“Oh, the dummy has its uses,” Dick replied wisely.  “A lot of faults can be better observed with a dummy for a background than is the case when you tackle a live one.  The dummy is better for showing up the defects in your work.  Now, Reade, you make a few swift assaults on the dummy.”

Tom did his work so cleverly as to call forth admiration from all the onlookers.

A stout pole had been lashed across the space between two trees, being made secure in the forks of the lower limbs of the trees.  The dummy itself had been made of old sail canvas and excelsior.  It was not a very impressive-looking object, but it made a good substitute for the football dummies manufactured by sporting goods houses.

It was a little more than a week since the night when Tag Mosher had been captured.  Dick’s hip which had been pronounced by Doctor Cutting as only bruised and strained, had now mended so far that nothing wrong could be observed in his gait.  In fact, Prescott had all but ceased to remember the accident.

For the others, the days had been full of football training, with long tramps and fishing and berrying jaunts thrown in for amusement.  Now that Tag Mosher was safely locked up in the county jail there had been no more raids on the food supplies of the camp.  It was now necessary, therefore, to leave but one boy at a time in the camp, and Dick, while his hip was mending, had usually been that one.

Every member of Dick & Co. was brown as a berry.  Muscles, too, were beginning to stand out with a firmness that had never been observed at home in the winter time.  Enough more of this camping and hard work and training, and Dick & Co. were likely to return to Gridley as six condensed young giants.  Nothing puts the athlete in shape as quickly as does camping, combined with training, in the summer time.

This morning the work had begun with practice kicks, passing from that to the work of tackling the dummy.  Two hours of hard work had now been put in, and all were comfortably tired.

“Let’s keep quiet and cool off,” urged Dick at last.  “Then for the swimming pool and clean clothes.”

“I wonder if Tag has died yet, as he expected to, now that he’s out of the forest and locked up in a jail?” mused Tom Reade aloud.

“He must be in fearfully depressed spirits,” muttered Dick sympathetically.

Dave Darrin regarded his chum curiously.

“Dick, you seem to have a positive sympathy for that fellow.”

“I have,” Prescott avowed promptly.

“You even seem to like him,” pressed Darry.

“I do like him,” Dick assented.  “Darry, I believe that a lot of good might be found in Tag Mosher if he could have the same chance that most other fellows have.  Usually, when a fellow says he has had no chance in life, the fact really is that he has been too lazy to take his chance.  But I don’t believe that Tag ever had a real, sure-enough chance.  He has spent his days with a drunkard and a vagabond.”