What a shriek split the air over the Queen's stands! The cheer leaders forgot their work entirely, and did nothing but jump up and down and toss their megaphones into the air, careless whether they landed on the ground, on their own heads or on the head of some one else. After perhaps two minutes of this din, the leaders suddenly remembered that they were supposed to get organized sounds out of the spectators, and for the space of several minutes, they worked their already tired throats to the limit of endurance in the short cheer—"now hip! hip!"—the long cheer, and a final rousing yell for "Turner, Turner, Turner!"
The Warwick crowd, unable to believe their eyes, sat dumfounded. Every one was trying to explain to every one else just how it had happened—Burns had failed to have one of his backs on the lookout for just such an emergency; the pass had been too slow; the end had been too far out. These and a dozen other excuses the Warwick sympathizers had to offer, but meantime the scoreboard at the end of the field showed the indisputable fact that, explanations or no explanations, the score stood:
Queen's—5.
Warwick—0.
Wheeler made a sorry exhibition of a kick-out and sent the ball over the head of the catcher. It hit the ground, and of course there was no chance for a try at the goal. What should have been an easy point for Queen's was thus lost to them.
"Come on now, fellows!" shouted the Warwick Captain. "We'll get that touchdown in five minutes!"
"We'll get it all back again and half a dozen more, too!" said Robinson tauntingly to Chip, as the two teams moved to their places for the next kick-off. But before half a dozen plays had been made, the whistle sounded to end the first quarter.
Excitement reigned in the stands during the intermission and when the teams faced each other for the second quarter, the interest was intense.
"Go for them, Warwick!" yelled a voice in the front row of the Warwick stand. "Eat 'em alive!"