"Two weeks, and as yet we don't even know who's going to be on our
team!" burst out Eli. "Seems to me that's an awful short time to get
settled down into our best stride. Allandale will have a terrible
bulge on us, Hugh, because I hear they've kept almost the same team
that carried off the honors last year."

"If anything it's said to be some stronger," added Sandy Dowd,
ponderously, for he had a habit of looking solemn at times, in spite of
his blue eyes, red hair and mottled face. "An Allandale fellow told me
they expected to wipe up the earth with both Belleville and Scranton
this term."

"Huh! better spell able first," grunted Eli. "I hope there's no more
delay than is necessary about notifying the candidates who've been
selected to appear on the athletic field after school every day, and
keep hustling till supper time. We've just _got_ to make the sand fly,
if we expect to catch up with those older teams."

"Well," Hugh assured him, "you'll know all about it by tomorrow night,
because the last knot will have been untied by then, and everybody
notified to come out to the meeting. Then beginning on next Monday
afternoon, hard practice for the lucky ones, to be continued every
decent day during the week, with a game against a picked nine on
Saturday."

"Will Mr. Leonard coach the team as he promised, Hugh?" asked K. K.

Mr. Leonard was the assistant of the head of the Scranton schools, a
pretty fine sort of a young man, who had gained quite some fame as an
athlete while at Princeton, and was well fitted for the task of