Onslaw seemed waiting in the proper spot for it, but Fillmore had chosen to hug him close. Instantly the Harvard captain started, but Fillmore started at the same time. Onslaw dashed toward the Hopkins goal. Fillmore was at his side and tried a body check. Onslaw crouched and came under Fillmore’s hip. As a result, the Hopkins man was sent flying through the air and struck the ground heavily. He tried to get up, but fell over on his side and lay twisting on the ground.
The whistle sounded, and it was found that Fillmore’s hip had been badly hurt, so that he could not then bear his weight on that leg. Although he insisted that he would be all right in a few minutes, he did not recover and was obliged to drop out of the game.
Lying on a blanket at one side of the field, Fillmore watched his team fighting desperately against the swift and determined Harvard men. His heart was filled with rage and bitterness, for, although his own attempt at body-checking an opponent had brought about his injury, he blamed Onslaw. When, a few minutes later, he saw Onslaw shoot the ball into the net he fairly writhed in mental pain, his injured hip being forgotten.
Hopkins still had a lead of one goal, and the spectators believed this lead would be held, for the second half was well along. A bunch of rooters cheered and cheered to urge the local men at their best efforts; but a much smaller bunch of Harvard admirers made much more noise.
Fillmore’s eyes glittered as he watched Onslaw’s swift and graceful movements.
“I’ll settle with you some day!” muttered the injured captain of the local team.
He was inclined to be revengeful. Being a fine athlete, a handsome fellow, and the admired idol of his team, Fillmore was conceited and spoiled. He was a splendid player, but regarded himself as even better than he actually was. It had always filled his heart with fiery bitterness when Hopkins had gone down in defeat before the swift Canadians, who never failed to show their superiority when Hopkins met the champions from the North. It had been his ambition to develop at Hopkins a team that could hold its own with the Canadians, as well as defeat all opponents in the United States; but now he realized that unless the Baltimore lads could do better against the Cambridgeites, they would have very little show with the boys from beyond the northern border.
It must not be supposed from this that Hopkins was weak in any respect; instead of that, the team was faster than ever before in all the years lacrosse had been played in Baltimore. But the former Hopkins men on the Harvard team had coached their fellows to meet and offset the plays of the Marylanders, and Harvard had progressed fully as fast as Hopkins.
Therefore Fillmore was doomed to see the crimson players keep at it with such earnestness and skill that, three minutes before the time of the second half elapsed, another goal was made and the Southerners were tied.
But no one seemed prepared for what followed. Hopkins took the ball on the face-off, carried it down to Harvard’s end, tried three times to score, lost the ball, saw it sail up the field, saw Onslaw take it in, and try to score, saw it driven back, secured, passed to Onslaw again, and then Onslaw sent it whizzing into the net!