“Let ’em have it!” he said hoarsely, defiantly. “Sure, they made it!” He silenced a protest from the red-headed Reilly sharply. “Now let’s see ’em get over! Come on, Second! Show ’em who we are! They don’t know they’re up against the real team!” There was insult in that emphasis, and the first growled angrily. But the second laughed proudly and exultantly and lined up inside the eight yards and drew in their breaths deeply. Then came the onslaught once more. Mawson tried to get through Captain Falls and made less than a yard. Moncks tried the other guard position and made nothing. The first snapped into a shift and Linthicum edged back up the field. The second crossed to meet it. Russell went out and back. The ball passed, was gone from sight. A sudden massing of the scrubs at the left of center. A muddy helmet was lifted above the mêlée, was poised there an instant and went back and down. The scrubs pushed in. A whistle blew.
“Fourth down!” panted the referee. “About ten to go!”
First had lost its scant gain!
Second howled raucous derision, taunted as it dug its cleats again. But first team had shot its bolt. A field-goal or a forward pass alone remained to her, and she tried the latter. It was Russell who took that pass five yards behind his goal-line and under the nose of the desperate Crocker, and it was Russell who sank gently down on the sward and, with the ball carefully beneath him, stifled a groan. For the disappointed Crocker had signified his feelings by a quick, hard blow to Russell’s already damaged nose.
In the tense excitement of the instant the blow had gone unseen, or unrealized, by most. But Wells had seen it and Wells acted quickly. Billy Crocker measured his length beside the goal-post, while first and second players rushed up, expostulating, threatening, eager for trouble. For the moment none remembered Russell, and that youth presently crawled to his feet with the ball, dabbed ineffectually at his bleeding nose and became aware of the fact that internecine strife was threatening a few yards away. But the coaches and the managers and the captains and one or two other exponents of peace dug their way into the group and begged and commanded and threatened, pushing and shoving here and there, and war was averted. Above all other voices could be heard the strident tones of the indignant and blood-thirsty Wells.
“He poked Emerson square in the nose, the dirty bounder! I saw him do it! Let him come over here and try it on me! Yah, you’d better get him away, Mart!”
Then Coach Cade and one or two more were questioning Russell and Russell was shaking his head negatively. “I’m sure it was an accident,” he asserted. “I’m satisfied.”
“He’s lying!” shouted the irrepressible Wells, struggling between his captors. “He’s lying!”