"They're trying to get our nerve before the game begins.

Don't let 'em do it." This excellent instruction Dick contrived to pass throughout his team.

Thereafter the Gridley boys seemed not to hear the harsh witticisms that were hurled at them from all sides of the field.
Just in the nick of time the Gridley Band began playing.

That stopped the annoyance for a while, for Fordham had neglected to provide a band.
Yet when the Gridley High School song was started by the band, and the Gridley boosters joined in the words, the answer from Fordham came in the form of a "laughing-song," let loose with such volume that the Gridley offering to the merriment was drowned out.
"I hope we can give this rough town a horrible thumping---that's all," muttered Dave, his eyes flashing.
"Don't let them capture your 'goat,' and we will," Dick promised, as quietly as ever.
The plain hostility of the home crowd was wearing in on more than one of the Gridley boys.

Dick felt obliged to call his eleven together, and to give them some quiet, homely but forcible advice.
Coach Morton followed, with more in the same line.
Yet it came as a welcome relief to the Gridley youngsters when the referee and the other officials came to the field and game was called.
Dick Prescott won the toss, and took the kickoff.
That, of course, sent the ball into Fordham ranks.