“I will say,” he continued, “that no member of the ’varsity team, nor has any substitute, been guilty of this mean, sneaking piece of business. I don’t even know who it was. I don’t want to know. I don’t know to whom the offer was made. I don’t want to know. But we are going to protect ourselves, and change the signals.”
It was a comparatively simple matter, the way the signals had been devised, to so change them so that another team, even with a copy of the originals, would have found it impossible to know in advance what the plays were to be.
Half an hour was spent in going over the new combinations while the team was in the gymnasium, and then they went out on the field to play against the scrub. It was a little awkward at first for Phil to run the eleven under the new system, and he made one or two blunders. But the scrub was beaten by a good score.
“You’ll do better to-morrow,” commented the coach. “It is a little troublesome, I know, to use the new letters and figures, but we’ll practice on them constantly until we meet Boxer Hall on Saturday.”
This was to be the first game of the season with Boxer Hall, the college, which, with Fairview Institute and Randall, formed the Tonoka Lake League. The Randallites were on edge for it, and they had need to be, for Boxer had a fine eleven, better than in many years.
“We’ll have all we want to do to beat them,” said Phil to a crowd of his chums after practice one day. “They’re in better shape than Fairview was.”
“So are we,” declared Tom. “We’re going to win.”
“I hope you do,” remarked Ford Fenton. “They have a peculiar way of playing the game in the first half. My uncle says——”
“Wow!” It was a simultaneous howl from the crowd of lads. They sometimes did this when Ford’s reminiscences got on their nerves. The lad with the uncle turned away.
“I was going to put you on to some of their tricks,” he continued in injured tones. “Now I won’t.”