“Sponge off, everybody!” was the stentorian command from the trainer, and one by one the players leaned over while the big, dripping sponge was applied to face and head.  Then sweaters were again donned and the four laps around the field began, the men trotting by twos and threes, or, in the case of the injured ones, trailing along behind.

The next day, Wednesday, October 16th, Erskine played Dexter.  Dexter is a preparatory school that has a way of turning out strong elevens, many of which in previous years had put up excellent fights against Erskine.  On the present occasion Erskine went into the game with a line largely composed of substitutes and a back-field by no means as strong as possible.  During the first half Dexter was forced to give all her attention to defending her goal, and had no time for incursions into Erskine territory.  The home college ran up 17 points, Devoe missing one goal.  In the second half Erskine made further changes in her team.  Cowan took Witter’s place at right-guard, Reardon went in at quarter in place of Bailey, and Neil, who had watched the first half greedily from the side-line, went in at left half.

It was Dexter’s kick-off, and she sent the ball fully forty yards.  Reardon called to Neil to take it.  That youth got it on his ten yards, and by fine dodging ran it back to the eighteen-yard line.  From there it was advanced by straight line-plunging to Erskine’s forty yards, and it seemed that a procession down the field to another touch-down had begun.  But at this point Fate and Tom Cowan took a hand.  Cowan was taken back of the line for a plunge through tackle.  With right half and full lined up in tandem behind him he was given the ball and shot through easily for several yards.  Then, his support gone, he staggered on for five yards more by sheer force of weight with two Dexter backs dragging at him, and there, for no apparent cause, dropped the pigskin.  The Dexter quarter-back, running in to stop Cowan, was on it in a twinkling, had skirted the right end of the melee and was racing toward Erskine’s goal.  It had happened so quickly and unexpectedly that the runner was fifteen yards to the good before pursuit began.  Devoe and Neil took up the chase, but it was a hopeless task, and in another minute the little band of crimson-adorned Dexter supporters and substitutes on the side-line were yelling like mad.  The Dexter quarter placed the ball nicely behind the very center of the west goal, and when it was taken out none but a cripple could have failed to kick it over the cross-bar.  As Dexter’s left-end was not a cripple her score changed from a 5 to a 6.

But that was the end of her offensive work for that afternoon.  Erskine promptly took the ball from her after the kick-off, and kept it until Neil had punctured Dexter’s line between left-guard and tackle and waded through a sea of clutching foes twelve yards for a touch-down.  Devoe once more failed at goal, and five minutes later the game came to an end with the final score 22 to 6.  Dexter was happy and Erskine disgruntled.