“No, it hasn’t, Wayne, because you’ll have to pay that dollar, and maybe another like it, into the crew’s pocket, or the baseball nine’s pocket, or the track team’s little treasury in the spring.”
“Oh, I see. The idea is to have the school—that is, the fellows and the graduates—meet the athletic expenses, and not to ask the public for help.”
“That’s it,” answered Don heartily. “But here comes Hillton.”
A little squad of youths in crimson sweaters, headed by Gardiner and followed by the Hillton band, defiled on to the field, and the occupants of the stand where Wayne and Don sat were instantly on their feet cheering lustily. The band paraded with ludicrous dignity about the field, and at last found seats near by and for the fifth time began its programme. A moment later the St. Eustace players entered and were greeted with acclaim from hundreds of wearers of the dark blue and their friends, and received a cheer from the rival contingent. The two teams and their substitutes went busily to practicing, and Wayne watched Paddy, large of bulk and quick of action, snapping back the ball and forming the apex of numerous little wedges that grew and dissolved under the tuition of the coach.
The seats about the broad expanse of faded turf were filled now, and many spectators had taken up positions on the ground just inside the ropes that guarded the side-lines. Blue was the prevailing color, and only on one small section of the stand did the crimson of Hillton flutter. Presently the substitutes trotted off the gridiron and squatted, Indian-like in their blankets, along the sides, a coin was tossed, the teams took their positions, and Paddy sent the new ball corkscrewing toward the St. Eustace goal, where it was gathered into the waiting arms of the St. Eustace full-back on the thirty-yard line and advanced by him over two white bars ere the Hillton ends downed him.
During the six years in which the athletic agreement had been in force between the two academies Hillton had won three of the football contests and tied one. Last year, and again the year before, her eleven had triumphed over the blue, and St. Eustace, with two consecutive defeats rankling in her memory, was this year determined upon victory. And it was the very general opinion that she would win it. To be sure, Hillton had played the usual number of games throughout the fall and had no defeats behind her. Westvale Grammar School had been beaten to the tune of 27 to 0; the local grammar school had been whitewashed by a monotonously big score; the neighboring military academy had managed to play a tie; and Shrewsburg High School had accepted defeat after a close and exciting contest, in which Greene had snatched a victory by a spirited forty-yard run for a touch-down. But those who knew shook their heads when the subject of the St. Eustace game was mentioned, and talked vaguely of a “lack of the right stuff,” a term which conveys nothing to the mind of any one save a football player, but which means everything.
The preceding Saturday evening the four friends, with numerous other boys, had obtained permission to go to the village and learn the result of the Harwell-Yates game, and when, in the telegraph office, the report that Yates had been the victor greeted them Paddy had sighed dolefully.
“That settles it,” he had said. “We don’t always win from St. Eustace when Harwell wins from Yates, but we’ve never beaten when she hasn’t. It’s St. Eustace’s game.” And no amount of argument could shake his conviction.
Wayne and Don voted the first half of the game dull. The teams were apparently evenly matched in defensive playing, and nearly so in offensive work. The ball oscillated from one twenty-five-yard line to the other, Hillton and St. Eustace both looking for an opportunity to send a back around for a run and finding none. Line-bucking made up the most of the play, and at this each team held its ground stubbornly when on the defensive, and attacked gallantly when it had the ball. It was only at the end of the half that anything exciting occurred. With but three or four minutes to play, and the pigskin near Hillton’s thirty-yard line in St. Eustace’s possession, the backs drew away from the line, and amid a tense silence the ball was passed to full for a try at goal. But Paddy it was who frustrated the attempt by breaking through St. Eustace’s line and receiving the ascending ball on his broad chest. Don and Wayne were sitting on the lowest tier of seats so that the former might lead in the cheering, and as the ball disappeared under a heap of wildly scrambling players he was on his feet, cap in hand, and the Hillton section was responding nobly to his appeal; the fellows delighted at a chance to applaud something worth applauding. The half ended with the ball in the arms of the Hillton full-back.