teams lined up for a last desperate trial of strength.
The Blues were thoroughly awake now. All their apathy was gone at this
moment of deadly peril, and they swore to themselves to hold that
precious ten yards if they died in doing it.

The jubilant Army men called on McAlpin, their giant fullback, to buck
the line. He went into it like a maddened bull, but Dick at center
refused to give an inch. He tried again at left and made two yards
through Ellis. A hole made by his guards between Axtell and Martin
yielded three more. Five yards yet to go and only one chance left! Once
more he braced and hurled himself savagely against the right side of the
line. But Bert was crouching there in readiness, his six feet of bone
and muscle instinct with power and resolution. He went into McAlpin like
a human pile driver, and threw him back for a loss of four yards. The
goal was safe and the ball belonged to the Blues on their ten yard line.
It had been a close call, and a murmur of disappointment went up from
the Army partisans, while the Blue stands rocked with applause.

The elevens lined up and Tom snapped the ball to Dick, who passed it to
Bert, five feet behind the line. The ball rose from his toe like a bird
and soared down to the forty yard line. From there the Blues rushed it
down to within thirty yards of the Army goal before the whistle
announced the end of the second quarter.

It was a different crowd that gathered in the Blues' dressing rooms in
the interval that followed. That threat against their goal line was the
electric spark that was necessary in order to shock them into action.
They were worked up to fighting pitch. Their eyes were blazing, their
features grim, and "Bull" Hendricks, who was primed to lash them to the
bone with his bitter tongue, wisely forebore. He saw that they were
fairly fuming with eagerness for the fray, and after making some minor
changes in the line-up--Ellis having sprained his ankle and Caldwell
broken a finger--he sent them out with the single exhortation to
"hammer the heart out of them."

It wasn't as classic as Wellington's "Up, Guards, and at them," but
quite as effective. Against that electrified and rejuvenated team, the
Army didn't have a chance. Their highly raised hopes went glimmering
before the raging onslaught of the Blues. Every man worked as though the
outcome of the game depended upon him alone. They plunged into the
crumbling lines of the Army like so many wild men. The