the hard
leather touch his fingers; now or never was the instant to use every
atom of his body in the one purpose of reaching the goal posts that were
straight in front of him,--so near and yet so far away.

The whole Jefferson team realized in that fraction of a second when they
saw the ball sail into the half-back's arms that their advantage, their
prestige and their hope of glory in the annals of Jefferson football
were at stake. They were after Teeny-bits like wolves on the trail of a
rabbit, but only three of them had a chance to reach the Ridgley player.
The first of these--the quarter-back--made the fatal mistake of
underestimating Teeny-bits' speed. The half-back shifted direction
slightly and eluded the grasp of the purple player. The other two were
slightly in the rear and their only chance was to come up from behind
and overtake the runner by superior swiftness. But they were not equal
to it, and, although they tried valiantly and held their own, they did
not succeed in gaining on the carrier of the ball as he crossed one
white mark after another.

[Illustration: ONLY THREE OF THEM HAD A CHANCE TO REACH THE RIDGLEY
PLAYER.]

A roar like the pounding of a mighty sea against a craggy shore sounded
in Teeny-bits' ears, but it seemed to him distant and detached from the
thing he was doing. For the moment he was a living machine of speed with
only one thought in his mind,--to reach that last white line, to cross
it and to plant the pigskin ball behind the padded goal posts. He did
it,--and lay panting on the ground while Neil Durant came running up and
slapped him on the back and said words to him which Teeny-bits never
remembered.

The captain kicked the goal which tied the score while a continuous din
of unorganized shouting rose from the Ridgley stands. It was no moment
for organized cheering. The cheer leader himself was leaping up and
down, throwing his megaphone into the air and emitting war whoops which
were drowned and assimilated by the volume of shouts that echoed back
and forth.

The old-timers up there in the stands now began to breathe fast; this
was not merely a _good_ game of football, it was a _wonderful_ game, a
struggle in which extraordinary playing and fine spirit and brains and
courage were united to make a combat that would live long in the memory
of every person who witnessed it.

Up where the red was waving aloft, a white-haired man who did not
understand the plays of football very