Bertrand shook his head, as if he did not quite understand this hard-drinking medical student who made a study of his enemies as well as his friends.
“To go on,” continued Roland, toying with his whisky-glass, "and to show in the man the remarkable extent of this great reserve power of which I speak, just think of what followed on the day of that game. Merriwell insisted on having reports of the progress of the game brought to him constantly, and half a dozen messengers were kept busy running from the telegraph-office to his room in Vanderbilt. He sat there watching the progress of the game, tracing out every move on a diagram, and he knew just what was taking place.
“In his mind he saw Harvard slamming Yale all over the field in the first half, while Yale made desperate stands at critical times, and so kept the crimson from scoring. To watch that, for a man in his position, captain of the Yale team, should have been enough to put him back into bed. Did it? No! He grew stronger! He felt that he could go onto the field and lead his men. He began to walk the floor of his room like a caged panther, and with every minute he felt the reserve force taking fuller possession of him.”
Defarge was silent now, held thus by the singular earnestness of the speaker, who had been one of Merriwell’s most active and bitter enemies.
“The second half of the game began,” pursued Packard, "and Merriwell soon saw that the case had become even more desperate. Yale was swept down before Harvard’s rushes. In short order Harvard got a goal from the field. When the message telling of that was brought to Merriwell it changed him completely. He sent the messenger for a cab, and he literally flung himself into his football-suit. Then he went leaping down to that cab, flung himself in, and gave the driver ten dollars to drive like the devil to the field. You know what happened when he arrived. Yale was making a last-ditch stand, with Harvard having things her own way. It looked like a touch-down for Harvard. Then Merriwell came rushing onto the field, yelling for Yale to ‘tear ’em up.’
“The whole Yale side saw and recognized him, and you must remember that ten thousand people rose up as one man and roared his name. Then he ordered one of the men out and went in himself, despite the protests of his friends. And that fellow, who had been sick and delirious a short time before, was a holy terror the moment he reached the field. Nothing could stop him. He set everybody mad with excitement. He made perfect Trojans of his exhausted men. He dumfounded Harvard. He caused those ten thousand watching spectators on the Yale side to yell like ten thousand maniacs. And, last of all, he got the ball himself, went through Harvard’s tacklers, ran the length of the field, leaped square over the head of a Harvard man who was in his path, and made a touch-down! You remember that, Defarge?”
Bertrand groaned and nodded.
“I guess I do!” he muttered. “Oh, if any other man had done it!”
“No other man on the Yale team could have done it,” asserted Packard. “When he had kicked a goal and knew the game was won for Yale, his great reserve power gave out and he toppled over. Now, that is the kind of man you are up against when you buck Merriwell. If you put a man against him, you must have a wonder who can overcome the most remarkable fellow Yale College has ever developed. I, his bitter enemy, tell you this. Now, do you think for a single moment that you have such a man?”
“I know it!” declared Defarge loudly and confidently. “I can prove it!”