“Struck the bar and went over!” someone shouted and Dick’s heart leaped upward again as swiftly as the ball had bounded from the cross-bar. The Phillipsburg players ended their leaping charge and with downcast faces walked past as Dick jumped to his feet. Someone thumped him tremendously on the back and almost sent him sprawling to earth again, and Trask’s voice howled hoarsely: “Got to hold ’em now, Bates! Got to hold ’em, old man! It’s our game if we can hold ’em!”
“We’re going to!” answered Dick with a world of confidence in his voice. “We’re going to hold ’em, Trask! It’s our day! Come on!”
And hold them they did, although there were moments during the remaining nine or ten minutes when things looked dark indeed for the visitors. Phillipsburg hustled in new players and went back at the enemy tooth and nail. A bewildering variety of single and double and even triple passes were essayed. Some succeeded, most failed, but all were puzzling and unnerving to a team of third- and even fourth-string players, and that Parkinson managed to stave off defeat in that final quarter was scarcely less than a miracle. End runs got away and yet were stopped short of disaster, and always Dick clung to the ball to the last desperate moment before yielding it by a punt. Parkinson didn’t make the mistake of playing only for safety, for a purely defensive game kept up for a length of time takes the heart out of the defenders. When Parkinson got the ball she attacked as hard as ever, and some of the substitutes won real laurels that afternoon. But at last the end came, after Phillipsburg had thrice won her way inside her opponent’s thirty yards and had once got to her fourteen, and eleven joyous, tired, breathless youths fell against each other and babbled incoherent congratulations.
An hour later players and rooters mingled happily on the home-bound train and in a corner of one car Dick and Stanley and Blash and Rusty crowded themselves in and over and around one seat designed for two persons and made merry. Dick’s merriment was less strenuous than that of the others, for that brief session had left him rather limp and tired. It had also, it appeared, left him somewhat of a hero to his friends, for Blash declared that only Dick’s interference had won the game.
“Findley’s run was a corker,” said Blash, “and he ought to have the Victoria Cross for it, but it wouldn’t have scored if you hadn’t been Johnny-on-the-Spot, Dick. Why, Lovering would have had Findley as sure as shooting! Of course, we might have smashed it over from the ten yards, and then again we might not have. I think we might not have. What saved the bacon for us was you bowling Lovering over, and don’t you forget it! The Victoria Cross for Findley and the Distinguished Service Cross for you. I’ll order them at once.”
“The gentleman is quite correct,” said Rusty, “although it isn’t a usual condition with him. And, look here, fellows, while we’re pinning bouquets on, why not say a couple of kind words for the whole bloomin’ team that held those Phillipsburg guys innocuous—I believe that’s the word, Stan?—innocuous all through the last dreadful quarter? I ask you why not, and again I ask you——”
“Moved and carried,” droned Blash, “that the hearty thanks of the meeting be extended to the team. So ordered. There being no other business before the meeting, a motion to adjourn will——”
“Move you, Mr. Chairman, that Stan be appointed a committee of one to find the train-boy and buy much sweet chocolate. All in favour——”
“What with?” demanded Stanley sarcastically. “Seven cents? You borrowed every red I’d borrowed from Dick, Rusty. What did you do with it?”