Chapter 7

IN THE LAST QUARTER

As Dale scrambled to his feet and sought his place again, his face was flaming. He had a feeling that he must be partly to blame for the failure. Perhaps he had been a bit too quick in his forward lunge. As he crouched in the line, head low and shoulders bent, his hands clenched themselves tightly. It mustn't happen again, he told himself.

But swiftly it was borne upon him that the blame did not lie on his shoulders. A try around right end brought them barely a yard. Something had gone wrong there, too. He could not tell just what it was, but it seemed as if Slater and Torrance had failed somehow to back up Ted MacIlvaine as they should have done. The tackle's teeth grated, and a flood of impotent anger surged over him. They were playing as they had played in practice, each fellow for himself, without even an effort to get together and tighten up.

With the inevitable kick which gave the ball to Troop One, this fact became even more apparent. Solid and compact, the blue line swept down the field with a machine-like rush that carried everything before it. They seemed to find holes everywhere in the opposing line, and only the handicap of a high wind and the brilliant work of three or four individuals kept them from scoring in the first quarter.

That such a calamity could be long prevented seemed impossible to Dale. He greeted the intermission with a sigh of thankfulness. Brief as it was, it was a respite. Sherman's bitter, stinging onslaught on the team passed almost unheeded by the anxious tackle. He was thinking of the three remaining quarters with a foreboding that made him oblivious to all else.

To be sure, when play was resumed, the fellows seemed to show a slightly better spirit. It was as if the first dim realization of their errors was being forced upon them. But they had been split apart so long that they seemed to have forgotten how to work together in that close-knit, united manner which alone could make any head against these particular opponents. Time and time again they were driven back to the very shadow of their goal-posts, where, stung by shame or the lashing tongue of their captain, they rallied long enough to hurl back the attack a little, only to lapse again when the pressing, vital need was past.

Then, toward the very end of that second quarter, when Tompkins was just beginning to hope again, the thing he had dreaded came suddenly and unexpectedly. Some one blundered, whether Slater, or Torrance, or Ted MacIlvaine, the boy did not know. With a last swift rush the blue-clad interference charged at the right wing, through it, over it, and, hurling aside all opposition, swept resistlessly over the last six yards for a touchdown. They missed the goal by a hair, but that did not lessen the sense of shock and sharp dismay which quivered through the line of their opponents.

Dale Tompkins took his place after the long intermission, a dull, bitter, impotent anger consuming him. He was furious with the fellows who by their incredible stupidity were practically throwing away the game. He even hated himself for seeming to accomplish so little; but most of all he raged at the blond chap next to him. Some of the others were at least trying to get together, though their lack of practice made the effort almost negligible. But Ranny Phelps remained as coldly aloof, as markedly determined to withhold support and play his game alone as he had been in the beginning.

It made a hole in the line which could not escape the attention of the opposing quarter-back. Already he had sent his formation through it more than once, but now he seemed to concentrate the attack on that weak spot. Time and time again Dale flung himself to meet the rush, only to be overwhelmed and hurled back by sheer numbers. Sometimes Sanson pulled him out of the scrimmage, more often he scrambled up unaided to find his place, sweat-blinded and with breath coming in gasps, and brace himself for the next onset.

Silently, doggedly, he took his punishment, and presently, under the strain, he began to lose track of the broader features of the game. Vaguely he realized that they had been forced back again and again almost against their own goal-posts, and there had rallied, tearing formations to shreds and hurling back the enemy with the strength of despair. Dimly he heard the voice of Ward, or Court Parker's shriller notes, urging them in sharp, broken phrases to get together. But the real, the dominating thing was that forward plunge, the tensing of muscles, the crash of meeting bodies, the heaving, straining struggle, the slow, heartrending process of being crushed back by overwhelming weight--that and the sense of emptiness upon his left.

Then came a time when things went black for an instant before his eyes. He did not quite lose consciousness, for he knew when the weight above was lifted and two arms slid around him, dragging him to his feet. It was Sanson, he thought hazily--good old Frank! Then he turned his head a little and through the wavering mists looked straight into the eyes of Ranny Phelps!

Wide, dilated, almost black with strain and excitement, they stared at him from out the grimy face with a strange mingling of shame and admiration that sent a thrill through the tenderfoot and made him pull himself together.

"Take it easy," came in gruff, unnatural accents. "You want to get your wind--old fellow."

"I--I'm all right," muttered the tenderfoot.

He passed one hand vaguely across his forehead. Some one brought a tin dipper, from which he rinsed his mouth mechanically. His head was clearing, but he couldn't seem to understand whether the transformation in the chap beside him was real or only a creation of his bewildered brain. But when he took his place again and dropped his shoulders instinctively, another shoulder pressed against him on the left, and that same hoarse, unfamiliar voice sounded in his ears:

"Together now, kid; we'll stop 'em this time!"

The words seemed to give Dale a new strength. Stirred to the very fiber of his being, he dived forward to meet the onward rush. Still with that new, stimulating sense of support where none had been before, his outstretched hands gripped like tentacles around sturdy legs. There was a heaving, churning motion; then the compact mass of players toppled over, and he knew that they had succeeded.

Nor was it a solitary advantage. Unobserved by Tompkins, the whole line had been slowly stiffening. Slowly, gradually, the other holes had been closed up and the advance checked. When the kick put the ball in their possession, a new spirit animated Troop Five. Scattered no longer, but welded by stern necessity into a single unit, they forgot their handicap, forgot that the minutes of the final quarter were speeding in mad flight, forgot everything but the vital need of breaking through that line of blue and carrying the fight toward those distant goal-posts that loomed so far away.

Forming up swiftly, they swept forward for a gain of eight yards. Before the opposition recovered from their surprise, they had passed the fifty-yard line.

Here the blues rallied, and for a space the two lines surged back and forth in the middle of the field. It was a period of small gains and frequent punts, when neither side held the ball long, nor the advantage. Thrilled by their success, exhilarated by that strange new sense of comradeship with the boy beside him, Dale fought fiercely, heedless of the shock of bodies, of pain, of weariness, of blinding sweat, or hard-won breath. His only worry was a growing fear that they would not have time to score, and this had only just begun to dominate him when the unexpected happened.

They were battling on the enemy's forty-yard line. It was Troop One's ball, and they had tried to force a gain through center. Shoulder to shoulder, Ranny and Dale plunged forward to meet the rush. The advance checked, Tompkins gained his feet swiftly and thrilled to see the precious ball rolling free not a dozen feet away.

With a gasp he lunged for it and scooped it up without slackening speed. At almost the same instant Ranny Phelps shot out of the scrimmage as if propelled from a catapult, and a moment later the two were thudding down the field, a stream of players trailing in their wake.

Dale caught his breath with the stinging realization that their chance had come--their only chance! There were but two men between them and the coveted goal, the full-back, and nearer, another player bearing swiftly down on them, who must instantly be reckoned with. That would be Ranny's task. He must stop the fellow, while Dale took his chance alone with the other.

Dale glanced sideways at his companion, and his heart leaped into his throat. Phelps was limping; something had happened to him in that last scrimmage. His face showed white even through the grime and tan; his under lip was flecked with crimson.

"Ranny!" gasped Dale, in a panic. "What-- Can you--"

"Don't--worry--about--me," came indistinctly through the other's clenched teeth. "I'll--block--this fellow--somehow. You get the other--you've got to!"

Taking a fresh grip on the ball, Dale spurted on. He was aware that Ranny had sheered off a little to the right, and knew that he meant to stop the boy racing up from that direction. But actually he saw nothing, and even the crash of meeting bodies came to him as something far away and unimportant. His clearing brain was fixed on the looming figure ahead, the full-back, who alone stood between him and victory.

He must be passed--but how? A thought of hurdling flashed into his mind, to be dismissed as too hazardous. There was only one way left. Without slackening speed, he tore on, his heart thumping like a trip-hammer. To the breathless onlookers it seemed as if he meant actually to run down the opposing player. Then, in a flash, when he was almost within reach of the hooking arms, he swerved suddenly to one side, whirled, darted the other way, eluded the other's frantic clutch by the merest hair, and with a sob of joy ran on, free, the ball still cupped in the curve of his arm.