He was close to the ten when disaster almost overtook him in the shape of a hurtling Munson Lineman. If the enemy had come at him in less haste the result might have been different. As it was, the Munson fellow’s idea appeared to be to knock Joe flat by the force of the concussion and make his tackle afterwards. That is where he made his mistake, for, although they met and Joe staggered from the impact, the latter avoided more than half the force of the other’s body by spinning on his heel. There was one second of suspense after that when Joe felt a hand at his ankle, but he was able to pull away before the clutching fingers found a hold. Then the enemy was all about him, it seemed, and he had the ball against the pit of his stomach, his head down and his feet pushing the last few yards of trampled turf behind him. The truth is that, at the end, there were far more friends than foes around him, and that Joe’s final heroic effort to cross the line was made with Gus Billings fairly butting him on! But cross it he did, and that is the main thing! And while Holman’s went crazy with joy and flocked, dancing and cavorting, along the side line, while Joe fought for breath that wouldn’t come, while cheers for the Light Green assaulted the sky, Norman, who had seldom if ever kicked a goal in all his life, now, just because no one cared whether he succeeded or didn’t, sent the pigskin over the bar as prettily as if the game depended on it! There were many happy persons around school that evening. There was the whole student body in general, and there were the members of the team in particular. And then there was Gus, who declared a great many times that any one who had ever said that Joe wasn’t a great football player was nothing more or less than a moron! Because, no matter how good a guy was, if he didn’t follow the ball―― And, of course, there was Joe himself, who, while giving Luck its due, still dared to take a little credit for what had happened. And then there was Rusty. THE END Transcriber’s Notes: ――Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text――this e-text is public domain in the country of publication. ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). ――Obvious printer’s, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Follow the Ball, by Ralph Henry Barbour