, Blair eased his pace by ever so little,
and Joel shot forward in the track of the full, his head down, and the
next moment was sprawling on the turf with the enemy above him. But he
saw and heard Blair and Kingdon hurdling over, felt a sharp pain that
was instantly forgotten, and knew that the ball was safely by.

But the run was over at the next line. Kingdon made a heroic effort to
down the half, and would have succeeded had it not been for the
persevering forward, who reached him with his long arms and pulled him
to earth. And Blair, the ball safe beneath him, lay at the Yates
thirty-five yards, the half-back holding his head to earth.

Joel arose, and as he trotted to his position he looked curiously at the
first finger of his left hand. It bore the imprint of a shoe-cleat, and
pained dully. He tried to stretch it, but could not. Then he shook his
hand. The finger wobbled crazily. Joel grinned.

"Bust!" he whispered laconically.

His first impulse was to ask for time to have it bound. Then he
recollected that some one had said the doctor was very strict about
injuries. Perhaps the latter would consider the break sufficient cause
for Joel's leaving the field. That wouldn't do; better to play with a
broken arm than not to play at all. So he tried to stick the offending
hand in his pocket, found there was no pocket there, and put the finger
in his mouth instead. Then he forgot all about it, for Harwell was
hammering the blue's line desperately and Joel had all he could do to
remember the signals and play his position.

For the next quarter of an hour the ball hovered about Yates's danger
territory. Twice, by the hardest kind of line bucking, it was placed
within the ten-yard line, and twice, by the grimmest, most desperate
resistance, it was lost on downs and sent hurtling back to near
mid-field. But Yates was on the defensive, even when the oval was in her
possession, and Harwell experienced the pleasurable--and, in truth,
unaccustomed--exultation that comes with the assurance of superiority.
Harwell's greatest ground-gaining plays now were the two sequences from
ordinary formation and full-back forward. These were used over and over,
ever securing territory, and ever puzzling the opponents.

Joel was hard worked. He was used not only to wriggle around the line
inside of ends and to squirm through difficult outlets, but to charge
the line as well, a feat of which his height and strong legs rendered
him well ca