Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/253

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was fighting now not only against Wolcott but against time, for the final whistle wasn't far off. Every one knows that you can't use a trick play like that "split team" twice in succession and get away with it. Sim Jackson knew it. So he tried it again!

That is, he split the team as before, while Wolcott showed amazement plainly. The fool thing was a crazy quarterback trying it close to the twenty! Well, they knew what to expect this time and so, while their forwards watched their men their backs arranged themselves for a forward-pass. This time, naturally, Wolcott didn't waste three men to look after three of the enemy who were almost the width of the field from the ball. Wolcott put its strength where the danger lay. Which was a fortunate thing for Wolcott, since no forward-pass was attempted and Hoppin, who carried the ball, would have gained much more than seven yards had the opponent divided its forward line evenly. But even seven yards is not to be sneezed at when it lays the ball close to the thirteen!

Wyndham closed up then and played rational football, and, with something under forty seconds left, cleared the goal-line in three plunges, beating the whistle by the tick of the watch. That touchdown—credit it to Stiles—tied the score, and when Lee Heard, plainly nervous, stepped far back to take the pass from "Wink" you could have heard a pin drop. Well, not just that, perhaps, for a pin doesn't make much sound when it strikes a football field, I suppose, and there was a good deal of noise from the First Team gridiron; but things