It was a first down with but three yards to the goal line!—three yards in three downs, an easy task for a strong line flushed with victory, which had already battered its way from the middle of the field. Wendt made a yard outside of right tackle in a cross buck. Then Hendry fell back for the ball, and the heavy wedge, with Laughlin at its apex, Hendry in the centre driven along by Buist and Milliken and Jackson pushing behind, piled the Hillbury defence on either side of its course as a snow-plough masses the snow right and left as it drives its way through a heavy drift. Hendry was yards across the goal-line when the wedge broke. While Jackson was bringing out the ball and adjusting it for Bullard’s kick for goal, Wolcott with dry lips and panting breath, but joy unspeakable in his heart, was watching the antics of the Seaton audience, which danced and yelled and cheered and waved flags in a frenzy of delight. Somewhere in section D was his father, in what state of mind he hardly dared guess; but he remembered with relief that but few stops had been made on pretence of injuries, while not one on either side had left the field; and he fervently hoped that his anxious father was observing the scene of carnage without distress. As a matter of fact, Mr. Lindsay was at that moment thinking very little about carnage and very much of the possibility that Bullard would fail to kick the goal. The ball sailed between the tips of the goal-posts, the crowd shouted, the players scattered to their new places, and Mr. Lindsay resigned himself with surprising cheerfulness to a continuation of the brutal contest. Above him the enthusiastic Harvard men were extolling the Seaton line in general, and in particular the solid centre, where the big captain and “Beefy Bullard” and that green man Lindsay, “as quick as nine cats and strong as a bull,” held the line with an anchor that wouldn’t drag. Seaton kicked off and Joslin of Hillbury got the ball and zigzagged back to the twenty-five-yard line. Thence Hillbury worked ahead a dozen yards and punted. Jackson, who received the punt, was too eager to get away, and fumbled. In an instant the Hillbury end was upon the ball. Now the bank of blue ribbons had something to cheer for, and the vehemence and volume and splendid evenness of the mighty chant which swept across the field put hope into the hearts of the blue, and suggested to the red that the first score might after all have been a mistake. Wolcott remembered Laughlin’s remark of the night before, that a punter and two good ends, with the help of a fumbling back on the other side, could beat the best line that ever played; and felt his heart sink. Had Hillbury detected the Seaton weakness? But Laughlin showed no sign of discouragement. “Hold ’em, fellows, hold ’em! Stop ’em right here!” And the first charge was downed in a heap as it struck the line. The ball went back to Cates, the Hillbury quarter, who dashed toward the end of the line.