Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/177

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counted on to give the Dark Blue a lot of trouble. The New York team had gone through five contests without having her goal-line crossed and it had been expected that she would hold Wolcott to a very meager score. Indeed, there were plenty at Wyndham who had, no later than yesterday, predicted for Wolcott nothing better than a tie game. Tom refused to believe his own paper and was only convinced of the correctness of the score when Clif's journal told the same story. In the light of that result it was necessary to either revise their former opinion of Toll's or to credit Wolcott with being about fifty per cent better than they had considered her. Tom's well-known capacity for pessimism helped him make out a very good case in favor of the latter alternative.

"If Wolcott can make four touchdowns on Toll's she can trim us, Clif," he declared gloomily.

"But she didn't. She made three touchdowns and a field-goal. Can't you read?"

"Well, three, then. It makes no difference. Say, I'll bet Toll's will hand us an awful wallop next Saturday!"

"How do you get that way?" asked Clif indignantly. "If we aren't as good as Wolcott this minute I'll—I'll treat! Look at yesterday's game."

"Sure, but we're playing Toll's on her own field, and you know that makes a big difference. Wolcott played her at home, with all the cheering her own way. Say, it doesn't say a word about that boy wonder of theirs, Goshawk, or whatever his name is. Accord-