CHAPTER IX
Could Dave Make Good?
Dave Darrin, a good deal disheveled and covered with soil andperspiration on his face and neck, came striding in after timehad been called on the first half.
Dave's generalship had kept Hallam Heights from scoring, but Gridleyhadn't put away any points, either.
"You saw it all from the side lines, Dick?" Dave asked, as thechums, arm in arm, strolled into dressing quarters.
"Yes."
"What are your instructions for the second half."
"I haven't any."
"Your advice, then?"
"I haven't any of that, either. Dave, any fellow who can holdthose young human cyclones back as you've done doesn't need anypointers in the game."
"But we simply couldn't score against them," muttered Darrin."So I know there's something wrong with my leadership. Whatis it?"
"Nothing whatever, Darrin. It simply means that you're up againstthe hardest line to get through that I've ever seen Gridley tackle.Why, yesterday I was looking over the record of these Hallamboys, and I find that they've already whipped two college secondteams. But you'll get through them in the next Dave, if there'sany human way of doing it. So that's all I've got to say, forI'm not out there on the gridiron, and I can't see things fromthe side line the same as you can on the ten-yard line. PerhapsMr. Morton may have something to offer."
But the coach hadn't.
"You're doing as well as any man of Gridley could do, Darrin,"the submaster assured the young second captain. "Of course, withPrescott at center, and yourself jumping around as quarter-backthe team would be stronger. But in Prescott's enforced absence,I don't see how you can play any point of the line more forcefullythan you've been doing."
But Dave, instead of looking puffed up, replied half dejectedly:
"I was in hopes you could both show me where I'm weak."
"You're not weak," insisted Coach Morton.
"That throws me back on thinking hard for myself," muttered Darrin.
Where a weaker man would have been pleased with such direct praiseDave felt that he was not doing his duty because he had not beenable to lead as brilliantly as Dick had done in earlier games.
"Brute strength isn't any good against these Hallam fellows,"Darrin told himself, as he returned to the field. "They're allA-1 athletes. Even if Gridley played a slugging game, it wouldn'tbear these Hallam boys down. As to speed and scientific points,they seem to be our masters. Whatever we do against them, itmust be something seldom heard of on the gridiron something thatwill be so brand new that they can't get by it."
Yet twice in the half that followed Gridley barely escaped havingto make a safety to save their goal line. Each time, however,Dave wriggled out of it.
When there were but seven minutes left neither team had scored.
Gridley now had the ball for snap-back at its own twenty-five-yardline.
The most that home boosters were hoping for now was that Gridleywould be able to hold down the game to no score.
Dave had been thinking deeply. He had just found a chance tomutter orders swiftly.
Fenton, little, wiry and swift, was to-day playing at left end,the position that Dick himself had made famous in the year before.
"Eighteen---three--eleven---seven---nine!" called Tom Reade, crisply.
The first four figures called off the play that Gridley was tomake, or to pretend to make. But that nine, capping all at theend, caused a swift flutter in Gridley hearts. For that nine,at the end of the signal, called for a fake play.
Yet the instant that the whistle trilled out its command everyGridley player unlimbered and dashed to the position ordered.
Only three men on the team understood what was contemplated.Coach Morton, from the side lines, had looked puzzled from themoment that he heard the signal.
Dick Prescott, eager for his chum's success, as well as the team's,stood as erect as he could beside Mr. Morton, trying to take inthe whole field with one wide, sweeping glance.
As Tom Reade caught the ball on its backward snap, he straightenedup, tucking the ball under his left arm and making a dash forGridley's right end.
Immediately, of course, Hallam rushed its men toward that point.
Yet the movements of Gridley's right wing puzzled the visitors.For all of Dave's right flankers dashed forward, making an effectiveinterference.
Surely, reasoned Captain Forsythe, Tom Reade didn't mean to tryto break through by himself with the pigskin.
That much was a correct guess. Tom didn't intend anything ofthe sort.
All in a flash Reade, as prearranged, dropped the ball, puntingit vigorously.
Up it went, soaring obliquely over Gridley's left flank and farbeyond.
Just a second before the ball itself started, little Fenton hadput himself in motion. By the time that the ball was in the airFenton was past Hallam's line and scorching down the field.
Now Forsythe and every Hallam man comprehended all in a flash.
Fenton had caught the ball with a nicety that brought wild whoopsfrom the Gridley boosters, now standing on their seats and wavingthe Gridley colors.
"That little fellow looks like a streak of light," yelled oneGridley booster.
The description wasn't a bad one. Fenton was doing some of thefinest sprinting conceivable. Before him nothing menaced butbig Harlowe, Hallam's fullback. Harlowe, however, was hurlinghimself straight in the impetuous way of little Fenton.
It looked like a bump. There could be but one result. Fentonwould have to go down to save the ball.
Harlowe reached out to tackle.
Fenton came to a quivering stop, just out of reach. Then, almostinstantly, the little left end dashed straight forward again.
But the move had been enough to fool Harlowe. Of course, he assumedthat Fenton would spring to one side. Harlowe imagined that itwould be a dodge to the left, and Harlowe leaped there to tacklehis man.
But Fenton, actually going straight ahead, fooled the calculationof his powerful adversary and got past on the clever trick.
Harlowe dashed after his sly opponent. But Fenton, still almostwith his first big breath in his lungs, was running as fast asever. A man of Harlowe's size was no one to send after a greasedmosquito like Fenton.
So nothing hindered. Amid the wildest, noisiest rooting, Fentonstepped it over Hallam's now undefended goal line, reached downand pressed the pigskin against the earth for a touchdown.
On the grand stand the noise was deafening. The whistle soundedand the flushed players of both teams came back to range up forthe kick from field. Dave, his cheeks glowing, took the kick.He sent a clean one that scored one more point for Gridley.
The cheering and the playing of the band still continued whenthe two elevens again lined up for play during the last five minutesof the game. The referee was obliged to signal to the leaderto stop his musicians.
Forsythe looked hot and weary. His expectation of an easy victoryhad come to naught. Unless he and ten other Hallam boys couldwork wonders in five minutes.
But they couldn't and didn't. The time keeper brought the gameto a close.
"Gridley has handed us six to nothing," muttered Forsythe, ashe led his disheartened fellows from the field. "That puts uswith the other second-rate teams in the state."
"A great lot of orders you needed, didn't you?" was Captain DickPrescott's happy greeting as Dave met him beyond the side lines.
"You won that game for us, just the same," retorted Dave.
"I?" demanded Dick, in genuine amazement.
"Yes; you, and no one else."
"How?"
"You refused to give me a hint. You threw me down hard, on myown resources. I saw all those hundreds of people demanding thatGridley win," retorted Dave. "What could I do? I had to makethe fellows do something like what they've been doing under DickPrescott, or confess myself a dub. I couldn't lean on a wordfrom you, Dick. So you fairly drove me into planning somethingthat
would either carry off the game or make us look like chromosof football players. You wouldn't say a word, Prescott, thatwould take any of the blame on yourself! So didn't you forceme to win!"
"That's ingenious, but not convincing," retorted Dick, as thetwo chums stepped into dressing quarters. "To tell you the truth,Dave, I think a good many people now believe that you ought tobe the regular captain."
But Darrin only grinned. He knew better.
Some of the fellows tried to praise Fenton to his face.
"Quit! You can't get away with that," chuckled the fast littleleft end. "Some one had to take that ball and drop it behindHallam's goal line. I was the one who was ordered to do it.If I hadn't, what would you fellows have said about me?"
By the time that the Hallam Heights young men were dressed severalof them came to the Gridley quarters, Forsythe at their head.
"We want to shake hands," laughed Forsythe, "and to make surethat you have no hard feelings for what we tried to do to you."
Dick and Darrin took this in laughing goodfellowship.
"If you call this your dub team to-day," continued Forsythe, abit more gloomily, "we shudder to think what would have happenedto us had you put in your regular line-up."
"There isn't any dub team in Gridley," spoke Dick quickly. "Allof our fellows are trained in the same way, by the same coach,and we stake all our chances on any line-up that's picked forthe day. It was hard on you, gentlemen, that my knee put me outfor the day. Darrin is twice as crafty as I am."
"Oh, Darrin is crafty, all right," agreed Forsythe cheerfully."But, somehow, I like him for it."
On some of the side streets Gridley boys were allowed to lightbonfires that evening, and there was general rejoicing of a livelynature. From the news that had come over concerning the HallamHeights team there had been a good deal of fear that Gridleywould, on this day, receive a set-back to its rule of alwayswinning.