High School had the advantage of a longer preliminary season than her opponent, having already taken part in six contests, and in consequence what she lacked in weight—for she was a light team—was made up to her in experience. The first period resulted in a good deal of wasteful effort on both sides. High School yielded the ball soon after the kick-off and Parkinson started with line-plunging plays that took her from her own twenty-nine yards past the middle of the field and well into the opponent’s territory. Hodges, Little and Pearson, the substitute backs, showed good ability and were hard to stop. It was a fumble that finally cost them the ball and High School started back from her thirty-six-yard line with a series of running plays that for awhile fooled the Parkinson ends and backs and put the ball on the home team’s forty-yard line. During the rest of the twelve-minute quarter the pigskin passed back and forth across the fifty yards with slight advantage to either side. The Parkinson supporters grumbled because the team didn’t open up and try the High School ends instead of invariably yielding the ball after an unsuccessful fourth down plunge. But Dannis was in command, and Dannis generally knew what he was up to.

During that first period Ira found the going rather easy, for his opponent played a stupid game. It was only when, on attack, he had to try conclusions with the opposing centre that he had difficulty. That centre, although a comparative youngster, was, as everyone agreed afterwards, “some player!” He had no trouble standing the Parkinson centre, Conlon, on his head, to use the phrase, and it was his ability to do that that led to the first score which came a few minutes after the teams had changed places.

Dannis had intercepted a forward-pass just behind his line and zigzagged to the enemy’s thirty-eight. From there, in four rushes, Little and Pearson alternating, the pigskin had gone to the twenty-seven. Hodges had failed to get away outside right tackle and had lost a yard. With eleven to go on second down, Dannis had skirted the Red-and-Blue’s left and, behind good interference, had placed the ball near the twenty-yard line just inside the boundary. The next play had gone out and gained a scant yard, and Little, crashing through the right side of the High School defence, had just failed of the distance. Then, with the ball nearly opposite the goal-posts and eighteen yards away from them, Captain Lyons had dropped back for a try-at-goal. Conlon’s pass had been rather poor, the ball almost going over the kicker’s head, and possibly the knowledge of the fact had unsteadied him for a moment. At all events, the opposing centre had brushed him aside, avoided Pearson and leaped straight into the path of the ball as it left Lyons’ foot. It had banged against his body and bounded back up the field, and a speedy back, who had followed through behind the centre, had gathered it into his arms on the second bound and raced almost unchallenged for some seventy-five yards and a touchdown from which High School had kicked an easy goal.

Perhaps that handicap was just what Parkinson needed to make her show herself, for, after Lyons had again kicked off and the opponents had been held for downs and had punted back to Little, the brown team started with new determination. By that time Ira’s competitor had recovered from his slump, doubtless heartened by those seven points on the score board, and Ira had his hands full. Dannis thrust the backs at right and left of centre and Ira was busy trying to make holes or to keep the left of the High School line from romping through. Pearson was the best gainer through the line, and once he got almost clear and rushed twenty-two yards before he was brought down. Little and Hodges worked the ends for smaller gains and Dannis pulled off a twelve-yard stunt straight through centre on a fake pass. Parkinson was halted on High School’s twenty-five and the Red-and-Blue recovered seven of the necessary ten yards before she was forced to punt. Little caught near the side line and got back eight before he was run out of bounds. With the ball on the thirty-four, Dannis attempted a quarter-back run, but lost two yards. Hodges faked a forward and made six around right end and Little got the rest of the distance off right tackle. Near the fifteen yards, with four to go on third down, Hodges threw across the lines and Bradford caught on the eight. From there the ball was pushed over in three plays, Little scoring the touchdown. Lyons kicked the goal from a slight angle.

High School was given the ball for the kick-off and a short lift dropped it into the arms of Pearson near the twenty-yard line. The Red-and-Blue showed demoralisation then and her line went to pieces during the next dozen plays. Parkinson crashed through almost at will and had reached the enemy’s twenty-one when the whistle blew.

There was some criticism in the locker-room between halves, but Coach Driscoll found little fault, on the whole. Ira, who had been rather roughly used, had a piece of plaster applied to his nose and arnica rubbed into his right ankle. Conlon was horribly messed up and was, besides, angry clear through. The knowledge that he had been outplayed disgruntled him badly, and he spent the time when he was not in the hands of the rubber or trainer in glowering by himself in a corner.

Both teams presented new talent when the third quarter started. For Parkinson, Basker had taken Dannis’s place, Little and Pearson had retired, Crane was at left guard in place of Buffum, and Logan was at right end. High School had one new back and two new linesmen. Ira’s opponent was still on hand, however, and viewed him darkly as they lined up after the kick-off. Ira was as yet unable to view the struggle as anything other than a somewhat rough amusement, and the other boy’s evident ill-will puzzled him. He soon found, though, that his opponent held a different idea of the matter in hand. The High School left guard was not viewing the affair as a pastime, and the fact was brought home to Ira very speedily. The other fellow did not actually transgress the rules, but he approached so close to the borderland between fair and unfair use of the hands that Ira found himself at his wit’s end to protect himself from punishment. Almost anyone else would have lost his temper and fought back, but Ira kept his smile and took his medicine. By the time Parkinson had reached scoring distance once more he was pretty badly used up. He wondered what would happen if he called the umpire’s attention to his opponent’s tactics, and was tempted to see. But he didn’t. It seemed too much like acting the baby. Lyons, playing beside him at tackle, saw what was happening and hotly told Ira to “give him what he’s asking for, Rowland!” And, as Ira didn’t, Lyons took matters into his own hands on one occasion when the opportunity presented itself to him and considerably jarred the High School left guard by putting his shoulder under that youth’s chin. Fortunately for Lyons, the umpire didn’t see it. But the compliment didn’t alter the left guard’s tactics and Ira was sniffing at a bloody nose and looking dimly through one eye when, after three plunges at High School’s line had failed, Lyons dropped back and put the pigskin over the bar for the third score.

Fred went out then, Hodsdon taking his place, and James went in for Hodges. High School kicked off to Basker and the substitute quarter was run back for a loss of four yards. A fumble a minute later was recovered by Mason, at left half, on Parkinson’s twelve yards. Two attempts at the line gained but six and Basker punted to midfield. A smash at the Parkinson right side went through for five yards and Ira, who had been mowed down in the proceeding, felt so comfortable on the ground that it didn’t occur to him to get up until someone swashed a wet sponge over his face. When he did find his feet under him he was extremely glad of the support of the trainer, and when he found himself walking toward the bench he didn’t even protest. There was, he felt subconsciously, something radically wrong with a game that allowed the other fellow to “rough” you at pleasure and forbade you to “rough” him back. Someone lowered him to a bench and draped a blanket around his shoulders, and someone administered to his half-closed eye and added another piece of plaster to his already picturesque countenance. And after that he was sent off to the gymnasium, receiving as he went a scattered applause from the friendly stands.

Coach Driscoll used twenty-four players that afternoon, and the score of the game in the next morning’s Warne Independent looked a good deal like a section of a city directory. But in spite of putting two whole teams into the field the coach failed to capture the game, for, in the last three or four minutes of play, High School performed a miracle with a sadly patched-up eleven and worked the ball down to Parkinson’s twenty-two yards and from there, plunging once, grounding a forward-pass once and trying an end run that was stopped, she lifted the pigskin across the bar and tied the score at 10 to 10! And Fred Lyons, dragging tired feet up the gymnasium steps, remarked sadly to De Wolf Lowell: “Father was right!” Lowell, himself downcast and disappointed, not knowing that Fred had Coach Driscoll in mind, found the remark frivolous and senseless and only grunted.

“Well, what in the name of common sense has happened to you?” demanded Humphrey Nead as Ira trailed into the room about five. Ira smiled tiredly and gingerly lowered himself onto the erratic window seat.

“I’ve been playing football,” he answered. “Didn’t you see the game?”

Humphrey shook his head. “I did not,” he answered. “But if they all look like you it must have been a fine one! Who won?”

“Nobody. It was a tie. Ten to ten.”

“Great Scott! Do you mean that you tore your face into fragments and ended where you began?”

“Something like that. Only, of course, we all had a pleasant time, Nead, and got a lot of nice exercise. It’s a remarkable game, football.”

“Are you sure you’ve been playing football?” asked Humphrey, grinning. “Sure you haven’t been in a train wreck, Rowly?”

“Quite sure, thanks. I played opposite a fellow who probably invented the game. Anyway, he knew a lot of stunts I didn’t. He had more ways of using his hands without being seen than you can imagine.”

“Oh, that was it!” Humphrey frowned. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing much. Lyons said I ought to, but what’s the good of having rules if you don’t stick to them? I tried to keep from getting killed and barely got off with my life. I don’t think he got through me more than three times, but he certainly made it difficult for me! The last time he came through very nicely, though, and when I came to I was on my back and the trainer was trying to drown me with a sponge full of water. After that they lugged me off and sent me home. I didn’t see the rest of it, but I heard they tied up the game in the last quarter. I guess Fred Lyons is awfully disappointed. You see, there’s the meeting tonight.”

“It’ll be a frost,” said Humphrey. “I’ve heard a lot of the fellows say that they weren’t going. Here, you’d better let me doctor you a bit, Rowly. That eye’s a sight! Who stuck the plaster all over you?”

“Billy Goode. I do look sort of funny, don’t I?” Ira observed himself in the wavy mirror above the bureau. “I’d laugh,” he added, “only it hurts my mouth!”

“You were a silly ass not to go after that butcher,” growled Humphrey. “I wish I’d been playing against him! What was his name?”

“I don’t think I heard it. Hold on, don’t take that plaster off!”

“Shut up and stand still! You don’t need half a yard of the stuff there. Where are those scissors of yours? There, that’s something like. Oh, hang it, it’s bleeding again! Reach me the towel. Are you going to the meeting?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose so. Lyons wouldn’t like it if we didn’t all go. That eye looks bad, though, doesn’t it? Guess I’ll get some hot water and bathe it.”

“Hot water be blowed! Cold water is what you want. Here, I’ll pour some out in the basin and you get to work.”

“Why didn’t you go to the game?” asked Ira, as he sopped a dripping wash cloth to his eye.

“Oh, I had something better to do.”

“Pool, I suppose,” sniffed Ira. “You do too much of that, Nead.”

“Well, you miss your guess, old top. I was out with Jimmy Fallon on his motorcycle. Say, that’s sport, all right, Rowly! Sixty-five miles an hour sometimes, and everything whizzing past so quick you couldn’t see it! I wish I could afford one of the things.”

“You’ll break your neck if you go rampaging around on one of those contraptions,” said Ira. “It isn’t safe, Nead.”

“Huh! That sounds fine from a fellow whose face looks like a beefsteak! You don’t see any black eyes or broken noses on me, do you?”

Ira laughed. “You’ve got the best of the argument,” he replied. “But some day you’ll come home with a broken neck if you’re not careful. Where’d you go?”

“Springfield. Took us forty minutes to go and less than that to get back. A motor cop tried to chase us once, but never had a chance. We left him standing.”

“Who is Jimmy Fallon?”

“He works in Benton’s cigar store. He’s a corker, Jimmy is.”

“He must be if he spends his time racing policemen. I suppose you think you’re going to play pool tonight.”

“Surest thing you know, sport!”

“Well, you’re not. You’re coming with me to the mass meeting. And you’re going to——”

“Yes, I am! Like fun!” jeered Humphrey.

“And you’re going to clap your hands at the right moment and pull for the football team,” continued Ira, regardless of the interruption. “Also, Nead, you’re going to subscribe liberally to the cause.”

“Nothing doing, Rowly! I’ve got a date with some of the fellows downtown. Anyway, I couldn’t subscribe to the cause, as you call it, having but about a dollar and a half to my name and needing that for more important things, old top.”

“Broke again?” asked Ira.

“Pretty nearly. I’ve got a dollar and sixty-two cents, or something like that. Want to borrow a hundred, Rowly?”

“No, thanks. But I’ll stake you to a couple of dollars so you can put in your coin when they pass the hat.”

“All right. You put in a dollar for me and let me have the other now.”

“You can put it in yourself. You’ll be there.”

“Nothing doing!”

“This is something special, Nead,” said Ira, seriously, speaking through the folds of the towel. “I want you to go with me. It won’t matter if you miss one evening at the billiard place.”

“But I don’t want to go to your old meeting,” expostulated Humphrey. “It’s nothing in my young life! You give them a dollar for me and tell them I wish them well.”

“No, we want all the fellows we can get. You’ll be wanting to borrow in two or three days, Nead, and I shan’t want to loan to a fellow who won’t do a little thing like this to oblige me.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, old top. There are other places to make a raise.”

“Maybe, but I don’t believe you want to try them. I’ll be back here about half-past seven and the meeting’s at eight. We’d better start fairly early so as to get good seats.”

“Gee, a fellow would think you were going to the movies,” scoffed Humphrey. “What fun is there in listening to a lot of idiots talk about the football team? Are you going to speak, too?”

“Me?” asked Ira startledly. “Thunder, no! I couldn’t speak a piece!”

“Then I won’t go,” laughed Humphrey. “If you’ll make a speech, Rowly, I’ll take a chance.”

“Guess I’m the one who’d be taking a chance,” replied Ira. “How does this eye look now?”

“Dissipated, old top, dissipated! But it’s a bit better. Well, I guess I’ll run along and feed. Want to donate that dollar now, Rowly?”

“N-no, I don’t believe so.”

Humphrey frowned and paused irresolutely by the table, hat in hand. “You’re not in earnest about that, are you?” he asked. “I mean about holding out on me if I don’t go to the meeting.”

“Yes, I am, Nead. You’re wanted at the meeting and I’m asking you to go as a personal favour to me.”

“Rot! I don’t see how it affects you any, whether I go or don’t go. It isn’t your picnic.”

“Why not? I’m on the team, fighting and bleeding for the cause.” Ira felt tentatively of his nose. “Bleeding, anyhow. Naturally, I want the thing to be a success. Besides, Nead, they’ve got to raise some money if they’re going to last the season out. Shall we say about twenty minutes to eight?”

“Say what you like,” laughed Humphrey, “but don’t look for me, Rowly. I’ve got something to do tonight. Bye!”

“Bye,” answered Ira. When the door had closed he smiled gently. “If he doesn’t go with me I miss my guess,” he murmured as he donned his vest and coat and slicked his hair down with a wet brush. “I suppose it’s a poor business, buying him like that, but you’ve got to suit your method to your man.” With which bit of philosophy he observed his disfigured countenance dubiously and turned out the light.