Page:Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron.djvu/240

222 and then the players seemed to realize the importance of being careful, and they go down to business.

How they ever stood the smashing, banging tactics, the fierce tackling, the eager runs, the line bucking, the giving and taking, only one who has played football, and who knows the fierce joy of the gam.e, can understand. Nervous women cried out in alarm as they saw the struggling mass and heap of boyish humanity. There were several times when the play had to be stopped to allow the dashing of cold water over some unlucky chap, to bring him out of a half faint, and the number of lads who lost their wind, and had to have it pumped into them by artificial respiration was many.

But no one was seriously hurt, though Coddling had to leave the field because of a broken finger and Harper was replaced at the Columbia right guard because he was so disabled from a fierce piling-on of players that he was useless in the line.

Ten minutes more to play, and the score tied! Back and forth the players had surged, up and down the field, now kicking, now plunging into each other's line, now circling the ends. It was the most fiercely contested game that had ever been played in the league. The Columbia-Clifford contest was as nothing to it.