Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker

by Matthew M. Colton

"Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown!" howled the Maroon stands. "You've got 'em going! No hope for Queen's!"

The Queen's followers cried valiantly and incessantly: "Hold them! hold them!" But even the most enthusiastic and hopeful of the boys who wore the Blue and Gold could not fail to see the impending disaster. Down on the side-line the substitutes crouched, gritting their teeth and thrusting an imaginary shoulder against the Warwick invaders as the two lines met.

"There they go again!" yelled a Queen's boy. "It's a touchdown—no, it isn't—Turner has him!" And Turner did indeed have him. Biglow had sliced in between the tackle and end and was getting up speed, when the fiery Jimmy set sail for him. Biglow, in his endeavor to elude him, cut across the field. Jimmy forced him farther and farther out, until, the side-line being near at hand, Biglow endeavored to side-step the tackler. He failed dismally, and the next moment Jimmy's arms encircled his legs and Jimmy's sturdy shoulder struck his thigh, carrying Biglow with the ball clear off his feet and backward toward his own goal. Biglow's head struck the ground with a resounding thump. The ball flew from his arms and bounced crazily around. Half a dozen forms shot for it, and instantly there was a pile which was quickly dug apart by the referee. Big Wheeler lay with the ball tucked securely under his body.

You might have thought it a Queen's touchdown the way the followers of the Blue and Gold leaped into the air, shouted, danced and hugged each other.

"Turner, Turner, Turner!" shouted the crowd. "Oh, what a tackle!"

"Good boy, Turner! Good boy, Wheeler!" yelled Queen's; and then the leaders got to work and gave a regular cheer for each of the boys who had saved, for a time at least, the Queen's goal line. The Warwick stand was as still as death. A touchdown had been snatched away from them by the red-head!

Wheeler immediately kicked out of danger, sending the ball spinning far down the field, from which position Warwick again took up the march. The Queen's forwards did better this time. They had learned a little more about their opponent's attack and checked the advances a little, but could not stop them. More slowly but just as surely the ball went back. Biglow bored through and went around the end, making up the difficult yards that had been lost by his previous fumble. He ran low and hard and scarcely ever failed to make his distance. Once with five yards to go on the last down, the Warwick quarter worked a pretty forward pass and made the necessary distance.

Across the center of the field came the Warwick football machine, irresistible and deadly. Chip shouted from the back field instructions to the line to get low and charge fast and hard. They tried to follow orders, but were bowled over by the fierce onslaught of the bigger line they were facing. Jimmy slapped the linemen on the back and encouraged them after each scrimmage, and endeavored with Wheeler to work the team up to desperate heights of defense. But all seemed useless. On came the Warwick team, and now they were at the 20-yard line.

With the necessity for a close guarding of the back field territory diminishing, the Queen's backs crept in closer and made the Warwick players work even harder for what they earned. But even then the big Maroon team made its distance, and, with a first down, the ball lay just inside the 10-yard line.

Again Queen's was fighting hard to stave off a touchdown. The boys in the stand called almost despairingly to "hold them," while pandemonium reigned on the opposite side of the field. The Warwick players looked smiling and confident as they settled themselves for a scrimmage, while Queen's was tense and anxious.