ls of the game. Sam tells me again and
again that Fred is doing sheer wonders and is the backbone of the
Harvard side, and I wonder how he can distinguish so easily which is
Fred and whether he has any backbone left. I can no longer make out
much of anything except that one ruffian closely resembles every other
ruffian, and that one poor boy is lying on the ground perfectly still,
as though he were dead. There is just a little lull on the benches.
People are interested.

"Who is it?" gasps Josephine. "Is it he, dear?"

"Butchered to make a Roman holiday," I mutter between my teeth, with my
heart in my mouth.

They are pulling and rubbing the victim, and a doctor, retained for
such emergencies, is bending over him. After a few moments more he
rises slowly, looks round him in a dazed fashion, and resumes his
position with a painful limp, to a round of applause.

"It isn't Fred," says Josephine.

"But he has a mother, though," I answer.

"He'll be all right in a minute or two," says Sam. "They stamped the
wind out of him, that's all."

To have the wind stamped out of one is a mere bagatelle, of course, and
I have forgotten it in another moment under the spur of excitement. A
Harvard player has the ball, and no one seems to be able to stop him.
He throws off his antagonist and dodges two others, and races down the
field like a deer, while the wearers of the crimson scream his name
with transport and flourish their banners like madmen. It is Fred, it
is Fred, it is Fred! I know his figure now. He has the ball and is
flying like the wind with two great brutes at his heels. Will they
catch him? Will they kill him? They are gaining on him.

"Run--run--run," I shout, in spite of myself, while all the people on
our benches rise in their excitement, and Josephine covers her eyes
with her hands, unwilling to look. On, on my boy runs, until at last
he falls with his two pursuers on top of him full across the Yale line.

"A touch-down, a touch-down!" bursts out Sam, as he grasps my hand in
his wild enthusiasm. I do not know exactly what has occurred except
that there is pandemonium on the Harvard side of the field unequalled
as yet by anything that has happened, and a deathly tranquility along
the benches opposite. After making sure that Fred is still alive, I
listen to the explanation that a touch-down counts a certain number of
points, and gives the right to the side which wins it to try to kick a
goal.