For some moments it was impossible to hear anything. A mighty cheer greeted this splendid tackle, but the Rockspur spectators were mad with excitement, even though the run had not resulted in a touchdown. Nothing could quiet them, even though Sterndale made the request that they keep still.
“I told ye our boys could do it!” Uncle Ike screamed; but his words were not heard by three persons, so great was the uproar.
Highland prepared to make the most desperate sort of resistance, while Rockspur was equally determined to succeed, being overflowing with courage at this moment. The lines formed, panting, crouching, ready. With a quick movement, Scott was hurled like a battering ram against the enemy’s centre. When the ball was forced down on the hold, it was just one foot from Highland’s goal line.
“Nun-next time we gug-go over, boys!” panted Chatterton, who found it impossible to keep still.
But he was mistaken, for not a fraction of an inch could they gain when Don once more was flung against the visitors’ barrier. It was like trying to butt a hole through a wall of granite.
There was a brief pause. Sterndale seemed to hesitate, and then——
They were at it again. A surprise play had been attempted, for the ball had been snapped to Morse and then passed to Renwood, who got it firmly under his arm and went slamming into the Highlanders. This was their last chance. They must put the ball over or lose it. And so, with the aid of a revolving formation, Dolph was jammed across the line, Don Scott being ahead of him and pulling him by the collar.
Rockspur had made a touchdown, and the members of the eleven were leaping and hugging each other, while down across the field rolled the reverberant, roaring, booming yell of victory from the side where fluttered and flaunted one great mass of blue-and-white.
But, despite all he had done, Don Scott’s heart was sore. His was the gallant run that placed success within the grasp of his team, but the lad he hated with all his heart had, on the third try, been given the ball and literally rammed over the line. The touchdown was Renwood’s, but Don was certain he could have made it just as well with the aid of that revolving formation, and he felt that he had been robbed of a right that belonged to him.
However, despite the fact that he had been assailed by this feeling, the moment he heard the signal for Renwood to advance the ball he did his level best to put Dolph over the line, and Dolph afterward confessed that, more than anything else, it was Scott’s terrific surge at his collar that dragged him across.