The Guarded Heights Part 33

The temper of one of the coaches--an a.s.sistant--flamed back.

"It was handing the game on a----"

George reached out and caught the shoulders of that man who during the season had ordered him around. The ringing in his head, the increasing pain, had destroyed all memory of discipline.

"Say another word and I'll throw you out of here."

The room fell silent. Some men gasped. The coach shrank from the furious face, tried to elude the powerful grasp. Stringham hurried up. George let the other go.

"Mr. Stringham," he said, quietly, "if there's any more of this I'll quit right now, and so will the rest of the team if they've any pluck."

Stringham motioned the coach away, soothed George, led him to a chair, where Green and a doctor got off his battered headgear. George wanted to scream, but he conquered the br.i.m.m.i.n.g impulse, and managed to speak rationally.

"You've done all you can for us. We've got to play the game ourselves, and we're not giving anything away. We're not making any mistakes we can help."

Goodhue came up and gripped his shoulder. The touch quieted him.

"This man oughtn't to go back, Green," the doctor announced.

George stiffened. He hadn't made that score. He hadn't smashed Lambert Planter half enough. Better to leave the field on a stretcher, and in darkness again, than to quit like this: to walk out between the halves; not to walk back. He began to lie, overcoming a physical agony of which he had never imagined his powerful body capable.

"No, that doesn't hurt, nor that," he replied, calmly, to the doctor's questions. "Don't think I'm nutty because I lost my temper. My head's all right. That gear's fine."

So they let him go back, and he counted the plays, willing himself to receive and overcome the pounding each down brought him, continuing by pure force of will to outplay Lambert; to save his team from dangerous gains, from possible scores; nearly breaking away himself half-a-dozen times, although the Princeton eleven was tiring and much of the play was in its territory.

The sun had gone behind heavy clouds. A few snowflakes fluttered down.

It was nearly dark. In spite of his exertions he felt cold, and knew it for an evil sign. Once or twice he s.h.i.+vered. His throbbing head gave him an illusion of having grown enormously so that it got in everybody's way. Instinctively he caught a Yale forward pa.s.s on his own thirty-yard line and tore off, slinging tacklers aside with the successful fury of a young bull all of whose dangerous actions are automatic. He had come a long way. He didn't know just how far, but the Yale goal posts were near. Then, quite consciously, he saw Lambert Planter cutting across to intercept him. The meeting of the two was unavoidable. He thought he heard Lambert's voice.

"Not past me!"

Lambert plunged for the tackle. George's right hand shot out and smashed open against Lambert's face. He raced on, leaving Lambert sprawled and clawing at the ground.

The quarterback managed to bring him down on the eight-yard line, then lost him; yet, before George could get to his feet others had pounced, and his heavy, awkward head had crashed against the earth again.

They dragged him to his feet. For a few moments he lurched about, shaking off friendly hands.

"Only five minutes more, George," somebody prayed.

Only five minutes! Good G.o.d! For him each moment was a century of unspeakable martyrdom. Flecks of rain or snow touched his face, lifted in revolt. The contact, wet and cold, cleared his brain a trifle--let in the screaming of the mult.i.tude, hoa.r.s.e and incoherent, raised at first in thanksgiving for his run, then, after its close, altering to menacing disappointment and command. What business had they to tell him what to do? Up there, warm and comfortable, undergoing no exercise more violent than occasional excited rising and sitting down, they had the selfish impudence to order him to make a touchdown. Why should he obey, or even try? He had done his job, more than any one could reasonably have asked of him. He had outplayed Lambert, gained more ground than any man on the field, made more valuable tackles. Could he really impress Sylvia any further? Why shouldn't he walk off now in the face of those unjust commands to the rest he had earned and craved with all his body and mind?

"Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown! Morton! Morton! Morton!"

d.a.m.n them! Why not, indeed, walk off, where he wouldn't have to listen to that thoughtless and autocratic impertinence?

He glanced down at his blackened hands, at his filthy breeches, at his jersey striped about the sleeves with orange; and with a wave of self-loathing he knew why he couldn't go. He had sworn never to wear anything like livery again, yet here he was--in livery, a servant to men and women who asked dreadful things without troubling even to approximate the agony of obedience.

"I'll not be a servant," he had told Bailly.

Bailly had made him one after all, and an old phrase of the tutor's slipped back:

"Some day, young man, you'll learn that the world lives by service."

George had not believed. Now for a moment his half-conscious brain knew Bailly had been right. He had to serve.

He knocked aside the sponge Green held to his face. He indicated the bucket of cold water the trainer had carried out.

"Throw it over my head," he said, "the whole thing. Throw it hard."

Green obeyed. He, too, who ought to have understood, was selfish and imperious.

"You make a touchdown!" he commanded hoa.r.s.ely.

The water stung George's eyes, rushed down his neck in thrilling streams, braced him for the time. The teams lined up while the Princeton stands roared approval that their best servant should remain on the job.

Goodhue called the signal for a play around the left tackle. Every Yale player was confident that George would take the ball, sensed the direction of the play, and, over-anxious, ma.s.sed there, all but the quarter, who lay back between the goal posts. George saw, and turned sharply, darting to the right. Suddenly he knew, because of that over-anxiety of Yale, that he had a touchdown. Only the Yale quarterback had a chance for the tackle, and he couldn't stop George in that distance.

Out of the corner of his eye George noticed Goodhue standing to the right and a little behind. He, too, must have seen the victorious outcome of the play, and George caught in his att.i.tude again that air of a unique criminal. They'd hold that fumble against d.i.c.ky forever unless--if Goodhue had the ball the Yale quarter couldn't even get his hands on him until he had crossed the line.

"d.i.c.ky!"

The dejected figure sprang into action. Without weighing his sacrifice, without letting himself think of the crime of disobeying a signal, of the risks of a hurried throw or of another fumble, George shot the ball across, then forged ahead and put the Yale quarterback out of the play, while Goodhue strolled across the line and set the ball down behind the goal posts.

As he went back to kick the goal George heard through the cras.h.i.+ng cacophony from the stands Goodhue's uncertain voice:

"Why didn't you make that touchdown yourself? It was yours. You had it.

You had earned it."

"It was the team's," George answered, shortly. "I might have been spilled. Sure thing for you."

"You precious idiot!" Goodhue whispered.

As George kicked the goal there came to him again, across his pain, that sensation of being on a road he had not consciously set out to explore.

He wondered why he was so well content.

Eternity ended. With the whistle and the crunching of the horn George staggered to his feet. Goodhue and another player supported him while the team cl.u.s.tered for a cheer for Yale. The Princeton stands were a terrific avalanche descending upon that little group. Green tried to rescue him, shouting out his condition; but the avalanche wouldn't have it. It dashed upon him, tossed him shoulder high, while it emitted cras.h.i.+ng noises out of which his name emerged.

Goodhue was up also, and the others. Goodhue was gesturing and talking, pointing in his direction. Soon Goodhue and the others were down. The happy holocaust centred its efforts on George. Why? Had Goodhue given things away about that touchdown? Anyhow, they knew how to reward their servants, these people.

They carried George on strong shoulders at the head of their careening procession. His dazed brain understood that they desired to honour the man who had done the giant's share, the one who had made victory possible, and he sensed a wrong, a sublime ignorance or indifference that they should carry only him. The victory went back of George Morton.

He bent down, screaming into the ears of his bearers.

"Squibs Bailly! He found me. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have played to-day. Bailly, or let me down! Bailly made that run! I tell you, Bailly played that game!"

In his earnestness he grew hysterical.

Maybe it was because they wanted to humour the hero, or perhaps they caught his own hysteria, realizing what Bailly had done for him. They stopped in front of the stands to which Bailly's bad foot had condemned him during this triumphant march. They commenced a high-pitched, frantic chant.

"We want Squibs Bailly! We want Squibs Bailly! We want Squibs Bailly!"