“Take it easy,” came in gruff, unnatural accents. “You want to get your wind–old fellow.”
“I–I’m all right,” muttered the tenderfoot.
He passed one hand vaguely across his forehead. Some one brought a tin dipper, from which he rinsed his mouth mechanically. His head was clearing, but he couldn’t seem to understand whether the transformation in the chap beside him was real or only a creation of his bewildered brain. But when he took his place again and dropped his shoulders instinctively, another shoulder pressed against him on the left, and that same hoarse, unfamiliar voice sounded in his ears:
“Together now, kid; we’ll stop ’em this time!”
The words seemed to give Dale a new strength. Stirred to the very fiber of his being, he dived forward to meet the onward rush. Still with that new, stimulating sense of support where none had been before, his outstretched hands gripped like tentacles around sturdy legs. There was a heaving, churning motion; then the compact mass of players toppled over, and he knew that they had succeeded.
Nor was it a solitary advantage. Unobserved by Tompkins, the whole line had been slowly stiffening. Slowly, gradually, the other holes had been closed up and the advance checked. When the kick put the ball in their possession, a new spirit animated Troop Five. Scattered no longer, but welded by stern necessity into a single unit, they forgot their handicap, forgot that the minutes of the final quarter were speeding in mad flight, forgot everything but the vital need of breaking through that line of blue and carrying the fight toward those distant goal-posts that loomed so far away.
Forming up swiftly, they swept forward for a gain of eight yards. Before the opposition recovered from their surprise, they had passed the fifty-yard line.
Here the blues rallied, and for a space the two lines surged back and forth in the middle of the field. It was a period of small gains and frequent punts, when neither side held the ball long, nor the advantage. Thrilled by their success, exhilarated by that strange new sense of comradeship with the boy beside him, Dale fought fiercely, heedless of the shock of bodies, of pain, of weariness, of blinding sweat, or hard-won breath. His only worry was a growing fear that they would not have time to score, and this had only just begun to dominate him when the unexpected happened.
They were battling on the enemy’s forty-yard line. It was Troop One’s ball, and they had tried to force a gain through center. Shoulder to shoulder, Ranny and Dale plunged forward to meet the rush. The advance checked, Tompkins gained his feet swiftly and thrilled to see the precious ball rolling free not a dozen feet away.
With a gasp he lunged for it and scooped it up without slackening speed. At almost the same instant Ranny Phelps shot out of the scrimmage as if propelled from a catapult, and a moment later the two were thudding down the field, a stream of players trailing in their wake.