THE LAST QUARTER
Phillipsburg began that final period with all the confidence born of
having held her enemy scoreless through thirty-six minutes of play. She
had replaced many of her first-string men, but her captain was still in
and so was the quarter-back who had started. On the Parkinson stand the
audience was on its feet, imploring a touchdown.
Dick had been through some trying moments during his brief football
career at Leonardville, but he had never felt quite so conspicuous,
never so uncertain of himself, as when he trotted out and joined the
group of brown-jerseyed players by the thirty-yard line. His heart was
beating like a sledge-hammer and his palms were moist and there was a
funny prickling sensation in his legs. Diffidence had seldom troubled
him before, and he felt doubly awkward now for that reason. But there
wasn’t much time for thought of his feelings, for he had hardly
joined his team-mates when the whistle blew the end of the minute
intermission.
Dick looked over his companions in the back-field and wished that he
knew more of them. Trask, in Kirkendall’s position, was much the same
sort of fellow in appearance as K. But he was lighter, and a good two
years younger, Dick thought. Curtis was a good man and so was Skinner,
but of the two Curtis’s style of play was better known to Dick. Gleason
had been made acting captain, and it was the substitute guard who bent
behind centre to whisper into the quarter’s ear.
“We’ve got to get Skinner loose, Bates,” said Gleason. “He’s the boy if
he can get away.”
“All right. Let’s start something, Parkinson! Signals!”
When the ball came back from between Dean’s wide-spread legs, Dick
whirled and tossed it to Skinner, and Skinner, rather heavily built but
quick at starting and hard to stop, went hurtling into the opposing
left guard and, with half the Parkinson team behind him, smashed his
way through for six yards. Then came every indication of a forward,
with the left end edging out and showing nervous impatience and Dick
dropping back eight yards behind centre and the half-backs watching
the opposing ends. Back shot the ball to Dick, he made a pretence of
throwing it to the left and turned his back to the line. Around swept
Findley, the right end, and to him went the pigskin at a short, quick
pass. The halfs fell into stride beside him and Dick sprang away to
guard the rear. Four strides, six, and a sharp cry of “In! In!” The
end dug a heel in the trampled sod and swung to the right. Straight
toward the confusion of swaying bodies that had formed the two lines a
moment before, he raced. Yet there was some method in the confusion,
for Parkinson’s right end and one half had been drawn across the field
on the false alarm and her tackle had been forced in. Back of the
enemy line the secondary defence was rushing to the support of the
forwards, but the interference cleaned the hole nicely and Findley shot
through, dodged a tackle and was off at a tangent, finding holes where
there seemed none, racing diagonally toward the right side-line. The
interference was gone now and he was on his own, but only the Parkinson
quarter remained between him and the distant goal. Free of the mêlée,
he swung down the field at the forty-yard line, a scant dozen feet from
the boundary.
Behind him came the pursuit, but Findley was fleet of foot and only the
Phillipsburg quarter, coming fast yet cautiously down on him, caused
him concern. The middle of the field was past now and he had gained
another yard or two of elbow-room and the pursuers had not gained.
Then came the supreme instant. The Phillipsburg quarter sprang with
outstretched arms and Findley gave, turning and twisting, across two
yards of the precious territory at his right. The quarter’s clutching
fingers grasped, held for an instant, and Findley went staggering to
one knee. Then he was up again, the quarter was rolling over on his
back, legs ludicrously in air, and a great shriek of triumph came
across from the Parkinson stand. Findley was safe and bearing in toward
the still distant goal, while, behind him, friend and foe pounded in
pursuit.
Dick had followed Findley through the line, had defeated one eager
tackler and had gone sprawling onto the turf. But he had been on his
feet again an instant later and, skirting the struggling mass, had
kept straight ahead down the field. He knew that he could not hope to
reach Findley in time to aid him against the quarter-back. His only
chance of helping lay in being well down the field in case the runner
got past the enemy quarter. None sought to stop him, for the play had
followed the ball, and, while in the ruck of the pursuit friend and
enemy went down and were strewn behind, Dick had had the centre of the
gridiron to himself, with Findley speeding along well ahead and to the
right and the quarter-back cutting across to him. Then had come the
runner’s clever escape and now he and Dick were converging on the goal,
the latter gaining a little as the white lines went slowly underfoot.
Never was the foremost pursuer very far behind, but always, barring an
accident, Findley seemed to have sufficient margin to win by. Yet, as
the thirty-yard line was left behind, one Phillipsburg player became
momentarily more dangerous. He had managed to avoid the Parkinson
interferers and had worked himself well into the lead. He was tall and
slight and a runner of no mean ability, and Dick, turning his head
for a quick glance, read the menace. Findley was tiring slightly and
running more slowly, head back, as Dick, edging further to the right,
brought himself nearer to the path of the pursuit.
Followed an anxious moment. Findley crossed the fifteen yards with
Dick a scant six feet behind and the Phillipsburg man gaining on the
runner at every stride. But to reach Findley the enemy would have to
slip around Dick or topple him aside, and Dick knew it. The rest of the
pursuers, strung back half the length of the field, were no longer to
be reckoned with. There was a thumping of swift feet at Dick’s side
and he looked around into the set, intent face of the Phillipsburg
player. The latter meant to swing past Dick and then, with a final
burst of speed, bring Findley to earth before the goal-line was
reached. But Dick had other views. Slowing imperceptibly, he let the
enemy run even, as he did so catching a questioning look from a pair
of wide, straining eyes. Then he swung quickly to the right, shoulders
hunched, and went sprawling over and over on the ground. And with him
went the enemy. And staggering, almost falling, Findley, the pigskin
clutched tightly now to his stomach, crossed the last white line and
sank gratefully to the turf.
Somewhere, a great distance away as it seemed to him, there was a
subdued roar that sounded like “_Findley! Findley! Findley!_”
Minutes later a nervous, anxious youth by name of Trask directed the
pointing of a ball in the none too steady fingers of Dick, the latter
lying on hip and elbow close to the twenty-yard line. So much depended
on that goal that Trask had at first mutinously refused to attempt it
and had only consented when convinced that no one else on the team
dared even try. Trask was very deliberate and many times Dick’s hands
moved this way or that in obedience. Behind Trask the referee knelt
on one knee with upraised hand. Then, when Dick thought that in just
one more second he would have to yell, there came a firm, quiet “Down!”
from Trask, the referee’s hand dropped swiftly earthward, a brown
object swung past Dick’s eyes and the ball was gone. Still poised on
hip and elbow, Dick’s eyes followed the revolving oval. Very slowly
it mounted upward, seemed to wobble uncertainly against the blue sky,
veered erratically to the right as though making straight for a post
and then began to fall. Dick’s heart sank like a leaden weight. Trask
had kicked too short! Then the ball suddenly went upward again as
though struck from beneath and a din of cheers and shouts broke the
long minutes of silence.
“Struck the bar and went over!” someone shouted and Dick’s heart leaped
upward again as swiftly as the ball had bounded from the cross-bar.
The Phillipsburg players ended their leaping charge and with downcast
faces walked past as Dick jumped to his feet. Someone thumped him
tremendously on the back and almost sent him sprawling to earth again,
and Trask’s voice howled hoarsely: “Got to hold ’em now, Bates! Got to
hold ’em, old man! It’s our game if we can hold ’em!”
“We’re going to!” answered Dick with a world of confidence in his
voice. “We’re going to hold ’em, Trask! It’s our day! Come on!”
And hold them they did, although there were moments during the
remaining nine or ten minutes when things looked dark indeed for the
visitors. Phillipsburg hustled in new players and went back at the
enemy tooth and nail. A bewildering variety of single and double and
even triple passes were essayed. Some succeeded, most failed, but all
were puzzling and unnerving to a team of third- and even fourth-string
players, and that Parkinson managed to stave off defeat in that final
quarter was scarcely less than a miracle. End runs got away and yet
were stopped short of disaster, and always Dick clung to the ball to
the last desperate moment before yielding it by a punt. Parkinson
didn’t make the mistake of playing only for safety, for a purely
defensive game kept up for a length of time takes the heart out of the
defenders. When Parkinson got the ball she attacked as hard as ever,
and some of the substitutes won real laurels that afternoon. But at
last the end came, after Phillipsburg had thrice won her way inside her
opponent’s thirty yards and had once got to her fourteen, and eleven
joyous, tired, breathless youths fell against each other and babbled
incoherent congratulations.
An hour later players and rooters mingled happily on the home-bound
train and in a corner of one car Dick and Stanley and Blash and Rusty
crowded themselves in and over and around one seat designed for two
persons and made merry. Dick’s merriment was less strenuous than that
of the others, for that brief session had left him rather limp and
tired. It had also, it appeared, left him somewhat of a hero to his
friends, for Blash declared that only Dick’s interference had won the
game.
“Findley’s run was a corker,” said Blash, “and he ought to have the
Victoria Cross for it, but it wouldn’t have scored if you hadn’t been
Johnny-on-the-Spot, Dick. Why, Lovering would have had Findley as sure
as shooting! Of course, we might have smashed it over from the ten
yards, and then again we might not have. I think we might not have.
What saved the bacon for us was you bowling Lovering over, and don’t
you forget it! The Victoria Cross for Findley and the Distinguished
Service Cross for you. I’ll order them at once.”
“The gentleman is quite correct,” said Rusty, “although it isn’t a
usual condition with him. And, look here, fellows, while we’re pinning
bouquets on, why not say a couple of kind words for the whole bloomin’
team that held those Phillipsburg guys innocuous--I believe that’s the
word, Stan?--innocuous all through the last dreadful quarter? I ask you
why not, and again I ask you----”
“Moved and carried,” droned Blash, “that the hearty thanks of the
meeting be extended to the team. So ordered. There being no other
business before the meeting, a motion to adjourn will----”
“Move you, Mr. Chairman, that Stan be appointed a committee of one to
find the train-boy and buy much sweet chocolate. All in favour----”
“What with?” demanded Stanley sarcastically. “Seven cents? You borrowed
every red I’d borrowed from Dick, Rusty. What did you do with it?”
Rusty grinned, gulped and broke into chuckles. “I spent it, dear one,”
he giggled. “And ’twas well-spent, believe thouest me! Listen and I’ll
tell you--Hold on, though! Who buys the chocolate? Honest, I’m far too
faint to narrate this moving tale. Have a heart, Blash!”
“I’m busted, son. Honest!”
Dick produced a few silver coins and some pennies. “I’ll be the goat,”
he said, “but someone else must do the buying. I wouldn’t stir from
here for a thousand dollars; even if I could, which I can’t with Stan
sitting on my shoulder.”
“Give me the pelf,” volunteered Stanley, with a sigh. “Which way do I
go?”
“Forward,” advised Rusty. “I saw him going through ten minutes ago.
Better hurry, too, for he didn’t appear to be overstocked.”
Stanley went wearily away along the crowded aisle and Blash reminded
Rusty of the tale. “Go on,” he said, “and let’s hear your criminal
adventures.”
“Wait till Stan comes back. Don’t I tell you I’m faint from want of
food? Besides, Stan’s going to enjoy this yarn. Jumping Jehosophat,
I wish we were home and I was eating my supper! Isn’t anyone else
starved?”
“We all are,” said Blash, “only we don’t--don’t wear our stomachs on
our sleeves!”
Dick laughed and Rusty shook his head wonderingly. “The kid is clever,”
he murmured. “Ah, here he comes! Empty-handed, by jiminy! No, he bears
succor! A-a-y, Gard! Sweet youth, I bid you welcome! Where’s mine?
_Wha-a-at?_ Only three cakes for all that money I supplied you with?
What do you know--Oh, well, I’ll try to worry along on this. Folks,
that tastes good! Now then, lend me your ears and everything and
I’ll narrate to you the story of The Careful Spender and the Helpful
Friend.”