Apart from the general loss to the team, each had his own particular grievance. Tom, as quarterback, saw with dismay the prospect of drilling the new men in the complicated system of signals, of which there were more than sixty, each of which had to be grasped with lightning rapidity. The slightest failure might throw the whole team in hopeless confusion. Dick was ruminating on the loss of Ellis, whose position in the line had been right at his elbow, and with whom he had learned to work with flawless precision on the defense. And Bert would miss sorely the swift and powerful cooeperation of Axtell at right half. Those two in the back field had been an army in themselves. "The whole team is shot to pieces," groaned Tom. "The hoodoo is certainly working overtime," muttered Dick. "It's a raw deal for fair," acquiesced Bert, "but we're far from being dead ones yet. We haven't got a monopoly of the jinx. Don't think that the other fellows won't get theirs before the season's over. Then, too, the new men may show up better than we think. Morley's no slouch, and there may be championship timber in Winston. Besides, Axtell and Hodge may be back again in a week or two. It's simply up to every one of us to work like mad and remember that The fellow worth while is the one who can smile When everything's going dead wrong. "You're a heavenly optimist, all right," grumbled Tom. "You'd see a silver lining to any little old cloud. You remind me of the fellow that fell from the top of a skyscraper, shouting as he passed the second-story window: 'I'm all right, so far.' We may be 'all right so far,' but the dull thud's coming and don't you forget it." And during the days that followed it seemed as though Tom were a truer prophet than Bert. Storm clouds hovered in the sky, and the barometer fell steadily. On Wednesday they were scheduled to play a small college--one of the "tidewater" teams that ordinarily they would have swallowed at a mouthful. No serious resistance was looked for, and it was regarded simply as a "practice" game. But the game hadn't been played five minutes before the visitors realized that something was wrong with the "big fellows," and taking heart of hope, the plucky little team put up a game that gave the Blues all they wanted to do to win. Win they did, at the very end, but by a margin that set the coach to frothing at the mouth with rage and indignation. After the game they had a dressing down that was a gem in its way, and which for lurid rhetoric and fierce denunciation left nothing to be desired.