THE GAME ENDS
In the short intermission both teams took account of stock and heard
some vividly suggestive words from the coaches. The problem for Seaton
was to keep the score as it was. A successful trick play, the fumble of
a punt, a lucky end run by the fleet Hillbury back, might turn the
present advantage into ultimate ruin; for from two touchdowns and two
goals results a score of twelve points, while the two touchdowns and one
goal which Seaton had achieved had yielded but eleven.
“If they get another touchdown, they’ll beat us,” declared Laughlin;
“we’ve simply got to hold ’em.” And the others nodded emphatic
agreement, and in various forms repeated the sentiment. There was no
lack of comprehension of the situation.
The coaches drew the captain into a corner apart.
“I’ll bet you’re going in,” whispered Wolcott to Durand. “These fumbles
have sewered Jack, and they’re afraid of a punting game. If you do go
in, try to forget where you are and play just as you did last Tuesday on
the second. Yell your signals good and loud, and don’t try to be so
terribly fast. I’ll risk you for tackling and hugging the ball.”
Durand didn’t answer, but he felt a thrill from crown to toe, a sudden
uplift of joy, and as sudden a reaction of doubt and fear.
The coaches turned. “Durand starts at quarter,” said Laughlin. “No
fumbling now! If we get the ball, hang to it like death and fight for
every inch. Hold ’em on the first down, and we’ve got ’em licked.”
Jackson winced under the pitying glances. He had failed,—failed
terribly; but for that blocked kick? the score would now be a precarious
tie. Yet it was hard to be cut off from any chance to retrieve himself;
to know in advance that his error, though forgiven, would not be
forgotten; that whatever befell the team, his own defeat was assured. He
turned hard round to wink back the tears that would well into his eyes;
but a moment later he was running over the signals with Durand and
trying to help him to a knowledge of the weaknesses of the men against
him.
Hillbury was already out, the men alert and hopeful, as if the odds were
in their favor; for their coaches had laid out a plan which was to lead
to victory. A new man was in guard’s place opposite Wolcott; but the
Seaton player had less thought for his opponent than for Durand’s
experiment, and less for Durand than for the game to be played. He
charged fiercely down on Bullard’s kick-off, as if he felt no heaviness
in his weary limbs. The Hillbury end got the ball and dashed furiously
down on Wolcott’s side; but the Seaton guard caught him squarely and
low, and downed him hard. Then Hillbury tried a double pass for an end
run, and finally smashed her way through left tackle to a first down.
After that Seaton held and Rounds punted. The ball went to the new back,
of course; and Durand, though he held the ball, was pulled down before
he had run it back across the second chalk-line. Seaton pushed up the
field again a dozen yards and was forced to punt, and Hillbury had a
chance again on her forty-yard line.
Hillbury tried a single quick dash outside Bent, gaining three yards
with apparent ease, then unexpectedly kicked. It was a long sailing
punt, that seemed to float on and on with the help of the wind as if it
were never to drop. Durand, who was playing well back, whirled suddenly
and ran, then turned and gathered the ball in. Squeezing the precious
thing tight in the hollow of his arm, he shot forward, sidestepped clear
of the Hillbury end, who lunged at him, and tacking in and out of the
loose swarm of friend and foe, he threaded his way with erratic,
darting, shuttlelike movement beyond the middle of the field. When he
went down, every spectator around Mr. Lindsay was on his feet yelling
admiration.
“Now’s our chance,” cried the Harvard student jubilantly, as he resumed
his seat. “Rip ’em up there, quarter-back; smash ’em through the centre;
put another knot in that score!”
But instead the quarter sent Buist at the end. The Hillbury end dodged
into the interference and threw the Seaton runner back a yard. Through
the centre only two were gained, and Seaton, fearing to lose the ball,
punted. Howe got it on his ten-yard line and carried it valiantly back
across several white lines.
The Hillbury full drew back to punt. Buist was already scuttling into
his back field when Hendry, who saw something in the attitude of the
backs to arouse suspicion, exclaimed sharply, “Fake! fake!” But it was
too late. While he was speaking the ball was snapped, the Seaton guards
ploughed through to block the expected kick, and Joslin with the ball
under his arm, and two interferers beside him, darted for the right end.
Hendry was boxed; Read got tangled in the interference; Wendt just
touched the runner with his finger ends as he flung himself at the
fleeting mark; and Joslin, the fastest sprinter, barring one, in both
the schools, had almost an open field to the Seaton goal-posts.
The “almost” was the little quarter-back crouching in the distance, his
eyes glued upon his fast approaching foe. It was an awful moment; the
Seaton sympathizers caught their breaths and sent their hope in a single
mighty yearning to the aid of the last defender of their goal. Durand
saw nothing but the man charging with the ball, felt no fear of the
critical instant, but only intense eagerness to meet the man squarely
and get his arms around those flashing legs. Step by step he moved
forward, in catlike watch of every movement of his opponent, who was
bounding toward him in strong, free leaps. A dozen yards away Joslin
swerved suddenly to run around his man. At the moment Durand shot
forward to cut the runner’s path. For one critical instant only was the
Hillbury man within his reach; but that instant Durand felt in every
nerve of his body, and his body acted of its own volition. He did not
reason nor question; it was as if some mysterious electric force
suddenly caught him with irresistible impulse and launched him against
his foe. Down the two went in a whirl of legs; and only when Durand had
disentangled himself from the quickly formed heap and scrambled to his
feet, did his mind awake to the success of the play.
But the stop to the Hillbury advance was only temporary. Three yards
were gained through Bent, and on a second trial three yards more. They
had “found” Bent. Laughlin tore off his head-guard and flung it far away
to the side-lines, hoping to see better where to strike. He played still
farther out to support the weak side. Again the Hillbury charge went
crashing through the Seaton tackle. When the players extricated
themselves from the mêlée, one big form still lay outstretched upon the
ground. It was Laughlin!
The trainers came hurrying in with water-pail and sponge and liniment.
The fallen man was got upon his feet, his face mopped, his condition
eagerly inquired for. A bruise at the edge of his hair above his eye
showed the mark of a heavy boot.
“Dizzy?” asked the trainer, anxiously.
“A little,” responded the player; “but it doesn’t amount to anything. I
can go back now.”
“You’d better take your head-guard again,” urged the trainer.
But Laughlin tore himself away from the solicitous group. “I’m all
right,” he declared savagely. “Play the game!”
The lines formed again amid tremendous applause from the Seaton side, as
the injured man went bravely back into the fray.
The Hillbury quarter, shrewdly guessing on the probabilities, drove his
heaviest back against the Seaton captain. For the first time in the game
a hole was found at right guard, and when Milliken and Buist stemmed the
charge, the ball lay six yards down the field. The next attack was at
Bent, the third through Laughlin. The fourth in the same place stretched
the Seaton captain again upon the ground.
“Dave, you’re hurt! You oughtn’t to go on,” pleaded Wolcott, taking
Laughlin’s head in his lap. The captain’s eyes moved uncertainly; he
seemed suddenly stripped of his strength. In a moment, however, the old
spirit returned, and he rose determined.
“I’m all right,” he insisted. “I’m all right; play the game!”
Laughlin was the captain; his orders were not to be questioned.
A plunge at the Seaton left was squarely met, another on the right
penetrated five yards. Laughlin was down again. Time was called, and
Collins came running in with his water-pail.
“Tell him to go off,” urged Wolcott. “He doesn’t know what he’s about.
It’s cruel to let him stay here!”
The trainer shrugged his shoulders; he was not master on the field.
Laughlin lifted himself unsteadily to his feet. The applause on the
Seaton side had ceased; instead, ominous shouts of “Take him out! take
him out!” were heard along the bank of crimson and gray.
“I’m all right,” persisted the captain; “I can play;” and he started
back to his place. Wolcott grasped his arm.
“Dave!” he cried in despair, “you aren’t fit to play. Go off and let us
finish the game. You aren’t yourself at all. Do what I say, please!”
But Laughlin snatched his arm away and turned toward the line.
Wolcott threw himself before him. “Answer me one question, and I won’t
say another word. Where are you going to college, Harvard or Yale? Just
answer me that.”
With stupid eyes Laughlin gazed into his friend’s face. “Harvard or
Yale? Harvard or Yale?” he repeated. “It’s one or the other, but I don’t
seem to know which—” Then straightening up, he shouted: “We’re wasting
time! Set ’em going there! Get into the game!”
But Wolcott’s test question had shown convincingly Laughlin’s
incapacity. The coach was allowed to come on the field, and together
they labored with the bewildered but stubborn fellow, who, like the
famous Spartan captain, refused to retreat while the enemy was still
before him.
Only when Poole and Ware were called in, and their personal appeal was
added to the pleas of Wolcott and the coach, did the dazed captain give
way, and allow his friends to lead him from the field. Wolcott, who had
sometimes played on the right side, went over into Laughlin’s place,
Butler succeeded Wolcott, and Conley replaced Bent.
“Lindsay will act as captain,” said the coach, as he left the field.
“Hold ’em, fellows, you can do it! Keep watch of that ball!” The new
captain took naturally to his duties.
The Hillbury quarter tried the new guard, but Butler was fresh and
strong, and determined to prove his value; he charged hard and quick,
and the attack was thrown back as a sea wave from a cliff. Joslin was
sent at Pope’s end; but Conley went through and shattered the
interference, and Pope downed the sprinter before he had reached the
line. Then the Hillbury full-back retired for a try at goal, and the
Seaton guard on one side and tackle on the other sifted through the line
and plunged upon him. The ball went wide; Durand, getting it safely,
touched it behind the goal-line, and the team went back to the
twenty-five-yard line. A sigh of relief, like the whisper of the wind,
soughed audibly along the Seaton benches, as the ball was punted far up
the field, and the play started once more in less dangerous territory.
The game was now near its end. The sun was setting; darkness would soon
descend upon the field. Hillbury, discouraged at the failure to score
when the opportunity had seemed so bright, played with less fire and
speed. On the third down, with but a yard to gain, a Seaton linesman
scented the play and tackled the runner behind his own line. The ball
was in Seaton hands in the middle of the field. Wolcott whispered to
Durand, the signals rang out, the quarter-back took the ball, dodged
around Hendry, edged by the Hillbury back, and behind Lindsay and Wendt
twisted his jerky, slippery course past half-a-dozen frantically
grasping Hillburyites to the open field. Here, if his speed had equalled
his agility, Durand might have carried the ball directly to a touchdown;
but Joslin caught him from behind, and throwing him without mercy,
strove to wrench the ball from his hands. Durand clung to it
desperately, and Seaton had the ball on the twelve-yard line. From here
across the goal-line was but a question of half-a-dozen determined
drives.
After this third touchdown there was no more anxiety on the Seaton side.
The followers cheered from happiness now, and assurance that the great
contest was won—not because the team needed support. It was hearty
cheering, but tumultuous and ragged.
Across the field Hillbury, undaunted to the end, with full volume and in
splendid unison, sent forth their exhortation. And when, a few minutes
later, with the weary lines still struggling in mid-field, the referee’s
whistle announced the end, the Hillbury sky-rocket call was still
sounding clearly in Seatonian ears.