"I think I know whom you both suspect," began coach.

"Phin Drayne," spoke d.i.c.k, without hesitation.

"Yes. Well here is Drayne's recent examination paper in modern literature. It is, of course, in his own handwriting."

Eagerly the two football men and their coach bent over to compare Drayne's handwriting with that on the envelope that had come back from Milton.

"There has been an attempt at disguise," announced Mr. Morton, using a magnifying gla.s.s over the two specimens of writing. "Yet I am rather sure, in my own mind, that a handwriting expert would p.r.o.nounce both specimens to have been written by the same hand."

"We've nailed Drayne, then," muttered Darrin vengefully.

"It looks like it," a.s.sented Mr. Morton. "However, we'll go slowly.

For the present I'll put this examination paper with our other 'exhibits' and secure them all carefully in my inside pocket.

Now, then, let us make our pencils fly for a while in getting up a revised code of signals."

It was not a long task after all. From the two typewritten copies d.i.c.k copied the first half of the plays, Dave the latter. Then Coach Morton went over the new sheets, rapidly jotting down new figures that should make all plain.

"Ten minutes past three," muttered coach, thrusting all the papers in his inside pocket and b.u.t.toning his coat. "Now, we'll have to take a car and get up to the field on the jump."

"But, oh, the task of drilling all the new calls into the fellows between now and Sat.u.r.day afternoon!" groaned Dave Darrin, in a tone that suggested real misery.

"We'll do it," retorted Captain d.i.c.k. "We've got to!"

"And to make the boys forget all the old calls, so that they won't mix the signals!" muttered Dave disconsolately.

"We'll do it!"

It was Coach Morton who took up the refrain this time. And it was Prescott who added:

"We've got to do it. Nothing is impossible, when one must!"

It was just twenty-five minutes past three when the coach and his two younger companions turned around the corner of the athletic grounds and slipped in through the gate.

Most of the fellows were in the dressing quarters.

Phin Drayne sat on the edge of a locker chest. One of his feet lay across the knee of the other leg. He was in the act of unlacing one of his street shoes when Coach Morton called to him.

"Me?" asked Phin, looking up quickly.

"Yes," said Mr. Morton quietly. "I want to post you about something."

"Oh, all right; right with you, sir," returned Phin, leaping up and following the coach outside.

"What is it?" asked Phin, beginning to feel uneasy.

"Come along where the others can't hear," replied Mr. Morton, taking hold of Drayne's nearer elbow.

Phin turned white now. He went along, saying nothing, until Mr.

Morton halted by the outer gate.

"Pa.s.s through, Drayne---and never let us see your face inside this gate again."

"But why? What----"

"Ask your conscience!" snapped back the coach. "You'd better travel fast! I'm going back to talk to the other fellows!"

Mr. Morton was gone. For an instant Phin Drayne stood there as though he would brave out this a.s.sertion of authority. Then, seized by another impulse, he turned and made rapidly for a town-bound street car that was heading his way.

"What's up?" asked two or three of the fellows of d.i.c.k Prescott.

Perceiving something out of the usual, they spoke in the same breath.

"Oh, if there's anything to tell you," spoke Prescott, suppressing a pretended yawn, "Mr. Morton may tell you----some time."

But Mr. Morton was soon back. Knocking on the wall for attention, he told, in as few and as crisp sentences as he could command, the whole story, as far as known.

"Now, young gentlemen," wound up the coach, "we must practice the new signals like wild fire. There's mustn't be a single slip not a solitary break in our game with Tottenville. And that game will begin at three-thirty on Sat.u.r.day!

"In reverting to Drayne, I wish to impress upon you all, with the greatest emphasis, that this must be treated by you all with the utmost secrecy until we are prepared, with proofs, to go further!

If it should turn out that we're wrong in our suspicions, we'll turn and give Phineas Drayne the biggest and most complete public apology that a wronged man ever received."

"All out to practice the new signals!" shouted Prescott, the young captain of the team.

CHAPTER V

"Bra.s.s" for an Armor Plate

Thursday night and Friday morning more copies of the betrayed signals poured in upon Captain d.i.c.k.

Wherever these signals had been received by captains of other school teams, it soon appeared, these captains of rival elevens had punctually mailed them back. It spoke volumes for the honor of the American schoolboy, for Gridley High School was feared far and wide on the gridiron, and there was not an eleven in the state but would have welcomed an honorable way of beating Prescott's men.

Moreover, working on d.i.c.k's suggestion, Mr. Morton busied himself with securing several letters that had been received from Drayne's father.

These letters were compared, Friday evening, with the copies of the signals that had been sent to other elevens. Under a magnifying gla.s.s these collected papers all exhibited one fact that the letters and the copies of the signal code had been struck off on a machine having the same peculiarities as to worn faces of certain types.

It was thus rather clearly established that Phin Drayne must have used the typewriting machine that stood in his father's office.

Drayne was not at school on Friday. Instead, an excuse of illness was received from him.

Nor did Mr. Morton say anything to Dr. Thornton, the princ.i.p.al, until the end of the school week.

Just after school had been dismissed, at one o'clock Friday afternoon, Mr. Morton called Dr. Thornton to the private office, and there laid before him the charges and the proofs.

That fine old gentleman was overwhelmed with grief that "one of his boys" should have done such an utterly mean, wanton and dishonorable thing.

"This can't be pa.s.sed by, Mr. Morton," exclaimed Dr. Thornton brokenly. "If you will kindly leave the proofs in my hands, I will see that the whole matter is taken up officially."