"I'm all right."
"Take your time; that Princeton duck hasn't come to yet!"
He perceived in the opposite group something prone on the ground, and the sight was like a tonic.
The ball lay inside the ten-yard line, within the sacred zone. In a moment, no longer eliminated, but close to the breathing mass, he was at the back of his own men, shrieking and imploring:
"Get the jump, Yale!"
"Throw them back, Yale!"
"Fight 'em back!"
"You've got to, Yale—you've got to!"
Then, again and again, the same perfected grinding surge of the complete machine: three yards, two yards, two yards, and he was underneath the last mass, desperately blocking off some one who held the vital ball, hoping against hope, blind with the struggle, saying to himself:
"It isn't a touchdown! It can't be! We've stopped them! It's Yale's ball!"