e
wavering line and thrust its way through it and on, on, seemingly to
endless distance in spite of the plucky efforts of the boy at right
tackle to stop it--it was all so cut and dried, so certain, so unvaried.
Now and again would come the tired, ill-tempered snap of Saunders's
"Get into it, fellows! Wake up, for the love of Pete!" Occasionally,
from left end, Ranny Phelps would make some sarcastic reference to Ward's
"great find," to which, though it irritated him, the captain paid no
heed. He was still watching critically and beginning to wonder, with a
little touch of anxiety, whether Tompkins was going to be engulfed in
the general slough of inertia. In this wise the play had progressed
half-way toward the scrub's goal-posts when suddenly a new note was
injected into the affair.

"Steady, fellows. Let's get together. It's just as easy to fight back
as to be walked over--and a lot more fun. Hold 'em, now!"

The voice was neither shrill nor snappish, but pitched in a sort of
good-natured urgency. One guessed that the owner of it was growing weary
of being eternally buffeted and flung aside. Ranny Phelps greeted the
remark with a sarcastic laugh.

"Great head!" he jeered. "You must be quite an expert in the game. Why
don't you try it?"

Dale Tompkins raised his head and dashed one hand across a dripping
forehead. "That's what we're going to do," he smiled; "aren't we, Morris,
old man? Come ahead, Vedder; all we need is a little team-work, fellows."

Stout Harry Vedder merely grunted breathlessly. But somehow, when the
next rush came, his fat shoulders dropped a little lower and he lunged
forward a shade more swiftly than he had done. Wilks, the weakest point
in the opposing line, caught unexpectedly by the elephantine rush, went
down, and Tompkins brought the man with the ball to earth by a nice
tackle.

"That's the stuff," he gasped as he scrambled up. "Good boy! I knew you'd
do it. Again, now!"

The regulars scored another touchdown, but it took longer than the first.
Insensibly the line in front of them was stiffening. The backs got
into the game; the left wing, stirred by a touch of rivalry, perhaps,
began to put a little snap into their work. By the time the regulars had
forced the pigskin for the third time over their opponent's goal-line,
the scrub seemed actually to be waking up. Vedder grumbled continually,
but nevertheless he worked; many of the others blustered a bit to
cover their change of tactic