Rotan didn’t try to. She closed up and piled her backs at the left of the Grafton line and made three past Kinley and Franklin. She repeated the play for two more and then tried a skin-tackle play off Ted Trafford that worked for a scant yard. With four to go on fourth down her full-back dropped behind to the thirty yards and held his long arms out. But he didn’t kick when the ball came to him. Instead, there was a straight heave across the center and for a breathless instant it seemed that the visitors had again scored. But the end, who had managed to post himself behind the goal line, couldn’t hold the ball when it came to him and the pigskin changed hands.
Hugh watched interestedly then to see how Pop Driver and the redoubtable Lambert were getting on. But the play was at the far end of the field and details were beyond his vision. Two tries netted the Scarlet-and-Gray less than five yards and Keyes punted high and far. Roy Dresser nailed the Rotan quarter on the enemy’s thirty-eight and once more Rotan started her open game. Four yards, eight yards, six yards, and the linesmen scampered with the chain. So far Rotan had not once tried a forward pass in the middle of the field, but when two tries netted but seven yards, she gave a remarkable exhibition of her ability in that department. The full-back went back to kicking position and the ball sped fast and true to him. Then, with two backs forming a tandem interference, he sped to the left. Tray, the Grafton right end, failed to get through and it was Ted Trafford who almost upset the runner well behind his line. But Ted’s tackle just failed and the full-back stopped short, turned and heaved the pigskin far down the field and to the right, where his own right end, quite uncovered, was waiting. Nick Blake brought down the runner on his thirty-six yards and won a salvo of applause. But after that there was no hope. Rotan snaked through the Grafton left side, ran both ends, faked two kicks, and finally, when the defenders fully expected a forward pass, massed on the center of the line and piled through Musgrave for the second touchdown. Rotan failed at goal and a moment later the half was at an end.
“Thirteen to nothing, eh?” muttered Hanser, his eyes on the scoreboard. “I guess I can pretty nearly predict the final score, Ordway. About thirty-two to a goose-egg, I reckon. Rotan ought to be able to score three more touchdowns and kick at least one goal.”
“Maybe we’ll buck up in the next half,” said Hugh hopefully.
“We’ll have to do a lot of bucking,” grunted Hanser as he pulled himself from the seat. “I’m going down to look for a fellow. Keep my seat, will you?”
School and village had turned out well for the game, and Rotan had brought some half-hundred students with her, and so between halves there was a good deal of cheering from both sides of the field, and the visiting contingent sang a couple of songs and were politely applauded. Then Hanser ploughed his way back to his seat, the teams trotted around the corner of the stand and Rotan lined up for the kick-off.
Bert Winslow, playing back with Nick, caught the ball and ran it a good twelve yards before he was spilled. Then Grafton, evidently smarting under the coach’s remarks in the field house, went at it with a new vim. Unable in the first half to make much headway through the blue line, she began to bear down hard on the ends and tackles. The first attempt gained many yards, but it was across the field instead of down it, and the pigskin came to a pause on the same line from which it had started. But the next attempt proved more successful, for, with Keyes carrying, the pigskin slipped around the Rotan left end for a first down. Then Bert plowed through between center and right guard for four and Roy Dresser, on an end-around play, added another five. Keyes plugged through on the left for enough to make the distance. By this time Grafton was shouting enthusiastically in the stand and the ball was past the center of the field and in Rotan territory.
Bert again made four on a delayed pass around the opponent’s right wing, and once more Keyes, from kick formation, ran wide for a scant gain. With four to go, Nick slipped straight ahead for two and then Keyes faked a kick and made it first down. The ball was near Rotan thirty-five yards now and visions of a touchdown floated before the Grafton supporters. But when two tries had failed to yield more than four yards and Keyes got a forward pass away to Roy Dresser and that youth failed even to touch it, a punt was in order. Rotan caught on her five yards but failed to gain. Then, since the play was now nearly opposite his end of the stand, Hugh could watch the doings of Pop and his adversary. And they were well worth noting.
Lambert was a big, rawboned fellow with a shock of yellow-brown hair which, since he had lost his head-guard, made a vivid note of color. It was evident to Hugh that both Pop and Lambert were engaged in a private and personal rivalry that was of absorbing interest to them. And both youths looked as if they had had hard wear. Lambert sported a strip of plaster across his nose like a saddle and Pop had one very discolored eye. On offense Lambert played well outside of Pop Driver, for the Grafton line was no longer attempting to stretch as wide as the opponent’s, and, theoretically at least, it was Captain Trafford who should have engaged the shock-haired left guard. But Hugh noted with amusement that almost every time it was Pop who tried conclusions with Lambert, often, as it appeared, most impolitely ignoring the center’s efforts to interest him. Hugh couldn’t see anything that looked like slugging, however, in spite of the visible marks of combat. It was merely a very pretty struggle for supremacy, with the honors fairly even, Hugh concluded. But a few minutes later, when Rotan, having failed at a run around Roy Dresser’s end and lost three yards on a forward pass that went awry, finally punted to midfield and the two teams lined up close to the fifty-yard line, he began to have his doubts. With the ball in Grafton’s possession and the lines playing close and compact, Lambert and Pop faced each other at arm’s length. On the first play, a direct plunge at the guard position on the left, Hugh, watching Pop and his adversary rather than the runner, saw the rivals clash together and Lambert’s fist, under cover of the confusion, jerk upwards to Pop’s chin. He almost, he thought, heard the thud of the blow. He saw Pop’s head go back and Pop reel for an instant. Then the Rotan line buckled and the whistle shrilled. Hugh turned to Hanser, but it was evident that the incident had escaped him just as it had apparently escaped everyone else, including the officials.