"Well, you can’t do that, even though we have lost one of our best men."
"Lost a man! Hurt?"
"No—vanished. It’s the queerest thing. Cranch left home the first of the week, saying he’d be back the next day. Didn’t tell anybody where he was going, and we have not seen him since. But we can beat your chaps without him."
Jabez felt faint and ill. His face turned pale, and he longed to rush out and ask questions, an inclination he was compelled to resist.
Cranch gone! What did it mean? And the fellow had not returned since coming to Fardale!
"I’m soaked!" thought Lynch despairingly. "What the dickens has happened! Good Lord! If Viewland loses, I’m cleaned out of my last dollar and about twenty I have borrowed! I’ll be in a bad hole!"
From that moment he was desperately anxious.
Things moved swiftly. Viewland got the choice, and gave the ball to Fardale. The wind was blowing almost directly across the field from the west, so there was little choice in goals.
The positions of the players are here given:
| Fardale. | Positions. | Viewland. |
| Burrows | Right end | Warwick |
| Stanton | Right tackle | Purcell |
| Douglass | Right guard | Sargent |
| Buckhart | Center | Kernan |
| Gordan | Left guard | Low |
| Blair | Left tackle | Pitman |
| Kent | Left end | Gould |
| Shannock | Quarter-back | Moulton |
| Nunn | Right half-back | Warne |
| Merriwell | Left half-back | Jordan |
| Singleton | Full-back | Young |