9-6
Nordham had made three changes, one in her line and two in her
back-field. With only twelve minutes left to play she was hoping to
stave off a Yardley score and when, on the second play, Brinspool
dropped the ball and she recovered it on her forty-yard line, she
kicked on first down and sent the pigskin twenty yards into the Blue’s
territory. Undismayed, Yardley took up the journey again. Nordham
put all her skill into defensive playing, and twice Yardley made
her distance on the third down only by inches. Then the middle line
was crossed. Crandall swung far around right end for a seven-yard
gain, and Brinspool banged his way through right guard for two more.
Plant was drawn back and made four yards off left tackle. Then Simms
concentrated the attack on the left of the Nordham line and found a
weak place at guard. But the Red’s secondary defense played fiercely
and stopped the runners almost as soon as they were through. Brinspool
had found his pace, however, and went through time and again for
two- and three-yard gains. Twice play was stopped while the distance was
measured, but each time the Blue had an inch or two to spare. Then the
thirty-yard line was reached and Kendall, who all this time had never
once been given the ball and had done no more than interfere for the
runner, observed Simms anxiously. But that youth was not ready to try
a field-goal yet. Plant and Brinspool hammered the left guard and slid
off the left tackle, Crandall made a slight gain on an end run, and the
twenty-yard line was under foot. But then Nordham, desperate, made a
stand. Crandall sliced through between right guard and tackle for two
yards and Brinspool made four straight through center. But with four to
go on the third down the prospect didn’t look encouraging. Merriwell
whispered to Simms and Simms nodded.
“Kick formation! Burtis back! Hold that line, fellows!”
Kendall trotted back to the thirty yards and the defense for the kicker
grouped in front. Whether he could catch the pass Kendall didn’t know.
That splinted hand seemed terribly awkward to him. But when the ball
came back, breast high, his hands closed upon it automatically, and he
stepped forward, dropped it, swung and sent it high and straight over
the bar!
A burst of cheering swept across the field, and Crandall was patting
him on the back. “One more like that, Kendall, and we’ll have ’em
tied!” he shouted.
Seven minutes remained as Nordham brought out the ball and lined up
for a scrimmage. Two tries netted her six yards, and then again she
punted. This time the ball went out at the fifty-five-yard line, and
there was no chance to run it back. Yardley started again toward the
Red’s goal with an end run by Simms that tore off twelve yards. Then
Crandall, taking the ball on a delayed pass, swung around the left
end of the Red’s line and secured nearly fifteen yards before he was
brought down from behind. In the tackle his knee was badly wrenched
and, although he got into the next play, his usefulness for that
day was at an end and Greene took his place. Payson also seized the
opportunity to relieve Girard and Captain Merriwell, Best and McKesson
going in. Plant plowed through for four and Greene made three. Kendall,
by this time forgetting his injured hand, was in every play, and it
was after Brinspool had staggered around right tackle for enough to
make the distance, with Kendall putting out the opposing end, that the
latter had cause to remember that left wrist. Brinspool, following him
closely, lurched against him as he staggered by, and the full weight
of the big fellow came against that injured arm. For an instant Kendall
wanted to crumple up on the soggy turf and forget everything. But he
didn’t, and the pain soon passed.
A fumble by Greene on the next play set them back five yards, Kendall
falling on the ball in a puddle just ahead of a frantic Nordham tackle.
Brinspool failed to gain at center, Plant got four yards through the
right side, and, with six to gain, Kendall punted. By this time the
ball was soaked through to the rubber and was pretty “dead,” and the
punt carried only thirty yards. The result was that the Nordham quarter
had to run forward for it, and just as he reached it the treacherous
ground took a hand in affairs. The pigskin went through his arms as
he recovered his stride, bounded along the wet turf, throwing a spray
behind it, and then rolled toward the side-line. Adler, who had been
put out of the running by a Nordham back, had got to his feet again
and was coming down fast. The other Yardley end, Cousins, had overrun.
Adler, without easing his pace, swung sharply toward the right,
slipped, recovered himself and dived a good ten feet for the ball just
as a Nordham half-back raced by. The two came together and the water
spouted as they rolled in the mud. But Adler had the ball, and it was
down on Nordham’s twenty-eight yards, and the Yardley supporters, who
had by this time abandoned the stand and were clustered deep along the
rope, set up a triumphant frenzied shout.
“Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!” they clamored.
Holmes raced on with waving hand. “Quarter, sir!” he called. “You’re
off, Simms!”
“Oh, get out of here!” snapped Simms.
“Payson’s orders,” answered Holmes.
“You’re delaying the game, Yardley,” came the warning. Simms looked at
Holmes indecisively. Then his head went down and he walked away.
“Now then, fellows,” called Holmes. “Get into it! You’re not playing!
Brace up, Stark, brace up! Let’s put this over in six plays, fellows!”
Brinspool got a yard and a half through center and Greene followed with
four yards past left tackle. Holmes darted through right guard for the
distance, squirming and fighting.
“First down!” The referee waved his arm to the linesmen.
“Line up quick!” roared Holmes. “Over with it! Let’s try their left,
fellows!”
And Holmes actually sent Greene against the left wing, but gained less
than a yard. Brinspool tried the other side and got past for four.
“Kick formation! Burtis back! Hold hard now!”
But the ball went to Holmes and he passed to Brinspool, and the big
full-back charged into the line like a steam engine and went through
with half the Nordham team hanging about him. There was an anxious
moment while the ball was hunted, but when it came to light it lay a
good two feet beyond the tenth yard. Only nine yards away was the goal
line. Across the trampled field the Yardley supporters were shouting
incessantly. Holmes raised an imploring hand and comparative quiet
fell. The Nordham captain was begging and scolding up and down his line:
“Now stop ’em, men! Don’t give ’em another foot! Throw ’em back! Into
it hard and _watch the ball_!”
Holmes barked his signals. Kendall dashed at the guard-tackle hole on
the left, Brinspool followed him, Greene darted across, took the ball
at a hand-pass and, followed by Holmes, squirmed between guard and
tackle on the other side for two yards. Seven yards to go!
“Kick formation! Burtis back! Now hold them, fellows!”
“_Block this kick!_” shouted the Nordham captain.
Holmes shouted his signals.
“Fake!” yelled the Red’s captain. “Watch it! Watch it!”
And a fake it was, the pigskin going to Plant, who had dropped back
of the line. The tackle swung to the left and darted at the opposite
tackle. But Nordham was there, and he went down as though he had run
against a wall.
“Get up! Get up!”
“That’s the way to hold ’em! We’ve got ’em now! They don’t dare to
kick!”
“Third down! Six to go!”
“Line up, fellows! You’ve got to put it over! Get down there, Best!
Kick formation! Burtis――――”
But Holmes paused, for Kendall was whispering to him.
“A field goal will only tie it, Holmes,” said Kendall eagerly. “They’re
looking for a kick. Let me try a run around the left end. Their ends
are away in. I can do it! Fake a kick, Holmes, and let me try it!”
For an instant Holmes hesitated. Then, with a flash in his eyes, “All
right! But I’ll get the dickens if we lose the ball, Burtis. You’ve got
to make it go, remember!”
“I will,” answered Kendall grimly.
“Kick formation! Burtis back! Do your best, fellows! Remember last
year!” Then came the signals and Kendall saw the sudden look of
surprise in Greene’s face as he shifted a few inches nearer the play.
Cousins edged out a step, the opposing end eyeing him doubtfully. Then
Best shot the ball back and Kendall, standing near the twenty-yard
line, caught it. Snuggling it close in his injured elbow, he darted
to the left. Then the field was in movement, the two teams racing
between him and the goal. Luckily the Yardley line had held firmly, and
in the second between his catching of the ball and the discovery of
the play by the opponents Kendall had gained three good strides. The
interference formed a moving wall between him and the pursuit as he
pounded across the slippery turf. The only thing he feared was to miss
his footing.
“In! In!” shrieked Holmes, sending a Nordham man sprawling, and
Kendall, swinging to the right, made for the goal-line. A red-sleeved
figure sprang in front of him, and Kendall’s right arm went out, there
was a shock and the red sleeves slipped from view. One more white line
passed under his feet. The air was filled with shouts. One of his own
men stumbled into his path and went down. Kendall sprang over him,
slipped, found his stride again, and looked into the wild, wide eyes of
the Nordham quarter. Out went the straight arm again, but the quarter
darted aside and sprang. His hands clutched at Kendall’s hips as the
latter pivoted. The quarter’s hands slid from the slippery, rain-soaked
canvas and closed like a vise about one leg. Kendall, gasping for
breath, struggled on, that dead weight sliding behind him. He had lost
all sense of location and had no idea how near to the goal-line he
was. His only thought was to go on and on, somehow, as long as they
would let him. Then a long red arm shot across his chest, a body banged
against him, and he fell to one knee, clutching the ball desperately
with both hands. He struggled to rise again, felt himself being pulled
backward, resisted to the limit of his strength, and finally squirmed
forward, burying his face in the cold, wet grass just as the whistle
shrilled.
Someone pulled him over onto his back and wrested the ball away from
him. For a moment, with closed eyes, he fought for breath. Then,
conscious of a numbing pain in one arm and of a sound that beat upon
his ears like breakers on a beach, he opened his eyes. The first thing
he saw was a shock of red hair, then something brown and dripping, and,
when the sponge was gone, leaving him gasping and half-blinded, a
white-painted post so near that he could have stretched out his arm and
touched it. Slowly his gaze traveled up the post until it found a bar
set at right angles with it. He smiled satisfiedly. “It’s――over, isn’t
it?” he asked weakly.
“A yard over,” answered Andy’s voice. “And now you’ll come off.”
“No, I must kick the goal,” Kendall demurred.
“Here, boys, get him out of this,” was Andy’s reply, and Kendall found
himself being lifted to his feet.
“All right,” he muttered. “I can walk. Let me go, you fellows.”
But when they let him go he staggered and reeled and Andy had to hold
him up. After that he went off to the bench quite docilely between two
substitutes, regarding the faces that forever got in his way, faces
with blazing eyes and wide-open mouths, through a haze of perplexity.
Somehow, there was a great deal of noise going on!
Presently, blanketed, his arm once more in a sling, he was leaning back
against the stand, quite satisfied with the world. From where he sat,
quite alone save for Andy, he could see only the backs of the crowd, a
crowd gone suddenly silent. He knew then that someone, probably Fales,
was preparing to try a goal, and would have got up and gone to see had
not Andy pushed him gently back into his seat.
“Be easy, can’t you?” he grumbled. “How do you think that wrist is
going to get well if you don’t take care of it? If I’d had my way you’d
never gone back there to-day. It’s a wonder you didn’t snap it out
again.”
“All right, Andy,” replied Kendall happily. “I just wanted to see if
we’d get the goal.”
“No matter if we do or we don’t,” said Andy, snapping his bag shut. “We
beat ’em anyway, don’t we?”
“Yes, but――but what _is_ the score?”
“Nine to six, and that’s good enough. How do you feel?”
“Oh, I’m all right, feeling fine. Nine to――――”
“No goal!” someone cried, and “No goal!” ran the verdict as the throng
broke up to follow the ball back to the center of the field.
“Who kicked?” asked Kendall, as Jensen, substitute tackle, came by
trailing his blanket in the mud.
“Fales. Missed it by only a foot, I guess. That was a great run,
Burtis.”
“Can you walk all right?” asked Andy. Kendall got to his feet and tried
it, finding that the dizziness was gone. “Then go on up before the
crowd starts,” directed the trainer. “Get your duds off and take a hot
tub. I’ll look after you when I come up.”
“Couldn’t I see the rest of the game?” begged Kendall.
“You could not,” answered Andy shortly. “Do as I tell you to do for
once. First thing you know them howling hyenas will be wanting to lug
you around on their shoulders and you’ll get hurt again. Off with you
now. Go slow, but keep going!”
“All right. Will you find my sweater for me?”
“I will. Get out!”
So Kendall, feeling rather as though he had had a skyscraper fall on
him and had been kicked by a mule, trudged out and up the path to
the gymnasium, the clamor of shouts and cheers and the piping of the
whistle lessening as he went. Halfway to the gymnasium, warned by a
sudden burst of triumphant cheering, he turned and looked back. They
were diving under the ropes and flooding onto the field. The game was
over. Kendall, smiling blissfully, hurried on.