_ CHAPTER XV. "We'll Play the Gentleman's Game"
At the next down Dan Dalzell held up his hand, making a dash for the referee.
"I claim a foul!" he called.
"Captain, this is for you," announced the referee, turning to Dick. "Be quick, if you've any complaint to make."
"Come here, Dalzell," called Prescott. "What was the foul?"
The Fordham players crowded about, muttering in an ugly way---all except one man, who skulked at the rear.
"There's the hoodlum," continued Dan excitedly, one hand over his left breast. He pointed to the Fordham player skulking at the rear. "That fellow deliberately gave me the elbow over the heart when we came together."
"What have you to say, Captain Barnes?" demanded the referee, turning to the Fordham leader.
"It's not true," retorted Barnes hotly. "Daniels, come here."
The matter was argued quickly and hotly, Gridley accusing, Fordham hotly denying.
"Can't you Gridley fellows play with anything but your mouths?" snarled Captain Barnes.
"We play a straight game," retorted Dick coldly. "We play like gentlemen."
"Do you mean that we're not?" demanded Barnes swaggeringly.
"So far you've played like a lot of sluggers."
"See here! I've a good mind to thrash you, Prescott!" quivered Barnes.
"It's always the truth that stings," retorted Dick, with a cool smile.
"My fist would hurt, too."
"That's what we're asking you to do---to save all your slugging and bruising tactics until after a straight and gentlemanly game has been played," retorted Dick, with spirit.
Barnes clenched his fists, but the referee stepped squarely in between the rival captains.
"Cut it!" directed that official tersely. "I'll do all the talking myself. Captain Barnes, return to your men and tell them that slugging and tricky work will be watched for more carefully, and penalized as heavily as the rules allow. If it goes too far I'll declare the game forfeited to the visiting team."
"This is a shame!" fumed Barnes. "And the whole charge is a mass of lies."
"I'll watch out and see," promised---or threatened---the referee. "Back to your positions. Captain Barnes, I'll give you thirty seconds to pass the word around among your men."
"That black-haired prize-fighter with the mole on his chin tries to give me his knee every time we meet in a scrimmage," growled Hudson to Dick. "If he carries it any further, I think I know a kick that will put his ankle out of business!"
"Then don't you dare use it," warned Dick sternly. "No matter what the other fellows do, our team is playing a square, honest game every minute of both halves!"
The referee had signaled them to positions. The Gridley boys leaped into place.
Play was resumed. In the next three plays Fordham, under the now more keenly watchful eyes of the officials, failed to make the required distance, and lost the ball.
Gridley took the ball, now. In the next two plays, the smaller fellows advanced the ball some twelve yards. But in the next three plays following, they lost on downs, and Fordham again carried the pigskin.
"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. _