CHAPTER XVIII.
THE GAME.
Plunk! Clearport’s full back, Ramsdal, kicked off, booting the ball into the teeth of the wind. Over the chalk marks sped the end men, Long and Stoker, closing in from either side as the huge yellow egg began to drop.
Bern Hayden was in position to receive the ball, and, without removing his eyes from it, he realized that one or both of those oncoming men would be at hand to tackle him if he attempted to run. Therefore he lifted his hand in the proper signal for a fair catch and took the pigskin cleanly. Turning it deftly in his hands, he let it drop; and an instant later it was sailing away from his toe on the return to Clearport’s territory.
Buoyed by the wind, the ball soared on and on far past the center of the field, far over toward the eastern goal. It was immediately apparent that the home team, while defending that goal, could not afford to be led into a kicking game.
Cooper and Davis, playing ends for the visitors, followed the ball. Spotty was a really fast runner, being able to get over the ground with his thin legs in a way that should have given him a reputation as a sprinter. This fleetness put him in splendid position to tackle Boothby, Clearport’s left half back, who took the ball; but Spotty seemed to hesitate a bit at the moment when he should have plunged, and Boothby got away like a flash, Davis missing miserably when he flung himself at the fellow. Cooper, the slower, displayed more nerve, tackling the fleet half back and bringing him down after the ball had been advanced ten yards. Chipper rose, gasping, when the whistle had sounded the signal that the ball was “down.”
“Ja-jarred me some,” he stammered, with a sickly grin; “but I got him.”
“Ready—line up fast!” called Eliot, perceiving that the enemy were swiftly getting into position for the first scrimmage. “Stop ’em! Hold ’em!”
Ben Stone found himself crouching nose to nose with Barney Carney, called “the fighting Irishman of Clearport.” He had been told about this fellow, and he recognized him instinctively.