Like a shot that man went through Harvard's line. He ran with wonderful speed, with interferers on either side and a bit in advance.
It was Frank making a last desperate effort for a touchdown!
One by one the interferers were flung aside till he was alone, hugging the ball, running as if for his life.
Three men came down on him while he had fifteen yards to go. They flung themselves on him like famished wolves. They thought to crush him to the ground.
Then ten thousand people gasped with astonishment, scarcely able to believe what they saw.
It did not seem that Merriwell slackened speed much, and he still went forward, carrying those three men on his back and shoulders. They tried to drag him down, and others tried to reach him. They could not break him to the ground, and, with them all on his back he carried the ball over the line. Then he fell, and the ball was beneath him.
It was a touchdown for Yale! Besides that, it was the most wonderful touchdown ever made on a football field. A mighty roar went up from the spectators when they realized what had happened. Never before had they witnessed anything like that. They knew the man who made the play had won fame. To-morrow his picture would be in every Boston and New York newspaper.
Oh, how the Yale men shrieked, and screamed, and roared! They were like human beings gone mad. They were crazed with their admiration for the man who had done that trick. They longed to take him in their arms, to bear him on their shoulders, to do him every honor.
Gloriously had Frank Merriwell won back his lost prestige! Let a man breathe a slur against him now and there would be a hundred ready to knock that man down.
When the mass untangled Merriwell was seen lifted to his feet. He stood up, wavering a bit, supported by Forrest, who had an arm around Frank's body.