“Didn’t you see that pass?” Johnson asked excitedly.
“Don’t see anything to cheer in that, it was just a poor pass such as you could see on any corner lot.”
“Meant ten yards and the ball to us,” Johnson answered shortly. He had made his own way in the world and had usually found the other fellow’s loss to be his gain.
That seemed to be the turning point in the game. The light Lawrence team had expended its strength in the early part of the game. Their substitutes, as in most small colleges, were poor, and the overwhelming weight of the maroon team began to tell. Following up their advantage they carried the ball steadily down the field, crushing the lighter team before them. The crowd went wild with enthusiasm. The yelling was almost a continuous roar.
But the little Lawrence team was game. On their five-yard line they took a brace and would not yield an inch. The big machine which had carried the ball surely, for almost the entire length of the field, lost it on downs, and saw it kicked far over their heads out to the center of the field. The crowd was still in an instant and there was even a slight tendency to hiss, but the better element instantly suppressed it.
The third quarter ended and still there was no score.
The teams changed sides amidst a deathlike silence. The next instant all was wild excitement again. The captain of the Minnesota team had broken away with a clean forward pass, and was speeding away down the field with no one between him and a touchdown but the little Lawrence quarter.
Scott yelled with the loudest of them. “Wasn’t that a corker?” he screamed in Johnson’s ear.
The yelling ended, as suddenly as it had begun, in a groan. The little quarterback agily kept in front of the big runner, followed his every feint, and brought him to the ground with a crash.
“Blame it,” Scott exclaimed. “Wasn’t that a beautiful tackle?”