Sim called on Thayer for a fullback buck and Johnny was piled up with a sickening thud. The First was through with nonsense! Stiles tried to slip off tackle, and was thrown for a loss, but a too-eager First Team end had been off-side and the ball went to the forty-four, and it was still second down. Stiles tried the same play again and got a yard. Kemble went back and Sim cut through for three. Kemble punted to the five-yard line, and Jensen ran the ball back to the seventeen.
Fargo made two and then four through Greene. Sproule, on an end run, added two more and Fargo punted short to the Scrub’s forty-six, where the ball went out. Adams lost three yards on an end-round play. Kemble went back to punting position, and, with a widespread formation, hurled to the left for twelve yards, where Stiles pulled it down, only to lose it. Thayer took Kemble’s place up-field, but the ball went to Kemble instead, and he raced back behind Thayer and again threw forward, this time far down the field. The throw was hurried, for the First piled through desperately, and were all around Tom when the ball got away. Thayer, however, did good work as defense, and the pass reached its destination. The destination was Jeff Adams, right end. Jeff had crossed behind the enemy, and was uncovered. The rest is history.
CHAPTER IX
AN “UNEXPECTED” HONOR
Jeff had just twenty-eight yards to go for a touchdown, and he covered twenty-two of them before he was threatened. Then Drayton, right end, overhauled him. But after the tackle Jeff made three good yards, and when the whistle sounded, the pigskin lay no more than four feet from the last whitewashed streak. A horn tooted hoarsely, but “G.G.” would have none of it.
“Play on,” he ordered grimly. “Two minutes more, First!”
The Scrub exulted. They would have cheered Mr. Otis if there had been time. The First set grimly to work to hold the enemy at bay, and Thayer’s first smash at the line netted inches only. But neither Sim nor the big fullback was discouraged. Four feet was only four feet, and Johnny could take that in a stride! But he had to have a hole, and the center of the First’s panting, crouching line offered not even a crevice. So Sim shifted to his right, playing beyond end himself, and the Scrub drove straight ahead, wedging between guard and tackle, and Thayer shot up and forward, and the whistle blew and the ball was over!
To make assurances doubly sure, Sim Jackson gave way to Hoppin, and “Hop,” standing safely away from his line, took a long and rather ragged pass from “Babe” Ridgway, and toed it neatly over the bar. And the Scrub had scored on the First—the real, honest-to-goodness First, and not a mess of substitutes—and every one was happy. Every one, that is, except the First!
The period ended a minute later, and the Scrub went carousing away to the lee of the stand and pulled blankets about them, and talked it all over gleefully. Perhaps they made more of it than it was worth, both then and later, but, on the other hand, perhaps they didn’t. It might, you see, be a long, long time before they had another chance to celebrate any such decisive victory as they had scored that day!
There was more to follow, but it wasn’t likely that Mr. Otis would put the same line-up back. Nor did he. A few first string forwards faced the Scrub in the second scrimmage, but they melted away as time went on, giving place to substitutes until at last a whole new team fought for the honor of the First. And Mr. Babcock freshened his bunch, too. He didn’t have enough men for a whole new team, but he did the best he could, and only Clem Henning and “Wink” Coles played to the end. Clif didn’t see any work in that session, while Tom dropped out soon after the start to make way for Ike Patch. They crouched together, bundled under their own blankets and another, and watched intensely. To you or me that second scrimmage wouldn’t have proved very interesting. In fact, I doubt if either of us would have stayed two minutes out there in that chilling gale. But Clif and Tom found the spectacle a most thrilling one, groaning when “Swede” Hanbury, the second-string full back, romped through the Scrub for twelve long yards and exulting shrilly when “Wink” plunged through and fell on a fumbled ball at a moment when disaster threatened the Scrub, seven yards from its goal. Yes, though neither side scored, though misplays were frequent and opportunities wasted, Clif and Tom found the contest heart-filling enough.