d to face and head. Then sweaters were again donned and the
four laps around the field began, the men trotting by twos and threes,
or, in the case of the injured ones, trailing along behind.
The next day, Wednesday, October 16th, Erskine played Dexter. Dexter is
a preparatory school that has a way of turning out strong elevens, many
of which in previous years had put up excellent fights against Erskine.
On the present occasion Erskine went into the game with a line largely
composed of substitutes and a back-field by no means as strong as
possible. During the first half Dexter was forced to give all her
attention to defending her goal, and had no time for incursions into
Erskine territory. The home college ran up 17 points, Devoe missing one
goal. In the second half Erskine made further changes in her team. Cowan
took Witter's place at right-guard, Reardon went in at quarter in place
of Bailey, and Neil, who had watched the first half greedily from the
side-line, went in at left half.
It was Dexter's kick-off, and she sent the ball fully forty yards.
Reardon called to Neil to take it. That youth got it on his ten yards,
and by fine dodging ran it back to the eighteen-yard line. From there it
was advanced by straight line-plunging to Erskine's forty yards, and it
seemed that a procession down the field to another touch-down had begun.
But at this point Fate and Tom Cowan took a hand. Cowan was taken back
of the line for a plunge through tackle. With right half and full lined
up in tandem behind him he was given the ball and shot through easily
for several yards. Then, his support gone, he staggered on for five
yards more by sheer force of weight with two Dexter backs dragging at
him, and there, for no apparent cause, dropped the pigskin. The Dexter
quarter-back, running in to stop Cowan, was on it in a twinkling, had
skirted the right end of the _melee_ and was racing toward Erskine's
goal. It had happened so quickly and unexpectedly that the runner was
fifteen yards to the good before pursuit began. Devoe and Neil took up
the chase, but it was a hopeless task, and in another minute the little
band of crimson-adorned Dexter supporters and substitutes on the
side-line were yelling like mad. The Dexter quarter placed the ball
nicely behind the very center of the west goal, and when it was taken
out none but a cripple could have failed to kick it over the cross-bar.
As Dexter's left-end was not a cripple her score changed
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