He had spoken too soon. Punch did spill the runner, spilled him plenty, but the instant before Punch struck him, the runner threw a lateral to the man who followed him. The lateral was good, Punch went down with the Naperville end. The trailing Naperville half went through for a touchdown and the Naperville rooters burst the head of their big bass drum from sheer joy.
As for Old Kentucky, he shuddered more violently than ever. “Here!” There was a sharp, girlish voice close at hand. It was Jensie. She was holding out a small jug filled with something piping hot. What was in the jug? Kentucky knew and Jensie too. What did it matter about the rest? He drank it all and shuddered no more.
The game went on. Reenforcements were sent in to the Hillcrest line. This stiffened up the game. For the rest of that quarter and all through the second quarter the teams took turns bucking lines, trying passes, and punting on the fourth down. Neither team made great gains. At the end of the half the score stood at 7-0 against Hillcrest.
“Dynamite,” the slim Kentucky boy whispered tensely as for a moment Dave took a place beside him on the bench, “you can’t let them beat us! You just can’t. All the old grads are here. They’re burning up for a victory. I heard one of them say there’ll be a training-table for the team next year if we win this game. A free training-table, Dynamite! Think what that’ll mean to the boys who have to work! Let me come in, Dynamite. Just let me!”
“They’d bust you in pieces,” Dynamite grumbled.
“They’ll never touch me,” Kentucky’s eyes shone with a strange light. “No one ever has except that once and that—that was sort of an accident, you might say.”
“They’d get you, Kentucky. Those boys are out for blood. They’d murder you and then Doc would have me up for getting you killed.”
Kentucky made no reply. For a full moment he sat there in silence. “All right, Dave,” he said at last. His voice was low and flat.
“This is terrible,” Dave thought to himself.
“Give us one more quarter,” he pleaded after a moment of silence. “If we don’t score in the third quarter, you’ll go in. I swear it.