The Mark of the Knife Part 12

A roar like the pounding of a mighty sea against a craggy sh.o.r.e sounded in Teeny-bits' ears, but it seemed to him distant and detached from the thing he was doing. For the moment he was a living machine of speed with only one thought in his mind,--to reach that last white line, to cross it and to plant the pigskin ball behind the padded goal posts. He did it,--and lay panting on the ground while Neil Durant came running up and slapped him on the back and said words to him which Teeny-bits never remembered.

The captain kicked the goal which tied the score while a continuous din of unorganized shouting rose from the Ridgley stands. It was no moment for organized cheering. The cheer leader himself was leaping up and down, throwing his megaphone into the air and emitting war whoops which were drowned and a.s.similated by the volume of shouts that echoed back and forth.

The old-timers up there in the stands now began to breathe fast; this was not merely a _good_ game of football, it was a _wonderful_ game, a struggle in which extraordinary playing and fine spirit and brains and courage were united to make a combat that would live long in the memory of every person who witnessed it.

Up where the red was waving aloft, a white-haired man who did not understand the plays of football very well suddenly found that he had grasped the idea of this magnificent game. He was thumping the back of some one whom he had never seen before and giving voice to such yells of delight that the motherly-looking woman who sat beside him said to herself that he must suddenly have gone out of his senses.

"Teeny-bits did something wonderful, then, didn't he?" she shouted in his ear, and old Daniel Holbrook, her husband, shouted back:

"You bet your _life_ he did; it was Teeny-bits; he ran all the way over the home plate or whatever they call it and made a score. I dunno but he's won the game _all by himself_."

In another part of the stands Doctor Wells was sitting beside Mr.

Stevens.

"That was a magnificent run!" exclaimed the Head. "Magnificent! I declare--well--now we're even."

"Yes, we're even!" said the English master. "And I've discovered something."

"What?"

"Well, they say that the head of this school never gets excited, but just now when Teeny-bits was running you nearly pushed me out of my seat--and I _think_ I heard a yell that came from your direction."

"Did I shout?" asked the Head.

"'Shout' isn't the word," said the English master. "_Yell_ with a capital Y describes it."

"Back in '86, I used to play half-back myself," said Doctor Wells. "Here we are; they're at it again."

Ridgley kicked off to Jefferson and immediately was subjected to a fierce a.s.sault that taxed the utmost powers of endurance to withstand it. The Jefferson team was fighting harder than ever and playing with machine-like smoothness. They carried the ball for twenty-five yards and then punted, and downed Neil Durant in his tracks. Ridgley fought hard to advance the ball and gained a first down, then, meeting with no further success, punted. And so the ball see-sawed back and forth until the piping whistle of the timekeeper announced the close of the third quarter.

A feeling of great happiness and determination had been filling Teeny-bits' mind during these last few minutes. At the same time a curious impression had been making itself felt upon him,--an admiration for this big captain of the Jefferson team who fought so hard and so cleanly, who rallied his men after each successful a.s.sault by the Ridgley team, and like Neil Durant, inspired them to fight harder and harder.

There was no need for talking now. In the brief interval before the last period of the game began, Neil Durant, looking at his team-mates, saw in their faces determination and confidence. Nothing that he could say or that _any one_ could say would alter their conviction that victory _must_ rest with the red.

That last period was a phase of the game that could justly be called a climax. It began with a steady and determined march of the Jefferson team which, starting from the twenty-yard line, carried the ball forward by line plunges, by forward pa.s.ses, by end runs and by sheer, dogged determination on and on until the purple eleven was within the very shadow of the Ridgley goal posts and Jefferson seemed to have the victory within her grasp. A terrific run by the captain planted the ball on the Ridgley four-yard line for a first down, and there was no person shouting for the purple who did not believe that he was about to witness that most glorious of football events--a well-earned touchdown, after a magnificent march the length of the field.

Big Tom Curwood was battered, the guards beside him were battered and the tackles crouched low as if they would welcome a chance to lie down flat on the brown earth and rest. Neil Durant spoke a word and they stiffened, the secondary defense moved closer to the line and the whole team in one ma.s.s met the Jefferson charge. Once, twice, and three times the purple backs plunged into the red line and each time they carried the ball forward a little more than a yard.

On that third try the referee dived into the ma.s.s in a manner that suggested to the watchers that the score had been made, but when he finally got his hands on the ball it was apparent that Jefferson still needed a few inches. The signal came quickly and the two avalanches of bone and muscle plunged against each other. The pile subsided and one after another the players on the fringe drew away until the referee could see the ball. There was a moment of tense expectancy and then the official waved his arm in a direction that brought forth a vast yell of joy from the Ridgley stands. Jefferson had been held; that leather oval had failed by inches to cross the last thin smear of white.

The next event in this struggle between the red and the purple was a kick from behind the goal line by Neil Durant,--the longest punt that had ever been seen on the Ridgley field. It flew for sixty yards, went over the head of the Jefferson quarter and rolled down the field end over end. The purple player finally overtook it and attempted to recover the lost ground, but Ned Stillson checked his career and Jefferson lined up on her own thirty-yard line. She bravely attempted to repeat her heartbreaking advance and gained a first down; but the Ridgley team suddenly became an impenetrable barrier. A punt a moment later fell into the arms of Teeny-bits, who carried it back fifteen yards to his own forty-yard line.

As the teams lined up Neil Durant said, loud enough for the whole two elevens to hear, "Now comes our turn," and the fight for a decision began anew. Three subst.i.tutes came in now to bolster the Jefferson line, and Coach Murray sent in two Ridgley players to take the place of the left tackle and the right end, who were evidently pretty far gone.

In eight plays Ridgley advanced the ball thirty-five yards with Teeny-bits figuring in two, Stillson in two and Neil Durant in four. The captain then made a plunge through center and before he was stopped had planted the ball on Jefferson's eight-yard line. Teeny-bits tried to squirm through the purple line but was thrown back. Stillson gained two yards and Dean, who had reserved his captain for the final efforts, then gave the signal that called upon the full-back to carry the ball. Neil went into the line as if he had been hurled from a catapult. He dove into the opening that Tom Curwood, with a last burst of desperate strength, had made, took three steps and was astride the goal line.

Norris made the tackle, but he was an instant too late; the big captain of the Ridgley team fell across the line and hugged the leather oval close to the brown earth while pandemonium reigned and the members of the red team hurled their headgears into the air.

Neil limped when he got to his feet and motioned to Tom Curwood to make the kick. Big Tom wobbled out in front of the goal posts and tried his best to add a point for the glory of Ridgley, but his foot wavered and the ball flew to the left of the goal posts. On the Scoreboard the figures remained: Ridgley 20--Jefferson 14.

The kick-off, two or three plays,--and then the timekeeper blew his piping note which brought to an end the struggle that was the true climax of all the games that had been played by the red and the purple since one school had stood on the hill above the town of Hamilton and another school had stood among the elms that sheltered the sons of Jefferson.

CHAPTER X

AT LINCOLN HALL

For a few seconds after the game ceased members of the two elevens sat or lay in the positions that they had occupied when the whistle had announced the expiration of time. They felt somewhat dazed,--on the one side overwhelmed with the wonderful thought that victory was theirs; on the other stunned with the bewildering thought that the impossible had happened, bringing defeat and disappointment.

Teeny-bits felt as if he wanted to rest where he had fallen in the last scrimmage with his body against the brown earth and let the happiness of victory sink in slowly, but suddenly he was aware that a howling mob had descended from the stands, that the members of the Ridgley team were surrounded by frenzied schoolmates who were insisting on lifting them up on their shoulders and carrying them off the field. He saw Neil Durant struggling in the grasp of half a dozen yelling Ridgleyites and the next moment felt himself lifted bodily and carried forward jerkily. He tried to resist but did not have the strength; and so he let them raise him up and transport him where they wished. It was a queer sight that met his eyes as he looked round him and saw his team-mates' heads and shoulders bobbing up and down above the milling crowd.

Never had Ridgley enjoyed a triumph more. Old-timers and young fellows alike were joining in the snake dance. Old Jerry, the janitor, was there prancing about in a comical, stiff-legged way; Mr. Stevens and half the faculty were there and every member of the school, while mothers, sisters and friends looked down from the stands and wished that they too might join the whirling mob.

The members of the team finally escaped from those who wished to honor them and made their way to the locker building where they sat and talked for a few minutes, regained their breath, rubbed their bruises and looked each other over. Outside they could hear the howling of the paraders and the booming of the ba.s.s drum as a line was being formed to march from the field to the school.

Meanwhile the Jefferson team, occupying another part of the locker building, was making ready to leave. In the shower-bath room the members of the two teams came together and exchanged such words as befit losers and winners when the fight has been fair and square and fast from beginning to end. While Neil Durant was dressing, Norris came over and held out his hand.

"Neil," said the captain of the Jefferson team, "I didn't believe that you could get away with it and I want to tell you that I think you have a great team. I never played against an eleven that could begin to equal it."

It was not easy for the Jefferson captain to say those words and it was not easy for Neil to reply.

"Oh," said the Ridgley captain, "I guess the breaks came our way. I feel as if I had been playing against a bunch of Bengal tigers. If we ever played again you'd probably trim the life out of us."

"I'd like to meet that little chap who played left-half for you," said Norris. "I never quite saw his equal."

Neil Durant called Teeny-bits, and the half-back shook hands with the captain of the Jefferson eleven.

"When you came on the field," said Norris, "I said to myself, 'I guess we can stop that fellow all right,' but before we got through I dreaded to see the quarter pa.s.s you the ball."

Teeny-bits did not know what to say, but he laughed and looked the big fellow in the eyes and remarked that he had had a "lot of luck" and that every time he tried to tackle Norris he felt as if he were trying to hold up a steam engine.

"Well," said Norris, "it's all over and I wish I were going to see more of you fellows. Why don't you come down to see me, Neil, and renew old times, and bring Holbrook along?"

After he was gone Teeny-bits turned to Neil and said, "I call that one fine fellow. He ought to have come to Ridgley."

According to its immemorial custom the Ridgley team, whether or not it was victorious in the struggle with its ancient rival, met in Lincoln Hall for a banquet a few hours after the close of the game. On this night while the rest of the school was busily engaged in heaping up piles of wood, rubbish, barrels and every imaginable kind of inflammable material, the members of the team gathered to discuss the victory and to hear the speeches that Coach Murray, as toastmaster, called for with the voice of authority. Any member of the eleven whom Mr. Murray singled out knew that it was his duty to get up on his feet and attempt to make a speech, although it probably was a much more difficult thing for him to do than to break through the Jefferson line.

Neil Durant had his say and thanked the members of the eleven for their loyalty and courage in a way that made them feel more than ever that he was the best captain in all the history of Ridgley football. Ned Stillson tried to keep out of sight by slumping down in his seat and getting behind big Tom Curwood, but Coach Murray singled him out and ordered him to stand up and make a speech. Every one laughed at Ned, and big Tom Curwood thought that the right half-back's attempt at oratory was so funny that he laughed louder than any one else until he heard Coach Murray's fatal words: "All right, Tom, you're next!" whereupon his features "froze" in a look of embarra.s.sment. The roar that went up when Tom's face became suffused with red nearly caused the big center to claw his way out of the room and escape to the outer air. He cleared his throat two or three times and then, much to the surprise of every one, went through the ordeal as if he had prepared his speech hours in advance.

"I want to tell you fellows," said big Tom, "that I was scared pink, blue and green when that game started--those Jefferson linesmen and those husky back-field runners of theirs looked so fierce. I really wasn't afraid of them but I _was_ afraid of the thought that we were going to get licked. What really woke me up and made me feel that those fellows couldn't do a thing to us was to see the way Neil Durant and young Teeny-bits got going. I want to tell you that when I saw the captain go larruping into that bunch and when I heard the thump that Norris made when Teeny-bits brought him down I said to myself that I ought to be in a nursery for infants if I couldn't do a little rampaging on my own account. I know I didn't do a thing except let 'em walk over me, but I wasn't scared after that first minute and I knew that we couldn't lose if Neil and Teeny-bits didn't get laid out."

To Teeny-bits it was a surprise to hear his name linked in this way with that of his captain. In his own opinion he had, aside from the one fortunate play in which he had crossed the Jefferson goal line, contributed very little to the Ridgley victory, but as the evening went on and one player after another joined his name with that of Neil Durant, he saw that these big fellows with whom he had been so closely a.s.sociated during the past few weeks felt, for some miraculous reason, that he had helped them to maintain their spirit and to carry the fight to Jefferson.

When it came Teeny-bits' turn, Coach Murray said: "We'll now hear from the chap who nearly gave us nervous prostration by forgetting that Ridgley was going to play a little game of football to-day."

As Teeny-bits stood up he thought of telling the members of the team why he had been late to the game, but he instantly decided that it was better to make his explanation alone to Neil Durant or the coach. He merely said: