Gridley's Last Charge
"Remember, Captain Barnes!" called the referee significantly.
"Why don't you talk to Prescott, too?" demanded the Fordham captain
sulkily.
"I don't need to."
"You----don't---need to?" demanded Barnes, opening his eyes in
pretended wonder.
"No; Prescott and his fellows have a magnificent reputation for
fair play, and they've won it on merit."
"You're down on us," growled Captain Barnes.
"I'm only waiting till I can put my finger on some slugging to
stop the game and hand it to Gridley," retorted the referee, with
a snap.
"Be mighty careful, fellows; be clever," whispered the Fordham
captain to his most "dependable" men.
"Are we going to throw the game?" demanded the slugger who had
so angered Hudson.
"No; but don't get caught at anything. Better not do anything.
We've got those milk-diet infants eight to nothing now. Play
their own kind of kindergarten game as long as we can hold the
score without rough work."
Barnes's own instructions would have sufficiently stamped his
team, had these orders been heard by anyone else.
At the beginning of the second half Fordham played a much more
honest game, and Gridley began to pick up hope that fairness might
prevail hereafter.
Gridley's own game, in the second half, was as swift and scientific
as it had ever been. By sheer good playing and brilliant dashes
Dick and his men carried the ball down the field, losing it once
on downs; but after the first ten minutes of the half they kept
the pigskin wholly in Fordham territory.
Back and forth surged the battle. Fordham, despite its greatly
superior weight and bulk, was not by any means superior when under
the utmost watchfulness of a referee avowedly anxious to penalize.
Yet, until the game was nearly over, Fordham managed to keep the
ball away from its own goal line.
Then, while the lines reformed and Dick bent over to snap back,
Dave Darrin called out a signal that electrified the whole Gridley
line. It called for one of their most daring plays, that Prescott
himself made famous the year before.
While the start, after the ball was in play, seemed directed toward
the right wing of Gridley, the ball was actually jumped to little
Fenton, at the left end, and Fenton, backed solidly by a superb
interference, got off and away with the ball. In a twinkling
he had it down behind Fordham's goal line.
Then the ball went back for the kick. The band played a few spirited
measures while the wearied Gridley boosters suddenly rose and
whooped themselves black in the face.
The kick, too, was won.
"Oh, well." growled Barnes, "we have two points to the good yet,
and only four minutes and a half left for the game. Don't get
rough, fellows, unless you have to."
As the Gridley boys sprang to a fresh line-up their eyes were
glowing.
"Remember, fellows, the time is short, but battles have been won
in two minutes!"
This was the inspiring message flashed out by Captain Dick Prescott.
With all the zeal of race horses the Gridley High School boys
flung themselves into their work.
After a minute and a half of play, Gridley had done so much that,
just before the next snapback Barnes let his sulky eyes flash
about him in a way that was understood.
Fordham must rush in, now, and hold the enemy back, no matter
at what cost of roughness---if the roughness could be done slyly
enough.
Then it came, a fierce, frenzied charge. The ball was down again
in an instant, and Hazelton, a Gridley man, lay on the field,
unable to rise.
Physicians hurried out from the side lines.
"Broken leg," said one of them, and a stretcher was brought.
"Have we got to stand this sort of thing?" demanded Hudson, in
a hoarse whisper. "Say the word, and I'll send two of their men
after Hazelton."
"Don't you do it!" snapped Dick sharply. "It would disgrace our
school colors and our school honor. Don't let knaves make a knave
of you."
Tom Reade came out on a swift run from the side lines to take
Hazelton's place.
"We ought to be allowed to carry guns, when we play a team like
this one," blurted Tom indignantly.
"We'll pay them back in the score," retorted Dick soberly, though
his eyes were flashing.
Dave, in the meantime, was swiftly passing some orders Dick had
whispered to him. These orders, however, related to plays to
come, and did not call for retaliation on Hazelton's account.
Play was called sharply. "Pay in the score," became the battle
cry raging in every Gridley boy's heart.
Four successive plays carried the ball so close to the Fordham
goal line that Barnes and his followers were in despair.
They still used whatever rough tricks they thought they could
sneak in under the eyes of the game's officials, and some of
these made the Gridley boys ache.
Then came a signal beginning with "three" which stood for reverse
signal. The numerals that came after the three called for the
same trick that Fenton had put through so splendidly.
Again the ball started toward the right wing. This time the Fordham
players were sure they understood---and like a flash massed their
defense against Gridley's left.
But on that reverse signal the ball continued to move at the right.
Before Barnes and his followers could comprehend, another touchdown
had been scored by the visitors.
And then came the kick for goal, and it was a splendid success.
The kick came just at the end of the second half. That kick
won the game for Dick's sorely pressed team.
Gridley's score, won by a cleanly played game against bruisers,
stood at twelve to eight!
Now, indeed, did the Gridley boosters turn themselves loose, the
band leading.
Barnes and his ruffians skulked back to dressing quarters, there
to abuse the referee, the "Gridley kickers" and everyone and
everything else but themselves.
It wasn't long before some of the Fordham subs slipped out to
find their cronies and sympathizers in the crowd that was slowly
dissolving.
Then the word was passed around:
"Wait and be with us. Barnes is going to stop the Gridleys on
the way to the station. Barnes is going to make Prescott fight
for some things he said on the field! Of course, if you fellows
get generally peevish, and the whole Gridley team gets cleaned
out, there won't be many tears shed."
So scores of the sort of rabble in whom such an appeal finds
ready response hung about, eager to see what would turn up.