“Mr. Donald,” he said, quietly, “you have been hitting me and if you do it again, I shall hit you.” But Donald did not heed the warning, and in the next play he bowled at Bemus harder than ever for extra measure. Still the big Indian did not retaliate.
“But I thought I was hit by a sledge hammer in the next scrimmage,” said Donald after the game. “I remember charging, but that was all. I was down and out, but when I came to I somehow wabbled to my feet and went back against the Indian. I was so dazed I could just see the big fellow moving about and as we sparred off for the next play he said in a matter of fact tone:
“’Mr. Donald, you hit me, one, two, three times, I hit you only one—we’re square.’
“And you bet we were square,” Donald always adds as he tells the story.
Tacks Hardwick, in common with most football players, thinks the world of Eddie Mahan.
“I have played football and baseball with Eddie,” he says, “and am naturally an ardent admirer of his ability, his keen wit and his thorough sportsmanship. One of Eddie’s greatest assets is his temperament. He seldom gets nervous. I have seen him with the bases full, and with three balls on the batter, turn about in the box with a smile on his face, wave the outfield back, and then groove the ball waist high. Nothing worried him. His ability to avoid tacklers in the broken field had always puzzled me. I had studied the usual methods quite carefully. Change of pace, reversing the field, spinning when tackled, etc.,—most of the tricks I had given thought to, but apparently Eddie relied little on these. He used them all instinctively, but favored none.
“Charlie Brickley had a favorite trick of allowing his arm to be tackled flat against his leg, then, at the very moment his opponent thought he had him, Charlie would wrench up his arm and break the grip.
“Percy Wendell used to bowl over the tackler by running very low. I relied almost exclusively on a straight arm, and ‘riding a man.’ This means that when a tackler comes with such force that a straight arm is not sufficient to hold him off, and you know he will break through, you put your hand on the top of his head, throw your hips sharply away, and vault as you would over a fence rail, using his head as a support. If he is coming hard, his head has sufficient power to give you quite a boost, and you can ‘ride him’ a considerable distance—often four or five yards. When his momentum dies, drop off and leave him. Well, Eddie didn’t use any of these. Finally I asked him how he figured on getting by the tackler, and what the trick was he used so effectively.
“‘It’s a cinch,’ Eddie replied. ’All I do is poke my foot out at him, give it to him; he goes to grab it, and I take it away!’
[Illustration: TWO TO ONE HE GETS AWAY
Brickley Being Tackled by Wilson and Avery.]