CHAPTER I.
"Kicker" Drayne Revolts "I'm going to play quarter-back," declared Drayne stolidly.
"You ?" demanded Captain Dick Prescott, looking at the aspirant in stolid wonder.
"Of course," retorted Drayne.

"It's the one position I'm best fitted for of all on the team." "Do you mean that you're better fitted for that post than anyone else on the team ?" inquired Prescott.

"Or that it's the position that best fits your talents ?" "Both," replied Drayne.
Dick Prescott glanced out over Gridley High School's broad athletic field.
A group of the middle men of the line, and their substitutes, had gathered around Coach Morton.
On another part of the field Dave Darrin was handling a squad of new football men, teaching how to rush in and tackle the swinging lay figure.
Still others, under Greg Holmes, were practicing punt kicks.
Drayne's face was flushed, and, though he strove to hide the fact, there was an anxious look there.
"I didn't quite understand, Drayne," continued the young captain of the team, "that you were to take a very important part this year." "Pshaw! I'd like to know why I'm not," returned the other boy hotly.
"I think that is regarded as being the general understanding," continued Dick.

He didn't like this classmate, yet he hated to give offense or to hurt the other's feelings in any way.
"The general understanding ?" repeated Drayne hotly.

"Then I can tell the man who started that understanding." "I think I can, too," Prescott answered, smiling patiently.
"It was you, Dick Prescott! You, the leader of Dick & Co., a gang that tries to boss everything in the High School! "Cool down a bit," advised young Prescott coolly.