But swiftly on the heels of this thought came another. What of Tempest? If he made goal the fellows would think that he had been right all along and the captain wrong. Would that be the sort of reparation he had wished to make? Would it be the really generous thing to do? There was but a second in which to answer the question, for the half back was almost upon them.
Kenny stumbled suddenly, and uttered a sharp, stifled cry.
“Quick, Don!” he gasped. “Take it!”
Tempest was not slow. Without hesitating an instant, he caught the pigskin skillfully and sped on; Kenny recovered himself with amazing swiftness and lunged toward the Harvard half. A moment later they rolled to the ground together, while the man with the ball flew on toward the beckoning goal posts.
By the time the quarter back had staggered to his feet Tempest had passed the full back. An instant later he crossed the line and pandemonium broke loose.
Kenny felt a lump in his throat as he heard Tempest’s name hurled across the field in great crashes of sound which thrilled him to the very core. It might have been his own, but he did not care.
“I’m glad I did it,” he muttered. “It was the decent thing to do.”
Then he remembered that he ought to limp a little to account for his stumble, and promptly developed a very realistic lameness, which lasted until they were going back to the track house, surrounded by a yelling, shouting, capering mob of fellows, who had poured out of the stands and presently insisted on hoisting every one of the players up on their shoulders and carrying them on their way in triumph.
Tempest headed the procession, and it was his name which sounded most frequently from the mouths of the triumphant marching throngs. The quarter back would have been more than human had he not felt a momentary longing to be in the captain’s place, but he quickly smothered it.
“I’m glad!” he muttered emphatically—he might have shouted the words aloud and no one would have heard him. “I’d do it again, too. I’ve been dirty mean to Don, but this sort of squares us up.”