to
earth with a thump as a heavy Jefferson guard broke through and made the
tackle.

On the next play Dean exhibited a bit of good judgment that worked to
the advantage of the Ridgley team: noticing that the Jefferson quarter
was dangerously close to the line he saw the chance to slip a punt over
his head. The stratagem worked; the punt that Neil Durant sent away
quickly sailed over the quarter-back's head and rolled down the field to
the Jefferson five-yard line. The quarter ran after it, made a quick
scoop, and attempted to come back but was stopped before he had taken
half a dozen steps.

Fighting hard, the Ridgley team prevented the visitors from advancing
and forced them to kick from their own goal line. Neil Durant caught the
punt at mid-field and dashed forward ten yards before he was checked.
The moment seemed ripe for a strong Ridgley advance, but Norris and his
men met the attack with a stiff resistance and threw back the first two
attempts for a loss of three yards. Dean, in glancing over the enemy's
line, then saw the opportunity for which he had been waiting; the time
had arrived to try the surprise play. He gave a signal which brought a
thrill to Teeny-bits.

In the two forward-pass formations that the Ridgley team had used
earlier in the game Neil Durant both times had been the man to receive
the ball from Dean. The members of the team now took somewhat obvious
positions and the Jefferson eleven immediately assumed that a forward
pass was being contemplated. One of the tackles even voiced his warning:
"Look out for a pass!" and Norris shifted his position slightly to keep
an eye on the Ridgley captain. Teeny-bits' duty was to dash through to
the left and to get into the open space beyond the Jefferson line.

The preliminaries of the play worked to perfection. At the snap of the
ball Neil Durant started swiftly to the right and drew after him the
major part of the Jefferson secondary defense. For the moment Teeny-bits
seemed to have been forgotten: it did not occur to the purple players
that, with the big captain running swiftly into position to take the
pass, his smaller back-field team-mate would be the one to receive the
oval.

As Dean seemed to be in the act of hurling to his captain, Teeny-bits
won through to an open space; suddenly the quarter-back shifted and shot
the ball, bullet-straight, into the hands of the half-back. Teeny-bits
was running toward the Jefferson goal almost before he felt