“I—I had to,” gasped Andy, for neither had his breath yet.
The other players came crowding up.
“It’ll be the dickens of a job to kick a goal from there with that wind,” spoke the Yale captain. “But we’ll try it.”
The whistle ending the game had blown, but time was allowed for a try at kicking the ball over the crossbar. A hush fell over the assemblage while the ball was taken out and the player stretched out to hold it for the kicker. The referee stood with upraised hand, to indicate when the ball started to rise—the signal that the Harvard players might rush from behind their goal in an attempt, seldom successful, to block the kick.
The hand fell. There was a dull boom. The ball rose and sailed toward the posts as the Harvard team rushed out. And then fate again favored Yale, for a little puff of wind carried the spheroid just inside the posts and over the bar. The goal had been kicked, adding to Yale’s points. She had won.
Once more the cheers broke forth, and Andy’s team-mates surrounded him. They slapped him on the back; they called him all sorts of harsh-sounding but endearing names; they jostled him to and fro.
“Come on, now!” cried the Yale captain. “A cheer for Harvard! No better players in the world! Altogether, boys!”
It was a ringing tribute.
And then the vanquished, tasting the bitterness of defeat, sent forth their acclaim of the lads who had bested them.
Andy found himself in the midst of a mad throng, of which his own mates formed but a small part, for the field was now overflowing with the spectators who had rushed down from the stands.