Only eight days before, he remembered, Blake first complained. It was at
the practice, and Diemann had given him a shot about his listless work.
Fred had answered:

"I can't help it, Die; I feel dead, somehow. I'm afraid I'm going stale,
after all."

He recalled the drawn look on Fred's face. But the boy would come out
the next night, for there was only a week before the team would leave
for the Springs, and so much had to be done that the captain simply
couldn't lay off. Toward the end of the practice, he collapsed. With his
arm over Lyman's shoulder he had gone back to the Hall, dragging his
feet heavily, while the crowd sat on the bleachers, quiet and
frightened. Then the pain came, tearing its way into the heroic body,
and the specialist hurriedly summoned from San Francisco had said that
they must get him to the hospital.

Now it was all over, and Diemann was following his melancholy telegram
to college. He could guess the effect of the news. A week ago the
knowledge of Blake's illness had staggered them; the college had grown
sick at heart; the city papers published details and the hopes of
Berkeley bounded to certainty of victory, for there was only one Blake.
Without him the Stanford team was nothing exceptional, and common
estimate gave the chance to California. The Stanford management did the
only thing they could do by putting in Ashley, the scrub fullback; but
this did not help matters materially. Ashley was a man of beautiful
physique, and the most conscientious player on the field. There he
stopped. He utterly lacked the head-work that Blake put into the game.

For the star fullback had possessed the football instinct. Beyond his
quickness and dash, he had the mysterious faculty of staying with the
ball. If he were breaking the line, he placed the hole the fraction of
an instant before anyone else perceived it. They used to put him at
quarterback in defensive work, and he knew by inspiration where the play
was going, so that the line felt confident with him at their backs.

Tom Ashley had nothing of all this. He punted as well as the 'Varsity
man, generally better, at the beginning of the season; but was slow with
his kick, often fatally slow when the 'Varsity broke through the scrub
line. He was late in starting, too, though a strong runner when out in
the field. The chief beauty of his game was a quick and certain
straight-arm. At another time he might have easily been the 'Varsity
fullback, for h