“The Fordham fellows are passing a lot of whispers every chance they get,” reported alert Dave.

“I don’t care how much they whisper,” was Dick’s rejoinder.  “But watch out for crooked tricks.”

Minute after minute went by.  Gridley got the ball down to the enemy’s fifteen-yard line, then saw it slowly forced back into their own territory.

Now Fordham began to “slug” again; yet so cleverly was it done that the officials could not put their fingers on a definite instance that could be penalized.

Bravely fighting, Gridley was none the less driven back.  From the ten-yard line Fordham suddenly made a right end play on which the whole weight and force of the team was concentrated.  In the mad crush, three or four Gridley boys were “slugged” in the slyest manner conceivable.  Fordham broke through the line, carrying the pigskin over the goal line with a rush.

Fordham boosters set up a roar that seemed to make the ground shake, but the two hundred boys from the military school took little or no part in the demonstration.  Tom Reade’s reply to Phin Drayne had silenced them.

Swaggering like swashbucklers Fordham followed the ball back for the kick for goal.  It was made, securing six points, which were added to the two received from Gridley being forced to make that safety earlier in the game.

“Of all the miserable gangs of rowdies!” uttered Dave Darrin, as the teams rested in quarters between the halves.

“I have two black-and-blue spots to show, I know I have,” muttered Hudson.

“We’ll have some of our men on stretchers, if this thing keeps up,” growled Greg Holmes.

“What are you going to do about this business, Captain?” demanded two or three of the fellows, in one breath.

“As long as we play,” replied Dick Prescott, “we’ll play the same gentleman’s game, no matter what the other fellows do.  We may quit, but we won’t slug.  We won’t sully Gridley’s good name for honest play.  And we won’t quit, either, until Mr. Morton orders us from the field.”

“You have it right, Prescott,” nodded the coach.  “And I shan’t interfere, either, unless things get a good deal worse than they have been.  But the Fordham work has been shameful, and I don’t blame any of you for feeling that you’d rather forfeit the game and walk off the field.”

Besides being coach, Mr. Morton was also manager.  At his call the team would have left the field instantly, despite any other orders from the referee.  It always makes a bad showing, however, for a team to leave the field on a claim of foul playing.

“All out for the second half!” sounded a voice in the doorway.

The Gridley boys went, fire in their hearts, flame in their eyes.

CHAPTER XVI

Gridley’s Last Charge

“Remember, Captain Barnes!” called the referee significantly.