the quarterback's head and land four feet from the goal with
the quarterback in his grip, while a Sunrise halfback out beyond
him was lying on the lost ball.
The bleachers now went entirely mad, for from the very edge of disaster,
the tide of battle was turned into the enemy's territory.
Before the Sunrise rooters had time to cease rejoicing, however,
the invincible quarterback was away again, and with two guards
and a center on top of Burleigh, now the plucky runner broke
across the Sunrise line, and a minute later missed a pretty goal.
And the opposing bleachers counted five.
The second half of the game was filled with a tense, fruitless strife.
Five points to five points, and four minutes of time to play. The struggle
had ceased to be a turning of tricks and test of speed. Henceforth, it was
man against man, pound for pound. Suddenly, the opposing team braced
itself and began a steady drive down the gridiron. With desperate energy,
the Sunrise eleven fought for ground, giving way slowly, defending their goal
like true Spartans, dying by inches, until only three yards of space were
left on which to die. The rooters shrieked, and the girls sang of courage.
Then a silence fell. Three yards, and the Sunrise team turned to a rock ledge
as invincible as the limestone foundation of their beloved college halls.
The center from which all strength radiated was Victor Burleigh. Against him
the weight of the line-bucking plunged. If he wavered the line must crumble.
The crowd hardly breathed, so tense was the strain. But he did not waver.
The ball was lost and the last struggle of the day began. Two minutes more,
the score tied, and only one chance was left.
Since the night of the storm, Vic had known little rest.
His days had been spent in hard study, or continuous
practice on the field; his nights in the sick room.
And what was more destructive to strength than all of this
was the newness and grief of a blind, overmastering adoration
for the one girl of all the school impossible to him.
The strain of this day's game, as the strain of all the
preparation for it, had fallen upon him, and the half hour
in the rotunda had sapped his energy beyond every other force.
Love, loss, a reputation attacked, possible expulsion for assaulting
a professor, injustice, anger--oh, it was more than a burden
of wearied muscles and wracked nerves that he had to lift
in these two minutes!
In a second's pause before the offense began, Vic, who never saw
the bleachers, nor heard a sound when he was in the thick of the game,
caught sight now of a great splash of glowing red color in the grandstand.
In a dim way, like a dream of a dream, he thought of American Beauty
roses of which something had been said once--so long ago, it seemed now.
And in that moment, Elinor Wream's sweet face, with damp dark hair which
the lamplight from Dr. Fenneben's door was illumining, and the softly
spoken words, "I shall always remember you as one with whom I could
never be afraid again"--all this came swiftly in an instant's vision,
as the team caught its breath for the last onslaught.
"Victor, for victory. Lead out Burleigh," Trench cried to his mates,
and the sweep of the field was on; and Lagonda Ledge and the whole
Walnut Valley remembers that final charge yet. Steady, swift,
invincible, it drove its strong foe down the white-crossed sod--
so like a whirlwind, that the watching crowds gazed in bewilderment.
Almost before they could comprehend the truth, the enemy's goal was
just before the Sunrise warriors, and half a minute of time remained
in which to play. One more line plunge with Burleigh holding the ball!
A film came before his eyes. A sudden blankness of failure and
despair seized him. In the grandstand, Elinor Wream stood clutching