The Gridley spirit possessed him.

He was going to hold out, and the eleven was going to win its game.

That was all there was to it, or all there could be.
In the first two or three days after his injury at the fire Dick had traveled briefly in the dark valley of physical despair.
To be crippled or ill, to be physically useless---the thought filled him with horror.
Then young Prescott had taken a good grip on himself.

Out of despair proceeded determination not to allow his lungs to go down before the assault of smoke and furnace-like air.
Grace Dodge was not, as yet, well on the way to recovery, but Dick Prescott, with his strong will power, and the grit that came of Gridley athletics, was now togging hastily to play in the great game---though he had not, as yet, returned to school after his disaster.
Out near the grandstand the band crashed forth for the tenth time.
Gridley High School bannerets waved by the hundreds.

Yet Filmore, too, had her hosts of boosters here today, and their yells all but drowned out the spirited music.
"Here come our boys! Gridley! Gridley! Gridley! Wow-ow-ow!" "Hurrah!" Then the home boosters, who had read Drayne's name on the score card took another look at their cards---next rubbed their eyes.
"Prescott at left end!" yelled one frenzied booster.