“I didn’t see anything,” said Hugh wonderingly.
“Nor anyone else, I guess, except Lambert, and he saw stars. Pop waited until he could do it right and get away with it. If Pop handed him one you can bet he deserved it, for Pop Driver’s as clean a player as there is.”
Lambert, supported by a team-mate, was walking off the field, his legs decidedly wobbly and his head showing an inclination to fall over on his chest, and a substitute was being sent in. Then Rotan punted out, caught neatly, and sent a clean kick over the bar for another point, and the scoreboard changed its figures to 20.
There was no more scoring in that period and none in the last until well toward the end. Coach Bonner had sprinkled substitutes liberally by that time, and Rotan, too, was represented by a number of second-string players. The visitor evidently concluded that she had piled up a sufficient score and was bent only on holding her adversary where she was. She punted on second down frequently and managed to keep the ball in Grafton territory until there were but six minutes left to play. Then a fumble by a substitute Rotan half-back changed the complexion of affairs, for Parker, who had taken Franklin’s place at left tackle, shot through and dropped on the pigskin and it was Grafton’s on the enemy’s thirty-two yards!
Weston, second-choice quarter, dashed on with instructions and Nick Blake yielded his head-guard and trotted off. In the stands, Grafton sympathizers demanded a touchdown. The Scarlet-and-Gray began an attack on the left of the Rotan center, where Lambert had yielded to a substitute, and first Keyes and then Bert and Vail tore through for short but substantial gains. Down to the twenty yards went the ball, Rotan hurrying on two fresh players to bolster her line. A forward pass gained four yards and Bert got six past left tackle. Weston carried the ball on a delayed play straight through center for three more. But on her seven yards, under the shadow of her goal, Rotan stiffened. Two plunges at the left gained little, for the secondary defense stopped the runner in each case, and Keyes dropped back to kick. Everything favored a score then, but luck was against the home team, for Musgrave passed miserably and all Keyes could do was make the catch safe and try to gain a scant two or three yards before the enemy bowled him over.
It was fourth down now, with twelve to go, and, after a hurried conference, Weston again sent Keyes back. But although a try-at-goal was to be expected, Rotan was not to be caught napping, and she placed her back-field players to guard against a forward pass. But the ball never reached Keyes. Instead, it slanted off to Bert and, while the big full-back gave a clever exhibition of a youth kicking an imaginary pigskin, Bert circled wide to his right, Vail leading the way, and turned in sharply where Tray had cleared the hole. There was an instant of doubt, for a Rotan back dived for the runner and almost stopped him, but Bert squirmed on, wrested himself free, crossed the five-yard line unchallenged, and plunged on in a confused medley of friends and foes. He was almost across when the Rotan quarter-back smashed into him. Bert faltered then and gave back, but the next instant the drive behind him carried him on again above the enemy and buried him from sight well over the goal line.
Grafton waved and shouted and exulted, and continued to shout until Weston was lying on the sod with the ball between his hands and Keyes was cautiously measuring the distance and studying the cant. And afterwards, when the ball had slanted off at a weird tangent, avoiding the goal widely, Grafton shouted again, for what mattered it if Keyes had missed? They had scored on Rotan, scored against a far bigger and more experienced team, and the figures on the score-board were 6 and 20!
Something that did matter, however, although few paid heed to it just then, was the fact that Bert had laid where he had fallen until Davy, beckoning two substitutes from the bench, had had him borne away to the field house.