Clint, with a swollen mouth and a piece of dirty surgeon’s plaster running slantwise above his right eye, panting for breath, bathed in perspiration, watched his adversary as Carmine yelped his signals again.  Only eight yards to go and four downs to do it in.  Clint scented victory and his nerves grew tense as he waited.  Then he was pushing and wrenching and once more the hole was opened wide and once more Freer, playing like a wildcat, smashed past him.  Clint followed through, met a Claflin back and sent him staggering aside.  Freer, tackled but still fighting, dragged himself on and on.  And then the unexpected happened.

“Ball!”

The shout came frantically from somewhere and Clint saw the pigskin, squeezed from the half-back’s arms, bound into air.  A blue-sleeved arm shot toward it, and another, but the ball, bouncing away from an eager hand, went, turning lazily over and over in its flight, toward the side line.  Clint turned swiftly and pursued, elbowed by others.  He shot an arm out to the left and cleared his path.  Cries and pounding footsteps came to his ears.  Away rolled the ball, spurning the five-yard line, seemingly bent on trickling out of bounds.  A blue-jerseyed player tried to edge past Clint, but the latter swung in front of him.  Then he was on the ball, and up again with it tucked against his stomach, and was plunging toward the goal line, a scant six yards away!  A Claflin man dived at him and strove to pinion his knees, but with a wrench Clint tore one leg free and staggered on another stride.  Arms clutched him about the shoulders and it seemed that he was pulling a ton of weight with him.  Then there was a shock, his legs went from under him and he toppled to earth.  But as he fell, and as the last breath in his body seemed to leave him forever, he pushed the ball away from him at arm’s length and set his fingers about it like so many vises!  And that was the last he knew.

When he opened his eyes he was being sloshed with water from a big, smelly sponge, and the trainer’s little green eyes were above his.

“What is it?” he asked dazedly.

“It’s a touchdown, my boy!  A touchdown by a bare two inches!  And how do you feel?”

Clint smiled as he closed his eyes again for a moment and became aware that the sound which had before seemed like the pounding of surf on the shore was the steady cheering of Brimfield’s supporters.  “I feel—­all right,” he answered, “and—­and for the love of mud take that beastly sponge out of my mouth!”

The trainer chuckled, and at that instant the cheering rose to a new height of intensity.

“What’s that?” asked Clint, struggling to get up.

“Rollins kicked goal,” was the answer.  “Lie still a minute, boy.”

“Then—­then we’ve won?” exclaimed Clint, realisation of victory pouring over him like a wave and setting his heart to thumping.

“We have; seven to nothing; and there goes the whistle and it’s all over for another year, thank Heaven!  And now you’d best get on your feet, for they’ll be after you in a minute!”