The ball was in flight again, and once more the ends were speeding across under it.  “Mine!” cried Neil.  Then the leather was against his breast and he was dodging forward, Paul ahead of him to bowl over opposing players, and Pearse, a full-back candidate, plunging along beside.  One—­two—­three of the ends were passed, and the ball had been run back ten yards.  Then Stone, last year’s varsity left end, fooled Paul, and getting inside him, nailed Neil by the hips.

“Well tackled, Stone,” called Mills.  “Gale, you were asleep, man; Stone ought never to have got through there.  Fletcher, you’re going to lose the ball some time when you need it badly if you don’t catch better than that.  Never reach up for it; remember that your opponent can’t tackle you until you’ve touched it; wait until it hits against your stomach, and then grip it hard.  If you take it in the air it’s an easy stunt for an opponent to knock it out of your hands; but if you’ve got it hugged against your body it won’t matter how hard you’re thrown, the ball’s yours for keeps.  Bear that in mind.”

On the next kick Neil called to Gale to take the pigskin.  Paul misjudged it, and was forced to turn and run back.  He missed the catch, a difficult one under the circumstances, and also missed the rebound.  By this time the opposing ends were down on him.  The ball trickled across the running track, and Paul stooped to pick it up.  But Stone was ahead of him, and seizing the pigskin, was off for what would have been a touch-down had it been in a game.

“What’s the matter, Gale?” cried Mills angrily.  “Why didn’t you fall on that ball?”

“It was on the cinders,” answered Paul, in evident surprise.  Mills made a motion of disgust, of tragic impatience.

“I don’t care,” he cried, “if it was on broken glass!  You’ve got orders to fall on the ball.  Now bring it over here, put it down and—­fall—­on—­it!”

Neil watched his chum apprehensively.  Knowing well Paul’s impatience under discipline, he feared that the latter would give way to anger and mutiny on the spot.  But Paul did as directed, though with bad grace, and contented himself with muttered words as he threw the pigskin to a waiting end and went back to his place.

Soon afterward they were called away for a ten-minute line-up.  Paul, still smarting under what in his own mind he termed a cruel indignity, played poorly, and ere the ten minutes was half up was relegated to the benches, his place at right half being taken by Kirk.  The second managed to hold the varsity down to one score that day, and might have taken the ball over itself had not Pearse fumbled on the varsity’s three yards.  As it was, they were given a hearty cheer by the watchers when time was called, and they trotted to the bucket to be sponged off.  Then those who had not already been in the line-up were given the gridiron, and the varsity and second were sent for a trot four times around the field, the watchful eye of “Baldy” Simson, Erskine’s veteran trainer, keeping them under surveillance until they had completed their task and had trailed out the gate toward the locker-house, baths, and rub-downs.