"Steady, boys, steady.
You're fighting for your father,
You're fighting for your mother,
You're fighting for your sister,
You're fighting for your brother,
You're fighting for the Blue.
Hit them up, rip them up, tear their line in two.
Steady, boys, steady."
Panting, pale, determined, the team heard, and their muscles stiffened. Livingston plunged in but was thrown back on his head. Dudley tried and failed to gain an inch. The line was impregnable, and Ensley dropped back for a kick. But like lightning, Bert was on him so suddenly that the ball shot up and back over Ensley's head. Without checking his speed, Bert scooped it up on the bound and was off down the field.
Such running! It was flying. Its like had never been seen on a football field. On he went, like a bullet. Down that living lane of forty thousand people, he tore along, his eyes blazing, his head held high, a roar like thunder in his ears, while beneath him the white lines slipped away like a swiftly flowing river. On and on he went, nearer and nearer to the goal.
Behind him came the "Greys" like a pack of maddened wolves. But the Blues were coming too. Savagely they hurled themselves on the enemy, grasping, holding, tackling and brought them to the ground. Then from the tangle of legs and arms emerged Tom and Dick, and running like the wind put down the field to the help of their flying comrade.
Victory! Before him was the goal, but twenty yards away. Behind him pounded his pursuers, who had made up ground while he was dodging. He could hear their panting and almost feel their breath upon his neck. One more tremendous leap, and like an arrow from a bow, he flashed over the line for a touchdown. He had made a run of ninety yards through a broken field in the last minute of play.
Some days later when the "tumult and the shouting" had died away—when the "sound of revelry by night" had ceased—when the "lid" for a moment open was again "on"—when the snake dances and the bonfires and the toasts were over—Bert, more than ever the idol of his college, together with Tom and Dick, were bidding good-by to Mr. Melton at the railroad station.
"And remember," he called through the window as his train pulled out, "I'm going to hold you boys to that promise to come out to my Montana ranch. I'll give you a corking good time."
How "corking" a time they had, how full of dash and danger, adventure and excitement, will be told in
"Bert Wilson in the Rockies."