"And Bellport has still another chance to carry it over! If the wind was favorable Lee could boot the pigskin across your goal, and not half try. But I guess they'd rather depend on breaking through, or getting around the ends. Keep your eyes on those boys, for they're as full of schemes as an egg is of meat."

"That sounds encouraging. I was afraid our fellows might have too easy a snap, and disappoint their friends by not half trying. Just wait yourself, Bellport. It was the same thing in baseball last summer; and yet Columbia flies the banner, all right. You may be treated to some surprises yourself, old chap," remarked Buster, condescendingly.

Again the scrimmage was on. The Columbia tigers were so fast on their feet that Clay, who got the ball this time, was unable to accomplish much before they pounced upon him and bore him heavily to the ground.

"How's that?" shouted Buster, "our fellows just eat up such easy plays. Bring out some of your fancy stunts, and do something, can't you?"

Three minutes later and the ball came to Columbia. It was time, for Bellport had, by a series of bull-like rushes, carried it over the twenty-yard line.

"Now to get back some of that lost ground. There they go! See Shadduck run, will you? He's Mercury, with wings on his feet! Look at him dodge that left guard! Say, he's going to make it yet, as sure as you live he is! Bully boy, Bones! Go it! Go it, you darling! Oh! what a heart-ache I've got! He's over the line, boys; over the line! A touchdown for us to start things!" and Buster danced in his excitement, like a rubber ball.

"No he ain't," snarled a Bellport backer, "they downed him before he got there! Notice that just three of our fellows are settin' on his back. He tried mighty hard, but they nailed him a little too soon!"

"You're mistaken. He held the ball over the line, and it counts for Columbia, as you can see if you look again," remarked Mr.

Allen, who was sitting near.

"That's so," grumbled the discomfited Bellport man, "and with that wind it's goin' to be as easy as pie to boot the ball over for a goal. Shucks! what ails our fellows to-day? They never did sloppy work like that with Clifford."

"There was a reason, they say. Clifford claims that her signals were sold to Bellport. Anyhow, there's going to be nothing of that kind to-day, but clean fighting. There goes Frank to kick goal, and he'll do it, too," answered Buster.

The goal was made easily, thanks to the favoring wind. Then again the ball was put into play, and fierce ran the rivalry. Sometimes the fighting was on Columbia territory, and then again the tide of battle shifted until it was Bellport's line that was threatened.

Now and then the cheers of the enthusiasts arose and swelled over that fiercely-contested field like thunder. Back and forth they swung, both now doggedly determined. A score of plays were made that brought out cheers from the spectators, regardless of school affiliations; for they liked clean football, and could applaud clever work, even on the other side.

When the heart-rending agony was finally relieved by the referee's whistle announcing the end of the first half, that score of six by Columbia was the entire counting!

CHAPTER XXIII

WON BY FOUR INCHES

"See 'em getting Hail Columbia from their coach because they made that fool play! Next time it'll be different," growled the unhappy Bellport backer.

"I hope so," replied the cheerful and optimistic Buster, composedly.

Frank, as he came in from the field, dusty and disheveled, looked eagerly at a certain part of the grandstand where Helen sat alongside her chum Minnie. Immediately both girls waved their flags at him, and called out something, which, of course, was utterly drowned in the furious shouting that arose.

But Frank would ten times rather have heard what they said than to listen to the cheers of the mult.i.tude; for he knew that love and friendship endure, while the admiration of the crowd is as fickle as the weather, praising one day and on the next condemning.

Both teams held earnest consultations during the interval between the halves of the game. New plays were planned whereby advantage might be taken of some supposed weak spot in the line of the enemy's defense. And singular to say, not a single change had as yet been made in the line-up, something remarkable indeed, when in other days half a dozen casualties must have resulted from those furious clashes. Doubtless there were those who suffered in silence, fearing lest they be taken out, if their real condition were made known; and every man was wild to finish in what promised to be the most exciting football game that had ever happened in the tri-school league.

"There they go to take position. Now for another heart-breaking period of suspense. But they've got the advantage. It's an up-hill fight for Bellport; six to nothing, and half the time gone. If they can only keep the others from scoring it isn't necessary to make any more," said Buster to Jack Eastwick.

"No chance for me to get into this game. That Shay is a sticker.

But I candidly admit he's something of an improvement on myself, and I hope he holds out. But mark me, Buster, there's going to be some changes before the game ends," remarked the other, confidentially.

"What makes you say that, Jack?" asked his friend, curiously.

"Because those Bellport bulldogs have got blood in their eyes now.

The coach has been combing them down, and they're just bound to carry things before them, or die trying. It's going to be hotter than ever, Buster."

"But Frank has been saying things, too. And our boys have the benefit of the experience of one who was a terror on the lines of Princeton, my especial friend, Coach Willoughby," remarked Buster, proudly. "He's set 'em up a few capers that are going to surprise our good Bellport friends. I'm game to stack up on Columbia. I only hope some of those Bellport players like Bardwell and Banghardt don't try foul tactics on us, like they did in baseball, that's all."

"The referee has his eye on 'em. He has been warned, and let them try it at their peril. If those two dangerous half-backs are put off the team it'll go to pieces in a hurry, mark my words. That's what I'm expecting it to end in."

But Jack was mistaken. Bellport knew the folly of attempting anything that had a suspicious look. Brawn and strategy and agility must carry the day, no matter which side won.

Shrilly blew the whistle, and once more the ball, yellow no longer, for it had been ground into the dirt, sailed through the air. There was an exchange of punts that ended when Bellport held the pigskin on her forty-yard line and the signal came for a play around Columbia's left end.

"Watch out now, fellows!" warned Frank Allen. "Don't let 'em get through, or past you."

"Eighteen--twenty-seven--sixty--all together--fourteen!" chanted Snodgra.s.s, and back the ball was snapped to him. In a flash he pa.s.sed it to Bardwell, who started as though to circle Shadduck at right end. And then that trick, so often worked, so effective when it comes out right, and so futile when it does not, was tried.

Bardwell pa.s.sed the ball to Banghardt on the run, and the left-half started for the end where Morris was.

How it happened none of the Columbia players, not even Morris himself, could tell, but he was drawn in by the double pa.s.s and his end was free to be circled by Banghardt. Even the Columbia two half-backs were fooled, and no excuse for it, either, as they admitted afterward, for they had often worked the play themselves.

Be that as it may, Banghardt was past, and with no one between him and the goal line but Comfort.

But the full-back was a tower of strength, and with eagerly outstretched hands he waited the oncoming of the left half.

"Get him, Comfort! Get him!" pleaded the crowd.

Straight at the full-back came Banghardt, and then, with a sudden shifting, he turned aside, and Comfort grasped only the empty air, while the man with the ball, amid the wild, excited cries of the adherents of his school, while the grandstands fairly rocked under the impact of thousands of stamping feet, touched down the pigskin.

"Touchdown! Touchdown for Bellport!" howled the enthusiasts, while the dazed Columbia team crawled out of the scrimmage and wondered how it had happened. So, too, did some of the Bellport players themselves wonder, for the play had come like a flash from a clear sky.

The goal was easily kicked, tying the score, and then the big crowd sat up and wondered what would come next.

"It's going to be a hot game all right!" was the general verdict.

"Here's where we beat you, Columbia!" called a Bellport supporter, as he turned to Buster with a grin on his face. "Oh we've got you in a hole dead sure. We've got your number."

"Oh, have you!" retorted Buster. "Wait. Don't count your chickens until they're out of the woods."

After the kick-off there followed some line smashing tactics on both sides. Once Bellport was penalized for off-side play, and once Columbia lost the ball for holding in the line. Bellport was later penalized ten yards for a second offense in off-side work, and then the players seemed to realize the importance of being careful, and they got down to business.

How they ever stood the smashing, banging tactics, the fierce tackling, the eager runs, the line bucking, the giving and taking, only one who has played football, and who knows the fierce joy of the game, can understand. Nervous women cried out in alarm as they saw the struggling ma.s.s and heap of boyish humanity. There were several times when the play had to be stopped to allow the dashing of cold water over some unlucky chap, to bring him out of a half faint, and the number of lads who lost their wind, and had to have it pumped into them by artificial respiration was many.

But no one was seriously hurt, though Coddling had to leave the field because of a broken finger and Harper was replaced at the Columbia right guard because he was so disabled from a fierce piling-on of players that he was useless in the line.

Ten minutes more to play, and the score tied! Back and forth the players had surged, up and down the field, now kicking, now plunging into each other's line, now circling the ends. It was the most fiercely contested game that had ever been played in the league. The Columbia-Clifford contest was as nothing to it.

"Hold 'em, Tigers! Don't let 'em score again! Rip out another touchdown! Go at 'em!"

How the cohorts of Columbia begged and pleaded! No less did the friends of Bellport.

A touchdown, a field goal, or a safety for either side now would win the game and the championship. Which would it be? To which side would it go. A thousand admirers of either team asked those questions.