He wasn’t told, however. As Lanny said, they’d need Chester’s services next Saturday, and he would be of far more use whole than in pieces!
CHAPTER XXII
CHEERS, SONGS AND SPEECHES
That Tuesday afternoon practice was the hardest of the season. For four twelve-minute periods, the Scrubs, driven to desperation by Dick’s reiterated assertion that this was their last chance to show what they could really do, eternally prodded by Captain Nostrand and taunted until they were fighting mad by Quarterback Farrar, drove at the Varsity as if their future salvation depended on the utter demolition of the adversary! Nostrand thumped them on the backs, even kicked them none too gently when they crouched too high on defense, shouted threats and pleas until his voice cracked. Pete Farrar shrilly called them names: “bone-heads,” “quitters,” “babies,” “pups,” and dared them to show one tiny scrap of intelligence, of fight! And Dick, hobbling from one side to the other, scolding, instructing, praising sometimes, egged the opponents on. Even George Cotner, umpiring, took a hand in—or, rather, lent a voice to—the vocal confusion.
But the Varsity stood firm on defense and was irresistible on attack, and the Scrubs, yielding grudgingly, were forced back and back toward their goal time and again. But how they did fight that day! One would have thought that the two teams were the bitterest enemies to have watched them “mix it up!” Fudge played himself out by the end of the third period and had to yield to a substitute, as did others before time was finally called. The Varsity scored twice in the second quarter, once in the third and again in the fourth when a fumble gave them the ball on the opponent’s twelve yards and Lanny in three tries shot across for another six points. Twice the Scrub got to the Varsity’s five-yard line and twice she failed to score. Field-goals were barred to both teams and it was rush, pass or nothing, and the Scrubs piled themselves up against a defense that was like a concrete foundation. Later, just before the game ended, the Varsity, by two well-managed forward passes, took the pigskin to the Scrub’s twelve yards. Less than a minute of time remained and, after an ineffectual attack at right guard by Nelson Beaton, Hull, who had taken Chester Cottrell’s place, called “39—69—408!” He jumped a step to the right. Beaton went back to kicking distance. Again the signal “39—69—408——”
Back sped the ball to the fullback. The lines heaved and swayed. Off dodged the ends, right and left. Beaton trotted to the right, poised the ball. Right half hurled himself against an obtrusive tackle, recovered and sped toward the side line. Then the line broke, the Scrubs came piling through, leaping, panting, arms upstretched. Hull went down under the onset. But Beaton, his gaze on an upthrust hand near the goal line, dodged a Scrub forward and hurled the ball straight and true above the mêlée. Too late the Scrub backs saw the trick. The pigskin flew into right end’s arms and that youth romped across the last white mark and sank to his knees between the posts! Number 8 had worked once more!
Dick led Fudge aside later in the dressing-room. “I got that play, Fudge,” he said. “Sorry I wasn’t in when you came.”
“What do you think of it?” demanded Fudge exultantly. “Isn’t it a peach, Dick?”
Dick smiled. “I think so,” he replied. “I’ll try it out to-morrow. It isn’t a play that we could use more than once in a game, Fudge, for its merit lies in its power to surprise the other chap, and he wouldn’t fall for it more than once, I guess.”