Ah! An opening! Stern's head went lower still. He braced himself for a leap.
"Come on, come on!" he yelled defiance.
Again he heard the cheering, once wind like a chorus of mad devils.
An opening? No, he was mistaken. Instead, the Blues were massing there by the Goal.
Bitterly he swore. Under his arm he tightened the ball. He ran!
What?
They were trying to tackle?
"Damn you!" he cried, in boiling anger. "I'll--I'll show you a trick or two--yet!"
He stopped, circled, dodged the clutching hands, feinted with a tactic long unthought of, and broke into a straight, resistless dash for the posts.
As he ran, he yelled: "Smash them--and--break through! . ....."
All his waning strength upgathered for that run. Yet how strangely tired he felt--how heavy the ball was growing!
What was the matter with his head? With his right arm? They both ached hideously. He must have got hurt, some way, in one of the "downs." Some dirty work, somewhere. Rotten sport!
He ran. Never in all his many games had he seen such peculiar gridiron, all tangled and overgrown. Never, such host of tackles. Hundreds of them! Where were the Crimsons? What? No support, no interference? Hell!
Yet the Goal was surely just there, now right ahead. He ran.
"Foul!" he shouted savagely, as a Blue struck at him, then another and another, and many more. The taste of blood came to his tongue. He spat. "Foul!"
Right and left he dashed them, with a giant's strength. They scattered in panic, with strange and unintelligible cries.
"The goal!"
He reached it. And, as he crossed the line, he fell.
"Down, down!" sobbed he.