“It shouldn’t be, Lanny. We don’t want fellows who are not sound and fit. We don’t want accidents and we don’t want fellows petering out in mid-season. So I guess we’ll have all those who haven’t taken their exams do it to-morrow. Suppose you write a notice to that effect, George, and post it on the bulletin board. And write a call for candidates, too, please. Say we want twenty more fellows, must have them right away and don’t care whether they’ve played football before or not.” “You’ll get a lot of dubs if you say that,” volunteered Cottrell dubiously. “I don’t want dubs,” smiled Dick, “but I do want to get hold of fellows who have strong bodies and good lungs and plenty of brains. I’d rather make a team out of eleven chaps with intelligence who never saw a football than out of that many football players without intelligence, Chester. Even if we find only one out of the twenty who makes good it’ll be worth the trouble.” “Right-o,” said George. “Shove me some of that pad over here, Lanny.” “Now,” said Dick, “tell me what you know of Springdale this year, fellows. I know what she did to us last Fall and how she did it, but I want to know what they are planning for this year and what sort of material they have. Anybody know?” Lanny and Cottrell each shook his head. George Cotner’s uninterrupted scratching with his pen signified an equal ignorance. “About all I know,” said Lanny finally, “is that they’ve got six of last year’s team back and a number of good subs.” “Have they got the same backfield?” “Pretty near. They lost Morgan.” “Morgan was left half, wasn’t he?” “Right half.” “And the chap who out-punted us about ten yards every time. Well, have they got another punter in sight? Have they got anyone who is clever at field-goals?” “Search me,” responded Lanny. “We can find out, I suppose.” “We must, Lanny. We’ve got to know pretty near what their line of attack is to be in order to work up our defense. If they are going to form their team around a clever drop-kicker we want to know it. If they’re going to depend on the rushing game entirely we want to know that. If they’re going in strong for passing we want to know that.” “I suppose,” said Cottrell, “the best thing to do is to send a scout to see them play next Saturday.” Dick agreed. “But,” he added, “we won’t learn much from such an early game, I think we’d better subscribe to the Springdale papers and follow what we see there. Until we can get a fair idea of what Springdale’s line of attack is going to be we can’t do much about our own defense. But there’s plenty of time for that, fellows. I want to put in a good three weeks of the old-fashioned football. We don’t want to lose the game by a wretched fumble or through lack of ordinary football sense. And that’s about the way we lost last Fall.” “That’s so, I guess,” agreed Cottrell. “You all know I did all I could to lose that game!”