SENSATIONAL WORK.
“Yale is weakening!”
“Brown will score!”
“That’s hot work!”
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”
The spectators were excited. The college men were wild. The rooters of
the Providence University were barking like a pack of foxes:
“’rah, ’rah, ’rah, ’rah, ’rah, ’rah!”
Yale was playing Brown on the gridiron of the latter team. It was near
the end of the second half. The Providence men had played like fiends,
but the sons of Old Eli were out to show what they could do, and they
had scored 18 points, while the score of their opponents could still
be designated by 0. But Brown was desperate now. Remembering its good
work against Pennsylvania, it became furious in its efforts to score
on Yale. It bucked the blue line savagely again and again, and each
time it seemed that some of the New Haven men were left disabled and
carried from the field.
Sitting on the bleachers with the great mass of Yale rooters, Bruce
Browning groaned.
“If this keeps up much longer,” he said, “we won’t have a man left who
is not disabled. They’re lugging a man off every minute! It’s the ruin
of the eleven!”
“Sheep your kirt on――I mean keep your shirt on!” spluttered Harry
Rattleton. “Merriwell’s still in the game.”
“Yes, but he’s been laid out twice, and he’s staying by sheer grit. He
may be a total wreck when the game is over.”
“Hodge has been carried off unconscious,” said Ben Halliday, his face
white and drawn. “And they say Badger has a dislocated shoulder.”
“Don’t mention him!” snapped Jack Diamond. “What if he has a
dislocated shoulder!”
“He can play football.”
“Bah! He’s treacherous! More than once he’s tried to hurt Merriwell in
the game.”
“Still, it is strange that Merriwell himself declares Badger is one of
the best half-backs Yale ever had.”
“Merriwell is too generous!”
A roar went up all round the enclosed field. A double pass had been
made, and a Brown man was going clean round Yale’s end, having tricked
the defenders of the blue. If he got round, an open field lay before
him, and the Providence team would score. Roar, roar, roar――how the
sound rose to the dull autumn sky. Flags were fluttering everywhere,
while men and women were on their feet shouting at the top of their
voices.
The Yale men sat still without breathing, watching, waiting, hoping.
Out of the tangled mass shot a man. He was so covered with dirt that
it was almost impossible to tell whether he was a Yale man or an
enemy. He went at the man with the ball like a shot out of a gun.
“Who is it?”
“He can’t catch him!”
“Brown scores!”
“It’s Thurlow, with the ball!”
“He can run like the wind!”
“He’s flying!”
“So’s t’other fellow!”
“He’s catching him!”
“He’ll do it!”
“He’s caught him and tackled!”
“Thurlow’s down!”
Then the uproar became indescribable, for a Yale man had stopped the
swift runner with the ball on the Yale fifteen-yard line. It had been
done by splendid speed, although the runner had covered the ground in
a queer, awkward, toeing-in manner. Then came the Yale cheer rolling
across the gridiron.
Harvard had not permitted Brown to score, but Harvard had scored but
twelve points against her. Yale led by six points, if she could keep
the Providence team from making fifteen yards more before the finish.
Of course, Yale was anxious to defeat Brown by a greater score than
Harvard had done, as it would give the sons of Old Eli courage for the
coming battle with the crimson. “Battle” is the word, for surely it
was more of a battle than a game. According to fixed rules and an
established code, the two elevens fought like untamed tigers for the
mastery.
Brown’s exultation had been temporary. While it lasted they had seemed
frantic, but now the Yale men were whooping it up.
“Who did it?”
“Who stopped him?”
“What’s his name?”
“Anybody know him?”
“One of the substitutes, did you say?”
“A freshman?”
“What name?”
“Ready――Jack Ready? Well, I propose a cheer for Jack Ready. His name
fits him. He was ready that time.”
They cheered again and again. There were plenty of freshmen present,
and they nearly split their throats. The glory of this game was coming
to their class, for Ready had made the sensational play of the day.
The two elevens were lined up for the final struggle. It must be
nearly time for the game to close. Brown was preparing for one more
furious onslaught. She must gain fifteen yards to score, or kick a
goal from the field. The game was on again, and Brown was bucking
Yale’s line. She made a clean gain of five yards before her first
down. Only ten yards more and Brown would have a touch-down. Her
eleven men seemed like raging fiends, ready to shed their life blood
in order to put the pigskin over the goal-line.
“They’ll do it!”
“It looks that way!”
“Our team is too weak now!”
“Too many substitutes.”
“I’d rather give a leg than see them score!”
The Yale men were dejected, although they were doing what they could
to cheer their men to hold fast.
Brown men were urging their eleven on. A great crowd of the Providence
students broke out singing:
“Baldwin, Baldwin, we’ve been thinking
What a score there’s sure to be;
Now that you are back at quarter,
Lead the team to victory.
“Hogan, Hogan, hear the slogan
Swelling forth in ringing tones;
Show ’em how to hit the line now,
Give ’em one more dose of Jones.
“Hersey, George and Walter Hersey,
You are sure to do your share;
Poor old Yale will get no mercy,
You must soak her now for fair.”
The sound of that song floated across the field, and, it seemed, if
possible, to make the Providence players more terrible than ever.
Still they were held without a gain for a down. But what might happen
in another minute! It was the critical point of the game.
Again Brown bucked.
There was a fumble! Then came a furious mix-up. And then――――
Out of the midst of the tangle shot a man with the ball, carrying it
toward Brown’s goal. After him came nine panting foes, with two of the
Brown men left to recover more slowly. Now the excitement was
something tremendous. Realizing that a Yale man had secured the ball
on a fumble and was racing for another touch-down, the sons of Old Eli
stood up, climbed on each other and thundered their admiration and
applause. In the midst of all this uproar nearly fifty students, who
were together in a bunch, could be heard shrieking:
“Merriwell! Merriwell! ’rah! ’rah! ’rah!”
It is pretty certain that the man with the ball was recognized by
almost every college student within that enclosure. It was Frank. And
now Merriwell showed them what running really is. The manner in which
he flew over the ground was something marvelous. One Brown man made an
awful spurt to catch him. It was the fellow who had been pulled down
by Jack Ready. Merry drew away from him with apparent ease.
“Satan can’t stop him now!”
“It’s another touch-down!”
“Is he running, or flying?”
“Yell, boys――yell!”
They could not stop him. Over the line he carried the ball, and
another touch-down was made. Then a goal was kicked, and the game was
over.
Yale had doubled Harvard’s score against Brown.
And in the last moments of the game Frank Merriwell had eclipsed the
sensational feat of Jack Ready and robbed the freshman of some of his
glory.