Yet Alton avenged that insult in the third period and again in the fourth, and might have done so once again in the last few minutes had not the substitutes, thrown in helter-skelter as the end drew close, suffered three successive penalties for over-eagerness. It was hard to pick the stars in the Alton eleven, for not a man stopped short of excellence. Possibly it was McNatt who shone the brightest, for the full-back had all that the others had of skill and spirit with, besides, a certain other quality which, for want of a better name, and at the risk of ridicule, I must call science. It was McNatt who stopped the much-touted Puckhaber time and again and fairly stood him on his head. It was McNatt who twice hurled himself across the Kenly goal-line for a score. And it was McNatt who, flaming himself with a white-hot intensity of purpose, constantly encouraged the others to fairly superhuman efforts. But to speak too much of McNatt would be unfair to the rest: to Captain Joe Myers, and to Gil Tarver, who ran the team as never before, and to Bob and Martin and, finally, Willard, who, although he didn’t see service until the third period started, played a wonderful game at left half. That run that started on Alton’s twenty-eight yards and ended on Kenly’s seventeen was made by Willard, and Willard it was who, near the last of the contest, took Tarver’s long heave down the field and added another dozen yards to it, so preparing the way for McNatt’s final touchdown. It was Alton’s day all through, and it is doubtful if there was ever a more stunned and disappointed team than Kenly when the last whistle blew and the score of 26 to 6 stared down at her from the board. That single touchdown afforded her scant comfort, it seemed. [Illustration: It was Alton’s day all through] Alton made merry that night. There was a parade that wound in and out of the town and back across the Green several times, and much singing and much cheering. It was while they were perched side by side in the rickety wagon that, serving as a chariot for the heroes, was drawn at the head of the procession, that Willard said to McNatt during a lull in the clamor: “How did you ever think of that scheme, McNatt?” And McNatt, smiling, answered: “Well, Harmon, there’s a scientific way of doing everything, you know. And that was the scientific way of doing _that_!” THE END Transcriber’s Notes: --Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). --Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the Illustrations. --Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected, except as noted below. --Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. --Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. --The author’s em-dash style has been retained.