Too late the Sloan players saw the ruse. Only Robertson was between the swift running end and a score. With grim satisfaction, his face streaked with perspiration, drawn and weary with the long hard struggle and the yeoman part he had played in it, Robertson saw that the man with the ball was the one player on the opposing side who had done most of the unfair playing in trying to put Robertson out of the game. All of the bitterness—all of the anger in his heart swelled up and he determined to overtake the end, prevent the score and tackle the man so viciously that he would be certain to break an arm or a leg. Robertson dug his cleats in the spongy turf with a phenomenal burst of speed, rapidly overtook his man, driving him meanwhile towards the sidelines.
At last the moment came. By making a flying tackle, which would be illegal but which he hoped the referee would not see, Robertson could get his man and get him in such fashion that he would have no chance of escaping injury. Robertson crouched for the spring. A fierce light came into his eyes. In a flash he saw the end whom he now hated with an intensity that wiped every thought from his mind except that of revenge, lying prone on the ground.
But even as he gloated over his revenge, the words of Bill Dawson came to him, "Hold that man-eating temper of yours." In a lightning-like conflict, the impulse to injure fought a desperate battle with the instinct of clean playing. His decision was made in a moment. Instead of making the vicious flying tackle, he ran all the faster, but the end was too swift and had too great a lead. Amid the frantically jubilant shouts of the Bliss rooters and the painful silence of the Sloan supporters the end went across the line for a touchdown just as time was up.
A gloom pervaded the dressing rooms of the Sloan team after the game. Robertson was in disgrace. Forgotten was the playing through most of the game. Forgotten were his desperate tackles that had saved the game more than once. Forgotten were the long runs and the hard line plunges that time and again had made first downs for his team. Only the fact that he had apparently failed in the last minute remained. Only Dawson and Robertson knew that it was not cowardice, that most detested of all things in athletics, in life itself, had caused Robertson to refuse to make that last dangerous, illegal flying tackle.
But in the heart of Robertson there was a strange peace. Being human, he naturally resented the discernible thoughts in the minds of his comrades of many a hard-fought battle. But a calmness made him forgetful of all this for he knew that at last, in a moment of the supreme test, he had conquered that which had been his master throughout all of his life—his temper. All the slurs and coldness in the world could not rob him of the satisfaction of this.
THE DOG AND THE CLEVER RABBIT
A. O. STAFFORD
There were many days when the animals did not think about the kingship. They thought of their games and their tricks, and would play them from the rising to the setting of the sun.
Now, at that time, the little rabbit was known as a very clever fellow. His tricks, his schemes, and his funny little ways caused much mischief and at times much anger among his woodland cousins.