CHAPTER VIII

THE intensity and seriousness of the football season abetted Stover in his new attitude of Napoleonic seclusion by leaving him little time for the lighter side of college pleasures. Every hour was taken up with the effort of mastering his lessons, which he then regarded, in common with the majority of his class, as a laborious task, a sort of necessary evil, the price to be paid for the privilege of passing four years in pleasant places with congenial companions.

After supper he returned immediately to his rooms, where presently a succession of visiting sophomores, members of the society campaign committees, took up the first hours. These inquisitorial delegations, formal, stiff, and conducted on a basis of superior investigation, embarrassed him at first. But this feeling soon wore off with the consciousness that he was a subject of dispute; and, secure in the opportunity that would come to him with the opening of the winter-term period of elections, his interest was directed only to the probable selection among his classmates.

By the middle of October the situation at Yale field had become critical. The earlier games had demonstrated what had been foreseen --- the weakness and inexperience of the raw material in hand. Serious errors in policy were committed by Captain Dana, who, in the effort to find some combination which would bolster up the weak backfield, began a constant shifting of the positions in order to experiment with heavier men behind the line. A succession of minor injuries arrived to further the disorganization. The nervousness of the captain communicated itself to the team, harassed and driven in the effort for accomplishment. That there was serious opposition among the coaches to these new groping policies every man saw plainly; yet, to Stover's amazement, the knowledge remained within the team, impregnated with the spirit of loyalty and discipline.

After three weeks of brilliancy at his natural position of end, buoyed up by the zest of confidence and success, he was abruptly called to one side.

"Stover, you've played behind the line, haven't you?" said Dana.

"A couple of games at school, sir," he answered hastily, "just as a makeshift."

"I'm going to try you at fullback."

"At fullback?"

"Get into it and see if you can make good."

"Yes, sir."

He went without spirit, sure of the impossibility of the thing, feeling only the humiliation and failure that all at once flung itself like a storm-cloud across his ambition. A coach took charge of him, running over with him the elementary principles of blocking and plunging.

When he lined up, it was with half of the coaching force at his back.

"Come on, Stover; get into it!"

"Wake up!"

"Get your head down!"

"Keep a-going!"

"Ram into it!"

"Knock that man over!"

"Knock him over!"

He went into the line blindly, frantically, feeling for the first time that last exhausting, lunging expenditure of strength that is called forth with the effort to fall forward when tackled. Nothing he did satisfied. It was a constant storm of criticism, behind his back, in his ears, shrieked to his face:

"Keep your feet --- oh, keep your feet!"

"Smash open that line!"

"Rip open that line!"

"Hit it --- hit it!"

"Hard --- harder!"

"Go on --- don't stop!"

A dozen times he flung his meager weight against the ponderous bodies of the center men, crushed by the impact in front, smothered by the surging support of his own line behind, helpless in the grinding contention, turned and twisted, going down in a heap amid the shock of bodies, thinking always:

"Well, the darn fools will find out just about how much use I am here!"

When the practise ended, at last, Dana called on Tompkins.

"Joe, take Stover and give him a line on the punting, will you?"

"I say, he's been worked pretty hard," said the coach with a glance.

"How about it?" said Dana quickly.

"All right," said Stover, lying gloriously. At that moment, aching in every joint, he would have given everything to have spoken his mind. Instead he brought forth a smile distinguished for its eagerness, and said, "I'd like to get right at it, sir."

"Fullback's the big problem," said Tompkins, as they started across the field. "Bangs can fill in at end, but we've got to get a fullback that can catch punts, and with nerve enough to get off his kicks in the face of that Princeton line."

"I'll do my best, sir," said Stover, with a sinking feeling.

For twenty minutes, against the rebellion of his body, he went through a rigorous lesson, improving a little in the length of his punts, and succeeding fairly well in holding the ball, which came spinning end over end to him from the region of the clouds.

"That'll do," said Tompkins, at last.

"That's all?" said Stover stoically, picking up his sweater.

"That's all." Tompkins, watching him for a moment, said suddenly: "Stover, I don't know whether Dana'll keep you at full or not, but I guess you'll have to get ready to fill in. Come over to the gym lot every morning for about half an hour, and we'll see if we can't work up those punts."

"Yes, sir."

They walked out together.

"Stover, look here," said Tompkins abruptly, "I'm going to speak straight to you, because I think you'll keep your mouth shut. We're in a desperate condition here, and you know it. There's only one man in charge at Yale, now and always, and that's the captain. That's our system, and we stand or fall by it; and in order that we can follow him four times out of five to victory, we've got sometimes to shut our eyes and follow him down to defeat. Do you get me?"

"I think I do."

"No matter what happens, no criticism of the captain --- no talking outside. You may think he's wrong, you may know he's wrong, but you've got to grin and bear it. That's all. Remember it --- a close mouth!"

But it required all Stover's newly learned stoicism to maintain this attitude in the weeks that arrived. After a week he was suddenly returned to his old position, and as suddenly redrafted to fullback when another game had displayed the inadequacy of the regular. From a position where he was familiar with all the craft of the game, Stover suddenly found himself a novice whom a handful of coaches sought desperately to develop by dint of hammering and driving. His name no longer figured in the newspaper accounts as the find of the season, but as Stover the weak spot on the eleven. It was a rude discipline, and more than once he was on the point of crying out at what seemed to him the useless sacrifice. But he held his tongue as he saw others, seniors, put to the same test and giving obedience without a word of criticism for the captain, who, as every one realized, face to face with a hopeless outcome, was gradually going to pieces.

Meanwhile Dopey McNab was just as zealously concerned in the pursuit of his classic ideal, which, however, was imagined more along the lines of such historic scholars as Verdant Green, Harry Foker, and certain heroes of his favorite author, Charles Lever.

The annoyance of recitations by an economical imagination he converted into periods of repose and refreshing slumber behind the broad back of McMasters, who, for a certain fixed portion of tobacco a week, agreed to act as a wall in moments of calm and to awake him with a kick on the shins when the summons to refuse to recite arrived.

Having discovered Buck Waters as a companionable soul, congenially inclined to the pagan view of life, it was not long before the two discovered the third completing genius in the person of Tom Kelly, who, though a member of the Sheff freshman class, immediately agreed not to let either time, place, or conflicting recitations stand in the way of that superior mental education which must result from the friction of three such active imaginations.

The triumvirate was established on a firm foundation on the day after Kelly's ambitious but unsuccessful attempt to hit the moon with a pool-ball, and immediately began a series of practical jokes and larks which threatened to terminate abruptly the partnership or remove it bodily to an unimaginative outer world.

McNab, like most gentlemen of determined leisure, worked indefatigably every minute of the day. Having slept through chapel and first recitation, with an occasional interruption to rise and say with great dignity, "Not prepared," he would suddenly, about ten o'clock in the morning, awake with a start, and drifting into Stover's room plaster his nose to the window--- and restlessly ask himself what mischief he could invent for the day.

After a moment of dissatisfied introspection, he would say fretfully:

"I say, Dink?"

" Hello!"

"Studying?"

"Yes."

"Almost finished?"

"No."

"What are you doing, McCarthy?"

"Boning out an infernal problem in spherical geometry."

"I gave that up."

"Oh, you did!"

"Sure, it's too hard ---what's the use of wasting time over it, then? What do you say to a game of pool?"

"Get out!

"Let's go for a row up on Lake Whitney."

"Shut up!"

"Come over to Sheffield and get up a game of poker with Tom Kelly."

At this juncture, Stover and McCarthy rising in wrath, McNab would beat a hurried retreat, dodging whatever came sailing after him. Much aggrieved, he would go down the hail, trying the different doors, which had been locked against his approach.

About this time Buck Waters, moved by similar impulses, would appear and the two would camp down on the top step and practise duets, until a furious uprising in the house would drive them ignominiously on to the street.

Left to their own resources, they would wander aimlessly about the city, inventing a hundred methods to accomplish the most difficult of all feats, killing time.

On one particular morning in early November, McNab and Buck Waters, being refused admission to three houses on York Street, and the affront being aggravated by jeers and epithets of the coarsest kind, went arm in arm on mischief bent.

"I say, what let's do?" said McNab disconsolately.

"We must do something new," said Buck Waters.

"We certainly must."

"Well, let's try the old clothes gag," said McNab; that always amuses a little."

Reaching the thoroughfare of Chapel Street, McNab stationed himself at the corner while Waters proceeded to a point about hall-way down the block.

Assuming a lounging position against a lamp-post, McNab waited until chance delivered up to him a superhumanly dignified citizen in top hat and boutonniere, moving through the crowd with an air of solid importance.

Darting out, he approached with the sweep of an eagle, saying in a hoarse whisper:

"Old clothes, any old clothes, sir?"

His victim, frowning, accelerated his pace.

"Buy your old clothes, sir, buy 'em now."

Several onlookers stopped and looked. The gentleman, who had not turned to see who was addressing him, said hurriedly in an undertone:

"No, no, nothing to-day."

"Buy 'em to-morrow ---pay good price," said McNab peevishly.

"No, no, nothing to sell."

"Call around at the house --- give good prices."

"Nothing to sell, nothing, I tell you!"

"Buy what you got on," said McNab at the psychological moment, "give you five dollars or toss you ten or nothinks!"

"Be off!" said the now thoroughly infuriated victim, turning and brandishing his cane. "I'll have you arrested."

McNab, having accomplished his preliminary role, retreated to a safe distance, exclaiming:

"Toss you ten dollars or nothinks!"

The now supremely self-conscious and furious gentleman, having rid himself of McNab, immediately found himself n the hands of Buck Waters, who pursued him for the remainder of the block, with a mild obsequious persistency that would not be shaken off. By this time the occupants of the shop windows and the loiterers, perceiving the game, were in roars of laughter, which made the passage of the second and third victims a procession of hilarious triumph for McNab and Waters.

Tiring of this, they locked arms again and, taking by hazard a side street, continued their quest for adventure.

"Mornings are a dreadful bore," said McNab, pulling down his hat.

"They certainly are."

"Who was the old duck we tackled first?"

"Don't know --- familiar whiskers."

"Seemed to me I've seen him somewhere."

"Say, look at the ki-yi."

"It's a Shetland poodle."

"It's a pen-wiper."

Directly in front of them a shaggy French poodle, bearing indeed a certain resemblance to both a Shetland pony and a discarded pen-wiper, was gleefully engaged in the process of shaking to pieces a rubber which it had stolen.

"If it sees itself in a mirror it will die of mortification," said Buck Waters.

"And yet, Buck, he's happier than we are," said McNab, who had been unjustifiably forced to flunk twice in one morning's recitation.

"I say, Dopey," said Waters in alarm, "quit that!"

"I will."

"Look at the fireworks," said Waters, stopping suddenly at a window, "pin-wheels, rockets, Roman candles."

"What are they doing there this time of the year?" said McNab angrily.

"Election parade, perhaps."

"That's an idea to work on, Buck."

"It certainly is."

"We must tell Tom Kelly about that."

"We will."

"Why, there's that ridiculous ki-yi again!"

"He seems to like us."

"I'm not complimented."

At this moment, with the poodle sporting the rubber about fifteen feet ahead of them, they beheld an Italian barber lolling in the doorway of his shop, as profoundly bored by himself as they affected to be in conjunction.

"Fine dog," said the barber with a critical glance.

"Sure," said McNab, halting at once.

The poodle, for whatever reason, likewise halted and looked around.

"Looka better, cutta da hair."

"You're right there, Columbus," assented Buck Waters.

"His fur coat looks as though it came from a fire sale."

"He ought to be trim up nice, good style."

"Right, very, very right!"

"Give him nice collar, nice tuft on da tail, nice tuft on da feet."

"Right the second time!"

"I clip him up, eh?" said the barber hopefully.

"Why not?" said McNab, looking into the depth of Buck Waters's eyes.

"Why not, Beecher?" said Waters, giving him the name of the President of the College Y. M. C. A.

"I think it an excellent suggestion, Jonathan Edwards," said McNab instantly.

With considerable strategic coaxing, the dog was enticed into the shop, where to their surprise he became immediately docile.

"You see he lika da clip," said the barber enthusiastically, preparing a table.

"He's a very intelligent dog," said McNab.

"You've done much of this, Columbus?" said Waters with a business-like air.

"Sure. Ten, twenta dog a day, down in da city."

"Edwards, we shall learn something."

The dog was induced to come on the table, and Waters delegated to hold him in position.

"Something pretty slick now, Christopher," said McNab, taking the attitude a connoisseur should take. "Explain the fine points to us, as you go along."

"Sure."

"I like the way he handles the scissors, Beecher ---strong, powerful stroke."

"He's got a good batting eye, too, Edwards."

"My, what a nice clean boulevard!"

"Just see the hair fly."

"It'll certainly improve the tail."

"Clip a little anchor in the middle of the back."

"Did you see that?"

"I did."

"He's a wonder."

"He is."

"Columbus, a little more off here --- oh, just a trifle!"

"First rate; shave up the nose and part the whiskers!"

"Look at the legs, with the dinky pantalets - aren't they dreams?"

"I love the tail best."

"Why, Columbus is an artist. Never saw any one like him."

"Would you know the dog?"

"Why, mother wouldn't know him," said McNab solemnly.

"All in forty-three minutes, too."

"It's beautifully done, beautifully."

"Exquisite!"

The barber, perspiring with his ambitious efforts, withdrew for a final inspection, clipped a little on the top and to the side, and signified by a nod that art could go no further.

"Pretta fine, eh?"

"Mr. Columbus, permit me," said Waters, shaking hands.

McNab gravely followed suit. The dog, released, gave a howl and began circling madly about the room.

"Open the door," shouted McNab. "See how happy he is!"

The three stationed themselves thoughtfully on the doorstep, watching the liberated poodle disappear down the street in frantic spirals, loops and figure-eights.

"He lika da feel," said the barber, pleased.

"Oh, he's much improved," said Waters, edging a little away.

"He fine lookin' a dog!"

"He'll certainly surprise the girls and mother," said McNab, shifting his feet. "Well, Garibaldi, ta-ta!"

"Hold up," said the barber, "one plunk."

"One dollar, Raphael?" said Buck Waters in innocent surprise. "What for, oh, what for?"

"One plunk, clippa da dog."

"Yes, but Garibaldi," said McNab gently, "that wasn't our dog."

"Shall we run for it?" said Waters, as they went hurriedly up the block.

"Wait until Garibaldi gives chase --- we must be dignified," said McNab, with an eye to the rear.

"Dagos have no sense of humor. Here he comes with a razor ---scud for it!"

They dashed madly for the corner, doubled a couple of times, joined by the rejuvenated friendly poodle, and suddenly, wheeling around a corner, ran straight into the dean, who as fate would have it, was accompanied by the very dignified citizen who had been the first victim of their old clothes act and upon whom the frantic-poodle, with canine expressions of relief and delight, immediately cast himself.

"Buck," said MtNab, half an hour later, as they went limply back, "Napoleon would have whipped the British to an omelet at Waterloo if he'd known about that sunken road,"

"We are but mortals."

"How the deuce were we to know the pup belonged to Professor Borgie, the eminent rootitologist?"

"Well, we paid the dago, didn't we?"

"That was outrageous."

"I say, Dopey, what'll you do if they fire us?"

"Don't joke on such subjects."

"Dopey," said Waters solemnly, "while the dean has the case under consideration, just to aid his deliberations, I think we had better --- well, study. a little."

"I suppose we must flirt with the text-books," said. McNab, "but let's do it together, so no one'll suspect."

 

CHAPTER IX

THE last week of the football season broke over them before Stover could realize that the final test was almost at hand. The full weight of the responsibility that was on him oppressed him day and night. He forgot what he had been at end; he remembered only his present inadequacy. It had been definitely decided to keep him at fullback, for three things were imperative in the weak backfield: some one who could catch punts, with nerve enough to get off his kicks quickly in the face of a stronger line, and above all some one on the last defense who would never miss the tackle that meant a touchdown.

In the last week a great change took place in the sentiment of the university--- the hoping against hope that often arrives with the intensity of combat. At this time Harvard and Yale were still reluctantly estranged, due to a purely hypothetical question as to which side had began a certain historic slaughter, and the big game of the season was with Princeton, which, under the leadership of Garry Cockerell, Dink's first captain at Lawrenceville, had established a record of unusual power and brilliancy.

Up to Monday of the last week, the opinion around the campus was unanimous that the day of defeat had arrived; but, with the opening of the week and the flocking in of the old players, a new spirit was noticeable, and (among the freshmen) a tentative loosening of the pursestrings on news of extra-insulting challenges from the South.

At the practise, the season's marked division among the coaches was forgotten, and the field was alive with frantic assistants. The scrimmage between the varsity and the scrub took on a savageness that was sometimes difficult to control. The team, facing the impossible, with eagerness to respond, had clearly overworked itself. Stover himself weighed a bare one hundred and forty, an unspeakable depravity which he carefully concealed.

Still, the team began to feel a new impulse and a new unity, inspired by the confidence of the returned heroes. The grim silence of the past began to be broken by hopeful comments.

"By George, I believe there's something in those boys."

"We've come up smiling before."

"We may do it again."

"Shouldn't be surprised if they gave those Princeton Tigers the fight of their lives."

"Oh, they'll fight it out all right."

One or two trick plays were perpetrated behind closed gates, and a thorough drill in a new method of breaking up the Princeton formation for a kick, under the instruction of returning scouts. The team itself began to question and wonder.

That fellow Rivers certainly has stiffened us up in the center of the line," said Regan, between plays, in one of his rare moments of loquacity. "I've learned more in three days than in the whole darn season."

"You've got to hold for my kicks," said Stover, submitting to the sponge which Clancy, the trainer, was daubing over his face.

"We'll hold."

"What do you really think, Tom?" said Stover as they stood a little apart, waiting for the scrimmage to be resumed. "Do you think there's a chance?"

"I'm not thinking," said Regan, in his direct way. "Haven't any business to think. But we're getting together, there's no doubt of that. If we can't win, why, we'll lose as we ought to, and that's something."

Others were not so unruffled as Regan. The last days brought out all the divergent ways in which fierce, coinbative natures approach a crisis. Dana, the captain, was plainly on the edge of his self-control, his forehead drawn in a constant frown, his glance shooting nervously back and forth, speaking to no one except in the routine of the day. Dudley, at the other half, had adopted the same attitude. De Soto at quarter, on the contrary, radiated a fierce joy, joking and laughing, his nervous little voice piping out:

"A little more murder, fellows! Send them back on stretchers. That's the stuff. What the deuce is the matter, Bill, do you want to live forever? Use your hands, use your feet, use your teeth, anything! Whoop her up!"

Others in the line were more stolid, yet each in his way contributing to the nervous electricity that sent the team tirelessly, frantically, like mad dervishes, into the breach, while behind them, at their sides, everywhere, the coaches goaded them on.

"Oh, get together!"

"Shove the man in front of you!"

"Get your shoulder into it!"

"Fight for that last inch there!"

"Knock him off his feet!"

"Put your man out o' the play!"

"Break him up!"

No one paid any attention to the scrubs, fighting desperately with the same loyalty against the odds of weight and organization, without hope of distinction, giving every last ounce of their strength in futile, frantic effort, rejoicing when flung aside and crushed under the victorious rush of the varsity, who alone counted.

Against the scrubs Stover felt a sort of rage. Time after time he went crashing into the line, seeing the blurred faces of his own comrades with an instinctive hatred, striking them with his shoulder, hurling them from the path of attack with a wild, uncontrollable fury at their resistance, almost unable to keep his temper in leash. The first feeling of sympathy he had felt so acutely for those who bore all the brunt of the punishment, unrewarded, was gone. He no longer felt any pity, but a brutal joy at the incessant smarting, grinding shock of the attack of which he was part and the touch of prostrate bodies under his rushing feet.

Thursday and Friday the practise was lightened for all except for the backs. For an hour he was kept at his punting in the open and behind the lines, while the scrubs, reënforced by every available veteran, swarmed through the line, seeking to block his kicks.

To one side a little knot of coaches watched the result with critical anxiety, following the length of the punts in grim silence.

Tompkins, behind him, from time to time, spoke quietly, knowing that his was a nature to be restrained rather than goaded on.

"Watch your opposing backs, Stover. Keep your punts low and away from them so as to gain as much on the ground as you can. That's it! Here, you center men, you've got to hold longer than that! You're hurrying the kick too much. Get it off clean, Stover. Not so good. Remember what I say about placing your punt. You're going to be out-kicked fifteen yards; make up for it in brain work. All right, Dana?"

"That'll do," said Dana, after a moment's hesitation. All over?" said Dink, dazed.

"All over!"

The scrubs, with a yell, broke up, cheering the varsity, and being cheered in turn. Stover, with a sinking, realized that the week of preparation had gone and that as he was he must come up to the final test ---the final test before the thousands that would blacken the arena on the morrow.

The squad went rather silently, each oppressed by the same thought.

"We'll go out to the country club for the night," said Tompkins's shrill voice. "Get your valises ready. And now stop talking football until we tell you. Go out on the trot now!"

From the gymnasium he went back to the house. As he came up the hall he heard a hum of voices from his room.

"Dink's got the nerve, but what the deuce can he do against that Princeton line? Do you know how much he weighs? One hundred and fifty."

Stover listened, smiled grimly. If they only knew his real weight!

"Do you think he'll last it through?"

"What, Dink?" said McCarthy's loyal voice. You bet he'll last!"

"Blamed shame he isn't at end!"

"By ginger! he'd make the All-American if he was."

"Yes, and now every one will jump on him for being a rotten fullback."

"Dana be hanged!"

Stover went back to the stairs and returned noisily.

At his entrance the crowd sprang up instinctively. He felt the sudden focus of anxious, critical glances.

"Hello, fellows," he said gruffly. "Tough, help me to stow a few duds in my valise."

"Sure I will!"

Two or three hurried to help McCarthy, in grotesque, unconsciously humorous eagerness; others patted him on the back with exaggerated good spirits.

"Dink, you look fine!"

"All to the good."

"Right on edge."

"Dink, we're all rooting for you."

"Every one of us."

"You'll tear 'em up."

"We're betting on you, old gazebo!"

"Thanks!"

He took the bag which McCarthy thrust upon him. Each solemnly shook his hand, thrilling at the touch, and Hungerford said:

"Whatever happens, old boy, we're going to be proud of you."

Stover stopped a moment, curiously moved, and obeyng an instinct, said brusquely:

"Yes, I'll take care of that."

Then he went hurriedly out.

That night, after supper --- a meal full of nervous laughter and assumed spirits--- two or three of the older coaches came in, and their spirit of hopefulness somehow communicated itself to the team. Other Yale elevens had risen at the last moment and snatched a victory---why not theirs? It lay with them, and during the week they certainly had forged ahead. Dink felt the infection and became almost convinced. Then Tompkins, moving around as the spirit of confidence, signaled him.

"Come out here; I want a little pow-wow with you.,,"

They left the others and went out on the dim lawns with the lighted club-house at their backs, and Tompkins, drawing his arm through Stover's, began to speak:

"Dink, we're in for a licking."

"Oh, I say!" said Stover, overwhelmed. "But we have come on; we've come fast."

"Stover, that's a great Princeton team," said Tompkins quietly, "and we're a weak Yale one. We're going to get well licked. Now... boy, I'm telling you this because I think you're the stuff to stand it; because you'll play better for knowing what's up to you."

"I see."

"It's going to depend a whole lot on you --- how you hold up your end ---how badly we're licked."

"I know I'm the weak spot," said Stover, biting his lips.

"You're a darn good player," said Tompkins, "and you're going to leave a great name for yourself; but this year you've had to be sacrificed. You've been put where you are because you've got nerve and a head. Now this is what I want from you. Know what you're up against and make your brain control that nerve ---understand?"

"Yes, I do."

"You've got to do the kicking in the second half as well as in the first. You've got to keep your strength and not break it against a wall. You won't be called on for much rushing in the first half; you'll get a chance later. The line may go to pieces, the secondary defense may go to pieces; but, boy, if you go to pieces, we'll be beaten thirty to nothing."

"As bad as that!"

"Every bit."

"That's awful --- a Yale team." He drew a long breath and then said: "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to get off every punt without having it blocked; and that's a good deal, with what you're up against."

"Yes, sir."

"And hold on to every punt that comes to you ---no fumbling."

"No fumbling---yes, sir."

"And kick as you've never kicked before --- every kick better as you go on. Put your whole soul into it."

"I will."

"You won't miss a tackle --- I know that; but you'll have some pretty rum ones to make, and when you tackle, make them remember it."

"Yes, sir."

"But, Stover, above all, hold steadfast. Keep cool and remember the game's a long one. Boy, you don't know what it'll mean for some of us old fellows to see Yale go down, but out of it all we want to remember something that'll make us. proud of you." He stopped, controlled the emotion that was in his voice, and said a little anxiously: "I tell you this because a first game is a terrible thing, and I didn't want you to be caught in a panic when you found what you were up against. And I tell you, Stover, because you're the sort of fighting stuff that'll fight harder when you know all there is to it is the fighting. Am I right?"

"I hope so, sir."

"And, now, do a more difficult thing. Get right hold of yourself. Put everything out of your mind; go to bed and sleep."

This last injunction, though he tried his best to obey it, was beyond Stover's power. He passed the night in fitful flashes of sleep. At times he awoke, full of a fever of eagerness from a dream of success. Then he would lie staring, it seemed for hours, at the thin path across the ceiling made by a street lamp, feeling all at once a weakness in the pit of his stomach, a physical horror of what the day would bring forth. The words of the coach framed themselves in a sort of rhythmic chant which went endlessly knocking through his brain:

"Catch every punt --- get off every kick --- make every tackle."

In the morning it was the same refrain, which never left him. He rose tired, with a limpness in every muscle, his head heavy as if bound across with biting bonds. He stood stupidly holding his wash-pitcher, looking out of the window, saying:

"Good heavens! it's only a few hours off now."

Then he began feebly to wash, repeating:

"Get off every kick --- every kick."

Breakfast passed like a nightmare. He put something tasteless into his mouth, his jaws moved, but that was all. The brisk walk to chapel restored him somewhat, and the consciousness of holding himself before the gaze of the crowd. After first recitation, Regan joined him, and together they went across the campus, no longer the campus of the University, but beginning to swarm with strangers, and strange colors amid the blue.

"How are you feeling?" said Regan in a fatherly sort of way, as they went through Phelps and out on to the Common.

"Tom, my shoes stick to the ground, my knees are made of paper, and I'm hollow from one end to the other."

"Fine!"

"Oh, is it?"

"You'll be a bundle of fire on the field."

"Let's not walk too far. We want to keep fresh," said Stover, feeling indeed as though every step was draining his energy.

"Rats! let's saunter down Chapel Street and see the crowds come in."

"You old rhinoceros, have you any nerves?"

"Lots, but they're a different sort. By George, isn't it a wonderful sight?"

Side by side with Regan, a certain shame steadied Stover. They went silently through the surging, arriving multitude, all intoxicated with the joy and zest of the great game. In and out, newsboys howling papers with headlines and pictures of the team thrust their wares before their eyes, while a pestiferous swarm of strange pedlers shrieked:

"Get your colors here!"

"Get your winnin' color."

Suddenly Stover saw a headline ---his name and the caption:

STOVER THE WEAK SPOT

"Let's get a paper," he said, nervously drawn to it.

"No you don't," said Regan, who had seen it. "Come on, now, get out of here, some one might walk on your foot or stick a hatpin in your eye."

"What time is it?"

"Time to be getting back."

"Tom, do you know how much I weigh?" said Stover irrelevantly.

"What the deuce?"

"I weigh one hundred and forty-one pounds," said Stover solemnly, as though imparting a State secret.

"Go on, be loony if you want," said Regan. "I've seen bruisers before a fight act like high school girls. If you've got something on your mind, why talk it out, it'll do you good."

"It's awful --- it's awful," said Stover, shaking his head.

"What's awful?"

"It's awful to think I'm the weak spot, that if they only had a decent fullback there would be a chance. I've no right there --- every one knows it, and every one's groaning about it."

"Go on."

"That's all," said Stover, a little angry.

"Well, then come on, I'm getting hungry."

"Hungry! Tom, I'd like to knock the spots out of you," said Dink, laughing despite himself.

"Dink, old bantam," said Regan, resting his huge paw on Stover's shoulder in rough affection, "you're all right. I say so and I know it. Now shut up and come on.,,"

 

CHAPTER X

ALMOST before he knew it Stover was in the car and the wheels were moving at last irresistibly toward the field. There was no longer any pretense in those last awful moments that had in them all the concentrated hopes and fears of the weeks that had rushed away. The faces of his own team-mates were only gray faces without identity. He saw some one's lips moving incessantly, but he did not remember whose they were. Opposite him, another man was bending over, his head hidden in his hands. Some one else at his side was nervously locking and unlocking his fingers, breathing short, hard breaths. He remembered only the stillness of it all, the forgetfulness of others, the set stares, and Charlie de Soto fidgeting on the seat and nervously humming something irrelevant.

Caught up in this unreasoning intensity of a young nation, filled, too, with this exaggerated passion of combat, Stover leaned back limply. Outside, the street was choked with hilarious parties packed in rushing carriages, blue or orange-and-black. Horns and rattles sounded like tiny sounds in his ears, and his eyes saw only grotesque blurred shapes that swept across them.

"I'll get 'em off ---they won't block any on me - they mustn't," he said to himself, closing his eyes.

Then, on top of the draining weakness that had him in its grip, came a sudden feeling of nausea, and he knew suddenly what the man opposite him with his head in his hands was fighting. He put his arms over the ledge of the door, and rested his head on them, too weak to care that every one saw him, gulping in the stinging air in desperation.

All at once there came a grinding jerk and the car stopped. From the inside came Tompkins' angry, rasping voice:

"Every one up! Get out there! Quick! On the jump!"

Instinctively obedient, the vertigo left him, his mind cleared. He was out in the midst of the bobbing mass of blue sweaters, moving as in a nightmare through the black spectators, seeing ahead the mammoth stands, hearing the dull, engulfing roars as one hears at night the approaching surf.

Then they were struggling through the human barriers, and he saw something green at the bottom of a stormy pit, and a great growing roar of welcome smote him as of a descending gale, the hysterical cry of the American multitude, a roar acclaiming Yale.

"All ready!" said Dana's unrecognizable voice somewhere ahead. "On the trot, now!"

Instantly he was sweeping on to the field and up along the frantic stands of suddenly released blue. All indecision, all weakness, went with the first hoarse, cry from his own. Something hot and alive seemed to flow back into his veins, and with every stride the spongy turf underneath seemed to send its strength and vitality into his legs.

From the other end of the field, through the somber crowd, an orange-and-black group was trickling, flowing into a band and sweeping out on the field, while the Princeton stands were surging to their feet, adding the mounting fury of their welcome to the deafening uproar that suddenly bound the arena in the gripping hollow of a whirlwind.

"Line up, you blue devils," came Charlie de Soto's raucous cry. "On your toes. Get your teeth into it. Hard, now. Ha-a-ard!"

He was in action immediately, thinking only of the signals, sweeping down the field, now to the right, now to the left, stumbling in his eagerness.

"Enough," said the captain's voice, at last. "Get under your sweaters, fellows. Brown and Stover, start up some punts."

Dana and Dudley went back to practise catching. Brown, the center, pigskin under hand, set himself for the pass, while Stover, blowing on his hands, measured his distance. Opposite, Bannerman, the Princeton fullback, was setting himself for a similar attempt.

In the stands was a sudden craning hush as the great audience waited to see with its own eyes the disparity between the rival fullbacks.

Stover, standing out, felt it all instinctively, with a little nervous tremor ---the quick stir in the stands, the muttered comments, the tense turning of even the cheer leaders.

Then the ball came shooting back to him. He caught it, turned it in his hands, and drove forward his leg with all his might. At the same moment, as if maliciously calculated, the great booming punt of Bannerman brought the Princeton stands, rollicking and gleeful, to their feet in a burst of triumph.

In his own stands there was no answering shout. Stover felt on his cheeks, under his eyes, two hot spots of anger. What did they know, who condemned him, of the sacrifice he had made, of the far more difficult thing he was doing? He remembered Tompkins' advice; he could not compete with Bannerman in the air. Deliberately he sent his next punt low, swift, striking the ground about thirty yards away and rolling treacherously another fifteen feet before Dudley, who had swerved out, could stop it. This time from the mass almost a groan went up.

A sudden cold contempt for them, for everything, seized possession of Stover. He hated them all. He stooped, plucked a blade of grass, and stuck it defiantly between his teeth.

"Shoot that back a little lower, Brown," he said with a sudden quick authority, and again and again be sent off his fast, low-rolling punts.

"That's the stuff, Dink," said Tompkins, with a pat on the shoulder, "but you've got to get 'em off on the instant ---remember that. Here, throw this sweater over you."

"All right."

He did not sit down, but walked back and forth with short steps, waiting for the interminable conference of the captains to be over. And again that same sinking, hollow feeling came over him in the suspense before the question that would be answered in the first shock of bodies.

The feeling he felt ran through the thousands gathered only to a spectacle. The cheers grew faint, lacking vitality, and the stir of feet was a nerve-racked stir. Dink gazed up at the high benches, trying to forget the interval of seconds that must be endured. It did not seem possible that he was to go out before them all. It seemed rather that in a far-off consciousness he was the same loyal little shaver who had squirmed so often on the top line of the benches, clinging to his knees, biting his lips, and looking weakly on the ground.

"All ready --- get out, boys!"

Dana came running, back. Yale had won the toss and had chosen to kick off.

Some one pulled his sweater from him, struck him a stinging slap between the shoulders, and propelled him on the field.

"Yale this way!"

They formed in a circle, heads down, arms locked over one another's shoulders, disputing the same air; and Dana, the captain, who believed in a victory, spoke:

"Now, fellows, one word. It's up to us. Do you understand what that means? It's up to us to win, the way Yale has won in the past ---and win we're going to, no matter how long it takes or what's against us. Now, get .mad, every one of you. Run 'em right off their feet. That's all."

The shoulders under Stover's left him. He went hazily to the place, a little behind the rest, where he knew he should go, waiting while Brown poised the football, waiting while the orange-and-black jerseys indistinctly scattered before him to their formation, waiting for the whistle for which he had waited all his life to release him.

And for a third time his legs seemed to crumble, and the whole blurred scheme of stands and field to reel away from him, and his heart to be lying before him on the ground where he could lean over and pick it up.

Then like a pistol shot the whistle went throbbing through his brain. He sprang forward as if out of the shell of himself, keen, alert, filled with a savage longing.

Down the field a Princeton halfback had caught the ball and was squirming back. Then a sudden upheaval, and a mass was spread on the ground.

"Guess he gained about fifteen on that," he said to himself. "They'll kick right off."

Dana came running back to support him. Out of the sky like a monstrous bird something" round, yellow, and squirming came floating toward him. He was forced to run back, misjudged it a little, reached out, half fumbled it, and recovered it with a plunging dive just as Cockerell landed upon him.

"Get you next time, Dink," said the voice of his old school captain in his ear.

Stover, struggling to his feet, looked him coolly in the eye.

"No, you won't, Garry, and you know it. The next time I'm going back ten yards."

"Well, boy, we'll see."

They shook hands with a grim smile, while the field straggled up. He was lined up, flanked by Dana and Dudley, bending over, waiting for the signal. Three times De Soto, trying out the Princeton line, sent Dana plunging against the right tackle, barely gaining the distance. A fourth attempt being stopped for a loss, Stover dropped back for a kick on the second down.

The ball came a little low, and with it the whole line seemed torn asunder and the field filled with the rush of converging bodies. To have kicked would have been fatal. He dropped quickly on the ball, covering it, under the shock of his opponents.

Again he was back, waiting for the trial that was coming. He forgot that he was a freshman --- forgot everything but his own utter responsibility.

"You center men, hold that line!" he cried. "You give me a chance! Give me time!"

Then the ball was in his hands, and, still a little hurried, he sent it too high over the frantic leaping rush, hurled to the ground the instant after.

The exchange had netted Princeton twenty yards. A second time Bannerman lifted his punt, high, long, twisting and turning over itself in tricky spirals. It was a perfect kick, giving the ends exact time to cover it.

Stover, with arms outstretched, straining upward, cool as a Yankee, knew, from the rushing bodies he did not dare to look at, what was coming. The ball landed in his convulsive arms, and almost exactly with it Garry Cockerell's body shot into him and tumbled him clear off the ground, crashing down; but the ball was locked in his arms in one of those catches of which the marvel of the game is, not that they are not made oftener, but that they are made at all.

"Come on now, Yale," shouted Charlie De Soto's inflaming voice. "We've got to rip this line. Signal !"

Two masses on center, two futile straining, crushing attempts, and again he was called on to kick. The tackles he had received had steadied him, driving from his too imaginative mind all consideration but the direct present need.

He began to enjoy with a fierce delight this kicking in the very teeth of the frantic Princeton rushes, as he had stood on the beach waiting for great breakers to form above his head before diving through.

On the fourth exchange of kicks he stood on his own goal-line. The test had come at last. Dana, furious at being driven back without a Princeton rush, came to him wildly.

"Dink, you've got to make it good!"

"Take that long-legged Princeton tackle when he comes through," he said quietly. "Don't worry about me."

Luckily, they were over to the left side of the field. He chose his opening, and, kicking low, as Tompkins had coached him, had the joy of seeing the ball go flying over the ground and out of bounds at the forty-yard line.

The Princeton team, springing into position, at last opened its attack.

"Now we'll see," said Stover, chafing in the backfield.

Using apparently but one formation, a circular mass, which, when directly checked, began to revolve out toward end, always pushing ahead, always concealing the runner, the Princeton attack surely, deliberately, and confidently rolled down the field like a juggernaut.

From the forty-yard line to the thirty it came in two rushes, from the thirty to the twenty in three; and then suddenly some one was tricked, drawn in from the vital attack, and the runner, guarded by one interferer, swept past the unprotected end and set out for a touchdown.

Stover went forward to meet them like a shot, frantic to save the precious yards. How he did it he never quite knew, but somehow he managed to fling himself just in front of the interferer and go down with a death grip on one leg of the runner.

A cold sponge was being spattered over him, he was on his back fighting hard for his breath, when he again realized where he was. He tried to rise, remembering all at once.

"Did I stop him?"

"You bet you did."

Regan and Dudley had their arms about him, lifting him and walking him up and down.

"Get your breath back, old boy."

"I'm all right."

"Take your time; that Princeton duck hasn't come to yet!"

He perceived in the opposite group something prone on the ground, and the sight was like a tonic.

The ball lay inside the ten-yard line, within the sacred zone. In a moment, no longer eliminated, but close to the breathing mass, he was at the back of his own men, shrieking and imploring:

"Get the jump, Yale!"

"Throw them back, Yale!"

"Fight 'em back!

"You've got to, Yale --- you've got to!"

Then, again and again, the same perfected grinding surge of the complete machine: three yards, two yards, two yards, and he was underneath the last mass, desperately blocking off some one who held the vital ball, hoping against hope, blind with the struggle, saying to himself:

"It isn't a touchdown! It can't be! We've stopped them! It's Yale's ball!"

Some one was squirming down through the gradually lightening mass. A great weight went from his back, and suddenly he saw the face of the referee seeking the exact location of the ball.

"What is it?" he asked wildly.

"Touchdown."

Some one dragged him to his feet, and, unnoticing, he leaned against him, gazing at the ball that lay just over the goal-line, seeing with almost a bull-like rage the Princeton substitutes frantically capering up and down the line, hugging one another, agitating their blankets, turning somersaults.

"Line up, Yale," said the captain's unyielding voice, this is only the beginning. We'll get 'em."

But Stover knew better. The burst of anger past, his head cleared. That Princeton team was going to score again, by the same process, playing on his weakness, exchanging punts, hoping to block one of his until within striking distance, and the size of the score would depend on how long he could stand it off.

"Goal," came the referee's verdict, and with it another roar from somewhere. He went up the field looking straight ahead, hearing, like a sound in a memory, a song of jubilation and the brassy accompaniment of a band.

Again the same story: ten, fifteen yards gained on every exchange of kicks, and a slow retrogression toward their own goal. Time and again they flung themselves against a stronger line, in a vain effort to win back the last yards. Once, in a plunge through center, he found an opening, and went plunging along for ten yards; but at the last the ball was Princeton's on the thirty-five-yard line, and a second irresistible march bore Yale back, fighting and frantic over the line for the second score.

Playing became an instinct with him. He no longer feared the soaring punts that came tumbling to him from the clouds. His arms closed around them like tentacles, and he was off for the meager yards he could gain before he went down with a crash. He no longer felt the shock of the desperate tackles he was called on to make, nor the stifling pressure above him when he flung himself under the serried legs of the mass.

He had but one duty --- to be true to what he had promised Tompkins: not to fumble, not to miss a tackle, to get each punt off clean.

All at once, as he was setting in position, a body rushed in, seizing the ball.

"Time!"

The first half was over, and the score was: Princeton, 18; Yale, 0.

Then all at once he felt his weariness. He went slowly, grimly with the rest back to the dressing-room. A group of urchins clustering to a tree shrieked at them:

"O you Yaleses!"

He heard that, and that was all he heard. A sort of rebellion was in him. He had done all that he could do, and now they would haul him over the coals, thinking that was what he needed.

"Oh, I know what'll be said," he thought grimly. "We'll be told we can win out in the second, and all that rot."

Then he was in the hands of the rubbers, having his wet, clinging suit stripped from him, being rubbed and massaged. He did not want to look at his comrades, least of all Dana. He only wanted to get back, to have it over with.

"Yale, I want you to listen to me."

He looked up. In the center stood Tompkins, preternaturally grave, trembling a little with nervous, uncontrollable twitches of his body.

"You're up against a great Princeton team --- the greatest I remember. You can't win. You never had a chance to win. But, Yale, you're going to do something to make us proud of you. You're going to hold that score where it is! Do you hear me? All you've got left is your nerve and the chance to show that you can die game. That's all you're going to do; but, by heaven, you're going to do that! You're going to die game, Yale! Every mother's son of you! And when the game's over we're going to be prouder of your second half than the whole blooming Princeton bunch over their first. There's your chance. Make us rise up and yell for you. Will you, Yale?"

He passed from man to man, advising, exhorting, or storming, until he came to Stover.

"Dink," he said, putting out his hand and changing his tone suddenly, "I haven't a word to say to you. Play the game as you've been doing---only play it out."

Stover felt a sudden rush of shame; all the fatigue left him as if by magic.

"If Charlie'll only give me a few chances at the center. I know I could gain there," he said eagerly.

"You'll get a chance later on, perhaps, but you've quite enough to do now."

The second view of the arena was clear to him, even to insignificant details. He thought the cheer leaders, laboring muscularly with their long megaphones, strangely out of place --- especially a short, fat little fellow in a white voluminous sweater. He saw in the crowd a face or two that he recognized ---Bob Story in a group of pretty girls, all superhumanly glum and cast down. Then he had shed his sweater and was out on the field, back under the goal-posts, ready for the bruising second half to begin.

"All ready, Yale!"

"All ready."

Again the whistle and the rush of bodies. Dana caught the ball, and, shifting and dodging, shaking off the first tacklers, carried it back twenty yards. Two short, jamming plunges by Dudley, through Regan, who alone was outplaying his man, yielded first down. Then an attempt at Cockerell's end brought a loss and the inevitable kick.

Instead of a return punt, the Princeton eleven prepared to rush the ball.

"Why the deuce do they do that?" he thought, biting his fingers nervously.

Opening up their play, Princeton swept out toward Bangs's end, forcing it back for four yards, and immediately made first down with a long, sweeping lunge at the other end.

Suddenly Stover, in the backfield, watching like a cat, started forward with a cry. Far off to one side, a Princeton back, unperceived, was bending down, pretending to be fastening one of his shoe-laces.

"Look out--- look out to the left!"

His cry came too late. The Princeton quarter made a long toss straight across, twenty yards, to the loitering half, who caught it and started down field clear of the line of scrimmage.

A Princeton forward tried to intercept him, but Stover flung him aside, and, without waiting, went forward at top speed to meet the man who came without flinching to his tackle. It was almost head on, and the shock, which left Stover stunned, instinctively clinging to his man, sent the ball free, where Dana pounced upon it.

"Holy Mike, what a tackle!" said Regan's voice. "Any bones broken?"

"Of course not," he said gruffly.

Some one insisted on sponging his face, much to his disgust.

"How's the other fellow?" he said grimly.

" He's a tough nut; he's up, too!"

"He must be."

The recovery of the ball gave them a short respite, but it served also to enrage the other line, which rose up and absolutely smothered the next plays. Again his kick seemed to graze the outstretched fingers of the Princeton forwards, and he laughed a strange laugh which he remembered long after.

This time the punting duel was resumed until, well within Yale territory, Cockerell looked around and gave the signal for attack.

"Now, Yale, stop it, stop it!" Dink said, talking to himself.

But there was no stopping that attack. Powerless, not daring to approach, he saw the blue line bend back again and again, and the steady, machine-like rolling up of the orange and black. Over the twenty-five-yard line it came, and on past the twenty.

"Oh, Yale, will you let 'em score again?" De Soto was shrieking.

"You're on your ten-yard line, Yale."

"Hold them!"

"Hold them!"

Two yards at a time, they were rolled back with a mathematical, unfeeling precision.

"Third down; two yards to go!"

"Yale, stop it!"

"Yale!"

And stop it they did, by a bare six inches. Behind the goal-line, Charlie De Soto came up, as he stood measuring his distance for a kick.

"How are you, Dink? Want a bit of a rest---spongeoff?"

"Rest be hanged!" he said fiercely. "Come on with that ball."

Suddenly, instead of kicking low and off to the right, he sent the ball straight down the field with every ounce of strength he could put in it. The punt, the best he ,had made, catching the back by surprise, went over his head, rolling up the field before he could recover it. A great roar went up from the Yale stands, fired by the spirit of resistance.

Thereafter it had all a grim sameness, except, in a strange way, it seemed to him that nothing that had gone before counted ---that everything they were fighting for, was to keep their goal-line inviolate. Nothing new seemed to happen. When he went fiercely into a mêlée, finding his man somehow, or felt the rush of bodies about him as he managed each time to get clear his punt, he had the same feeling:

"Why, I've done this before."

A dozen times they stopped the Princeton advance, sometimes far away and sometimes near, once within the five-yard line. Every moment, now, some one cried wearily:

"What's the time?"

The gray of November twilights, the haze that settles over the struggles of the gridiron like the smoke of a battle-field, began to close in. And then a sudden fumble, a blocked kick, and by a swift turn of luck it was Yale's ball for the first time in Princeton's territory. One or two subs came rushing in eagerly from the side lines.. Every one was talking at once:

"What's the time?"

"Five minutes more."

"Get together, Yale!"

"Show 'em how!'

"Ram it through them!"

"Here's our chance!"

Stover, beside himself, ran up to De Soto and flung his arms about his neck, whispering in his ear:

"Give me a chance ---you must give me a chance! Send me through Regan!"

He got his signal, and went into the breach with every nerve set, fighting his way behind the great bulk of Regan for a good eight yards. A second time he was called on, and broke the line for another first down.

Regan was transformed. All his calm had gone. He loomed in the line like a Colossus, flinging out his arms, shouting:

"We're rotten, are we? Carry it right down the field, boys!"

Every one caught the infection. De Soto, with his hand to his mouth, was shouting hoarsely, through the bedlam of cheers, his gleeful slogan:

"We don't want to live forever, boys! What do we care? We've got to face Yale after this. Never mind your necks. We've got the doctors! A little more murder, now! Shove that ball down that field, Yale! Send them back on stretchers! Nineteen --- eight --- six --- four --- Ha-a-ard!"

Again and again Stover was called on, and again and again, with his whole team behind him or Regan's great arm about him, struggling to keep his feet, crawling on his knees, fighting for every last inch, he carried the ball down the field twenty, thirty yards on.

He forgot where he was, standing there with blazing eyes and colorless face. He forgot that he was only the freshman, as he had that night in the wrestling bout. He gave orders, shouted advice, spurred them on. He felt no weariness; nothing could tire him. His chance had come at last. He went into the line each time blubbering, laughing with the fierce joy of it, shouting to himself:

"I'm the weak spot, am I? I'll show them!"

And the certainty of it all overwhelmed him. Nothing could stop him now. He knew it. He was going to score. He was going to cross that line only fifteen yards away.

"Give me that ball again!" he cried to De Soto.

Then something seemed to go wrong. De Soto and Dudley were shrieking out something, protesting wildly.

"What's wrong?" he cried.

"They're calling time on us!"

"No, no, it's not possible! It's not time!"

He turned hysterically, beseechingly, catching hold of the referee's arm, not knowing what he did.

"Mr. Referee, it isn't time. Mr. Referee---"

"Game's over," said Captain Dana's still voice. "Get together, Yale. Cheer for Princeton now. Make it a good one!"

But no one heard them in the uproar that suddenly went up. Nature could not hold out; the disappointment had been too severe. Stover stood with his arms on Regan's shoulders, and together they bowed their heads and went choking through the crowd. Others rushed around him --- he thought he heard Tompkins saying something. He seemed lost in the crowd that stared at him, struggling to hold back his grief. Only one figure stood out distinctly -the figure of a white-haired man, who took off his hat to him as he went through the barrier, and shouted something unintelligible --- a strangely excited white-haired man.

All the way back to the gymnasium, through the jubilant street, Dink sat staring out unseeing, his eyes blurred, a great lump in his throat, possessed by a fatigue such as be had never known before. No one spoke. Through his own brain ceaselessly the score, strangely jumbled, went its tiring way:

"Eighteen to nothing --- to nothing! Eighteen to six --- it should have been eighteen to six. Eighteen to nothing. It's awful --- awful! If I only could punt!"

His ideal, his dream of a Yale team, had always been of victory, not like this, to go down powerless, swept aside, routed to such a defeat!

Then he shut his eyes, fighting over again those last desperate rushes against defeat, against hope, against time, unable to believe it was over.

"How many times did I take that ball?" he thought wearily. "Was it seven or eight? If I'd only got free that last time --- kept my feet!"

He remembered flashes of that last frenzy ---the face of a Princeton rusher who reached for him and missed, the teeth savage as a wolf's and the strained mouth. He saw again Regan turning around to pull him through, Regan, the brute, raging like a fury. He remembered the quick, strange white looks that Charlie De Soto had given him, wondering each time if he had the strength to go on. Why had they stopped them? They had a right to that last rally!

"Eighteen to nothing. Poor Dana --- I wonder what he'll do?"

He remembered, in a far-off way, tales he had heard of other captains, disgraced by defeat, breaking down, leaving college, disappearing. He dreaded the moment when they should break silence, when the awful thing must be talked over, there in the gymnasium, feeling acutely all the misery and ache Dana must be feeling.

"All right there, Stover? Let yourself go, if you want to."

The voice was Tompkins, who was looking up at him anxiously, the gymnasium at his back.

"All right," he said gruffly, raising himself with an effort and half slipping to the ground.

"Sure? How's Dudley?"

He realized in a curious way that others, too, had gone through the game. Then Regan's arm was around him. He did not put it from him, grateful for any support in his weakness. Together they went through the crowd of ragamuffins staring open-mouthed at a defeated team.

"What's the matter with Dudley?"

"Played through all the last with a couple of broken ribs."

"Dudley?"

"Yes. Go as slow as you want, old bantam."

"If we only could have had another minute, Tom ---" He stopped, unable to go on, shaking his head.

"I know, I know."

"It was tough."

"Darned tough."

"I thought we were going to do it."

"Now, you shut up, young rooster. Don't think of it any more. You played like a fiend. We're proud of you."

"Poor Dana!"

Upstairs a couple of rubbers took charge of him, stripping him and rubbing him rigorously. Two or three coaches came up to him, gripping him with silent grips, patting him on the back. The cold bite of the shower brought back some of his vitality, and he dressed mechanically with the squad, who had nothing to say to one another.

"Yale, I want to talk to you boys a moment."

He looked up. In the center of the room was Rivers, coach of coaches, around whom the traditions of football had been formed. Stover looked at him dully, wondering how he could stand there filled with such energy.

"Now, boys, the game's over. We've lost. It's our turn; we've got to stand it. One thing I want you to remember when you go out of here. Yale teams take their medicine!"

His voice rose to a nervous staccato, and the sharp, cold eye seemed to look into every man, just as at school the Doctor used to awe them.

"Do you understand? Yale teams take their medicine! No talking, no reasoning, no explanations, no excuses, and no criticism! The thing's over and done. We'll have a dinner to-night, and we'll start in on next year; and next year nothing under the sun's going to stop us! Go out; take off your hats! A great Princeton team licked you --- licked you well! That's all. You deserved to score. You didn't. Hard luck. But those who saw you try for it won't forget it! We're proud of that second half! No talk, now, about what might have happened; no talk about what you're going to do. Shut up! Remember ---grin and take your medicine."

"Mr. Rivers, I'd like to say a few words."

Stover, with almost a feeling of horror, saw Dana step forward quietly, purse his lips, look about openly, and say:

"Mr. Rivers, I understand what you mean, and what's underneath it all, and I thank you for it. At the same time, it's up to me to take the blame, and I'm not going to dodge it. I've been a poor captain. I thought I knew more than you did, and I didn't. I've made one fool blunder after another. But I did it honestly. Well, that doesn't matter --- let that go. I say this because it's right, too, I should take my medicine, and because I don't want next year's captain to botch the job the way I've done. And now, just a word to you men. You've done everything I asked you to do, and kept your mouths shut, no matter what you thought of it. You've been loyal, and you'll be loyal, and there'll be no excuses outside. But I want you men to know that I'll remember it, and I want to thank you. That's all."

Instantly there was a buzz of voices, and one clear note dominating it --- Regan's voice, stirred beyond thought of self:

"Boys, we're going to give that captain a cheer. Are you ready? Hip-hip!"

Somehow the cry that went up took from Dink all the sting of defeat. He went out, head erect, back to meet his college, no longer shrinking from the ordeal, proud of his captain, proud of his coach, and proud of a lesson he had learned bigger than a victory.


Chapter Eleven

Table of Contents