The ball came a little low, and with it the whole line seemed torn asunder and the field filled with the rush of converging bodies. To have kicked would have been fatal. He dropped quickly on the ball, covering it, under the shock of his opponents.
Again he was back, waiting for the trial that was coming. He forgot that he was a freshman—forgot everything but his own utter responsibility.
“You center men, hold that line!” he cried. “You give me a chance! Give me time!”
Then the ball was in his hands, and, still a little hurried, he sent it too high over the frantic leaping rush, hurled to the ground the instant after.
The exchange had netted Princeton twenty yards. A second time Bannerman lifted his punt, high, long, twisting and turning over itself in tricky spirals. It was a perfect kick, giving the ends exact time to cover it.
Stover, with arms outstretched, straining upward, cool as a Yankee, knew, from the rushing bodies he did not dare to look at, what was coming. The ball landed in his convulsive arms, and almost exactly with it Garry Cockerell’s body shot into him and tumbled him clear off the ground, crashing down; but the ball was locked in his arms in one of those catches of which the marvel of the game is, not that they are not made oftener, but that they are made at all.
“Come on now, Yale,” shouted Charlie De Soto’s inflaming voice. “We’ve got to rip this line. Signal!”
Two masses on center, two futile straining, crushing attempts, and again he was called on to kick. The tackles he had received had steadied him, driving from his too imaginative mind all consideration but the direct present need.
He began to enjoy with a fierce delight this kicking in the very teeth of the frantic Princeton rushes, as he had stood on the beach waiting for great breakers to form above his head before diving through.
On the fourth exchange of kicks he stood on his own goal-line. The test had come at last. Dana, furious at being driven back without a Princeton rush, came to him wildly.
“Dink, you’ve got to make it good!”
“Take that long-legged Princeton tackle when he comes through,” he said quietly. “Don’t worry about me.”
Luckily, they were over to the left side of the field. He chose his opening, and, kicking low, as Tompkins had coached him, had the joy of seeing the ball go flying over the ground and out of bounds at the forty-yard line.
The Princeton team, springing into position, at last opened its attack.
“Now we’ll see,” said Stover, chafing in the backfield.
Using apparently but one formation, a circular mass, which, when directly checked, began to revolve out toward end, always pushing ahead, always concealing the runner, the Princeton attack surely, deliberately, and confidently rolled down the field like a juggernaut.
From the forty-yard line to the thirty it came in two rushes, from the thirty to the twenty in three; and then suddenly someone was tricked, drawn in from the vital attack, and the runner, guarded by one interferer, swept past the unprotected end and set out for a touchdown.
Stover went forward to meet them like a shot, frantic to save the precious yards. How he did it he never quite knew, but somehow he managed to fling himself just in front of the interferer and go down with a death grip on one leg of the runner.
A cold sponge was being spattered over him, he was on his back fighting hard for his breath, when he again realized where he was. He tried to rise, remembering all at once.
“Did I stop him?”
“You bet you did.”
Regan and Dudley had their arms about him, lifting him and walking him up and down.
“Get your breath back, old boy.”
“I’m all right.”
“Take your time; that Princeton duck hasn’t come to yet!”
He perceived in the opposite group something prone on the ground, and the sight was like a tonic.
The ball lay inside the ten-yard line, within the sacred zone. In a moment, no longer eliminated, but close to the breathing mass, he was at the back of his own men, shrieking and imploring:
“Get the jump, Yale!”
“Throw them back, Yale!”
“Fight ’em back!”
“You’ve got to, Yale—you’ve got to!”
Then, again and again, the same perfected grinding surge of the complete machine: three yards, two yards, two yards, and he was underneath the last mass, desperately blocking off someone who held the vital ball, hoping against hope, blind with the struggle, saying to himself:
“It isn’t a touchdown! It can’t be! We’ve stopped them! It’s Yale’s ball!”
Someone was squirming down through the gradually lightening mass. A great weight went from his back, and suddenly he saw the face of the referee seeking the exact location of the ball.
“What is it?” he asked wildly.
“Touchdown.”
Someone dragged him to his feet, and, unnoticing, he leaned against him, gazing at the ball that lay just over the goal-line, seeing with almost a bull-like rage the Princeton substitutes frantically capering up and down the line, hugging one another, agitating their blankets, turning somersaults.
“Line up, Yale,” said the captain’s unyielding voice, “this is only the beginning. We’ll get ’em.”
But Stover knew better. The burst of anger past, his head cleared. That Princeton team was going to score again, by the same process, playing on his weakness, exchanging punts, hoping to block one of his until within striking distance, and the size of the score would depend on how long he could stand it off.
“Goal,” came the referee’s verdict, and with it another roar from somewhere. He went up the field looking straight ahead, hearing, like a sound in a memory, a song of jubilation and the brassy accompaniment of a band.
Again the same story: ten, fifteen yards gained on
