Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/287

 The timer's watch told twenty seconds left. The signal came again:

"30, 87—"

The ball left Ellison and sped back to Tom. Archer swung to the left and crossed behind. Tom, too, was running that way now, the ball before him, and so were Treader and Houston, and so carefully were they spaced that not one of the enemy save the left end saw the ball pass from Tom to Archer behind that moving screen. But that left end, coming through inside Clif Bingham, was not able to use his knowledge to advantage, for Treader crashed into him and he went down, sprawling in the path of the runners. The Wolcott right end, speeding around, met Thayer, and that fact kept him, too, forever out of the play. Treader and Houston swept on around the right, but Tom, slackening speed, tarried while Archer, still running toward the side-line, found his position for the throw. Then a Wolcott tackle came plunging up, and Tom had his work cut out for him. As he and the brown-stockinged foe met, Archer dropped his right arm behind his shoulder, swept it forward again and threw, straight and hard, down the field from the thirty-six yards.

No one had seriously interfered with Clif when the ball had been snapped. Dodging wide, he had let the Wolcott left end past inside him. Then, warily, as though only desirous of avoiding the rough encounters behind, he sped none too hurriedly across three white marks. The Wolcott left halfback started toward him, but after one stride changed his course. To him the