“Then they mustn’t have the chance,” answered Evan. “Anyhow, they’ve weakened their back-field, for Deering is a good man.”
Then Duffield blew his whistle, the Second’s center kicked off and the second half began. For the first six or eight minutes it was virtually a repetition of the preceding period. The ball changed hands a little more often, perhaps, for each team played together rather better and each rush line was stiffer. The half was more than half gone when the spectators got their first taste of excitement. The Second worked a pretty forward pass, quarter to left end, and left end went dodging and scampering over four white lines before he was laid low. That brought the pigskin to the Independents’ eighteen yard-line. A fake plunge at center with the runner cutting past tackle gained five yards and a mass-play on the right side of the line gained two more. Then Putnam was sent back and the Independents set their teeth and crouched low to get through and block at any cost.
Back went the ball and Putnam, rather nervous because he had not been used much as yet, dropped it in front of him and swung his long leg back. Toe and ball met, but Kasker and Jelly were through and it was Jelly’s ample form that got between ball and cross-bar. There was a loud thump, a mingling of cries alarmed and triumphant and a wild scurry for the elusive oval. Up the field it bounded and trickled, and player after player hurled himself upon it only to have it slip from his grasp and begin a new series of gymnastics. It was the Second Team’s left guard who finally captured it and by that time it was back past the thirty yard-line. The audience yelled approval and Rob thumped Jelly on the back and called encouragement. The catastrophe had unsettled the Second and in three downs the ball changed hands again.
“How much time is there?” called Evan.
“Almost six minutes,” answered Malcolm from the side-line.
Then Evan snapped out his signals, Rob fell back as though for a punt and Evan skirted the Second’s left end for a good twelve yards. Three plunges at the left of the opposing line gave them their distance again and the ball was just short of the fifty-five yard streak. Then came some pretty playing on the part of the Independents, while the spectators ran along the side-lines and cheered madly. Shaler, who had been used very little so far in the half was given the ball time after time and went fighting through for a yard, two yards, three, sometimes even four. Three times the Independents made their distance on line attack. Then the measuring tape showed that they had failed, and, to Evan’s despair, the ball went to the Second. On the threshold of the enemy’s goal luck had turned her back!
But if luck can turn once it can turn again, and it did. After one ineffectual plunge at right tackle Peeble sent Putnam back. Again the Second’s line failed to hold, and Putnam, with another blocked kick threatening him, swung hurriedly and the pigskin went hurtling out of bounds at the forty yards. Evan took up the fight again, sending Lyman outside of left tackle for a short gain and then winning the distance in two plunges at the tackle-guard hole on the left. The thirty yard mark passed under foot. The Second was getting slow now and Evan, with no mercy for his own tired men, sent his plays faster and faster. Gus Devens began to put in substitutes: a new man at left end, a new man at left guard, a new man at center. But Corbett, at right guard, remained and Evan sighed with relief. Nothing about Corbett suggested the quitter to Evan, nor did the fellow seem soft, but Evan relied on Duffield’s judgment. It was second down now and eight to go, and the ball was still a good five yards from the twenty yard-line. Evan pulled Rob aside and whispered to him. Rob nodded, glancing at the cross-bar of the goal. Then he went back, patted the ground and held his arms out. The team formed for defence of kicker. Back went the ball, but not to Rob, although that youth seemed to catch it and swing his leg at it. It went to Evan, and Evan doubled himself over it an instant and then, straightening up and dodging his way behind the battling lines, he found an opening and went spinning through and would have had a clear field to the goal-line had not Putnam redeemed himself and brought him down some fifteen yards short of the last mark. Pandemonium reigned along the side-lines. Duffield, inscrutable and impartial, allowed himself the ghost of a smile as he waved to Malcolm and announced “First down!”
Then, fighting like heroes, Rob and Shaler hurled themselves upon the Second’s right guard and Duffield’s prediction came true. Corbett gave, slowly at first, until, although the Second’s back-field rallied behind him, he was worse than useless and Devens, crying for time, sent him staggering off and put a new man in his place. The ball was inside the five yards then and the spectators were imploring a touchdown.
They got it.