CHAPTER XX

In Desperate Plight

There was a moment of panic-stricken silence as Aleck Anderson's words sank in. Sandy was the first to speak.

"Of all the rotten fools!" he burst out. "You fellows ought to have a guardian."

"That's enough of that," replied Aleck hotly. "Another crack like that and I'll give you a belt in the jaw."

Sandy quailed before the threat, for he was a physical as well as a moral coward.

"Come, come now," put in Lent soothingly. "There's no use of either one of you fellows going on like that. We're all in the same boat. Let's be sensible and cool off."

"We'll have plenty of time to cool off," grumbled Aleck, resuming the seat from which he had risen. "In fact, that's all we've got left to do. We're through!"

"I'm not so sure of that," vouchsafed Sandy. "In the first place, we're not dead sure that Phillips heard you. If he didn't, we're just where we were."

"Don't kid yourself," relied Aleck "I know from his actions and the look in his eye that he heard us, all right."

"Well, admit that he did," went on Sandy. "What do you suppose will be the first thing that he'll do?"

"Change the signals, of course," affirmed Anderson. "Then the old ones will be no good. We'll have nothing to bargain with."

"Not unless we get the new ones," said Sandy.

Aleck guffawed.

"Swell chance!" he said scornfully. "Do you suppose they're going to publish them in the town paper?"

"Don't talk rot," adjured Sandy irritably. "There ought to be some way for us to get them on the quiet."

"Ought!" sneered Aleck "You're talking like a ham sandwich. They'll watch over those signals like a mother over her baby. No one outside the team can get near the field."

"Ed Bixby--" began Lent Stewart.

"Ed Bixby neither," snapped Aleck "You know as well as I that he's barred from athletics for the season."

"I wasn't thinking of the field," put in Sandy.

"What were you thinking of then?" asked Aleck

"The gymnasium," replied Sandy. "That's where Phillips will bring up the matter of the changes. Now we know how that gymnasium's laid out. Look here. Listen!"

The three boys had their heads together for a long time after that, and when they separated they were in a far more cheerful mood than they had been an hour before.

The day after the Bass Lake game, Mr. Phillips called his charges together in the gymnasium of the school.

"You've done well, boys, in beating Bass Lake," he said. "But of course you've heard that Wimbledon won again yesterday, leaving you still neck and neck, each having three victories and one defeat. So your game with Wimbledon will decide the championship, as no other team has as good a record.

"We'll lick 'em!" cried the irrepressible Rooster.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" called a voice, and there was a general laugh.

Mr. Phillips smiled.

"I'd rather hear a crow than a groan," he said. "I want you to go into that fight determined on victory, as long as that doesn't breed over-confidence. Now what I called you together for to-day is something out of the ordinary. We're going to change our signals for the Wimbledon game."

There was a general gasp of astonishment. The boys looked at each other in consternation.

"Take it all back," whispered Rooster to Garry. "Wimbledon will tie us up in knots."

"No," smiled Mr. Phillips, reading aright the glances interchanged. "I haven't taken leave of my senses. I know what a serious thing it is to adopt an entirely new system just a little while before an important game. But I am also sure that it would be a much more serious thing if we didn't. In a choice between two evils, I've had to take the lesser."

Garry, of course, with his advance information, had not been taken by surprise like the others. But he was sorely regretful, just the same. He had been hoping that Mr. Phillips on reflection would see his way clear to retain the old signals. That he had not done so showed that the danger, whatever it was, was still imminent.

"Now," went on the coach, "I've worked out the new system, and we'll run off the plays under them this afternoon. I think you'll catch on readily, but it will need incessant practice to get them into your minds so that your response will be automatic. And I want to warn you boys against saying a word to anybody about the change. That is vital. Don't even speak to any one in your own families about it, as some one of them might inadvertently mention it, and I wouldn't for the world have it get abroad. Now listen to me while I go over them."

For the next half hour the coach discussed and illustrated the new system, going over each play again and again until he was sure the boys understood.

"That will do for theory," he said at last. "Now we'll go out on the field and put them into practice."

The teams swarmed out after the coach and silence reigned in the gymnasium.

Not for long, however. Slowly, very slowly, the door of an old closet, used by the janitor to store odds and ends, was pushed open. A face appeared at the opening, and shifty eyes glanced about the deserted room.

"All clear," came in a whisper.

Two boys emerged from the closet and slipped up the stairs into a corridor of the school and thence through the front door into the street.

They were Aleck Anderson and Bixby!