on menace which had been built up week after week
by rumor and also by fact, as represented in scores, was real,--that the
purple team was invincible, that Ridgley had met the irresistible force
and could not by any alchemy of spirit turn defeat into victory.

Old football players, veterans of school and college struggles, looked
down admiringly on the finely-polished team-work of the Jefferson eleven
and said to themselves that this was _good football_ judged by _any_
standard.

A few minutes after the kick-off following the second score of the
Jefferson team, the quarter came to an end and the teams exchanged
goals. In the short rest period Neil Durant gathered his players about
him and said a few things that every member of the eleven long
remembered.

"Is there any one here," he asked, "who hasn't _more_ fight in him than
he has shown yet?"

No answer.

"We've just _begun_ this game and we haven't had our chance to show them
what we can do when we carry the ball. We're going to _hold_ them first
and then we're going to _show_ them something they've never learned."

They were commonplace words, but they came from the bottom of Neil
Durant's heart and were delivered in such a manner that every member of
the team gained fresh confidence and put back out of the realm of his
thoughts the growing fear of defeat.

The ball was in Jefferson's possession at the middle of the field. On
the very next play the purple left-half fumbled, and Neil Durant swooped
down on the bouncing ball like a hawk on a sparrow.

The error seemed to "rattle" the Jefferson team. Dean called for an end
run by Neil Durant and the captain responded by dashing forward for a
fifteen-yard gain. Stillson then added five, and Teeny-bits, who was
called upon to carry the ball for the first time, wriggled and dodged
through the Jefferson team to the fifteen-yard line before he was
stopped. In an attempt to surprise the enemy, Dean called upon
Teeny-bits again, but this time the half-back was stopped almost before
he was under way. Stillson, who carried the ball next, did better and
reached the ten-yard line. Neil Durant then made a line plunge through
an opening that the reliable Tom Curwood created and planted the oval
five yards from the goal line for a first down. Jefferson made a strong
stand, but in four tries the Ridgley team advanced the ball until it
rested a few inches over that last white line, the crossing of which
spelled a score.

T