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CHAPTER XXIII.
HARWELL VS. YATES–THE FIRST HALF

That game will live in history.

It was a battle royal between giant foes. On one hand was the confidence begat of fifteen years of almost continuous victory over the crimson; on the other the desperation that such defeat brings. Yates had a proud record to sustain, Harwell a decade of worsting to atone for. And twenty-five thousand persons watched and hoped and feared as the battle raged.

Down settled the soaring ball into the arms of Kingdon, who tucked it under his arm and started with it toward the distant goal. But eight yards was all he found ere a Yates forward crashed down upon him. Then came a quick line-up on Harwell's forty yards, and first Prince, then Kingdon, then Blair was put through the line, each for a small gain, and the Harwell benches shouted their triumph. Again the pigskin was given to Prince for a try through the hole between tackle and guard, but this time he was hurled back for a loss. The next try was Kingdon's, and he made a yard around the Yates left end. It was the third down and five yards were lacking. Back went the ball for a kick, and a moment later it was Yates's on her thirty-five yards, and again the teams were lining up. It was now the turn of the east stand to cheer, and mightily the shout rolled across the field.

Through came the Yates full, the ball safely stowed in the crook of his elbow, the whole force of the backs shoving him on. Three yards was his. Another line-up. Again the Yates full-back was given the ball, and again he gained. And it was the first down on Yates's forty-five-yard line. Then began a rout in which Harwell retreated and Yates pursued until the leather had crossed the middle of the field. The gains were made anywhere, everywhere, it seemed. Allardyce yielded time and again, and Selkirk beside him, lacking the other's support, was thrust aside almost at will. The Yates shouters were wild with joy, and the cheers of Harwell were drowned beneath the greater outbursts from the supporters of the blue.

Harwell appeared to be outclassed, so far as her rush line was concerned. Past the fifty-yard line went the ball, and between it and the next white streak, Harwell at last made a desperate stand, and secured the ball. At the first play it was sent speeding away from Blair's toe to the Yates mid-field, a long, clean, high kick, that led the forwards down under it in time to throw the waiting back ere he had taken a step, and that brought shouts of almost tearful delight from the Harwell sympathizers. Back to her line-bucking returned Yates, and slowly, but very surely, the contest moved over the lost ground, back toward the Harwell goal. The fifty-five-yard line was passed again, the fifty, the forty-five, and here or there holes were being torn in the Harwell line, and the crimson was going down before the blue. At her forty-yard line Harwell stayed again for a while the onslaught of the enemy, and tried thrice to make ground through the Yates line. Then back to the hands of Wilkes went the oval and again the heart-breaking rout began.

"Harwell vs Yates–The First Half"

Harwell made her last desperate rally on her twenty-five yards. The ball was thrown to Blair, who kicked, but not soon enough to get it out of the way of the opposing forwards, who broke through as the ball rose. It struck against the upstretched hand of the Yates right guard and bounded toward the crimson's goal. The Yates left half fell upon it. From there, without forfeiting the ball, Yates crashed down to the goal line, and hurled Elton, her crack full-back, through at last for a touch-down.

For five minutes chaos reigned upon the east stand. All previous efforts paled into nothingness beside the outbursts of cheers that followed each other like claps of thunder up and down the long bank of fluttering color. Upon the other side of the field no rival shouts were heard. It was useless to try and drown that Niagara of sound. But here and there crimson flags waved defiantly at the triumphant blue.

The goal was an easy one, though it is probable that it would have been made had it been five times more difficult; for Elton was the acknowledged goal kicker par excellence of the year. Then back trotted the teams, and as the Harwell Eleven lined up for the kick-off Allardyce at left guard gave place to Murdoch. The big fellow had given out and had limped white-faced and choking from the field.

The whistle sounded and the ball rose into air, corkscrewing toward the Yates goal. Down the field under it went the Harwell runners like bolts from a bow, and the Yates half who secured the pigskin was downed where he caught. The two teams lined up quickly. Then back, foot by foot, yard by yard, went the struggling Harwell men. Yet the retreat was less like a rout than before, and Yates was having harder work. Her players were twice piled up against the Harwell center, and she was at last forced to send a blue-clad youth around the left end, an experiment which netted her twelve yards and which brought the east stand to its feet, yelling like mad.

But here the crimson line at length braced and the ball went to its center on three downs, and the tide turned for a while. The backs and the right end were hurled, one after another, at the opposing line, and shouts of joy arose from the crimson seats as gain after gain resulted. Thrice in quick succession Captain Dutton shot through the left end of the blue's line, the second time for a gain of five yards.

The cheering along the west side of the great field was now continuous, and the leaders, their crimson badges fluttering agitatedly, were waving their arms like tireless semaphores and exciting the supporters of Harwell to greater and greater efforts. Nearer and nearer to the coveted touch-down crept the crimson line. With clock-work precision the ball was snapped, the quarter passed, the half leaped forward, the rush line plunged and strove, and then from somewhere a faint "Down!" was cried; and the panting players staggered to their feet, leaving the ball yet nearer to the threatened goal line. On the blue's twenty-three yards the whistle shrilled, and a murmur of dismay crept over the Yates seats as it was seen that Captain Ferguson lay motionless on the ground. But a moment's rubbing brought him to his feet again.

"He's not much hurt," explained the knowing ones. "He wants to rest a bit."

A minute later, while the ball still hovered about the twenty-yard line, Yates secured it on a fumbled pass, and the tide ebbed away from the beleagured posts. Back as before were borne the crimson warriors, while the Yates forwards opened holes in the opposing line and the Yates halves dashed and wormed through for small gains. Then Fate again aided the crimson, and on the blue's forty-seven-yard line a fake kick went sadly aglee and the runner was borne struggling back toward his own goal before he could cry "Down!" And big Chesney grinned gleefully as he received the leather and bent his broad back above it.

Canes, crysanthemums, umbrellas, flags, carnations, hats, all these and many other things waved frantically above the great bank of crimson as the little knot of gallant knights in moleskin crept back over their recent path of retreat and took the war again into the enemy's country. Every inch of the way was stubbornly contested by the defenders, but slowly they were pushed back, staggering under the shocks of the crimson's attack. Chesney, Rutland, and Murdoch worked together, side by side, like one man–or forty!–and when time was called for an instant on the Yates twenty-five yards it was to bring Galt, the blue's left tackle, back to consciousness and send him limping off the gridiron. His place in the line was taken by an old Hilltonian, one Dunsmore, and the game went on.

And now it was the blue that was in full retreat and the crimson that pursued. Nearer and nearer to the Yates goal line went the resisting besieged and the conquering besiegers, and the great black score-board announced but eight more minutes of the first half remaining. But even eight were three more than were needed. For Harwell crossed the twenty yards by tandem on tackle, gained the fifteen in two downs by wedges between tackle and guard, and from there on until the much-desired goal line was reached never paused in her breathless, resistless onslaught. It was Wesley Blair who at last put the ball over for a touch-down, going through between center and left guard with all the weight of the Harwell Eleven behind him. His smothered "Down!" was never heard, for the west stand was a swaying, tumultuous unit of thunderous acclaim.

Up went the flags and banners of crimson hues, loud sounded the paean of praise and thanksgiving from thousands of straining throats, while below on the side lines the coaches leaped for joy and strained each other to their breasts in unspeakable delight.

And while the shouting went on as though never would the frenzied shouters cease, the grim, panting Yates players lined up back of their goal line, on tiptoe, ready at the first touch of the ball to the earth to spring forward and, leaping upward, strive to arrest the speeding oval. Prone upon the ground, the ball in his hands, lay Story. A yard or two distant Blair directed the pointing of it. The goal was a most difficult one, from an angle, and long the full-back studied and directed, until faint groans of derision arose from the impatient east stand and the men behind the goal line moved restively.

"Lacing to you," said Blair quietly. Story shifted the ball imperceptibly.

"More." The quarter-back obeyed.

"Cock it." Higher went the end toward the goal.

"Not so much." It was lowered carefully, slowly.

"Steady." Blair stepped back, glanced once swiftly at the cross-bar, and stepped forward again.

"Down!" Story's left hand touched the grass, the Yates men surged forward, there was a thud, and–

Upward sped the ball, rising, rising, until it topped the bar, then slowly turning over, over in its quickening descent. But the nearly silent west stand had broke again into loud cries of triumph, and upon the face of the Scoreboard appeared the momentous word, "GOAL!"

Again the ball was put in play, but the half was soon over and the players, snatching their blankets, trotted to the dressing rooms. And the score-board announced:

"Opponents, 6. Yates, 6."

As the little swinging door closed behind him Joel found himself in a seething mass of players, rubbers, and coaches, while a babel of voices, greetings, commands, laughter, and lament, confused him. It was a busy scene. The trainer and his assistants were working like mad. The doctor and the head coach were talking twenty to the second. Everybody was explaining everything, and the indefatigable coaches were hurrying from man to man, instructing, reminding, and scolding.

Joel had only to look on, save when he lent a hand at removing some torn and stubborn jersey, or at finding lost shin-guards and nose masks, and so he found a seat out of the way, and, searching the room with his gaze, at length found Prince. That gentleman was having a nice, new pink elastic bandage put about his ankle. He was grinning sturdily, but at every clutch of the web his lips twitched and his brow puckered. Joel watching him wondered how much more he would stand, and whether his (Joel's) chance would come ere the fatal whistle piped the end of the match.

"Time's up!" cried the head coach suddenly, and the confusion redoubled until he mounted to a bench and clapped his hands loudly above the din. Comparative silence ensued. "Fellows," he began, "here's the list for the next half. Answer to your names, please. And go over to the door. Fellows, you'll have to make less noise. Dutton, Selkirk, Murdoch–Murdoch?"

"Right!" The voice emerged from the folds of a woolen sweater which had stubbornly refused to go on or off. With a smile the head coach continued the list, each man responding as his name was announced and crowding to the doorway.

"Chesney, Rutland, Burbridge, Barton–"

A murmur arose from the listening throng, and Chase, a tall, pale-faced youth, his cheek exhibiting the marks of a contact with some one's shoe cleats, groaned loudly and flung himself on to a bench, where he sat looking blindly before him until the list was finished.

"Story, Prince–"

"Here!" called the latter, jumping from his seat. Then a sharp, agonized cry followed, and Prince toppled over, clutching vainly at the air. The head coach paused. The doctor and the trainer pushed toward the fallen man, and a moment later the former announced quietly:

"He's fainted, sir."

"Can he go on?" asked the head coach.

"He is out of the question. Ankle's too painful. I couldn't allow it."

"Very well," answered the other as he amended the list. "Kingdon, Blair, March."

Joel's heart leaped as he heard his name pronounced, and he tried to answer.

"March?" demanded the head coach impatiently; and

"Here, sir!" gulped Joel, rushing to the door.

"All right," continued the head coach. "There isn't time for any fine phrases, fellows, and if there was I couldn't say them so that they'd do any good. You know what you've got to do. Go ahead and do it. You have the chance of wiping out a good many defeats, more than it's pleasant to think about. The college expects a great deal from you. Don't disappoint it. Play hard and play together. Don't give an inch; die first. Tackle low, run high, and keep your eyes on the ball! And now, fellows, three times three for Harwell!"

And what a cheer that was! The little building shook, the men stood on their toes; the head coach cheered himself off the bench; and Joel yelled so desperately that his breath gave out at the last "Rah!" and didn't come back until the little door was burst open and he found himself leaping the fence into the gridiron.

And what a burst of sound greeted their reappearance! The west stand shook from end to end. Crimson banners broke out on the breeze, every one was on his feet, hats waved, umbrellas clashed, canes swirled. A youth in a plaid ulster went purple in the face at the small end of a five-foot horn; and for all the sound it seemed to make it might as well have been a penny whistle. The ushers waved their arms, but to no purpose, since the seats heeded them not at all, but shouted as their hearts dictated and as their throats and lungs allowed.

Joel, gazing about him from the field, felt a shiver of emotion pass through him. They were cheering him! He was one of the little band in honor of which the flags waved, the voices shouted, and the songs were sung! He felt a lump growing in his throat, and to keep down the tears that for some reason were creeping into his eyes, he let drive at a ball that came bumping toward him and kicked it so hard that Selkirk had to chase it half down the field.

"Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Harwell! Harwell! Harwell! Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Harwell!"

The leaders of the cheering had again gotten control of their sections, and the long, deliberate cheer, majestic in its intensity of sound, crashed across the space, rebounded from the opposite stand, and went echoing upward into the clear afternoon air.

"Harwell!" muttered Joel. "You Bet!" Then he gathered with the others about Dutton to listen to that leader's last instructions. And at the same moment the east stand broke into cheers as the gallant sons of Yates bounded on to the grass. Back and forth rolled the mighty torrents of sound, meeting in midair, breaking and crashing back in fainter reverberations. They were singing the college songs now, and the merits and virtues of both colleges were being chanted defiantly to the tunes of popular airs. Thousands of feet "tramp-tramped," keeping time against the stands. The Yates band and the Harwell band were striving, from opposite ends of the field, to drown each other's strains. And the blue and crimson fluttered and waved, the sun sank lower toward the western horizon, and the shadows crept along the ground.

"There will be just one more score," predicted the knowing ones as they buttoned their ulsters and overcoats up at the throat and crouched along the side lines, like so many toads. "But who will make it I'm blessed if I know!"

Then Harwell lined up along the fifty-five-yard line, with the ball in their possession, and the south goal behind them. And Yates scattered down the field in front. And the linesmen placed their canes in the turf, the referee and the umpire walked into the field, and the stands grew silent save for the shrill voice of a little freshman on the west stand who had fallen two bars behind in "This is Harwell's Day," and needs must finish out while his breath lasted.

"Are you all ready?" asked the referee. There was no reply. Only here and there a foot moved uneasily as weights were thrown forward, and there was a general, almost imperceptible, tightening of nerves and muscles.

And then the whistle blew.

CHAPTER XXIV.
HARWELL VS. YATES–A FAULT AND A REQUITAL

The kick-off came into Blair's ready arms, the interference formed quickly, and the full-back sped down the field. One white line passed under foot–another; Joel felt Blair's hand laid lightly upon his shoulder, and ran as though life itself depended upon getting that precious ball past the third mark. But the Yates ends were upon them. Joel gave the shoulder to one, but the second dived through Kingdon, and the runner came to earth on the twenty-three-yard line, with Joel tugging at him in the hope of advancing the pigskin another foot.

"Line up quickly, fellows!" called Story. The players jumped to their places. "1–9–9!" Joel crept back a bare yard. "1–9–9!"

Kingdon leaped forward, snugged the ball under his arm, and followed by Joel tried to find a hole inside left end. But the hole was not there, and the ball was instantly in the center of a pushing, grinding mass. "Down!" No gain.

Story, worming his way through the jumble, clapped his hands. Chesney was already stooping over the ball. Joel ran to his position, and the quarter threw a rapid glance behind him.

"2–8–9!" He placed his hand on the center's broad back.

"2–8--!" The ball was snapped. Joel darted toward the center, took the leather at a hand pass, crushed it against the pit of his stomach, and followed the left end through a breach in the living wall. Strong hands pushed him on. Then he came bang! against a huge shoulder, was seized by the Yates right half, and thrown. He hugged the ball as the players crashed down upon him.

"Third down," called the referee. "Three yards to gain."

"Line up, fellows, line up!" called the impatient Story, and Joel jumped to his feet, upsetting the last man in the pile-up, and scurried back.

"2–9–9!"

"2–9--!" Back sped Blair. Up ran Joel and Kingdon. The line blocked desperately. A streak of brown flew by, and a moment later Joel heard the thud as the full-back's shoe struck the ball. Then down the field he sped, through the great gap made by the Yates forwards. The Harwell ends were well under the kick and stood waiting grimly beside the Yates full-back as the ball settled to earth. As it thudded against his canvas jacket and as he started to run three pairs of arms closed about him, and he went down in his tracks. The ball lay on Yates's fifty-three-yard line.

The field streamed up. The big Yates center took the ball. Joel crept up behind the line, his hands on the broad canvas-covered forms in front, dodging back and forth behind Murdoch and Selkirk. "26–57–38–19–!" The, opposing left half started across, took the ball, and then–why, then Joel was at the very bottom of some seven hundred pounds of writhing humanity, trying his best to get his breath, and wondering where the ball was!

"Second down. Three and a half yards to gain."

Again the lines faced. Joel was crouched close to quarter, obeying that player's gesture. They were going to try Murdoch again. Joel heard the breathless tones of the Yates quarter as he stooped behind the opposing line.

"A tandem on guard," whispered Joel to himself. The next moment there was a crash, the man in front of him gave; then Joel and Story, gripping the turf with their toes, braced hard; there was a moment of heaving, panting suspense; then a smothered voice cried "Down!"

"Third down," cried the referee. "Three and a half yards to gain."

"Look out for a fake kick," muttered Story, as Joel fell back. The opposing line was quickly formed, and again the signal was given. The rush line heaved, Joel sprang into the air, settling with a crash against the shoulders of Chesney and Murdoch, who went forward, carrying the defense before them. But the ball was passed, and even as the Yates line broke the thud of leather against leather was heard. Joel scrambled to his feet, assisted by Chesney, and streaked up the field. The ball was overhead, describing a high, short arch. Blair was awaiting it, and Kingdon was behind and to the right of him. Down it came, out shot Blair's hands, and catching it like a baseball he was off at a jump, Kingdon beside him. Joel swung about, gave a shoulder to an oncoming blue-clad rusher, ran slowly until the two backs were hard behind him, and then dashed on.

Surely there was no way through that crowded field. Yet even as he studied his path a pair of blue stockings went into the air, and a threatening obstacle was out of the way, bowled over by a Harwell forward. The ends were now scouting ahead of the runners, engaging the enemy. The fifty-five-yard line was traversed at an angle near the east side of the field, and Joel saw the touch line growing instantly more imminent. But a waiting Yates man, crouchingly running up the line, was successfully passed, and the trio bore farther infield, putting ten more precious yards behind them.

The west stand was wild with exultant excitement, and Joel found himself speeding onward in time with the rhythmic sway of the deep "Rah-rah-rah!" that boomed across from the farther side. But the enemy was fast closing in about them. The Yates right half was plunging down from the long side, a pertinacious forward was almost at their heels. And now the Yates full was charging obliquely at them with his eyes staring, his jaw set, and determination in every feature and line. The hand on Joel's shoulder dropped, Blair eased his pace by ever so little, and Joel shot forward in the track of the full, his head down, and the next moment was sprawling on the turf with the enemy above him. But he saw and heard Blair and Kingdon hurdling over, felt a sharp pain that was instantly forgotten, and knew that the ball was safely by.

But the run was over at the next line. Kingdon made a heroic effort to down the half, and would have succeeded had it not been for the persevering forward, who reached him with his long arms and pulled him to earth. And Blair, the ball safe beneath him, lay at the Yates thirty-five yards, the half-back holding his head to earth.

Joel arose, and as he trotted to his position he looked curiously at the first finger of his left hand. It bore the imprint of a shoe-cleat, and pained dully. He tried to stretch it, but could not. Then he shook his hand. The finger wobbled crazily. Joel grinned.

"Bust!" he whispered laconically.

His first impulse was to ask for time to have it bound. Then he recollected that some one had said the doctor was very strict about injuries. Perhaps the latter would consider the break sufficient cause for Joel's leaving the field. That wouldn't do; better to play with a broken arm than not to play at all. So he tried to stick the offending hand in his pocket, found there was no pocket there, and put the finger in his mouth instead. Then he forgot all about it, for Harwell was hammering the blue's line desperately and Joel had all he could do to remember the signals and play his position.

For the next quarter of an hour the ball hovered about Yates's danger territory. Twice, by the hardest kind of line bucking, it was placed within the ten-yard line, and twice, by the grimmest, most desperate resistance, it was lost on downs and sent hurtling back to near mid-field. But Yates was on the defensive, even when the oval was in her possession, and Harwell experienced the pleasurable–and, in truth, unaccustomed–exultation that comes with the assurance of superiority. Harwell's greatest ground-gaining plays now were the two sequences from ordinary formation and full-back forward. These were used over and over, ever securing territory, and ever puzzling the opponents.

Joel was hard worked. He was used not only to wriggle around the line inside of ends and to squirm through difficult outlets, but to charge the line as well, a feat of which his height and strong legs rendered him well capable. He proved a consistant ground-gainer, and with Blair, who worked like a hero, and Kingdon, who won laurels for himself that remained fresh many years, gained the distance time and again. But although the spectacular performances belonged here to the backs, the line it was that made such work possible. Chesney, with his six feet four and a half inches of muscle, and his two hundred and twenty-nine pounds of weight, stood like a veritable Gibraltar of strength. Beside him Rutland was scarcely less invulnerable, and Murdoch, on the other side, played like a veteran, which he was not, being only a nineteen-year-old sophomore, with but one hundred and sixty-seven pounds to keep him from blowing away.

Selkirk gave way to Lee when the half was two thirds over, but Burbridge played it out, and then owned up to a broken shoulder bone, and was severely lectured by the trainer, the head coach, and the doctor in turn; and worshiped by the whole college. Captain Dutton played a dashing, brilliant game at left end, and secured for himself a re-election that held no dissenting vote. And Barton, at the other end of the red line, tried his best to fill the place of the deposed Chase, and if he did not fully succeed, at least failed not from want of trying. But it was little Story, the quarter-back, who won unfading glory. A mass of nerves, from his head down, his brain was as clear and cool as the farthest goal post, and he ran the team in a manner that made the coaches, hopping and scrambling along on the side lines, hug themselves and each other in glee. So much for the Harwell men.

As for Yates, what words are eloquent enough to do justice to the heroic, determined defense she made there under the shadow of her own goal, when defeat seemed every moment waiting to overwhelm her? Every man in that blue-clad line and back of it was a hero, the kind that history loves to tell of. The right guard, Morris, was a pitiable sight as, with white, drawn face, he stood up under the terrific assault, staggering, with half-closed eyes, to hold the line. Joel was heartily glad when, presently, he fell up against the big Yates center after a fierce attack at his position, and was supported, half fainting, from the field. The substitute was a lighter man, as the next try at his position showed, and the gains through the guard-tackle hole still went on. Yates's team now held four substitutes, although with the exception of Douglas, the substitute right-guard, none of them was perceptibly inferior to the men whose places they took.

The cheering from the Harwell seats was now continuous, and the refrain of "Glory, glory for the Crimson!" was repeated over and over. On the east stand the Yates supporters were neither hopeless nor silent. Their cheers were given with a will and encouraged their gallant warriors to renewed and ever more desperate defense. The score-board proclaimed the game almost done. With six minutes left it only remained, as it seemed, for Yates to hold the plunging crimson once more at the last ditch to keep the game a tie, and so win what would, under the circumstances, have been as good as a victory.

Down came the Harwell line once more to the twenty yards, but here they stopped. For on a pass from quarter to left half, the latter, one Joel March of our acquaintance, fumbled the ball, dived quickly after it, and landed on the Yates left guard, who had plunged through and now lay with the pigskin safe beneath him!

It is difficult to either describe or appreciate the full depth of Joel's agony as he picked himself up and limped back to his place. It was a heart-tearing, blinding sensation that left him weak and limp. But there was nothing for it save to go on and try to retrieve his fatal error. The white face of Story turned toward him, and Joel read in the brief glance no anger, only an almost tearful grief. He swung upon his heel with a muttered word that sounded ill from his lips. But he was only a boy and the provocation was great; let us not remember it against him.

The Yates center threw back the ball for a kick, and Joel went down the field after it. As he ran he wondered if Story would try him again. It seemed doubtful, but if he did–Joel ground his teeth–he would take it through the line! They would see! Just give him one chance to retrieve that fumble! A year later and he had learned that a misplay, even though it lose the game for your side, may in time be lived down. But now that knowledge was not his, and a heart-rending picture of disgrace before the whole college presented itself to him.

Then Blair had the ball, was off, was tackled near the side line under the Yates stand, and the two teams were quickly lined up again. The cheers from the friends of the blue were so loud that the quarter's voice giving the signal was scarcely to be heard. Joel crept nearer. Then his heart leaped up into his throat and stood still.

"7–1–2!"

There was no mistake! It was left half's ball on a double pass for a run around right end! The line-up was within eight yards of the east side line. The play was the third of the second sequence, in which Joel with the other backs had been well instructed, and its chance of success lay in the fact that it had the appearance of a full-back punt or a run around the long side of the field. Joel leaned forward, facing the left end. Blair crept a few feet in.