Dick Merriwell's Fighting Chance; Or, The Split in the Varsity

by Burt L. Standish

The curtain fell to a prolonged burst of applause, and again Dick had to go before it with Miss Gray. Then he hustled back to get into his football rig for the great scene.

This took place in the track house on the field. Through a great window at the back could be seen one end of a tier of seats crowded with spectators, in which the real actors blended into the figures painted on the drop so perfectly that the effect was one of a vast, shouting, flag-waving mob of people.

As the curtain rose, the entire football team was on the stage, receiving final instructions from the coaches before the game. Hicks, the villain, accused Jarvis of selling their signals to Harvard. The latter indignantly denied it, and was only restrained from pitching into his enemy by the efforts of the other men.

Hicks produced his forged proofs, and Jarvis was thrown off the team. The team rushed off to the field, and Jarvis, left alone, threw himself into a chair, and dropped his head on his arms, outstretched across a table, in an agony of heartbroken despair.

It was a thrilling moment. The whole vast audience was so still that one could almost have heard a pin drop. Then a shrill whistle from the field outside the window split the silence, and the mimic crowd on the grand stand burst forth into a roar. Still Jarvis did not raise his head.

Then came the sounds of the game. The thudding of many feet upon a mimic turf, the shrill cries and shouts of the excited spectators, the waving of many flags.

Slowly Jarvis lifted his head, and looked toward the window. The game was going on, and he was out of it. He would not look! He did not want to, but, little by little, against his will, he crept to the window. The game was in full swing; his blood was thrilled as his eyes were riveted on the field; unconsciously he followed the progress of the struggle aloud.

Dick Merriwell’s work in this scene was masterly in its simplicity. He had forgotten that he was playing a part—had almost forgotten that he was on the stage. For the time he really was Lance Jarvis, and his expression of the heartbreaking agony of the man ruled off his team at the crucial moment, watching the progress of the game with straining eyes and sweating brow, seeing the weakness of his team, and yet not able to help, was something which could never be forgotten.

The crowded house was thrilled into silence. Men sat on the edges of their seats, with eyes riveted on that single figure at the window, scarcely daring to breathe, for fear they would break the spell.

Presently the game began to go against the Yale team. Slowly the line was forced down the field. The vivid words of the unconscious actor painted the scene for the excited audience as clearly as if they had been looking on the game itself.