Hitting the line

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“Here! What is it?” And then, when Monty had delivered his message: “All right,” he said. “Come on now, Grafton! Get down and under ’em and heave ’em back! Let’s take that ball away!”

Monty stepped in between Musgrave and Gordon and faced his opponent, a square-shouldered youth with a dirt-stained face and a grimly set mouth. Middleton tried him out on the first play and Monty proved that time no better than Bowen. But the secondary defence backed up and the gain was short. Then an end run was stopped for a loss.

“Watch this, Tom!” counseled Winslow. “Look out on the right there! Get that man!” The attack on the line was a fake and the quarter was stealing out on the left, looking for an opening. Monty shook himself free of the mêlée and started across in the wake of Gordon. Tray was out of it now and the Middleton interference swept in. Gordon went down, taking his attacker with him, and Monty, stumbling over the two forms, strained for the runner. Winslow was beside him, and it was Winslow who made the tackle. Down went the runner like a keg of nails, the Grafton captain’s arms closing like vises about his legs. Monty had slewed aside and had poised himself to drop in front of the runner when something big and dirty-brown leaped in front of him. It was the ball. It bounded once erratically and then Monty had it, had tucked it into the crook of his left arm, had wheeled and was leaping up the field.

But the enemy hedged him in and he had scarcely struck his gait when the first striped-legged player dove at him. Monty swerved, stumbled, but got by. Then the enemy were all about him, it seemed, and he could only clutch the ball more desperately and wait for the tackle, meanwhile, however, plunging straight ahead, right arm thrusting at eager bodies, grimly resolved to gain every inch possible before he went crashing to earth. Cries of friend and foe arose about it. One of his own men leaped in front of him, smashed into a Middleton player and went down. Monty leaped over the writhing legs, tore loose from hands that tried to grasp his knees, staggered and recovered. Before him was open field, but behind him came pounding feet.

Not until that instant did he measure the distance that lay between him and success. The play had begun near Grafton’s twenty-five-yard line and Monty had captured the ball at about the twenty. Now he was crossing the thirty-five, and nearly two-thirds of the field stretched before him. He was no sprinter, was Monty, but he could set a good pace and keep it up for a long while, and now he had the advantage of being fresh and untired. His leg and back muscles had felt stiff and sore when he had trotted onto the field a few moments since, but he had quickly forgotten the fact, and now it was only a knowledge of his inability to run fast that troubled him. Had he been Winslow or Ordway or Nick Blake he might have left the pack behind without much difficulty, but as it was he feared every moment to feel arms wrap themselves about him. He dared not look back directly, but, near the forty-five yards, he stole a sidewise glace. A confusion of moving bodies rewarded the fleeting look. He got the impression that one was dangerously near and the rest well behind. He was heading straight for the goal-posts, and in doing so, since he had started his race from well toward the side of the gridiron, he was, perhaps, giving his pursuers a slight advantage, traveling a few feet further than they in case they had begun the pursuit nearer the middle of the field. The difference could be only slight as to distance, but it might mean just the fraction of a second that would defeat him. He straightened his course and no longer focussed eager eyes on the goal. Breathing hurt him now and the muscles down the front of his legs ached as he forced himself on at a pace he had never before attempted.

He was well past the middle of the field before he heard the shouting from the stand and the side lines. He realized now that the shouting had been going on from the first, but it had been only a meaningless roar in his ears. Now he mentally pictured the tense faces on the crowded stand and along the ropes and felt an alien sympathy for the hundred who were shouting their throats dry in encouragement of his pursuers. For he knew that only a tithe of that uproar meant a desire for his success. It was those behind whom the cries acclaimed. The runner’s strained face twisted in a grim smile as he realized it, and, smiling, he found new resolution to win his race. It is generally the under dog who fights hardest.

Past the enemy’s forty now, and still free! [The footsteps pounded behind on the frosty turf] and yet seemed scarce nearer. If only he could hold on a few moments longer! Barely more than a half dozen trampled white lines remained to be crossed. If only he dared look behind! His head was falling back now with every plunge, the arm that held the ball seemed nerveless. Once he stumbled slightly, enough to throw him out of his stride, and it seemed whole minutes to him before he had settled back into the dogged pace. His steps were shorter now. His feet were leaden and every lift was made at a greater effort. Once, near the twenty-five yards, he heard his name called gaspingly, but he knew better than to heed. It was a trick of the enemy. It was only later that he realized the error of that reasoning.

On and still on! Across the twenty-yard-line, over the fifteen! The footsteps behind sounded farther away, but he would take no chances. The lime lines were an interminable distance apart. It seemed to Monty that he spent minutes between one and another and that he lifted his aching knees a dozen times. He wondered why the pursuers failed to reach him, for he was sure that he was moving no faster than a walk! Then, abruptly, but one white mark lay ahead, and a sudden certainty of triumph filled him with joy. Even if he was caught now, he could, he told himself, struggle on for that last five yards. Already two were gone and the goal line dragged itself to meet him. Another stride and another and the line passed waveringly underfoot. Instinctively he turned to the right toward the posts, but the turning mixed his feet up and he fell to his knees. Weakly he arose once more and went on. He was dimly aware of the thud of meeting bodies nearby. He covered the last twenty feet fairly in the act of falling, so that when the nearest goal-post swam past his misty sight he had only time to put his arm out before he stretched his length on the sod.

But oh, the delicious feel of that ground under him! He wondered if one felt as he did before one fainted. If only he could get air into his empty lungs! He tried hard to take long breaths, but could only pant, and the breath seemed to get no further than his throat. The inside of his head was swirling around and around curiously and he couldn’t see. Then he found that he had closed his eyes, which explained the darkness, and opened them weakly and saw a blur of russet-green. That was the grass. Perhaps if he turned over on his back——