A FORTY-YARD RUN
Mawson yielded position and head-guard unwillingly. He even sneered
a little, but Willard was far too excited to see it. He took his
position two yards away from Cochran, eyeing that youth’s dirt-streaked
countenance with speculative interest as he did so, and awaited Hutch’s
signals. Slightly behind him, Browne was breathing stertorously, a cut
at one corner of his mouth lending him a particularly ferocious look.
“Third down!” chanted the referee. “About six to gain!”
Then Willard was squirming in between Leroy and Myers, while Browne,
hugging the ball, smashed past center on the other side. The play went
for three yards. Then Hutch punted miserably, barely over the heads
of the forwards, and the ball plumped into the Lorimer quarter-back’s
arms and that youth came dodging, dashing back up the field to the
thirty-one yards. On the first play Macon was off-side and Alton lost
five yards. A complicated criss-cross sent a back plunging between
Newhall and Proctor, and Browne’s tackle missed and it was Hutch who
laid him low twelve yards behind the line. The visitor’s cohorts
cheered madly. Lorimer tried a forward to an end far to the right,
but Lake and Willard each had the man marked and the pass grounded. A
skin-tackle play off Proctor netted four yards, and, on third down,
faking a kick, the Lorimer full-back plunged straight through Nichols,
at center, for four more. Willard emerged from that pile-up with a
ringing head and was glad when time was called, even though, as it
proved, the interlude was necessitated by an injury to Browne. Willard
sat down on the ground and tried to look happy, but he was horribly
dizzy and the group around the recumbent full-back wavered before his
eyes. Eventually they took Browne off and replaced him with Linthicum,
and the game went on.
Lorimer was on her mettle now and she made it first down on Alton’s
forty-one with a smashing attack at left tackle. Finding that spot
weak, she tried it again and, although Captain Myers worked like a
Trojan to stop up the gap, an enemy back charged through for nearly
five yards. Leroy was pretty well played out after that, and Putney
took his place. Lorimer made her distance in two more downs, using
a shift to the left followed by a quarter-back plunge through the
opponent’s short side that netted the needed five yards and placed
the pigskin almost on the home team’s thirty. There, however, Alton
stiffened and, after two attempts at the line, Lorimer faked a forward
and sent a half straight through between Nichols and Newhall for seven
yards. With three to go on fourth down, and the ball on the twenty-two,
Lorimer walked back and talked it over. Then the stage was set for a
placement kick and the cheering and shouting ceased.
Followed a still, tense moment, broken only by Hutch’s imploring
“_Break through, Alton! Block it!_” and the quarter’s precise, slow
signals. Back went the ball, too high but straight enough, and the
quarter, kneeling on the turf behind the Lorimer line, caught it
deftly, lowered it quickly to earth and pointed it. Cries, warnings,
the rasping of canvas against canvas, smothered gasps, and the scene,
so orderly an instant before, broke into confusion. Alton tore through
desperately, shouldering, plunging, reaching into the path of the ball.
But the Lorimer full-back, deliberate to the point of danger, swung his
foot and the ball sailed off, barely above the charging foe, rising
slowly and turning lazily over and over on in its flight. There was
a moment of suspense and then a white-sweatered timekeeper swung his
hands above his head and Lorimer cheered wildly, triumphantly! On the
score-board an important young Alton sophomore placed a glaring white 3.
Willard followed his teammates back to midfield in silence. There
wasn’t much chatting just then, although Hutch called cheerfully enough
for a score. There was less than six minutes remaining, but that,
Willard assured himself, was enough time to win in. On the stand Alton
was cheering heartily, undismayed. Coach Cade was sending in three new
men: Johnston for Proctor at right tackle, McLeod for Macon and Moncks
for Cochran. For a moment, seeing Moncks trotting on, Willard’s heart
sank, but it was Cochran’s head-guard that the newcomer donned. Martin
had done none so badly at tackle, but the position was a strange one to
him and he had had his bad moments.
Lorimer kicked off and the battle began again. The ball went to Moncks
and Willard swung in ahead and was joined by Hutchins and the three
went sweeping diagonally across the field. Then Willard met an enemy
and both sprawled, and Linthicum darted away from the interference and
ran straight into the arms of a big Lorimer guard. The teams lined up
in the twenty-four yards close to the side-line. Hutch’s heave to Joe
Myers went short, was tipped by a Lorimer end and fell to the ground.
On the next play, Willard, ball hugged tight, swept around his own end
behind Hutch and Myers, dodged the opposing end, turned in and dodged
and twisted for eight yards before he was dragged, still fighting hard,
to earth. Linthicum tried the right of the line and lost a yard and
Moncks made it first down past tackle. A short forward over the line
landed safely in Joe Myers’ hands for nine yards and Willard added two
through left guard.
Just short of the middle of the field, with the minutes running fast,
Hutch called for Formation C and the Alton line spread widely. Lorimer
edged out in answer. Willard, crouched behind his left guard, looked
straight ahead. Hutch called his signals. Linthicum swung and ran
across the field to the left. Back shot the ball to Hutch, five yards
behind center. Lorimer charged, coming through the wide gaps in the
Alton line. Hutch stepped back while Willard crossed in front of him.
Then came a short pass and the left half, the ball snuggled in his
right elbow, shot straight into the line. Linthicum’s diversion had
drawn the Lorimer backfield from position, and Willard, having dodged
one slow-moving Lorimer forward, found an open field for several yards.
Then, however, the enemy closed about him and his race seemed run.
There was no interference to aid him, for Hutch was down, and Moncks,
having run the end out, was far behind. McLeod made a desperate effort
to get into the running, but Willard was fleeter. He side-stepped a
Lorimer half and was momentarily free, and swung toward the middle of
the field as he crossed the enemy’s forty. Behind him raced friend and
foe. He had slipped through the worst of the opposition, but ahead of
him a determined quarter awaited and from the left speeded a half. The
latter Willard scarcely feared, for he had a fair lead, but the quarter
spelled disaster. Nearer and nearer he came to the latter, a smallish,
hard-fighting youth who held his distance grimly, only moving slightly
to the right as though anticipating Willard’s intention. The Alton
stand was shouting wildly, confusedly, but Willard had no knowledge of
it. The thumping of his heart and the rasping of his breath seemed to
be the only sounds in the world!
Then the supreme instant came. Close to the thirty-yard line the
enemies met. Something had told Willard that the opponent was too
knowing, too quick and agile to be fooled by side-stepping, and so,
a few yards away, Willard shifted the ball to his stomach, clasped
both hands over it and put his head down. Straight into the quarter he
charged, with every ounce of strength thrusting his body forward. And
as he charged he twisted and spun.
Arms encompassed, his thighs and hands clutched desperately, yet he
found his stride again and went forward. Something clung for a moment
to one leg and he staggered, fell to a knee and threw his body forward.
The weight was gone and he was on his feet again! He set his straining
eyes on the goal posts and struggled forward. But now it seemed that
his feet were huge pieces of lead and his head swam dizzily. Four
strides, five, six, and again he felt the touch of fingers that groped
for a hold. Summoning his remaining strength, he moved free, head back
and lungs bursting. He was past the fifteen-yard line and the gray,
padded posts wavered in the sunlight, close at hand. But he was not to
reach them.
If Willard had run a good race, so, too, had the Lorimer right
half-back, and the latter had been but a scant five yards away when
Willard had shaken himself free of the quarter’s tackle. And so, just
short of the ten yards, the struggle ended. A last supreme effort
and the pursuer’s arms wrapped themselves around the quarry’s legs.
One short stride followed and then pursued and pursuer lay prone and
unmoving across the lime mark!
That ended Willard’s usefulness for that day, just as it ended the
usefulness of his captor, for both boys were fairly run out. But the
ball lay well inside the ten yards, and Alton’s cheers were exultant
and unceasing while the half-fainting youths were administered
to, Longstreth raced out to replace Willard and Lorimer sent in a
substitute right half. Willard saw the last three minutes of the game
from a pile of blankets at the end of the bench, saw his teammates make
three gallant attempts to conquer those last stubborn nine yards, saw,
with a sinking heart, Moncks stopped two yards from the line and hurled
back, saw Captain Myers walk determinedly back up the field to kicking
position.
Hopeless gloom shrouded the bench. Myers was no goal kicker, and all
knew it. Had there been a single, solitary player out there who knew
the least thing about that art he would never have attempted it. But
substitution had deprived the team of Cochran and Tarver and Macon, and
none of those who remained on the bench could be depended on. When all
was said and done, perhaps Hutch might have chosen more wisely had he
risked a forward-pass on that final down. Yet Hutch knew that Lorimer
would be looking for that play and knew that if it failed Alton’s last
opportunity to score would be lost. And he didn’t make the choice
unaided, for Joe Myers counseled it. Joe said afterwards that he had no
more idea of booting the ball over than he had of flying. Yet a more
effortless, more perfect drop-kick than he made would have been hard to
imagine! Straight between the uprights and well over the cross-bar it
sailed, and no one needed the corroboration of the official’s upthrown
hands to tell him that Alton had tied the score!
And a tied score it remained when the final whistle blew.
Alton showed as much delight over the drawn battle as though she had
won overwhelmingly, and Lorimer, trying hard to smile, took what
comfort she could. But if the School felt jubilant and triumphant, it
was plainly to be seen that Coach Cade did not share its emotions.
That game had clearly demonstrated the fact, long suspected, that the
Gray-and-Gold backfield was far from the scoring combination it should
be. With Lake playing left end, a position he had proved his fitness
for that afternoon, the left half-back position was left to Mawson or
Harmon. Each, while he showed much promise, was inexperienced. Cochran,
on the other side, was steady but far from brilliant. The full-back
position was the weakest spot of all. Neither Browne nor Linthicum
had the hard-fighting spirit needed. That Alton had not met defeat
was due to a flash of cleverness on the part of Harmon and not to any
dependable team-work by the backs. The coach, while he appeared to
be listening attentively enough to Joe Myers’ short-breathed remarks
as they walked together to the gymnasium, was in reality grimly
determining on a backfield shake up when Monday arrived.
“If there’d been anyone around him to put that Lorimer half-back out,”
said Joe, “he’d have made it easily.”
“Who?” Mr. Cade asked blankly.
“Why, Brand Harmon! He made a corking try, anyway!”
“Harmon? Yes, that’s so,” agreed the coach thoughtfully. “Think it was
an accident? Suppose he could do it again?”
“He’s got it in him,” answered Joe convincedly. “Give him a try, sir. I
would.”
“I think I shall,” mused the other. “He certainly deserves it.”