After the rest—­if it could be called a rest when seven coaches were criticising and instructing every minute—­the scrimmage developed into straight football.  The second kicked off and, after the ’varsity had failed to get its distance in three downs, Harris fell back to punt.  Harris was a left-foot kicker and was accustomed to taking a pretty long stride to the left side before he swung.  He was very deliberate about it, too, and the line had to hold hard and long in order to enable him to get the ball off safely.  When it did go it went well and accurately, but in the present instance it didn’t go.  Cupples, of the second, had no difficulty in getting through Trow, and it was Cupples who knocked the ball down just as it left Harris’ foot.  Fortunately Marvin fell on the pigskin for a fifteen-yard loss.

Harris raged and sputtered and the coaches stood over the unfortunate Trow and read him the riot act.  But two minutes later the same thing happened again, although on this occasion Cupples only tipped the ball with his upstretched fingers.  There was a hurried conference of the coaches and Clint was yanked out of the right side of the line and put in place of Trow, the latter going to left tackle.  Mr. Robey demanded a punt at once in order to test the new arrangement and Cupples, grinning wickedly at Clint, prepared to repeat his act.  But Cupples had the surprise of his life, for the first thing he knew Clint’s right hand was on the side of his neck and Clint’s left hand was under his armpit and he found himself thrust around against his guard.  And that was as near to breaking through as Cupples came for the rest of the scrimmage.

Four coaches thumped Clint on the back and excitedly praised him, and Clint felt suddenly that to defeat the wicked machinations of the ambitious Cupples was the biggest thing in life.  After that it was a battle royal between them, Cupples using every bit of brain and sinew he possessed to outwit his opponent and Clint watching him as a cat watches a mouse and constantly out-guessing him and “getting the jump” time after time.  Cupples had a bleeding lip and a smear of brown earth down one cheek and was a forbidding looking antagonist, and for hours after practice was over Clint had only to close his eyes to visualise the angry, intense countenance of his opponent.  Had Clint but known it, he was not a very pretty object himself just then.  Someone’s boot had rubbed the skin from his left cheek and the blood had caked there, well mixed with dirt, until he looked quite villainous.

The ’varsity scored twice by straight football and once by the use of tricks which were designed to outwit Claflin a week later.  The second managed a field-goal from the fifteen yards.  Toward the end the ’varsity used substitutes freely, but Clint played through to the last, emerging with many an aching bone, a painful shortness of breath and a fine glow of victory.  Mr. Detweiler, red-faced and perspiring, caught him on the side line as he dragged his tired feet toward the blanket pile.  “All right, Thayer?” he asked anxiously.