"I hope you do," murmured another boy. "Yet it seems against
us---after the way we saw the Souths play to-day."

"Or rather," added Dick quietly, "the way the North Grammars didn't
play. They'd have put up a lot better game if their captain hadn't
lost his nerve and his head."

As the Central Grammar boys left, most of them in one crowd, there
was a rather general feeling that Dick was just a bit too confident.
Or, was he simply "putting it on," in order to bolster up the
courage of his players?

Dick Prescott, at least, was qualified to know what he really
expected. He really was confident of victory in the game that
should decide the league championship.

"If you feel that you can't be beaten, and won't be beaten, but
that you've got to win and are going to win, then that's more
than half the points of a game won in advance," he told his chums.
"Fellows, in baseball or anything else, we won't say die, either
now or at any later time in life. We'll make it our rule to ride
right over anything that gets in our way. That way we can't know
defeat."

"Unless, finally, we ride to our deaths," laughed Tom.

"What of it?" challenged Dick. "That wouldn't be defeat. The
man who rides to death in the search for victory has won. He has
carried the winning spirit with him to the very finish. Or else
the history we've been studying at school is all a mess of lies."