Renwood burst out laughing, then suddenly ran forward, flung himself at the dangling object, clutched it with his arms and came down to the ground with it immediately.
“Fair tackle!” laughed Sterndale. “Boys, I know what it is. I’ve heard of them. It’s a tackling machine.”
“You’ve hit it,” acknowledged Renwood, getting up, whereupon the human-looking object that he had dragged down rose like a thing of life and once more dangled upright in the air, bobbing slightly, as if dancing on nothing. “I’ve had this put up so that I may teach you fellows how to tackle correctly without getting you all bruised and battered and sore in the last few days before the game.”
“Oi breathe again!” murmured Murphy, in great relief. “Oi wur about to take to me heels an’ run fer it.”
“Run for it!” gurgled Jotham Sprout. “By smoke! I was just getting ready to run the other way.”
The boys went forward and examined the tackling machine with great interest. They found two upright timbers had been erected about twenty feet apart, being connected by a strong rope from the top of one timber to the top of the other, and held in place by guy-ropes attached to stout pins that were driven into the ground. On the connecting rope ran a pulley-truck with an iron hook that held another and smaller block-pulley, through which passed the rope that suspended at one end the dummy to be tackled and at the other end the weight that lifted the dummy clear of the ground. This weight was arranged to drop just low enough to lift the dummy to the proper distance and then stop. When the dummy was tackled and brought down, the weight went up, the rope running through the lower and smaller block. To the upper block a second rope was made fast, running to small pulleys attached to the upright timbers a few inches from the top, so that by pulling on either end of this rope the dummy could be set in motion, drawn along swiftly, stopped suddenly, and caused to retreat in opposite direction. The dummy was a stout, heavy figure, made to represent a man dressed in a padded football suit, but having neither arms nor feet.
All this was very interesting, and the boys poured out their questions in single shots, scattering fires and volleys, so that it was not possible for Dolph to immediately answer them; but he explained that the dummy was one he had brought with him from Boston, having been purchased for him by his father, and the machine in a general way resembled the one invented by Captain Garret Cochran, of the Princeton University Football Team.
Then they were eager to try it.
“Clear the road!” bellowed Jotham Sprout, bracing himself at a distance of about twenty feet and pulling his cap down over his fat head. “I’m going to show ye how to tackle the old thing. Just watch me do it.”
Renwood immediately caught hold of one end of the rope that drew the dummy along, while the boys stood aside to witness the fat lad’s tackle. Jotham charged furiously and flung himself at the dummy with outstretched arms, but Dolph gave a sharp pull on the rope, and the figure moved aside, so that Sprout clutched nothing but empty air, and crashed to the ground like a fallen elephant, his breath being driven from his body in a great grunt of astonishment.