Someone else put an arm about him and raised him to his unsteady feet. Players were all about him. Others were trotting up.
“Bully work, Crail!” Blake was saying, thumping him on the back. “Ata boy!”
Monty grinned weakly. “I nearly did it,” he panted. “That Indian——”
He stopped abruptly. Where the dickens was the goal line?
“Nearly did it be blowed!” said Brunswick. “This is good enough, old scout. If I can’t lift it over from here you may kick me around the campus. You take it out, Nick.”
Monty stared stupidly at the goal line. It was a full two yards behind him! It suddenly dawned on him that he had gone over after all! He took a long breath.
“Well!” he gasped. But no one heard him. He followed his teammates back to the field, leaving Blake kneeling on the ball five yards to the right of the nearest goal post. The second was lining up dejectedly along behind the line. Mr. Bonner, hovering nearby, nodded across. “Nice run, Crail,” he called. Others said so, too, patting his tired back, grinning delightedly. Then Blake walked out with the ball, stretched himself on the ground and pointed for Brunswick. And Brunswick neatly and easily lifted the pigskin across the bar while the second came plunging and leaping impotently out from under it. A scant forty seconds remained, barely long enough for the second to kick off again, and then they were all crawling tiredly to the field house, the first team joyous and happy and the second taciturn and disappointed. And on the way, while Weston was telling him what a corking run he had made, Monty was inwardly smiling. He had nearly wrenched himself apart at the waist trying to crawl along with that ball when he was already two yards past the line! Would he ever, he wondered, stop making a fool of himself?
Ten minutes later he passed that second team quarter on his way to the showers. They each smiled. Monty was surprised to find that the quarter was a remarkably nice-appearing chap, after all!