"I'd rather be suspended!" burst out Rooster savagely. "Can you imagine sitting on the sub bench and watching Lenox lose?" "Wake up, feller, you're dreaming," growled Bill. "You don't suppose we'll get as far as the sub bench, do you? We've been barred from the field altogether, except as spectators in the stands." "Even the humble sub has it all over us," muttered Garry bitterly. "I've tried to be cheerful about this, but it certainly looks as though we were licked at last." "Say, Garry, where do you get that stuff?" said Nick Danter, in an attempt to cheer up his chum. "You won't be licked until you're dead. We'll find a way to get you and Bill and Rooster back on the gridiron some way! Suffering cats!" he added angrily, "I wish old Allen were further. How does he expect we're going to win against Thomaston and the game only a few days off? Without you, we're sure to lose." "Oh, no, you're not." With difficulty Garry raised himself from the depths of gloom. "You're not beaten till you think you are, Nick. It's your job and the job of the other fellows on the team to go in and win despite the handicap. You see, Rooster and I are conceited enough to call it a handicap," he added, with a sorry attempt at a grin. "Can't be done, Garry! Can't be done!" declared Nick moodily. "Not at such short notice, anyhow. You know we expect a hard fight against Thomaston under any conditions. Their team is mighty strong. They've lost hardly any of their old stars through graduation. And as far as our team is concerned, with you and Rooster counted out, the boys are in for an awful slump. I don't believe that anything Mr. Phillips can do will pull them out of it." "Just the same, if any one can, Mr. Phillips will!" exclaimed Garry, brightening at mention of the English teacher. "There's one fine man! He doesn't believe we did any of the things charged against us." "Neither does any one else in the school, if the truth were told," asserted Ted. "I don't think Mr. Allen himself really believes it. He has to keep discipline though, and in the face of the circumstantial evidence against you he had to do something." When the day came for the game with Thomaston, which was to take place on the Lenox grounds, Garry, Rooster, and Bill thought at first that they would not go at all. But the call of the gridiron was too strong to be resisted. They could at least cheer for the old team, even if they could not play on it. Their entrance into the stands was attended with an ovation on the part of their fellow students that warmed their hearts. Hands were thrust out to grasp theirs and many were the words of sympathy spoken. Most of the students were almost as sore as Garry himself at his banishment from the game, and with him out they could see nothing but defeat for Lenox. Their gloomy anticipations were fulfilled to the uttermost, for that afternoon Lenox went down to the worst defeat it had experienced since it had been a member of the league.