"All ready, Ballard?" The Referee's call brought an affirmative from the Orange and Black leader.
"Ready!" boomed big Butch Brewster, with a final shout of encouragement to his players.
The biggest game was starting! Before ten thousand wildly excited and partisan spectators, the Gold and Green and the Orange and Black would battle for Championship honors; with Thor out of the struggle, Ballard, three-time Champion, was the favorite. The visitors had brought the strongest team in their history, and were supremely confident of victory. Bannister, however, could not help remembering, twice fate had snatched the greatest glory from their grasp, in Butch's Sophomore year, when Jack Merritt's drop-kick struck the cross-bar, and a year later, when Butch himself, charging for the winning touchdown, crashed blindly into the upright. Old Bannister had not won the Championship for five years, and now--when the chances had seemed roseate, with Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy--smashing Hamilton out of the way, Fate had dealt the annual blow in advance, by crippling him.
"Oh, we've _got_ to win!" shivered T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. "Oh, I hope I don't get sent in--I mean--I hope Bannister wins without me! But if I _do_ have to kick--Oh, I hope I send it over that cross-bar--"
A second later the Ballard line advanced, the fullback's toe ripped into the pigskin, sending it whirling, high in air, far into Bannister's territory; the yellow oval fell into the outstretched arms of Captain Butch Brewster, on the Gold and Green's five-yard line, and--"We're off!" shrieked Hicks, excitedly. "Come on, Butch--run it back! Oh, we're off."
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., enshrouded in a gold and green blanket, and standing on the side-line, like a majestic Sioux Chief, gazed out on Bannister Field. There, on the twenty-yard line, the two lines of scrimmage had crashed together and Bannister's backfield had smashed into Ballard's stonewall defense with terrific impact, to be hurled back for a five-yard loss. The mass of humanity slowly untangled, the moleskin clad players rose from the turf, all but one. He, wearing the gold and green, lay still, white-faced, and silent.
"It's Biff Pemberton!" chattered Hicks, shivering as with a chill. "Oh, the game is lost, the Championship is gone. Biff is out, and the last quarter is nearly ended. Coach Corridan has got to send me in to kick. It's our very last chance to tie the score, and save old Bannister from defeat!"
