o for his side;
if Mooney and Carroll can get the ball away it will only count one,"
explained Lloyd.

About the three players struggling on the ground the crowd pours
itself, yelling, urging, imploring, shrieking directions. Campbell
stoops down over The Don and shouts into his ear. "Hold on, Don. It
means the game," and The Don, lying on his back, winds his arms round
the ball and sets himself to resist the efforts of Mooney and Carroll
to get it away.

In vain the police and field censors try to keep back the crowd. They
are swept helpless into the centre. Madder and wilder grows the tumult,
while the referee stands, watch in hand, over the struggling three.

"Stop that choking, Carroll," says Shock to the little quarter, who is
gripping The Don hard about the throat.

"Get off, Mooney," cries Campbell. "Get off his chest with your knees.
Get off, I say, or I'll knock your head off."

But Mooney persists in boring into The Don's stomach with his knees,
tugging viciously at the ball. With a curse Campbell springs at him.
But as he springs a dozen hands reach for him. There is a wild rush of
twenty men for each other's throats. Too close to strike they can only
choke and scrag and hack each other fiercely. The policemen push in,
threatening with their batons, and there is a prospect of a general
fight when the referee's whistle goes. Time is up. The MAUL is over.
'Varsity has its two points. The score now stand even, four to four,
with two minutes to play.

They lift The Don from the ground. His breath is coming in gasps and he
is trembling with the tremendous exertions of the last three minutes.

"Time there!" calls out Shock, who has Balfour in his arms.

The smile is all gone from Shock's face. As he watches The Don
struggling in deep gasps to recover his breath, for the first time in
his football life he loses himself. He hands his friend to a couple of
men standing near, strides over to Mooney, and catching him by the
throat begins to shove him back through the crowd.

"You brute, you!" he roars. "What kind of a game do you call that!
Jumping on a man when he is down, with your knees! For very little," he
continues, struggling to get his arm free from the men who are hanging
on it, "I would knock your face off."

Men from both sides throw themselves upon Shock and his foe and tear
them apart.

"That's all right, Shock," cries The Don, laughing between his gasps,
and Shock, suddenly coming to himself,