Then Jack made a gesture with his crooked finger, and both of them again commenced to creep softly along, wondering what effect their coming would have upon the fair watchers perched in the lower crotch of the giant oak with the spreading branches. CHAPTER VII STRANGE FRUIT FOR A TREE TO BEAR "Oh! girls, you just ought to have seen Fred Badger run with the ball then! They all chased after him, but he dodged them like everything. If the boys win that game from Marshall I'm sure Fred's going to have a lot to do with it!" Joel chuckled at hearing one girl say that, for he recognized the voice of pretty little Mollie Skinner, on whom it was said the Fred mentioned was rather sweet, since he always accompanied her to choir meeting, and when they had a dance out in the country, she invariably went with Fred. "Well, I don't know what Fred Badger has got over Steve Mullane, or Jack Winters, or even Joel Jackman," said another voice, rather cynically, as though the speaker did not wholly subscribe to Mollie's view that Fred stood out as a shining mark above the rest of the bunch of struggling players. Joel chuckled again. It tickled him to be mentioned at all by one of the fair watchers in the tree, even though with such a doubtful compliment as "even Joel Jackman!" would imply. "But I'm beginning to get tired of sitting here in this ridiculous fashion," said a third one, dolefully, "and taking turns at peeking through Mollie's mother's opera-glasses. I wouldn't have come only I felt so much interest in our boys this year. It's their first appearance on the gridiron, and I'm just wild to see them beat that bragging old Harmony. As to Marshall, I just know Chester will put those fellows down where they belong, at the foot of the class, without half trying." "Neither would I have gone to all this trouble," spoke up the fair and spirited Mollie, "only for that silly letter my friend in Harmony wrote me, saying that it was a foregone conclusion Harmony would sweep the earth this year because their team had been _terribly_ strengthened. In fact she gave me to understand that everything, even to the crepe, had been ordered for poor little new beginner Chester. It kept me awake most all last night; and I felt so much excited that I just _had_ to get you girls to come out here and see what our gallant boys were doing." "Yes, but however are we going to get down from here?" sighed the girl who had spoken second, and whose name was Lucy Marsh, while the last of the daring trio Jack knew to be another pretty maid, Adelaide Holliday by name. "I feel afraid to jump from so high a place; and girls can't climb trees and come down like boys do." "Would you mind if we came up and helped you, girls?" suddenly demanded Jack, as he and his companion showed themselves.