Some one pulled his sweater from him, struck him a stinging slap between the shoulders, and propelled him on the field.
"Yale this way!"
They formed in a circle, heads down, arms locked over one another's shoulders, disputing the same air; and Dana, the captain, who believed in a victory, spoke:
"Now, fellows, one word. It's up to us. Do you understand what that means? It's up to us to win, the way Yale has won in the past—and win we're going to, no matter how long it takes or what's against us. Now, get mad, every one of you. Run 'em right off their feet. That's all."
The shoulders under Stover's left him. He went hazily to the place, a little behind the rest, where he knew he should go, waiting while Brown poised the football, waiting while the orange-and-black jerseys indistinctly scattered before him to their formation, waiting for the whistle for which he had waited all his life to release him.
And for a third time his legs seemed to crumble, and the whole blurred scheme of stands and field to reel away from him, and his heart to be lying before him on the ground where he could lean over and pick it up.
Then like a pistol shot the whistle went throbbing through his brain. He sprang forward as if out of the shell of himself, keen, alert, filled with a savage longing.
Down the field a Princeton halfback had caught the ball and was squirming back. Then a sudden upheaval, and a mass was spread on the ground.
"Guess he gained about fifteen on that," he said to himself. "They'll kick right off."