Thus it happened that Teeny-bits Holbrook rode up to the game behind the sorrel horse and arrived at the locker building fifteen minutes before the contest was scheduled to begin. While the sound of the preliminary cheering and singing rang in his ears he pulled on his football togs in frantic haste, dashed out of the building and ran along behind the stands until he came to the opening that led underneath to the field itself. He appeared at the players' shelter just as Coach Murray was about to shout out the order for Neil to bring the team in off the field.
Mr. Murray's features wore an expression that was sterner than any that had been seen on his face that fall. The Ridgley team had been experiencing a species of stage fright. It seemed that Neil Durant was the only one of the back-field who could hold the ball. Campbell and Stillson and Dean had fumbled again and again, and Campbell was the worst of the three. When the coach saw Teeny-bits he closed his mouth with a click and looked the left-half back through and through with eyes that blazed; he laid rough hands on the newcomer's shoulders and said in a voice that rasped:
"Do you want to play in this game?"
As Teeny-bits had come running from the locker building and heard the volume of cheering, the fear had grown larger and larger that he was too late—that the game had started, that he had lost his chance. He felt an overwhelming eagerness and he meant every word of his answer to Coach Murray's question.
"I think I'll die if you don't let me," he said, and his face wore such a look of earnestness and appeal that the coach's grim expression relaxed a little.
"Don't stop to explain why you 're late—I hope you have a good excuse—but run out there and tell Campbell to come in."
CHAPTER IX
THE GREAT GAME
Teeny-bits raced out on the field as if he had been shot from a cannon. The greeting that the team gave him was very different from the one that they had accorded him that day a few weeks before, when he had run out to take his place as a regular after the injury to White.