The time-keeper trotted up, watch in hand.
“Four and a half minutes,” he called.
Hall, grinning and happy, settled into line. The first plunge netted her six yards right through House’s left wing. Brooks scolded and stormed.
“Hold them! Hold them! Can’t you hold them?”
Hall’s quarter started his signals, but Grow stopped him. There was a whispered consultation and Grow walked back behind his goal-line and held his arms out.
“Kick!” shouted Brooks. “Block it, block it, block it!”
Block it! Cal remembered Ned’s words. Here, then, was his first and final chance to show his worth! Could he get through? And if he did could he get near the ball? He eyed Dixon stealthily. That youth looked pretty solid and formidable. To get inside of him seemed hopeless. The only chance was to coax him in and then get through between him and end, and after that there was a long way to go. But he would try it.
He edged close to Brooks and Dixon followed him. Grow raised his arms. Center shot back the ball. Cal feinted to the left and then sprang past Dixon to the right. A back stood in his way, but Cal sent him staggering. All was confusion and cries and rushing players. Cal saw Grow swing his long leg and heard, or thought he heard the sound as boot met ball. And then he was leaping sideways, arms up-stretched. Something struck him fair under the chin, something that staggered him and then went bouncing erratically back past Brooks, who was stumbling under the attack of the enemy.
For what seemed a long minute to Cal he couldn’t get started. When he did he dodged a frantic pair of blue-clad arms and ran like the wind. The ball was trickling along the turf far back from the goal-line. Half a dozen players, red and blue, were after it, but Cal was ahead. A Hall player came tearing along behind him and Cal knew that if he missed the ball on the first attempt his chance was gone forever. He didn’t wait until he was fully up to it, but dived for it as a cat pounces at a mouse. The distance was more than he had thought and he came to earth with the teetering pigskin an arm’s length away. But he got it, reached it and grabbed it toward him just as the pursuing foe fell upon him and drove all the breath from his body. Others followed, falling and scrambling. Someone tried to wrest the prize away from him, but Cal, although there was scarcely a gasp left in him and his eyes seemed popping from his head, hung to it tenaciously, striving hard to snuggle it under his body. Then somewhere a whistle blew and little by little the awful weight lifted and he could draw a full breath again.
“Let me have it, Boland.”