"Now stop 'em right here! Take it away," commanded Captain Baldwin. "You can do it!"
But Harvard was not to be stopped just then. Playing like red demons, they fought their way foot by foot into Yale's territory, and threatened the Yale goal. Turner and Armstrong were on the bottom of every heap when the play came at their side, but the best they could do was to keep the gains down. They could not entirely stop them. But the gallant Yale line rallied less than ten yards from their goal, and again checked the crimson attack. So determined were the Harvard team to make a touchdown that they scorned to try a field goal, and depended on a forward pass to make the necessary distance.
Armstrong, alert for just such a move, intercepted the ball and again it was Yale's. Yale's rushing attack was stopped short and Porter was sent back to punt.
"Block it! block it! block it!" yelled the Harvard partisans but although the red line tried desperately to do this, Porter succeeded in getting his kick off, but the ball went high, was held back by the wind which at that moment was blowing a stiff breeze, and it dropped into the Harvard quarter's hands a bare twenty yards back of his line of scrimmage. A groan went up from the Yale hosts as Harvard, for the third time, took up the march down the field.
CHAPTER XIX. THE HARVARD-YALE GAME.
Yale's defense stiffened and made her opponent's going become harder. With five yards to go for a first down, the Harvard quarter and his right end executed a neat forward pass which put the ball on Yale's twelve-yard line directly opposite the posts, and one smash at right tackle put it three yards nearer the goal line.
"Touchdown! touchdown! touchdown!" begged the Harvard stand.
"Hold 'em, hold 'em, hold 'em!" pleaded Yale, but the pleading was of no avail, for that splendid Harvard team, working like a well-oiled piece of machinery, drove on and over their opponents till the ball lay only three yards away from the goal. A touchdown seemed inevitable.