THE WARWICK GAME.
From the moment the whistle blew the two teams went at each other
like tigers, Warwick endeavoring to overcome the lighter boys of
Queen's by sheer force, a thing that was made possible by the
superior weight of their team. Taking the ball from the kick-off,
the Warwickers began a slashing attack which resulted in long gains.
Biglow, the right half-back on Warwick, slipped through, time and
time again, between the Queen's tackle and the end, and when the end
drew in he went outside. Five minutes after the ball was put in play,
Warwick was inside the Queen's 25-yard line. The latter was fighting
desperately, but the forwards did not seem to be able to solve the
play which was being sent at them, and the Queen's secondary defense
had to take the punishment. Jimmy was at the bottom of every pile and
repeatedly was the only player of Queen's who stood between Warwick
and a touchdown.
"Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown!" howled the Maroon stands. "You've
got 'em going! No hope for Queen's!"
The Queen's followers cried valiantly and incessantly: "Hold them!
hold them!" But even the most enthusiastic and hopeful of the boys
who wore the Blue and Gold could not fail to see the impending
disaster. Down on the side-line the substitutes crouched, gritting
their teeth and thrusting an imaginary shoulder against the Warwick
invaders as the two lines met.
"There they go again!" yelled a Queen's boy. "It's a touchdown--no,
it isn't--Turner has him!" And Turner did indeed have him. Biglow
had sliced in between the tackle and end and was getting up speed,
when the fiery Jimmy set sail for him. Biglow, in his endeavor to
elude him, cut across the field. Jimmy forced him farther and farther
out, until, the side-line being near at hand, Biglow endeavored
to side-step the tackler. He failed dismally, and the next moment
Jimmy's arms encircled his legs and Jimmy's sturdy shoulder struck
his thigh, carrying Biglow with the ball clear off his feet and
backward toward his own goal. Biglow's head struck the ground with
a resounding thump. The ball flew from his arms and bounced crazily
around. Half a dozen forms shot for it, and instantly there was a
pile which was quickly dug apart by the referee. Big Wheeler lay with
the ball tucked securely under his body.
You might have thought it a Queen's touchdown the way the followers
of the Blue and Gold leaped into the air, shouted, danced and hugged
each other.
"_Turner, Turner, Turner!_" shouted the crowd. "Oh, what a tackle!"
"Good boy, Turner! Good boy, Wheeler!" yelled Queen's; and then the
leaders got to work and gave a regular cheer for each of the boys who
had saved, for a time at least, the Queen's goal line. The Warwick
stand was as still as death. A touchdown had been snatched away from
them by the red-head!
Wheeler immediately kicked out of danger, sending the ball spinning
far down the field, from which position Warwick again took up the
march. The Queen's forwards did better this time. They had learned a
little more about their opponent's attack and checked the advances a
little, but could not stop them. More slowly but just as surely the
ball went back. Biglow bored through and went around the end, making
up the difficult yards that had been lost by his previous fumble. He
ran low and hard and scarcely ever failed to make his distance. Once
with five yards to go on the last down, the Warwick quarter worked a
pretty forward pass and made the necessary distance.
Across the center of the field came the Warwick football machine,
irresistible and deadly. Chip shouted from the back field
instructions to the line to get low and charge fast and hard. They
tried to follow orders, but were bowled over by the fierce onslaught
of the bigger line they were facing. Jimmy slapped the linemen on the
back and encouraged them after each scrimmage, and endeavored with
Wheeler to work the team up to desperate heights of defense. But all
seemed useless. On came the Warwick team, and now they were at the
20-yard line.
With the necessity for a close guarding of the back field territory
diminishing, the Queen's backs crept in closer and made the Warwick
players work even harder for what they earned. But even then the big
Maroon team made its distance, and, with a first down, the ball lay
just inside the 10-yard line.
Again Queen's was fighting hard to stave off a touchdown. The boys
in the stand called almost despairingly to "hold them," while
pandemonium reigned on the opposite side of the field. The Warwick
players looked smiling and confident as they settled themselves for a
scrimmage, while Queen's was tense and anxious.
"Put it over this time!" yelled Warwick. "Make it sure!"
The Warwick quarter stood up straight, looked over the backs of his
crouching forwards, sized up the positions of the defensive backs and
then gave his signal rapidly. The lines met with a crash! But there
was a mistake in signals, and the back that was to take the pass from
the quarter wasn't where he should have been. The quarter, borne off
his feet by the fierce charge of the Queen's line, cried "Down!" from
the bottom of a squirming mass. It was second down and 12 yards to
gain, which somewhat dimmed the jubilation on the Warwick side.
"They'll try a forward pass now," said Frank to one of the other
substitutes. Together they had been crawling down the side-lines on
their hands and knees, watching with intense eagerness the great
fight their comrades had been making against heavy odds. "Why doesn't
Jimmy move out a little? There he goes; he's on to it, I guess. No,
he's going back again. What are they going to try?"--for the quarter
had called his men together after giving part of the signal and was
instructing them probably in the play that was to come off. Suddenly
the team sprang back into position, crouching low with finger-tips on
the ground.
"Sixteen--sixty-two--forty," shrieked the Warwick quarter. The ball
flew straight back to Biglow, who took half a dozen steps to the
right to draw the defense in that direction. Then he stopped and shot
it far out to the left in the direction of the Warwick end, who had
edged out without apparently attracting any attention.
But while the ruse had fooled nearly every one, it had not fooled
Jimmy or his Captain. They had guessed the play and even before
Biglow had stopped, were already in motion toward the waiting Warwick
end.
The ball flew straight, but just as it was about to settle into the
arms of the Warwick end, big Wheeler made a leap into the air and
succeeded in touching the ball with the tips of his fingers. It
was enough to deflect it from its course, and Jimmy, racing behind,
was under it like a flash before it touched the ground. He tucked
it under his arm and was off down the field like lightning, while
Wheeler, his speed unchecked by the leap, tore along at his side!
As it happened, the pass had carried the ball well to the left side
of the field, and most of the players of both teams were out of the
possibility of either helping or hindering the runner. There were two
of the Warwick players besides Biglow, the back who had thrown the
ball--the left tackle and the outwitted end--who were within reaching
distance, and they went after Jimmy full tilt. Wheeler turned aside
and put the end, the most dangerous man for the moment, out of the
play by slowing up suddenly in front of him. Then he threw himself
headlong in front of Biglow, who went sprawling head first on the
ground.
This left the tackle, a boy named Robinson, the only hope of Warwick
to prevent a touchdown, for Jimmy had a clear field to the Warwick
goal.
And what a race it was! Jimmy, short and stocky, ran as if his life
depended on it. He fairly flew over the ground, but the long-legged
Robinson gained on him. The stands forgot to cheer in watching that
race. Despite Jimmy's best efforts, the tackle still gained on him.
He had crossed the center of the field and was bearing directly for
the goal posts, with every energy bent on reaching them.
Forty-five, forty, thirty-five, thirty--the lines flew by, and still
he kept ahead. At the 25-yard line Robinson was a stride behind, but
a few yards farther Jimmy felt Robinson's hand touch his shoulder, as
the tackle reached for him. The touch was like an electric shock and
Jimmy fairly leaped away, but the big tackle was not shaken off. In
two strides more he had again reached Jimmy, and he launched himself
with all his might against the Queen's half-back, gripping his legs
as he fell. Jimmy felt those steel-like fingers grappling him and
gave a last despairing effort. He twisted out of the other's hold,
spun completely around, and, staggering blindly, fell over the goal
line with the ball gripped in both hands and with knees curled, drawn
up to defend it from any attack! But there was no attack, for the two
runners had outdistanced all the rest. Queen's had scored!
What a shriek split the air over the Queen's stands! The cheer
leaders forgot their work entirely, and did nothing but jump up and
down and toss their megaphones into the air, careless whether they
landed on the ground, on their own heads or on the head of some one
else. After perhaps two minutes of this din, the leaders suddenly
remembered that they were supposed to get organized sounds out of
the spectators, and for the space of several minutes, they worked
their already tired throats to the limit of endurance in the short
cheer--"now hip! hip!"--the long cheer, and a final rousing yell for
"_Turner, Turner, Turner!_"
The Warwick crowd, unable to believe their eyes, sat dumfounded.
Every one was trying to explain to every one else just how it had
happened--Burns had failed to have one of his backs on the lookout
for just such an emergency; the pass had been too slow; the end
had been too far out. These and a dozen other excuses the Warwick
sympathizers had to offer, but meantime the scoreboard at the end
of the field showed the indisputable fact that, explanations or no
explanations, the score stood:
Queen's--5.
Warwick--0.
Wheeler made a sorry exhibition of a kick-out and sent the ball over
the head of the catcher. It hit the ground, and of course there was
no chance for a try at the goal. What should have been an easy point
for Queen's was thus lost to them.
"Come on now, fellows!" shouted the Warwick Captain. "We'll get that
touchdown in five minutes!"
"We'll get it all back again and half a dozen more, too!" said
Robinson tauntingly to Chip, as the two teams moved to their places
for the next kick-off. But before half a dozen plays had been made,
the whistle sounded to end the first quarter.
Excitement reigned in the stands during the intermission and when
the teams faced each other for the second quarter, the interest was
intense.
"Go for them, Warwick!" yelled a voice in the front row of the
Warwick stand. "Eat 'em alive!"
And the Warwick team did its best to follow this cannibalistic
advice. Taking up the former smashing game, Warwick quickly carried
the ball far down the field, but just when Queen's was beginning to
settle desperately to work, a fumble in the Warwick back field, which
was recovered by Queen's, relieved the strain and Wheeler sent the
sphere spinning back down the field.
Warwick, nothing daunted, with the same old methods, came back as
determinedly as ever. Queen's seemed unable to stop them anywhere
excepting once inside their own 10-yard line at the urgings of the
stands, when the line stood up to its work like heroes and threw the
Warwick runner back on the last down for a loss and took the ball;
and once again when an onside kick was partially blocked and the ball
recovered by Jimmy Turner.
Warwick had played so desperately hard to overcome the Queen's lead,
that they were tiring perceptibly as the minutes went on. They had
carried the ball two or three times the length of the field if all
their gains were counted, but just when distance counted most, down
by the Queen's goal, something would go wrong. Not only the Warwick
bodies but their spirits were lagging, and they were as glad as the
players of Queen's when the whistle blew to end the half. The score
had not been changed and the hopes of the Queen's followers, as well
as those of the team itself, had risen wonderfully.
The two teams trudged off rather slowly to their dressing rooms to
be sponged off and talked to and rested during the fifteen minutes
of intermission, leaving behind them a babel of talk on both sides
of the field, interrupted every now and then by a school song or a
series of cheers from one side or the other. It was all most friendly
between the halves. Queen's boys and Warwick boys tumbled down from
the stands and hobnobbed with each other. Queen's was jubilant, while
in every Warwick boy's face one could read plainly: "Wait and see
what we'll do in the second half."
The intermission passed rapidly. The appearance of the big Maroon
players was the signal for a roar from the Warwick stands, broken
into immediately by a like demonstration from Queen's when the
blue-stockinged boys trotted onto the field from the opposite end, as
spry-looking as if they had not gone through a hard half. Little time
was lost in preliminaries. The Warwick captain, who had the kick-off,
slapped his hands together and shouted confidently to his team-mates
to "follow the ball hard." Down the field the Queen's players were
scattered in defensive array, grim and defiant.
"Ready, Captain Wheeler?" cried the referee. Wheeler waved his hand
as a signal that he was.
"Ready, Captain Burns?" The stands were so quiet that Burns'
answer--"All ready, sir!"--could be plainly heard. The whistle
shrilled sharply, the ball flew in a long curve down the field,
settling in Turner's arms, who, after covering ten yards, was slammed
to the earth. The last half of that memorable battle was on.
During the intermission, the Codfish, Lewis and David had squeezed
themselves onto the sacred benches of the substitutes as near as they
could get to Frank, and the four boys, with muscles stiffening at
each crash of the lines, watched the tide of battle swing up and down
the gridiron.
Warwick played furiously at the beginning, and although, as in
the first half, they lost valuable territory by fumbles and
misplays, gradually Burns steadied his team. After a particularly
disastrous fumble, taking the ball at their own 35-yard line, Burns'
Maroon-stockinged warriors began a great advance. Four and five
yards were reeled off at every clip, and once when there was danger
of being held Burns worked a beautiful forward pass for twenty yards.
Warwick was now on Queen's 23-yard line, and their football machine
was working with deadly precision.
"Now we have them!" yelled Burns jubilantly. "Squeeze that ball,
you backs, and make it go!" The signal was snapped out, there was a
crash of meeting bodies and Burns himself, with his head down, bored
through the line like a drill until he met Wheeler and Jimmy; but
when the pile which followed was pulled apart, the ball was five
yards nearer the Queen's goal line.
"They can't hold them!" said the Codfish in a tense whisper, as the
lines prepared again for the scrimmage. "Oh, if the line would only
give our backs a little chance, we might stand them off yet! There
they go! Oh, thunder, look at that!"
This exclamation was brought forth by a pretty double pass worked
by the Warwick backs. The feint toward the Queen's left end threw
the defense off their balance, and before they recovered Hudson,
the fleet full-back of Warwick, who had been saved for just such an
opportunity as had now arrived, was off like the wind. The Queen's
end was bowled over neatly by Burns, and the way to the goal line was
clear excepting for Dixon.
Warwick had used so many straight plays into the line that the clever
and quickly worked pass came as a great surprise to every one, and
the Warwick stands, quiet for a moment, burst into a great yell as
they saw a touchdown coming, or thought they saw it, at least. Dixon
moved up to meet Hudson, crouching ready for the tackle. The boy
with the ball feinted to the inside of Chip. Dixon lunged to meet
him, but Hudson quickly side-stepped and with an extra speed slipped
outside of him and was clear. Dixon dived after him, but missed and
lay sprawling on the ground. The momentary check of Hudson gave Jimmy
a chance at the runner, however. He started across, badly bothered
by the Warwick tackle, but finally got clear and came over the field
like a whirlwind.
Hudson saw him coming, and, fearing to be intercepted, began to edge
off toward the side-line. Jimmy pressed him hard in spite of his
superior speed, and when Hudson was only five yards from the goal
line, Jimmy made a last effort and threw himself at the runner with
all his strength. The blow knocked Hudson off his feet. He half
turned in the air, struck on his shoulder and actually bounded over
the goal line. It was a magnificent attempt on Jimmy's part, but it
failed, and Warwick had crossed the Queen's line with points enough
resulting to tie the score!
It was now Warwick's turn to yell, and they did it with an energy
which far surpassed their best previous efforts. Queen's by rights
should have been silent, but they yelled almost as loudly as did
their friends in the opposite stand, for Turner's wonderful try to
get Hudson brought every one to his feet cheering.
"Five feet more," said Frank, "and Turner would have had him sure."
"Who'd have thought the old mule could run that way?" cried the
Codfish. "I'll never call him slow any more."
"You can always figure on Jimmy doing his best and a little more,"
returned Frank. "Good old Jimmy! But what's the matter with Dixon?"
This, as Dixon got up and began twisting and turning his right wrist.
"The matter is," returned the Codfish, "that Chip is getting ready
to give a good excuse for missing his tackle."
The team gathered around Chip without paying any attention to the
jubilation of the Warwick crowd, which extended even to the team
itself. Horton ran out on the field to the little knot of Queen's
players and after half a minute's examination of Chip's wrist came
back to the side-lines, while the Warwick team prepared for a
kick-out. The ball had crossed the line far over toward the side of
the field, and it was not thought possible to kick a goal if the ball
were brought straight out, because of the difficult angle.