The other event which brought satisfaction was the victory on Saturday of the Varsity Football Team over Benton School. As though to vindicate themselves and their coach, the team scored nineteen points against Benton and held that adversary helpless. Still using a mere handful of plays, none of them either novel or puzzling, Clearfield, by working together with a precision that promised fine things for the future, ripped the Benton line almost at will and presented a defense that anywhere inside the twenty-five-yard line was invulnerable. Morris Brent played through a full quarter and, although no field-goals were necessary, demonstrated his value to the backfield by excellent punting and good rushing. Clearfield went quite wild over that victory, for Benton had a big, well-trained and hard-fighting team, and had, only the week before, played Springdale to a standstill, neither side being able to score. Even the news that Springdale had overwhelmingly beaten Nickerson that afternoon failed to disturb Clearfield’s satisfaction, although it did give Dick subject for thought. Nickerson was believed to be fairly strong and Springdale had, by reason of injuries to several of her best players, gone into the fray with a line-up largely substitute. Dick waited impatiently for the Monday morning Springdale paper, and when it came could find but slight encouragement in the account of the game it contained. There was no denying that this year’s Springdale team was one to be respected. The conference that Monday evening lasted long. CHAPTER XIX ATTACK AND DEFENSE “You see,” said Fudge, taking another bite of his banana and talking from the side of his mouth, “this fellow, ‘Young Sleuth,’ finds that when, when the old chap――Middleton, I mean, the millionaire that was found murdered――――” “I remember,” replied Dick, opening a sandwich to examine the contents. “Well, ‘Young Sleuth’ discovers that when Middleton was a young man, before he made all his money, he was a member of a band of Nihilists.” “Nihilists?” queried Dick doubtfully. “Well, Socialists, I guess. Anyway, they used to meet in a cellar and plot. And it turns out that Middleton was stung with the job to kill a man. They’d draw lots, you know, and one time he drew the piece of paper that had the black dagger on it, and that meant that he was the goat.” “I don’t see the connection between a black dagger and a goat,” demurred Dick gravely. “Sure! The one who drew the paper with the black dagger on it had to do the deed. See? And Middleton drew it. The man he was to kill was a Governor of a State, you see. He’d been doing things these Socialists didn’t like. So they decided to kill him.” “Quite simple,” observed Dick. “Did Whathisname do it?”