“You didn’t like the first look of these fellows, Dave, because they had started to cheer for Fordham High School.  But did you notice that they cheered no more for Fordham after Reade answered Phin Drayne so forcibly.”

“It’s a fact that these men didn’t boost any more for Fordham,” assented Dave.  “By the way, I have one clear notion in my head!”

“What is it?”

“That Phin Drayne isn’t marching in these close gray ranks about us.”

Phin Drayne wasn’t.  At this moment Phin was back at the military institute, his face twitching horribly as he packed his clothing in the trunk in which it had come.

For, almost instantly after Reade had called out, some of the military students around Drayne had demanded of him whether there was a shadow of truth in what Reade had said.

Phin Drayne’s “brass” had deserted him.  He knew, anyway, that these comrades could dig up his past record at Gridley very quickly.

Drayne knew that his days at Fordham were over.

“It was all my confounded tongue, too,” muttered Phin dejectedly.  “If I had kept my tongue behind my teeth I don’t believe any of the Gridley fellows would have noticed me, or said anything.  Oh, dear!  I wonder where I can go next!”

In the meantime the Gridley High School team and substitutes, escorted with so much pomp, attracted a great deal of notice in the streets of Fordham.

People turned out to cheer them, and to wave handkerchiefs and ribbons.  For Fordham wasn’t all bad or rough; not even the High School.  The roughest element in the school had captured football—–­that was all.  Some of these boys belonged to the wealthier families, and had been brought up to believe they could do as they pleased.  This was the High School in which Phin Drayne naturally belonged.

Down at the railway station the Gridley crowd and the Gridley Band awaited the coming of the team.  The fine sight made by the gray military escort brought a hurricane of cheers from the Gridleyites.

Just at the nick of time the leader of the band bethought himself, and signaled his musicians.  As the stages drew up the band played, and the Fordham Military Institute’s battalion moved into line of battalion front.

Dick feelingly thanked young Major Ransom.

“Oh, that’s all right, Prescott,” laughed young Ransom.  “If we hadn’t shown up at all you fellows would have given a good account of yourselves.  But we had to do it.  Fordham is our headquarters, too, and the honor of the town, while we live and study here, means something to all of us.  Don’t gauge even the Fordham High School by what happened to-day—–­or came near happening.  There are some mighty fine fellows and a lot of noble girls who attend Fordham High School.  But Barnes—–­he’s the curse of the school population of the town.”

Three or four days later Dick asked Darrin: 

“Did you hear the outcome of the Fordham affair?”