“Huh!” Tom regarded his roommate doubtfully. Then he grinned. “It’s going to be fifty-fifty, I guess. I’m not the only funny one in this room.”
“Good lad,” approved Billy.
They talked football for a while and Billy told about last year and how Wolcott had turned the tables in the last quarter of the big game and turned a Wyndham victory into a devastating defeat. “We had them all the way until the tag end of that period. We’d scored in the first and second, and booted a goal each time. It was all over but the shouting, you might have thought, for 14 to 3—they’d snitched a field-goal in the third—was good enough for any one, and all we had to do was hold them for the rest of the game. Then they put this chap Grosfawk in at end. No one had ever heard of him before around here. Our scouts didn’t even remember his name. They had the ball down on their thirty, and there was less than five minutes of the game left. Their inside half, Cummins, faked a kick and tossed to this Grosfawk chap, who had managed to sneak pretty well across the field. It wasn’t an awfully long throw, and he made it slow and sure. Grosfawk was just about even with the scrimmage line when he caught and when we’d nailed him he was three yards from our goal-line. He’d run about sixty-five yards, and there wasn’t a fellow on our team who could lay claim to having touched him! Dodge? That boy invented it! And he can run like a jack rabbit. He’s a wonder, and why Wolcott didn’t find it out before that game is more than I know!”
“Did they make the touchdown?” asked Tom.
“Yes, it took them four downs, but they finally got the ball over, and that put the score 14 to 10. We still thought we had the game, and we played for time and stalled all they’d let us. But, shucks, that Grosfawk didn’t know he was licked. Of course we laid for him and he got used sort of hard, but with only a couple of minutes left we didn’t pay so much attention to him as we should have. So what does he do but pull the same stunt? This time he only had about fifty yards to go, and we made him earn them by chasing him back and forth across the field two or three times. I nearly had him once myself. So did most of the others. He got tired of reversing the field after a while. Maybe he was afraid the whistle might go off by accident before he got the touchdown. Anyway, he streaked it through our whole bunch just when it seemed we had him, with two or three of his team interfering by then, and dodged our quarter and went over right between the posts. Well, that spilled the beans good and plenty. Why, we had that old game in our pocket five minutes before! We—we’d even spent it! I guess we were just about the sorriest, saddest, most disgustedest bunch you ever saw that evening!”
Tom chuckled. “Good thing for you fellows Bingham and I came along, I guess. You need some one to look after you and see that those naughty Wolcott boys don’t steal your games. Mighty lucky, I’d say, they didn’t take the uniforms off you fellows when you weren’t looking!”
“You’re a cheeky cuss,” said Billy, but he laughed. “Well, that’s the way the battle was fit, fellows. This year ‘G.G.’ will probably detail a couple of fellows to do nothing but watch Mr. Grosfawk. If he ever gets loose, good-by, game!”
“Oh, piffle,” said Tom. “The guy’s good, I dare say, but you fellows let him hypnotize you. It takes more than one player, no matter how good he is, to win a game. All you’ve got to do this year is break up their passing game. You must have had a slow bunch, I guess.”