"Good work!" shouted the coach.
Dutton on the next down sliced between tackle and guard, and got three yards and first down.
"I hope they don't put it up to Jimmy to make that four yards," said Frank, "it looks like a mile."
"Well, I'll bet Chip gives him the ball. He won't give him anything easy to do, and Chip would rather not score than let him cinch Hillard's place."
The Wee One was right, for the next instant Jimmy had the ball, and was ploughing into the line with his head down. Then he was lost in a heaving mass, but somehow slipped out of it, emerged free, and threw himself across the goal line. The First had scored. "Good work, Freshman," said the coach, but the quarterback turned and walked up the field sulkily.
For the rest of the afternoon's practice Jimmy fairly outdid himself. When he went into the line the ball seemed to be a part of him, and he rarely failed to make his distance. With his short, strong legs, thick neck and powerful back, he bored and squirmed through the smallest holes. On defence he was in every pile, and generally at the bottom of it.
"That boy has real football instinct," said Horton to Mr. Parks, who came down to the gridiron to look on. "He is green yet, but he is going to make a good one, you will see. He doesn't know anything about carrying the ball, yet he carries it, and he doesn't know anything about the science of tackling, but he stops his man. Where on earth he learned what he has, I don't know."
And Mr. Parks agreed that a new football player had come to town.
Practice finally ended. Horton's "That's enough for to-day," brought Frank scampering down from the stand to walk joyfully along beside his old playmate to the gymnasium.
"Knew you could do it, Jimmy," he said, as he trudged along with the perspiring hero of the afternoon, who was well hooded up in a blanket to keep the rather chilly October breeze off his overheated body. "It was great to see you." Frank's eyes fairly shone with pleasure. He took a greater pride in it than if it had been his own success.