“Made it! Made it! Made it!” chanted the Hillcrest rooters. “First down. Ten to go! We want a touchdown! We want a touchdown!”
“Again!” Rabbit panted, as he came up to Dave. “Just one more time.”
“One more time it is,” Dave grinned. “Don’t see how you did it, but it’s worth one more try.”
Again it was. Same play, same old forward plunge, same results. This time Rabbit did not say it all, only “Ha! Ha!” then he plunged. Again the jinx worked. This time he went all the way for a touchdown.
Amid the deafening din made by rooters, Punch Dickman kicked the goal and the score stood 14-7 in Hillcrest’s favor.
“Game’s not over,” Dave warned his team mates. “Not by a long mile. And we’ve got to win.”
“Yes,” Johnny whispered to himself as he heard the words, “They must win.”
He was thinking at that moment, however, more of Ballard than of all the rest of the team. Ballard, he knew, had been practicing entirely too hard. He was nervous and jumpy. If too much of the game depended upon him, he might do something rather terrible. He knew little about the strange events that were throwing the game, almost entirely, to Rabbit’s side of the team. He was thankful it was so.
“If only Ballard can get through a game without any mishaps,” he said to Jensie. “And if he can see his own team win, it will help a lot.”
“Yes,” Jensie agreed soberly, “it will.”