"Signal!" he cried. "Steady, fellows; we want this; every one hold hard!"
He trotted back to the thirty-five-yard line and dropped to his knees, directly behind and almost facing center. Neil took up his position three yards from him and facing the goal. Pearse and Smith stood guard between him and the line. The Robinson right half turned and sped back to join the quarter, whose commands to "Get through and stop this kick!" were being shouted lustily from his position near the goal-line.
"Signal!" Reardon repeated. Graham stooped over the ball. Neil, pale but with a little smile about his mouth, measured his distance. Victory depended upon him. From where Reardon knelt to the goal was nearly forty yards on a straight line and the angle was severe. If he made it, well and good; if he missed--He recalled what Mills had told him ere he sent him in:
"I think you can win this for us, Fletcher. Once inside their twenty-five Reardon will give you the ball for a kick from drop or placement, as you think best. Whatever happens, don't let your nerves get the best of you. If you miss, why, you've missed, that's all. Don't think the world's coming to an end because we've been beaten. A hundred years from now, when you and I aren't even memories, Erskine will still be turning out football teams. But if we can, we want to win. Just keep cool and do your level best, that's all we ask. Now get in there."
Neil took a deep breath. He'd do his best. If the line held, the ball ought to go over. He was cool enough now, and although his shoulder seemed on fire, the smile about his mouth deepened and grew confident. Reardon stretched forth his hands.
"Signal!" he cried for the third time; but no signal was forthcoming. Instead Graham sped the ball back to him, steady and true, and the Robinson line, almost caught napping, failed to charge until the oval had settled into Reardon's hands and had been placed upon the ground well cocked at the goal. Then the Brown's warriors broke through and bore down, big and ugly, upon Pearse and Smith; but Neil was stepping toward the ball; a long stride, a short one, a long one, and toe and pigskin came together. Pearse was down and Smith was shouldering valiantly at a big guard. Two blue-clad arms swept upward almost into the path of the rising ball; there was a confused sound of crashing bodies and rasping canvas, and then a Robinson man bounded against Neil and sent him reeling to earth.
For an instant the desire to lie still and close his eyes was strong. But there was the ball! He rolled half over, and raising himself on his left hand looked eagerly toward the posts. The pigskin, turning lazily over and over, was still in flight. Straight for the goal it was speeding, but now it had begun to drop. Neil's heart stood still. Would it clear the cross-bar? It seemed scarcely possible, but even as despair seized him, for an instant the bar came between his straining eyes and the dropping ball!
A figure with tattered purple sleeves near at hand leaped into the air, waving his arms wildly. On the stand across the field pandemonium broke loose.
Neil closed his eyes.
A moment later Simson found him there, sitting on the thirty-five-yard line, one arm hanging limply over his knee, his eyes closed, and his white face wreathed in smiles.