Down they went. Rolling over and over, they strove for possession of the knife. Now Tom had it. Now it was wrenched from his grasp. Now he gripped the other’s wrist. He was fighting with the power of desperation, this stranger. Prison bars yawned for him. He knew prison. He had been there.
Now by sheer strength he forced Tom’s arm back until the point of the knife was within an inch of Tom’s good right eye.
“Let me go!” hissed the dark assassin.
“Never!” Tom set his teeth hard.
All this happened in the space of seconds. Then a terrific blow from the right sent the dark stranger rolling over the earth. His knife went spinning high in the air.
The Red Rover had seen. He had understood. He had struck.
Leaping once more upon the stranger, Tom dragged him to his feet. “You would!” he hissed. “One more of those ‘seventy thousand witnesses’ stunts. But it don’t go. The hoosegow for you!”
He led him from the field.
Just how much of all this the vast throng understood would be hard to say.
All that Drew and Johnny got over the radio was a brief account of a more or less mysterious fight on the gridiron. They were shrewd enough to understand that an attempt had been made upon the Red Rover’s life and that quick-witted Tom Howe had saved the day.