"Give Drayne the cut?" repeated Wadleigh, slowly, before a group of the fellows. "Perhaps, in one way, he deserved it, but——-"
"Well, what can you find to say for a fellow who acted like that?" demanded Hudson, impatiently.
"Drayne helped to win the game for us," replied Wadleigh moderately. "Had he played Filmore would have downed us—-of that I'm sure, as I look back. Drayne's conduct put Prescott on the gridiron, didn't it? That was what saved the score for us."
At the time of Grace Dodge's great peril, her banker father had been away on a business trip. It was two days later when word was finally gotten to the startled parent. Then, by wire, Theodore Dodge learned that Grace's condition was all right, needing only care and time. So he did not hasten back on that account.
When he did return to Gridley, Mr. Dodge hunted up Lawyer Ripley.
"I must reward those boys, and handsomely," he explained to the lawyer. "Their splendid conduct demands it."
"I am sorry, Dodge, that you have been so long in coming to such a conclusion," replied the lawyer, almost coldly.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, you still owe Prescott and Darrin that thousand dollars offered by your family as a reward for finding you when your misfortune happened."
"But my son, Bert———"