“The great crowd is standing now, and from every throat goes up a shriek, a yell, or a roar, till a mighty volume of sound leaps to the sky. The players quickly get up. The ball is placed just where it was held when the Indian was brought down by the white. Then those players pack together in two close masses, facing each other, crouching, looking into one another’s eyes. Just a moment. Then the ball is lifted, passed back, and an Indian goes leaping and plunging right into the midst of the compact mass of white players, pushed and jammed and hurled forward by every man of his own side that can help him, while his friends block off the whites with their bodies. But the whites can use their hands, and they hurl the Indians aside, grapple the one with the ball, down him again.
“The whites have kept their red rivals from making a gain, and once more the great roar goes up from the crowd. But next time a man grasps the ball and goes darting and leaping round one end of the bunch of players. He dodges two who hurl themselves at him, he escapes the tacklers, and away he races down the field, with every man after him, like coyotes running down a wild horse. One gains, gets close, springs, and again the man with the ball goes down, with man after man jumping on him to pin him fast. Flags are waving, men are roaring, women are screaming. A band is playing, but the thundering of the crowd drowns it. The players rise again. Again they crouch, ready for the next struggle, and——”
“But I forgot that you do not care for this, Dick. Of course, you do not want to hear about anything so silly, and I’ll stop.”
“Don’t stop!” cried the boy breathlessly. “Go on! Tell me some more.”
Then, as Frank did not resume at once, he stamped his foot, almost shouting:
“Go on! I must hear it! I will hear it! Tell me some more.”
Frank knew he had won a point, but he did not betray satisfaction. However, he compelled Dick to beg for a continuance, and then went on with his thrilling account of a football-game, which he made more thrilling as he advanced.
Merry knew how to play on the feelings of this spirited, high-strung lad, and he had Dick throbbing with breathless excitement as he pictured the tide of battle rolling back and forth over the football-field.
When Merry permitted, in his fanciful recital, the Indians to score the first touch-down and goal, Dick actually danced with joy.
“I knew it!” he cried. “I knew the Indians, who lived in the open air, could beat the whites, who spend their days in schools.”