"That's enough, boys," he said, warmly. "You've got your work cut out for you to-day, and it would be poor policy to tire you at this early hour. Back to the house now, and eat a breakfast such as I laid out for you; nothing more, mind. Everyone of you must consider himself at the training table now, until that game with Bellport is over with on Thanksgiving morning. That's all!"
When, about ten o'clock, Frank reached the athletic grounds, clad in his soiled suit and with his entire bunch of players along, he found that a tremendous crowd had swarmed over the big field, fully equal to any that had witnessed the hard-fought baseball battles during the preceding Spring and early Summer.
It was an enthusiastic crowd, too, shouting until the sound was not unlike the roar of a tempest. Thousands of miniature flags were waving, representing both schools. There were also many from Bellport present, some to enjoy the game, others to get points with regard to the playing of the Columbia eleven, against which their own team expected soon to be pitted.
"Ain't this the greatest sight ever?" asked Lanky, as they came upon the field, and the waving flags and handkerchiefs made the grandstand look like a vast flower garden in a strong wind.
"Columbia! Veni! vidi! vici! to-day we swallow the rooster!" came a concerted shout, as Herman Hooker got his cheer band in working order.
The emblem of the Clifford school was a rooster, while that of Columbia, like Princeton, was the tiger.
Immediately the Columbia fellows began booting an old ball about, and falling on it with reckless abandon, just as they had been taught to do by the coach.
"Look there, will you!" exclaimed a girl close to Minnie Cuthbert in the grandstand. "How nice and white the suits of Clifford seem, while our boys are dirty. They ought to be ashamed, I should think. We have just as good a laundry in Columbia as they have up above."
But to those who knew more about such things there was an atmosphere of strictly business about the soiled suits of Frank's team. They looked as though they were on the field for hard work, and not to show off, or "play to the gallery."
And the wise ones took stock of this fact. Some of the sporting men even began to hedge in their bets, and might have tried to even up all around, only that they happened to know of a secret upon which they were building great hopes.