In eight plays Ridgley advanced the ball thirty-five yards with Teeny-bits figuring in two, Stillson in two and Neil Durant in four. The captain then made a plunge through center and before he was stopped had planted the ball on Jefferson's eight-yard line. Teeny-bits tried to squirm through the purple line but was thrown back. Stillson gained two yards and Dean, who had reserved his captain for the final efforts, then gave the signal that called upon the full-back to carry the ball. Neil went into the line as if he had been hurled from a catapult. He dove into the opening that Tom Curwood, with a last burst of desperate strength, had made, took three steps and was astride the goal line. Norris made the tackle, but he was an instant too late; the big captain of the Ridgley team fell across the line and hugged the leather oval close to the brown earth while pandemonium reigned and the members of the red team hurled their headgears into the air.
Neil limped when he got to his feet and motioned to Tom Curwood to make the kick. Big Tom wobbled out in front of the goal posts and tried his best to add a point for the glory of Ridgley, but his foot wavered and the ball flew to the left of the goal posts. On the Scoreboard the figures remained: Ridgley 20—Jefferson 14.
The kick-off, two or three plays,—and then the timekeeper blew his piping note which brought to an end the struggle that was the true climax of all the games that had been played by the red and the purple since one school had stood on the hill above the town of Hamilton and another school had stood among the elms that sheltered the sons of Jefferson.
CHAPTER X
AT LINCOLN HALL
For a few seconds after the game ceased members of the two elevens sat or lay in the positions that they had occupied when the whistle had announced the expiration of time. They felt somewhat dazed,—on the one side overwhelmed with the wonderful thought that victory was theirs; on the other stunned with the bewildering thought that the impossible had happened, bringing defeat and disappointment.
Teeny-bits felt as if he wanted to rest where he had fallen in the last scrimmage with his body against the brown earth and let the happiness of victory sink in slowly, but suddenly he was aware that a howling mob had descended from the stands, that the members of the Ridgley team were surrounded by frenzied schoolmates who were insisting on lifting them up on their shoulders and carrying them off the field. He saw Neil Durant struggling in the grasp of half a dozen yelling Ridgleyites and the next moment felt himself lifted bodily and carried forward jerkily. He tried to resist but did not have the strength; and so he let them raise him up and transport him where they wished. It was a queer sight that met his eyes as he looked round him and saw his team-mates' heads and shoulders bobbing up and down above the milling crowd.
Never had Ridgley enjoyed a triumph more. Old-timers and young fellows alike were joining in the snake dance. Old Jerry, the janitor, was there prancing about in a comical, stiff-legged way; Mr. Stevens and half the faculty were there and every member of the school, while mothers, sisters and friends looked down from the stands and wished that they too might join the whirling mob.
The members of the team finally escaped from those who wished to honor them and made their way to the locker building where they sat and talked for a few minutes, regained their breath, rubbed their bruises and looked each other over. Outside they could hear the howling of the paraders and the booming of the bass drum as a line was being formed to march from the field to the school.