Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 12, 1927 — page 126: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

600 “All right, and I’m doing that every play. Give me the ball next time around the same end, and if I gain give it to me every time IJ ask for it as long as I gain.” They went back in with mixed emotions. Gorman called him, and Steve tore around that end for eight yards and five down. The stands’ yells reached the men. They took heart. “Come on, men,” sang Ferris, “ we'll tear these bozos to pieces.”’ He took it again, the same end, for five yards, and the stands went crazy. The players roused their tired bodies, their flag- ging spirits, and went in eagerly. Again and again Steve carried the ball. Occasionally Gorman or Cardigan or Yel- verton relieved him. But it was Ferris who brought the ball from his own seven-yard line to the opposing seven-yard line in one of the most brilliant marches ever wit- nessed on the field. His number, 33, flashed for a moment above the scrambling jer- seys, plunged forward, and Holwood had gained. He licked up the ground, and his spirit rallied every man to exert himself to hither- to unknown limits. State fell back before him. They tried their pointing tactics on him in vain. He tore through their massed tacklers, shook free of the vicious lungers, and always managed to fall clear of their piles. It was first down on the seven-yard line, the nearest Holwood had been to the op- posing goal the whole game. The stands’ uproar was deafening. The men could hardly hear the signals. Ferris flashed to the right and State fol- lowed, but he did not have the ball. Gor- man scurried for three yards before he was brought down. Again Ferris flashed to the right: they brought him down on the two-yard line. The mighty orange wall braced for the attack. A strange formation puzzled the defenders. Cardigan, Yelverton, and Gor- man formed in a triangle, with Ferris to __- the right near the line. It looked like a trick pass. They spread for it. Then a low, short pass, and Ferris, scooping it up, dived THE ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. across the huddled figures. He landed, rolling, in a mass of figures, and when the veritable mountain that stopped him was removed, the ball was six inches over the line. : Cardigan missed the goal, the players in their excitement relaxing for a moment against the untiring State. ‘““ Never mind one point,” counseled Fer- ris. ‘We'll win by a touchdown.” Holwood kicked off to State and the en- thusiastic tacklers nailed Kilhardt on the twenty-five-yard line. Quarter ended there. But before it ended Steve noticed Merrick speaking to one of the State men. Gor- man saw him, too. “You watch what these State men do now, and you'll see what: Merrick said to that fellow,” Ferris told Gorman. They both noticed that orange man talk- ing to others. 3 On the next play after the rest Kil- hardt charged off end, and, shaking off clinging hands, he called to Ferris, rushing into him: “ You look out, Apollo, I’m com- ing to mash your beak.” ‘““Come ahead,” cried Steve, and threw himself at the flying feet. Kilhardt gave an awkward kick, and Steve twisted his ankle as he brought him down heavily. Kilhardt arose slowly. Half the Holwood team witnessed this, and then there was no stopping them. They got their touchdown, and Holwood finished their first year of no defeats with a thirteen to seven victory. Gorman passed around the word about Merrick, and he never renewed his chal- lenge to Steve. Nor was the name Apollo ever used again. At the dance that night when Steve found Germaine, his face was still in order, but he looked a little constrained. “Oh, Steve, you know now why I said that, don’t you? I did so want you to show what I knew you could do, just to silence those dirty remarks.”’ Steve seemed to understand, for he was a long time missing from the dance, and when he returned with Germaine, his face was handsomer than ever, flushed with a new light. END (€(0) DOOKS (F@