“Butler is putting it over his man all right,” observed Conley, who sat at Wolcott’s elbow, in characteristic slang.
Wolcott was watching. Both Butler and his Bates opponent, though starting low, charged upward, meeting nearly erect. Then Butler, who was heavier and stronger, would push the other back or throw him aside, and pass quickly through. Why did they rise like that? The movement was instinctive, of course, but why did not the lighter man keep on the ground where his advantage lay, and not be tempted into the air? Interested in the pair, Wolcott followed the play along the side-lines, catching glimpses from time to time of the attitude of the two men as they clashed. The advantage was always on Butler’s side.
In the second half Butler faced a new foe, who for a time fared no better at his hands than his predecessor. But presently a change was perceptible. The new guard did not rise to meet his enemy’s charge, but instead dodged past the Seaton man close to the ground on the defensive, and charged his hips on the offensive. Gains behind Butler became less frequent; twice his man stopped the Seaton play behind the line.
Wolcott kept his own counsel after the Bates game, but his treatment of Butler when he next lined up against him was different. When the first had the ball, instead of dashing himself against his opponent, he dived past him on his knees. Twice he overran the ball because he did not keep his head up to see where the play was going; twice he lost his footing, and was useless; but several times he was through in season to smash the interference as it was forming, or drive the runner in a wasteful circuit. When his own side had the ball, the play was not so easy; but by diving into his opposite the very instant the ball moved, he at least succeeded in keeping him out of the way.
“It was a good game you put up to-day, Lindsay,” said the coach, as the line broke. Lindsay thanked him, beaming with joy.
On the way down Laughlin joined him. “Good work you did to-day; keep it up.” Wolcott nodded and smiled again. But the smiles and the joy were not due to the compliments, nor to the reawakening of fatuous hopes of swift promotion to the school eleven. His present ambition was centred on holding his own against Butler, and now he knew he had his man.
CHAPTER XIX
MORE FOOTBALL
From that day there was in practice a growing trouble on the left of the school centre. The plays on that side frequently went wrong. Some one would rise in the path of the ball from beside Butler’s knees, or there would be no hole between tackle and guard when it was called for, or when a hole was made, big Milliken would be found crouching behind it, with Lindsay scrambling free from his opponent within striking distance. And occasionally, even when the play was aimed at Laughlin’s side, Lindsay would dive through, wheel round the centre and tear away the men who were pushing behind, just at the moment when their impulse was most needed.
He was not always so successful. Sometimes Butler would fall squarely upon him, and so give Buist or Wendt a chance to hurdle them both. Sometimes Butler would catch him badly balanced on his feet, and throw him before he could steady himself. At times, also, the older player would resort to more violent methods, especially when the second had the ball and the first were free to use their hands, and would charge open-handed at Wolcott’s eyes, or with a sudden upward sweep of his forearm bring the head of his crouching opponent up to the desired level. But Wolcott kept both his temper and his wits. When a new trick was used against him, he devised a way of meeting it. He learned to hold his head up long enough to detect the course of the play, and safely down when he went for the ball; to start like a flash without false moves; to strike his opponent, with his feet not one behind the other or in each other’s way, but well apart and strongly braced; to fall, when a heavy man tried to flatten him, not helpless with legs and arms outstretched, but on his hands and knees in a crawling position; to turn his opponent’s direction by a dexterous twist; and, above all, to play his game on the ground. It was a personal contest day after day between the old and the new guard to see which should prevail over the other—a contest which, though not bitter, was yet hard and fierce and exciting. And every day, though the coachers behind the first exhorted and reviled, Lindsay’s advantage grew.
The second was transformed. The efforts and example of Durand and Lindsay and Milliken had put life into the whole faint-hearted flabby set. Their plays often did not work; the right side of their line regularly broke after a momentary struggle, to let Laughlin through. But on the other side Lindsay and Peters, his tackle, could usually open some kind of a hole; and when Milliken hugged the ball in his two arms and butted, bull-like, at an opening, something usually gave way. And now and then Durand would get a chance to run back a punt, or would slip round the school tackle on a quarter-back run, and with the jerky, zigzag, dodging movement that made him disappear under the hand like a flea, would work his way a third the length of the field. Such occurrences were, however, exceptional; the practice of the second was mainly on the defence.