Part 25 (2/2)

The ball came back to Quarter-back Winters. He started Gridley faces to glowing again, for Winters did one of the things that had made the team famous. This was the Gridley fake kick. With any lesser team it would have been good for twenty-five yards.

Even against the big, alert fellows from Cobber that fake kick was good for eight yards. But not yet did the full effect of the move come. For Cobber was off-side and Trent burst through the line on a spurt that was good for thirty-three yards.

Two snappy line plays followed that made the Cobber boys feel the cold sweat ooze. It would have been Gridley's first down, but a little slip penalized the home players for fifteen yards.

Most of the people of Gridley back in the seats wore now standing up in their excitement. They had dreaded much from the bigger college boys, but now the spectators saw that Gridley could hold its own for strategy, ruse and speed.

Cobber lost its temper just a bit, now, before the smiling faces of these High School boys. Some rough playing followed, but the home boys kept their tempers.

Soon Ben Badger signaled another fake kick formation. That was Gridley's specialty for this game, one long planned and worked for. Quarter-back Winters again got the ball. With a handsome forward pa.s.s he made it Thompson's, and it went to the enemy's seven-yard line.

”Question---four!” appealed Cheer-Master Prescott, through the megaphone.

Back from twenty boys on the home stand came the heavy query:

_”Where's Cobber?

Where's Cobber?”_

From all the rest of the H.S. fans came the roaring answer:

”Lost! Suitable reward and no questions asked!”

Then the Cobber fans hurled back this hint:

_”Brag's a great dog, Brag's a smart dog, Brag's a good dog, but----- Look out for the cat!”_

Cobber now developed their own famous bulldog tactics. From the seven-yard line Gridley moved the ball less than two yards in three plays. Cobber got the ball, and then other things began to happen. Cobber's big fellows worried the ball back for eleven yards. Then the visitors, who carried thirty per cent. more weight, began with heavy ma.s.s plays. Gridley began to go down, to double up and collapse before that heavy, rough play, in which fatigue, not speed was the object of the opponents.

It was not scientific play, but it was grueling on the High School boys. Even confident d.i.c.k Prescott's heart began to sink. Coach Morton was breathing hard.

Unless Gridley could hold the enemy's rush back effectively enough to get the ball once more on downs, the college boys seemed likely to rush it right over the High School goal line.

Had Cobber tried any kicks, Gridley would have had the ball, and would have known what to do with it. But Captain Halsey knew that.

He depended, now, wholly on heavy ma.s.s rushes and plays.

Yet the Gridley boys were by no means asleep---or lazy.

”I won't tire our men all out in the first half,” muttered Badger to himself. ”But I won't let them stroll through our line.”

Even the heavy Cobber men, though they advanced doggedly, did not make any too great progress.

Down at the Gridley fifteen-yard line the High School boys developed their greatest stubbornness and strength. So well did they oppose the college boys that, by preventing progress in three successive plays, the home boys again got the ball. They could not move it sufficiently far forward, however. Cobber took the ball again.

”Better let up on the cheers, don't you think, sir?” d.i.c.k inquired.

<script>