Jim tried to remember all those instructions as he hurried on and concluded that he had probably missed some of them. Probably he hadn’t, though, for he fulfilled them all. No one threatened his position seriously during the remaining three minutes of actual play. Or, if any one did, Jim didn’t realize it. Once he got quite a thrill when a scowling, dirt-smeared face crashed into his shoulder, and he seized a writhing body and deposited it back where it had come from, and once he got a terrific jar when, seeking to tackle a speeding Lorimer half, he missed badly and landed, to the best of his knowledge, on the back of his neck and did a wild and doubtless inelegant somersault. He felt both hurt and foolish and wondered for an instant if any one had observed his humiliation. There was, he concluded, quite a difference between tackling the dummy and tackling an enemy runner. He made up his mind that the next time he would do better. But, although he ran around a good deal during the rest of the game, and got slightly winded when some unknown person butted him in the stomach with a knee, he had no opportunity to redeem himself as a tackler. To his surprise, he discovered that he was considerably excited, so excited, in fact, that after one play a horn squawked and a voice that Jim didn’t like at all called: “Alton left tackle off-side!” “_Me?_” demanded Jim in tones of outrage. “Who says so?” He looked about for some one to discuss it with, but Pep Kinsey, back at quarter, told him to shut up and watch what he was doing, and then Lorimer’s signals came again and he had to accept the verdict. Fortunately that five-yard set-back, occurring as it did well inside Lorimer territory, made no real difference, and after a Lorimer back had made a desperate effort to skirt the Alton left end and had been piled on his head for a scant one-yard gain the game ended. Going back to the gymnasium, with the lessening cheers of the Alton supporters in his ears, Jim tried to convince Charley Levering that some one had done him a great injustice. But Charley only grinned and said rudely: “You’re cuckoo, Todd. You were off-side a yard when the ball moved.” “I was?” asked Jim, crestfallen, still incredulous. “Of course you were. I saw you myself, didn’t I? You’ve got to be mighty clever to beat the ball and get away with it nowadays, Todd. If I were you I’d cut it out.” “But I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know--” “That’s what we all say,” jeered Levering. “But all it gets us is five yards--backward!” Jim was forced to the conclusion that the individual with the unpleasant voice was probably right, after all. Jim recalled the fact that at the moment he had been slightly excited. Maybe he had started too soon. He wondered if Coach Cade would hold it against him. He must take care not to do it again, anyhow!