instructed by its coach, hawthorne began to hammer the right side of crofton’s line at the start. gould hurled his backs time and again at needham and at captain sargent. gain after gain was made, needham proving no harder to penetrate than parker had been. sargent was a tougher proposition, but even he was weakening. the first ten minutes of the third quarter was a rout for crofton. from their forty yards to crofton’s twenty-five the hawthorne players swept, and then, just when success seemed within their grasp, a fumble lost them the ball. gil reeled off twelve yards through the center of the hawthorne line and smith and benson plugged away for another down. then hawthorne held stubbornly and arnold kicked. after that hawthorne came back again, slowly but surely, banging the right guard and tackle positions for gain on gain, and now and then sending gould on an end run[333] for the sake of variety. both teams were tiring now and the playing was slower. after a particularly vicious plunge at his position sargent remained on the ground when the play was over and it was a good three minutes before he was on his feet again. then smith was hurt and a substitute went in for him. with three minutes of the third period remaining, the ball was down on crofton’s eighteen-yard line and the crimson-and-gray was almost in her last ditch. had gould chosen to try a goal from field there he might have tied the score, but the plucky little general was out for a victory and insisted on a touchdown. he himself took the ball for a plunge through left tackle and got by for three yards. then a delayed pass went wrong and there was seven to gain on the third down. there was a consultation and gould fell back as though he meant to kick. instead of that, however, he tried a short forward pass that went to gil instead of to one of his own side and for the moment the advance was stayed. on the second down arnold punted to midfield. for once gould signaled a fair catch. again hawthorne took up the attack, but before she had made much headway the whistle sounded.
[334]
at that minute, over behind the row of crofton sympathizers, mr. hanks nodded his head twice.
“you pass, jim,” he said.
johnny was looking anxiously about when jim leapt over the rope.
“all right!” he cried. “there are your togs. get into them.”
jim, walled from gaze by a quickly formed ring of substitutes, changed quicker than ever he had in all his life. out on the field the whistle blew and the two lines formed again. finally jim was ready and johnny seized him by the arm and led him along the side-line.
“wait till this play is over,” he said. “then go in for needham, and play low, hazard. get the jump on those fellows and break it up! understand? break it up! you can do it; any one with an ounce of ginger can. there you are! scoot!”
and jim scooted!
“left tackle, sir!” he cried to the referee. that official nodded. needham, panting and weak, yielded his headgear and walked off to receive his meed of cheering. arnold thumped jim on the back ecstatically.
“oh, look who’s here!” he yelled shrilly.[335] “well, well, well! now let’s stop ’em, crofton!”
“look out for the left half on a cross-buck,” whispered sargent from between swollen lips. “and get low, hazard. we’ve got to queer this, you know, we’ve got to do it!”
“all right,” answered jim quietly, eyeing his antagonist shrewdly. “here’s where we put ’em out of business.”
“hello, son,” said the opposing tackle as the lines set again. “how’d they let you in? watch out now, i’m coming through!”
but he didn’t. jim beat him by a fraction of a second and had his shoulder against his stomach and was pushing him back before he knew what had happened. sargent, having no longer to play two positions, braced wonderfully. in three plays hawthorne discovered that the left of the opponent’s line was no longer a gateway. learning that fact cost her the possession of the ball, for she missed her distance by a half-foot. crofton hurled gil at left guard and piled him through for four yards. then came a mix-up in the signals in which smith’s substitute hit hawthorne’s line without the ball. arnold kicked, but his leg was getting tired and gould got the oval twenty yards down the field.[336] on crofton’s forty-yard mark gould got off a short forward pass that took the team over two white lines. then an end run netted nothing and again gould kicked. benson got under the ball, caught it, dropped it, tried to recover it and was bowled aside by a hawthorne forward who snuggled the pigskin beneath him on crofton’s twelve-yard line. two plunges netted nothing and gould fell back for a kick from the twenty-eight-yard line. although half the crofton team managed to break through and though gil absolutely tipped the ball with his fingers, the oval flew fair and square across the bar and hawthorne had tied the score!
with four minutes to play the teams took their places again. sargent kicked off and gil and tearney again downed gould in his tracks. a try at a forward pass failed and an on-side kick went out at crofton’s forty-five yards. the ball was brought in and then arnold pegged at hawthorne’s center for twenty yards. a fumble by gil was recovered by a hawthorne end and again the orange-and-black started for the crofton goal. but there was little time left now and along the side-lines every one was agreed that the contest would end in a tie. but football is always uncertain. when two[337] minutes remained and the ball was in hawthorne’s possession on her opponent’s thirty-eight yards, after two exchange of punts, gould dashed off around gil’s end of the line and with good interference gained almost fifteen yards. hawthorne took heart at this and her cheers boomed across the field. a plunge at right tackle gave her five more. then the unexpected happened.
gould dropped back into kicking position, but when the ball went to him he poised it and waited to find his end to make a forward pass. jim, hurling himself past his opponent, dodged a half-back and before gould could get the ball away, was upon him. down went the little quarter and away bobbed the ball. an instant of wild scrambling and then jim was on his feet again, the ball was scooped up into his arms and he was off with a clear field ahead. after him came the pursuit, foe and friend alike trailing backward along the gridiron. past the middle of the field, and still well ahead, jim dared turn in toward the center of the middle of the field. then gould, making what was his pluckiest effort of all that long, hard-fought game, almost reached him. but behind gould was gil, and gil it was who, just as the quarter-back’s[338] arms stretched out to bring jim to earth, threw himself in front of the enemy. over they went together, rolling and kicking, and jim, with his breath almost gone, staggered and fell across the goal line.
what if andy lagrange, called on to kick the goal in place of sargent, did miss it by yards and yards? the game was won! for another year the crimson-and-gray held the championship!
crofton was still shouting, still waving, still cavorting when lagrange missed that goal, and still at it when, after two plays, the final whistle sounded. hope, standing on the seat, flourished her flag wildly.
“isn’t it perfectly jimmy?” she cried.
mr. hanks, beaming satisfiedly through his spectacles, assented. “it is. we—er—as you would say, ‘gobbled them up’!”
“didn’t we just? and didn’t jim do beautifully, mr. hanks?”
mr. hanks nodded slowly. “yes,” he replied, “your brother passed a very creditable, if somewhat hurried examination.”
