“THIS is to certify that Robin Sidney Drake is above in all his studies at Marston High School, and qualified to enter the football game on Saturday, November 16, 1907.”

Those were the words on the paper which Bobs fluttered in Jacquette’s face when he met her in the hall between bells, on Friday afternoon. The document was signed by all his teachers, and, at the foot, appeared the principal’s name, preceded by the mystic letters, “O. K.”

“Hurrah!” she cried, her face pink with gladness, in spite of an uncomfortable thought of Marquis. “You did it yourself, that’s the best of it! Now, you may decide to write sonnets for a living, after all.”

“Not much!” he denied, so fervently that Jacquette laughed.

“How perfectly funny it looks to see your name written, ‘Robin Sidney Drake’!” she went on, still admiring the paper.

“Why? Isn’t it a nice name?” he asked, anxiously. Bobs had always cherished a haunting doubt about the propriety of naming a boy after a bird.

“Oh, yes, beautiful—only nothing seems quite right for you but Bobs.”

“All right, say it then. By the way, ‘Miss Willard’ seems perfectly funny to me.”

“Why? Isn’t it a nice name?” she mocked.

“Oh, yes, beautiful—only not quite right for you.”

“What is right for me?”

Bobs hesitated, but he knew what he wanted. “Quis calls you, ‘Jack,’” it came out at last.

“All right, say it, then!”

They were still laughing over this little skirmish when Mademoiselle passed them on the way to one of her French classes.

“Coming to the game, to-morrow, Mademoiselle?” Bobs asked her.

“No, lambkin, I shall not come,” she answered, sweetly. “I dearly love the little boys who play football, but I would so much rather go to see them in the hospital, afterward!”

Bobs laughed, and before he could speak, Mademoiselle hurried along, adding over her shoulder:

“Honey, I know just one thing about the little children who play football. Sometimes—once in a long while—they pass my examinations!”

The big fellow sent a smile of genuine liking after her. “Can’t get ahead of Mademoiselle,” he said, but, to his surprise, as he turned back to Jacquette, she met him with a serious, almost rebuking gaze.

“Bobs,” she said, “Quis thinks there’s no excuse for a football man’s having the reputation Mademoiselle gave you just now. He says a fellow can play football and keep up his studies, too, if he tries hard enough. He does it. He stands well in everything, and you know he’s a good football player.”

“Oh, yes,” Bobs assented, carelessly. “Quis never has to work on his lessons, though. He just looks at ’em. Most of us have to peg.”

“Bobs,” said Jacquette, with a sudden little tremble in her voice, “can’t you—couldn’t you, possibly—Bobs, won’t you please manage, somehow, to put Quis on for the game, to-morrow?”Bobs’s face was blank with astonishment. “What can I do?” he exclaimed. “He’s my sub, you know. You wouldn’t have me deliberately get smashed to give him a chance?”

“Of course not! But Quis is as good as any of the team. You know that. Why couldn’t you put him on instead of one of the others? The rest have all played enough to win their emblems, haven’t they?”

“Yes, but see here! I can’t pick a fellow off the team and put another in his place, as if they were so many ninepins. They have feelings—and rights, too. A girl can’t understand!”

“I understand this much,” she insisted, her eyes filling with tears, “you’re the captain, and the boys think whatever you do is right, anyway, and you could manage it, somehow! I stood up for you to Quis, Bobs, but if you really did keep him off the team just because he was a Beta Sig, and now won’t even let him win his emblem, I can’t help thinking you haven’t been square!” “It wasn’t all because he was a Beta Sig,” Bobs protested, warmly. “But, other things being equal, any fellow’d give the preference to his own fraternity. Quis would, himself. Why, the Beta Sigs ran the team like tyrants, last year, and this time we thought the Elks might have a turn. ’Tisn’t right, though. I’ve been sorry, ever since, that I didn’t put Quis on, but I can’t help it, now. It’s too late.”

Jacquette listened unmoved. “You could do it if you wanted to. I know you could,” was all she said, as she hurried off to her class.

They had been standing by the door of an apparently empty recitation room, but, as they turned away, the small, dark face of Clarence Mullen peered at them curiously from the doorway. He had been putting some work on the blackboard, just inside the room, and had heard every word.

Long before two o’clock, the next afternoon, twenty Sigma Pi girls, in gala attire, were seated in the front row of the grand stand, waiting for the championship game to begin. Just behind them sat their rivals, the Kappa Deltas, while less important sororities—each a clan by itself—were scattered through the crowd as near to the front as they could find places. It was Marston against the Daniel Webster High School, and the contest would be the closest of the season.

Gradually the seats filled until the stand where the Marston pupils sat, and the other on the opposite side of the field, which was reserved for students from Webster High, were both packed.

At last a gate at the end of the field swung open, and the Webster team came trotting out. Like one body, every person on the Webster grand stand was on his feet, and black and red banners fluttered out from end to end of that mass of people, while boys and girls together yelled:

Flutter—flutter—flutter—said the black and red, and the roaring from the Webster side waxed louder and louder, as the Daniel Webster team began its signal practice on the field, but all this time the Marston stand remained a model of dignified silence.

A little longer. Then watches began to be pulled out. What was the matter? It was past time for the game to begin. Where were the Marstons?

At last, just as everyone was asking this question, the other gate opened—another team was in the field! Presto! The Marston grand stand was on its feet. Blue and white!—blue and white!—blue and white!—rippling, waving, flapping in the November sunshine, while the new cry that rent the air was:

came back from the Websters in a deafening screech, and of all the voices on both sides, no two were used more vigorously than those of Jacquette and Louise, who stood in the front row of the Marston stand, and “osky-wow-wowed” with all their girlish might for the glory of their school.

“I don’t see Bobs anywhere,” Jacquette whispered, as she rested her lungs for a minute. “I can usually pick him out first, because he doesn’t wear any head guard, and by his white sweater, too. Does he wear a different colour from the rest because he’s captain? It’s lots more effective than the blue ones the other boys have.” “I know,” Louise assented, with her eyes on the field. “The blue ‘M. H.’ is pretty on the white, isn’t it? Sh!—look!”

The whistle had blown and the teams were lining up for the game. People had settled down into their seats, and were watching eagerly. “There’s Reddy!” “Go it, Reddy!” “That’s Shorty!” “Look at Ned!” “Come on, Chub!” were the explosive cries that had taken the place of continuous yelling as the game began. Then—attention!

Jacquette clutched Louise’s hand. “Bobs isn’t there! Who’s quarter-back? It’s Quis!”

Quis it was, running the team in Bobs’s place. What did it mean? Where was Bobs? But the game had started.

Forward—and back! Forward—and back! Forward—and back!—struggled the two teams, now on Marston territory, now almost to the Daniel Webster goal. Two more evenly matched schools it would have been hard to find. Each had behind it that season an unbroken series of triumphs; to both of them this game meant more than the mere winning of the championship banner—it meant the overcoming of a hated rival.

Where was Bobs Drake? That question was the undercurrent of all the perfunctory cheering on the Marston stand, and with Jacquette, it swept away every other thought.

“It’s my fault!” she kept repeating in a horrified tone, to Louise. “It’s all my fault! Look! We’re losing ground! We are! Louise, I made him let Quis play. If Marston’s beaten, it’s all my fault!”

“Nonsense!” Louise insisted. “Do you think Bobs Drake would desert the team because a girl told him to? There’s some other reason. But look! Oh——”

No one ever knew just what happened. Two minutes of play were left. There was a weak spot somewhere in the Marston line; a trick play; a wildly struggling mass. Then a red-clad form, the Webster quarter-back, pursued in vain by the best men on the Marston team, shot across the field, and fell exhausted, with the ball in his arms, just over the Marston line!

An attempt to kick goal failed; time was called; the first half was done; the score stood five to nothing in favor of Webster High!

The Webster yelling was terrific, as the tangle of human beings began to resolve itself into individuals, and clear the field, but among the Marstons arose a great buzz of anxious questioning. Where was Bobs? What had become of their captain?

Louise was trying to keep Jacquette in her place until they could get some news. “But I can’t sit here and wait!” Jacquette refused, excitedly. “I must find somebody and do something!”

“Well, I’m going with you, then,” Louise gave up at last. “Keep our places, girls,” she called to the rest of the Sigma Pi crowd, as she followed Jacquette.

“Now, what can you do?” she demanded, as she overtook her. “A girl can’t go to training quarters.”

“I don’t know! Can’t I send a message to Bobs, some way?”

“There goes Bud Banister! He’s manager of the team,” cried Louise. “Bud! Bud! Tell us what’s the matter!”

“Matter enough!” the tall, lanky fellow flung back angrily, as he ran past. “Bobs went off down-town on the two o’clock train and sent us word to go on with the game without him!”

“I told you, Louise!” Jacquette gasped. “Bud, wait!” she called.

“Miss Willard! Look here!” put in a breathless voice at Jacquette’s elbow, and, turning, she saw Clarence Mullen, his small, dark face the sickly colour of fear. “What shall I do?” he demanded, as if consulting a confidante. “I told ’em he went down-town, but it wasn’t so. I’ve got him locked in the gymnasium, over at school, but I can’t let him out for the next half, even if I want to, because the janitor came out of the building when I did, and he locked the outside door, and I haven’t got a key to that!”

Jacquette whirled around, and towered above the boy’s shrinking figure. “What are you saying?” she cried out, seizing him by both shoulders in her excitement. “You locked Bobs in the gymnasium?”

“Yes!” He faltered under her wrathful glance. “I—I heard you talking to him yesterday, and I—I knew the Beta Sigs all thought it was dirty work that Granville couldn’t win his emblem, and—I had the chance! He was late, and he ran down to the gym alone to change his clothes, and left the key in the outside of the door, and while he was at his locker, I shut it and turned the key, and then the janitor came away when I did, so there was no one to hear him and I told——”

“I believe it’s true!” Louise broke in. “There goes Mr. Branch, now, with Bud Banister! We must tell them—quick!”

The grey-haired principal of Marston turned in surprise, as the girls, followed by Clarence, dashed up behind him, but, before their jumble of explanation was done, he started for the school, racing like a boy with Bud Banister. Mr. Branch had a key to the building, and, as they came near, they heard shouting and pounding, and saw Bobs’s flushed face looking out through the iron-barred basement windows of the gymnasium.

“Everybody in the block has gone to the game,” Bud panted, “or someone would have heard him, sure!”

It was the work of one excited moment to set Bobs free, and no time was wasted in words. The case of Clarence Mullen could wait; the game would not. All Bobs asked was how the score stood, and whether the second half had begun, and even this information he took on the run. Not one of them could keep up with him on the way back to the field. Bud Banister was at his heels; Jacquette and Louise trailed after, and, last of all, came Mr. Branch, with a stern hand on the shoulder of Clarence Mullen, questioning him sharply, as they hurried along.

The Sigma Pi girls on the grand stand received Louise and Jacquette in a flutter of curiosity, for only stray rumours of Bobs’s desertion had been passed along to them, but, before there was time for explanation, the whistle blew, and all eyes turned to the field.

Then a shout went up—bigger and wilder than any shout that had gone before. Bobs Drake was there! Marston was safe!

As the teams faced each other, just before he took his place as quarterback, Bobs had passed along the line, murmuring a personal word of encouragement to each of the boys. Up to that instant, they had been parts of a well-oiled machine; now they crouched there, every man of them ready to play that game with his head, his heart, and his whole soul.

On the grand stand where the Sigma Pi girls were sitting, a quick glance of intelligence ran along. “Webster never would have made that touchdown if Bobs had been here!” was whispered from one to the other.

“That’s not fair!” Louise murmured to Jacquette. “I’m not saying anything against Bobs, but my brother says there isn’t a better quarterback on a high school team anywhere than Quis.”

Meanwhile, down in the field, the struggle of the first half was being repeated. Marston was reinforced by Bobs’s presence, but Webster played with the confidence born of success, and, again, each fought an obstinate foe.

If systematic cheering could have won the game, Marston would have had it. Over and over, the grand stand rose to its feet and shouted as one man such heartening yells as,

Down below, Captain Bobs Drake, dimly conscious of the support the school was giving him, seemed, by sheer force of will, to be driving his team toward the far white goal line which meant victory. The score still remained as at the end of the first half. As the close of the game approached, he realised, almost with desperation, that no combined effort on the part of the team could break down the defence which confronted it. He, Bobs Drake, must win that game.

“Seven rahs for the team!” roared the man who was directing the cheering from the Marston stand, and, “Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Bobs!” was exploded on the air.

But Bobs heard none of it. At that moment, a fumble on the part of one of his men, had placed the ball at his feet, and like a flash, with the pig-skin in his arms, he had broken loose, hurdled a crouching player, flung two more out of his path—and gained the line.

Five to five—said the score! Marston’s one chance of winning depended, now, on Bobs’s ability to gain an extra point by kicking the ball over the cross-bar between the goal-posts. There was a moment of breathless suspense. Then the ball sailed proudly over the bar—time was called—and the Marston crowd went wild! The game was won. The Marston stand emptied itself like an avalanche into the narrow space between it and the fenced-in field. The wonder was that everyone got down alive, for the leaping and scrambling and pushing were terrific. Everyone wanted to be first at the gate where the team was coming out on its way back to training-quarters.

From their seat in the front row, the Sigma Pi girls had best chance, and Jacquette and Louise stood close to the entrance as the triumphal procession appeared.

First came Bobs, proudly borne aloft by four of his team. There was mud on his forehead, mud on one cheek, and a long scratch on the other—but he was a hero, every inch, in the hearts of his comrades, and the ovation they gave him proved it.

Close behind him rode Quis Granville, and after him the rest of the eleven, each lifted on the shoulders of three or four fellows.

When they had all tramped by, the crowd of schoolboys that always straggles after the team fell into line behind them, and the Sigma Pi girls began to chatter.

“What will they do to that wicked little Clarence Mullen?” Blanche Gross demanded. She had been gleaning the facts from Louise and passing them on. “He’ll surely be expelled!”

“I don’t know! But I could forgive him, after that victory!” put in Mamie Coolidge, who had been screaming, and jumping up and down until her new red velvet hat was flopping wildly over one ear. “Jacquette Willard, you tell your cousin for me that I never saw such a tackle as that in all my life!”

“Yes, but think of Bobs’s kick!” Etta Brainerd put in, soulfully. “Didn’t he look happy when they carried him by? He saw us—don’t you think so?” “He looked straight at you, Jacquette,” Louise whispered.

“I know it,” she whispered back, “and I was so busy waving to him that I never even saw Quis until he was away past!”