"Wow! Wow! Good work. Pretty! Get a touchdown!" was yelled after him.
"And a touchdown it's going to be!" whispered Frank desperately to himself.
How he did it he hardly knew himself, afterward. There was one man between him and the goal, and when Frank broke away from a fierce tackle that man lay prone upon the ground motionless. And Frank was over the line, sitting on the ball, while the whistle blew, ending the game. Riverview had won!
"Good! Good! That's the stuff! Well played! A plucky run! Riverview forever! A new day for her! Wow! Who was that lad?"
So cried a well-dressed man who was leaping about in the grandstand after Frank's sensational run. This man had been watching the game with critical eyes. He had also been letting his gaze rove about the grounds, and down toward the repaired boathouse that had been treated to a coat of paint, for which our heroes paid.
"Who was he? Is he a regular student here?" demanded the man, ceasing his frantic yelling for a moment and resting his cane, with which he had been pounding holes in the floor of the rotten grandstand. "Who is he?"
"Frank Racer," someone told him.
"Oh, one of the Racer boys. I've heard about them. I know their father. But say, this was a peach of a game!—I—I—is Dr. Doolittle here?" and the well-dressed stranger looked about. He seemed laboring under some repressed excitement.
Someone told him of the impending closing of the school, and how Dr. Doolittle was in retirement.
"This school going to close? I guess not!" cried the man. "Not if I know it. Here, let me pass, please. I want to see Dr. Doolittle. Any boys that can play football the way these lads have played to-day aren't going to be turned out of a school. Why, I used to attend here, years ago, but I never could play football like that. Wow! What a run! What a run!"