The Half-Back: A Story of School, Football, and Golf

by Ralph Henry Barbour

Through came the Yates full, the ball safely stowed in the crook of his elbow, the whole force of the backs shoving him on. Three yards was his. Another line-up. Again the Yates full-back was given the ball, and again he gained. And it was the first down on Yates's forty-five-yard line. Then began a rout in which Harwell retreated and Yates pursued until the leather had crossed the middle of the field. The gains were made anywhere, everywhere, it seemed. Allardyce yielded time and again, and Selkirk beside him, lacking the other's support, was thrust aside almost at will. The Yates shouters were wild with joy, and the cheers of Harwell were drowned beneath the greater outbursts from the supporters of the blue.

Harwell appeared to be outclassed, so far as her rush line was concerned. Past the fifty-yard line went the ball, and between it and the next white streak, Harwell at last made a desperate stand, and secured the ball. At the first play it was sent speeding away from Blair's toe to the Yates mid-field, a long, clean, high kick, that led the forwards down under it in time to throw the waiting back ere he had taken a step, and that brought shouts of almost tearful delight from the Harwell sympathizers. Back to her line-bucking returned Yates, and slowly, but very surely, the contest moved over the lost ground, back toward the Harwell goal. The fifty-five-yard line was passed again, the fifty, the forty-five, and here or there holes were being torn in the Harwell line, and the crimson was going down before the blue. At her forty-yard line Harwell stayed again for a while the onslaught of the enemy, and tried thrice to make ground through the Yates line. Then back to the hands of Wilkes went the oval and again the heart-breaking rout began.

Harwell made her last desperate rally on her twenty-five yards. The ball was thrown to Blair, who kicked, but not soon enough to get it out of the way of the opposing forwards, who broke through as the ball rose. It struck against the upstretched hand of the Yates right guard and bounded toward the crimson's goal. The Yates left half fell upon it. From there, without forfeiting the ball, Yates crashed down to the goal line, and hurled Elton, her crack full-back, through at last for a touch-down.

For five minutes chaos reigned upon the east stand. All previous efforts paled into nothingness beside the outbursts of cheers that followed each other like claps of thunder up and down the long bank of fluttering color. Upon the other side of the field no rival shouts were heard. It was useless to try and drown that Niagara of sound. But here and there crimson flags waved defiantly at the triumphant blue.

The goal was an easy one, though it is probable that it would have been made had it been five times more difficult; for Elton was the acknowledged goal kicker par excellence of the year. Then back trotted the teams, and as the Harwell Eleven lined up for the kick-off Allardyce at left guard gave place to Murdoch. The big fellow had given out and had limped white-faced and choking from the field.

The whistle sounded and the ball rose into air, corkscrewing toward the Yates goal. Down the field under it went the Harwell runners like bolts from a bow, and the Yates half who secured the pigskin was downed where he caught. The two teams lined up quickly. Then back, foot by foot, yard by yard, went the struggling Harwell men. Yet the retreat was less like a rout than before, and Yates was having harder work. Her players were twice piled up against the Harwell center, and she was at last forced to send a blue-clad youth around the left end, an experiment which netted her twelve yards and which brought the east stand to its feet, yelling like mad.

But here the crimson line at length braced and the ball went to its center on three downs, and the tide turned for a while. The backs and the right end were hurled, one after another, at the opposing line, and shouts of joy arose from the crimson seats as gain after gain resulted. Thrice in quick succession Captain Dutton shot through the left end of the blue's line, the second time for a gain of five yards.

The cheering along the west side of the great field was now continuous, and the leaders, their crimson badges fluttering agitatedly, were waving their arms like tireless semaphores and exciting the supporters of Harwell to greater and greater efforts. Nearer and nearer to the coveted touch-down crept the crimson line. With clock-work precision the ball was snapped, the quarter passed, the half leaped forward, the rush line plunged and strove, and then from somewhere a faint "Down!" was cried; and the panting players staggered to their feet, leaving the ball yet nearer to the threatened goal line. On the blue's twenty-three yards the whistle shrilled, and a murmur of dismay crept over the Yates seats as it was seen that Captain Ferguson lay motionless on the ground. But a moment's rubbing brought him to his feet again.

"He's not much hurt," explained the knowing ones. "He wants to rest a bit."