How they ever stood the smashing, banging tactics, the fierce tackling, the eager runs, the line bucking, the giving and taking, only one who has played football, and who knows the fierce joy of the game, can understand. Nervous women cried out in alarm as they saw the struggling mass and heap of boyish humanity. There were several times when the play had to be stopped to allow the dashing of cold water over some unlucky chap, to bring him out of a half faint, and the number of lads who lost their wind, and had to have it pumped into them by artificial respiration was many.
But no one was seriously hurt, though Coddling had to leave the field because of a broken finger and Harper was replaced at the Columbia right guard because he was so disabled from a fierce piling-on of players that he was useless in the line.
Ten minutes more to play, and the score tied! Back and forth the players had surged, up and down the field, now kicking, now plunging into each other's line, now circling the ends. It was the most fiercely contested game that had ever been played in the league. The Columbia-Clifford contest was as nothing to it.
"Hold 'em, Tigers! Don't let 'em score again! Rip out another touchdown! Go at 'em!"
How the cohorts of Columbia begged and pleaded! No less did the friends of Bellport.
A touchdown, a field goal, or a safety for either side now would win the game and the championship. Which would it be? To which side would it go. A thousand admirers of either team asked those questions.
Bellport had the ball, and had, by a smashing rush, carried it three yards through Columbia's line. It was on the latter's forty-yard line now, but it had been there before, and had not advanced much farther. That last attack, though, had had power behind it.
"Look out!" warned Frank. "They may do us!"
The play looked to be another rush on the part of Bellport, and with fierce and eager eyes her opponents watched for the slightest advantage. Bardwell came on with the ball like a stone from a catapult. He hit the line between Shay and Daly, but he did not go through. With desperate energy, borne of despair, the guard and tackle held.
And then, wonder of wonders, probably because he was dazed by the impact with which he hit the line, Bardwell dropped the ball. Like a flash Daly had fallen on it.