape.  You can’t do it.”

“Then I’d like to make a suggestion, Coach.”

“Go ahead, Captain.”

“You never saw a school team, did you, sir, that understood its signal work any too well?”

“Never,” laughed Mr. Morton.

“Then I would suggest, sir, that most of our training time, from now until the season opens, be spent on drilling in the signals.  We ought to keep at practicing the signals.  We ought to get the signals down better than ever a Gridley team had them before, sir.”

“You’ve just the right idea, Captain!” cried Mr. Morton heartily, resting one hand around Dick’s shoulders.  “I was going to order that, but I’m glad you anticipated me.”

“Hudson,” called out Prescott, “you head a scrub team.  Take the men you want after I’ve chosen for the school team.”

Dick rapidly made his choice for the school team.  He played center himself, putting Dave Darrin at quarter, Greg Holmes as left tackle and Tom Reade as right end.  Dalzell and Hazelton were left out, but they understood, quite well, that this was to avoid showing favoritism by taking all of Dick & Co. on the star team for practice.

“Let me play quarter, Hudson,” whispered Drayne, going over to the acting captain of the “scrub.”

“Not this afternoon, anyway,” smiled Hudson.  “I want Dalzell.”

Drayne fell back.  He was not chosen at all for the scrub team.  Yet, as he had nearly a score of companions, out of the large football squad, he had no special reason to feel hurt.  Those who had not been picked for either team lined up at the sides.  There was a chance that some of them might be called out as subs, though practice in signal work was hardly likely to result in any of the players being injured.