At last the ball got well away from the scrimmage, and who should secure
it but the redoubtable Slider! I felt a passing tremor of deep despair,
as I saw that hero spring like the wind towards our goal.

"Look out, Adams!" shouted Wright.

Sure enough he was coming in my direction! With the desperation of a
doomed man I strode out to meet him. He rushed furiously on--swerving
slightly to avoid my reach, and stretching out his arm to ward off my
grasp. I flung myself wildly in his path. There was a heavy thud, and
the earth seemed to jump up and strike me. The next moment I was
sprawling on my back on the grass. I don't pretend to know how it all
happened, but somehow or other I had succeeded in checking the onward
career of the victorious Slider; for though I had fallen half stunned
before the force of his charge, he had recoiled for an instant from the
same shock, and that instant gave time for Wright to get hold of him,
and so put an end for the time to his progress.

"Well played!" said some one, as I picked myself up. So I was
comforted, and began to think that, after all, football was rather a
fine game.

Time would fail me to tell of all the events of that afternoon--how
Wright carried the ball within a dozen yards of our opponents' goal; how
their forwards passed the ball one to another, and got a "touch-down"
behind our line, but missed the kick; how Naylor ran twenty yards with
one of our men hanging on his back; how our quarter-back sent the ball
nearly over their goal with as neat a drop-kick as ever it has been my
lot to witness.

The afternoon was wearing. I heard the time-keeper call out, "Five
minutes more!" The partisans of either side were getting frantic with
excitement. Unless we could secure an advantage now, we should be as
good as defeated, for the Craven had scored a "touch-down" to our
nothing. Was this desperate fight to end so? Was victory, after all,
to escape us? But I had no time for reflection then.

"Now, Parkhurst," sang out Wright, "pull yourselves together for once!"

A Craven man is standing to throw the ball out of "touch," and either
side stands in confronting rows, impatient for the fray. Wright is at
the end of the line, face to face with Naylor, and I am a little behind
Wright.

"Keep close!" exclaims the latter to me, as the ball flies towards us.

Wright has it, but in an instant Naylor's long arms are round him,
bearing him down.

"Adams!" ejaculate