tell you that captain of theirs--Young, I think his name is--is a
splendid player. He's full of tricks, and he hasn't showed us them yet,
and I look for a surprise in the next half."

"I tell you," said Shriver, as he wiped the perspiration from his
forehead, "that fellow opposite me is giving me all I care to attend to.
I'm pretty nearly done up trying to get past him."

Cole looked alarmed.

"You're not going to peg out, are you?" he questioned. "I told you,
Shriver, that you didn't pay enough attention to your training and kept
too late hours. Now you see the result of it."

"I'll stand up against them," declared Shriver, "if I have to be carried
off the field in a wheelbarrow. Never worry for me, Cole."

"Time!" called the umpire at this point.

"Well, now for the pennant, boys," said Cole, encouragingly.

And the two elevens walked out for the last effort.

"High School's ball," announced the referee.

And on the word that team pounced upon it and carried it ten yards down
the field toward Whipford's goal.

The vim and energy of their playing was certainly phenomenal, and they
dashed aside the opposition like charging war horses. Next a most
alarming thing occurred, and it was no easy matter to say how it
happened. It was one of the tricks of that captain of the High School
eleven. His team had gained no ground since the first rush, and, rather
than give the ball to his adversaries openly, it was expected that on
the eve of the fourth down he would send it to the full-back for a kick.
But before any one could realize the trick, the quarter-back threw the
oval to the left half-back, and that player dashed through an opening in
the rush line between Emmons and Blake, respectively the right guard and
right tackle of the Hall, and, before he could be stopped by Kimball and
Cole on that side, had made fully thirty yards.

Everybody was dumfounded but the High School boys, who waved their
purple and white flags and shrieked themselves hoarse. It was certainly
a fine play, and merited all the applause it received.

It brought the ball to within a yard of Whipford's goal-line. Do all
they could, it was an impossibility to stop the next move, which was to
force the right-guard of the Ripley Falls team across the line and score
a touch-down.

As the goal was kicked from it, a sigh of despair arose from three-score
youthful Whipford followers, and three-score hearts felt as heavy as
lead.

Their eleven had lo