Everything pointed to the fact that Simeon Guffey had taken the money. Frank had to believe the evidence. He stepped closer to the Gold Hill coach, who was watching the game with an absorbed air.
Ophir had got the Gold Hill kick-off and had run the ball back past the middle of the field, losing it after two downs by an on-side kick that failed to pan out as expected.
“Now, then, Gold Hill, smash into ’em! Get the steam engine to work! Flatten ’em out!” roared the visiting rooters.
“Hold ’em, Ophir!” came encouragingly from the local ranks.
Gold Hill smashed into a stone wall when Ophir took the defensive; but a breach was made, and Mingo, the Gold Hill half back, made some good gains by clever work. But Gold Hill, strongly favored by the wind, elected to punt in the hope of getting within scoring distance.
The ball gyrated through a long, high, aërial arc, to be captured on the Ophir fifteen-yard line and hustled back to the twenty-five yards before the runner was downed.
“Whoop-ya!” howled cowboys in the Ophir crowd; “eat ‘em up, you Ophir gophers! Swaller ’em, boots an’ chaps! You can do it!”
“I got a ten-case note what says they kain’t do it!” yelped a sporty miner from the Gold Hill benches.
“Make it a hundred an’ I’ll go ye!”
But evidently the other man couldn’t dig up the hundred.