The High School Left End Part 18

"By Jove, Prescott, you're a stickler for duty, aren't you?" cried Purcell.

He spoke in a louder tone this time. Two girls who were pa.s.sing the street corner where the young men stood heard the query and glanced over with interest.

Neither young man perceived the girls at that moment.

"Why, yes," Prescott answered slowly. "Duty is the main thing there is about life, isn't it?"

"Right again," laughed Purcell.

One of the girls looked swiftly at the other. They were Laura Bentley and Belle Meade, friends of d.i.c.k's and Dave's, and also members of the junior cla.s.s.

"Well, I'm going to take a leaf out of your book," pursued Purcell.

"I'm really as anxious to see Gridley High School always on top as you or any other fellow can be."

"Of course you are," nodded d.i.c.k. "The way you put our baseball team through last season proves that."

"I'm going to be a martinet for training, hereafter," Purcell declared earnestly. "I'm going to be a worse stickler than old coach himself. And I'm going to exercise my right as a senior to watch the other fellows and hold their noses to the training grindstone."

"Then I'm not worried about Gridley having a winning team this year," d.i.c.k answered.

"By Jove, you had a lot to do with that, too, didn't you, Prescott?"

cried Purcell. "You put it over the 'soreheads' so hard that we never heard from them again after we got started."

"You helped there, also, Purcell. If you and Ripley and a few others had gone over to the 'soreheads' it would have stiffened their backbone and nothing could have made it possible, this year, for Gridley High School to have an eleven that would represent all the best football that there is in the grand old school."

In the first two years of their school life d.i.c.k and Dave had spent many pleasant hours in the society of Laura and Belle.

So far, during the junior year, the chums had had but little chance to see the girls, for the demands of football were fearfully exacting.

Laura, being almost at the threshold of seventeen years, had grown tall and womanly. Bert Dodge began to notice what a very pretty girl the doctor's daughter was becoming. So, one afternoon while the football squad was practicing hard over on the athletic field, Bert encountered Laura and Belle as they strolled down the Main Street.

Lifting his hat, Dodge greeted the girls, and stood chatting with them for a few moments. To this neither of the girls could object, for Bert's manners, with the other s.e.x, were always irreproachable.

But, presently, Laura saw her chance. She did not want to be rude, but Bert's face had just taken on a half-sneering look at a chance mention of d.i.c.k's name.

"You aren't playing football this year, Bert?" Laura asked innocently.

Bert quickly flushed.

"No," he admitted.

"Of course everyone can't make the eleven," Belle added, with mild malice.

"I---I don't believe I'd care to," Dodge went on. "I---you see---I don't care about all the fellows in the squad."

"I don't suppose every boy who is playing on the squad is a chum of everyone else," remarked Laura.

"Such fellows as Prescott, for instance, I don't care much about,"

Bert continued, with a swift side glance at Laura Bentley to see how she took that remark. But Laura showed not a sign in her face.

"No?" she asked quietly. "I think him a splendid fellow. By the way, he and Dave Darrin haven't received the reward for finding your father, have they?"

Bert gasped. His face went white, then red. He fidgeted about for an answer.

"No," he replied, cuttingly, at last, "and I don't believe they ever will."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," cried Laura in quick contrition. "I didn't know that it was a tender spot with you, or your family."

"It isn't," Bert rejoined hurriedly. "It simply amounts to this, that the reward will never be paid to a pair of cheeky, brazen-faced-----"

"Won't you please stop right there, Mr. Dodge?" Laura asked sweetly.

"Mr. Prescott and Mr. Darrin are friends of ours. We don't like to hear remarks that cast disrespect in their direction."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," answered Bert, trying not to be stiff.

But he was ill at ease, leaving the girls very soon after.

Yet, in his hatred for d.i.c.k and Dave, young Dodge resolved upon a daring stroke. He enlisted Bayliss, and the pair sought to "cut out" Prescott and Darrin with Laura and Belle.

Neither d.i.c.k nor Dave was in love. Both were too sensible for that. Both knew that love affairs were for men old enough to know their own minds. Yet the friendship between the four young people had been a very proper and wholesome affair, and much pleasure had been derived on all sides.

Nowadays, however, Bert and Bayliss managed to be much out and around Gridley while the football squad was at practice. Almost daily this pair met Laura and Belle, as though by accident, and the two young seniors usually managed, without apparent intrusion, to walk along beside Laura and Belle, often seeing the pair to the home gate of one or the other.

"You two fellows want to look out," Purcell warned d.i.c.k and Dave, good-naturedly, one day. "Other fellows are after your sweet-hearts."

"I wonder how that happened," d.i.c.k observed good-humoredly. "I didn't know we had any sweethearts."

"What about-----" began Purcell, wondering if he had made a mistake.

"Please don't drag any girls' names into bantering talk," interposed Dave, quickly though very quietly.

So Purcell said no more, and he had, indeed, meant no harm whatever.

But others were noticing, and also talking. High School young people began to take a very lively interest in the new appearance of Dodge and Bayliss as escorts of Laura and Belle.

Then there came one especially golden day of early autumn, when it seemed as though the warm, glorious day had driven everyone out onto the streets. Dodge and Bayliss met Laura and Belle, quite as though by accident, and manifested a rather evident determination to remain in the company of the girls as long as possible.

Finally Laura halted before one of the department stores.

"Belle, there's an errand you and I had in mind to do in there, isn't there?" Laura asked.

"May we have the very great pleasure, then, of your leave to wait until you are through with your shopping?" spoke up Bert Dodge quickly.

Laura flushed slightly. Just then more than a dozen of the football squad, coming back from the field, marching solidly by twos, turned the corner and came upon this quartette. There were many curious looks in the corners of the eyes of members of the squad.

Despite themselves d.i.c.k and Dave could feel themselves reddening.

But Laura Bentley was equal to the emergency. "Here come the school's heroes---the fellows who keep Gridley's High School banner flying in the breeze," she laughed pleasantly.

Both Dodge and Bayliss started to answer, then closed their lips.

"Won't you please excuse us, boys?" begged Laura, in her usual pleasant voice. "Here are d.i.c.k and Dave, and Belle and I wish to speak with them."