The other new play, although he didn’t know it, was designed to make use of Hugh’s running ability. It was a tackle-over shift, with the back-field in square formation and the ball going to right half――in this case Hugh――on a direct pass. The attack was faked at the long side, and right half, with left interfering, went around the short side, the runner turning in sharply when the way was clear. The same formation was used for a variation in which left half ran wide beyond the short side and took a forward pass from full-back. The variation proved less certain of success, however, and was abandoned after a few subsequent try-outs against the second. But the play in which Hugh figured was tried four times in that Thursday game and gained each time. Once Hugh got clean away and covered half the field before he met his Nemesis in the shape of the opposing quarter, who, in spite of Hugh’s attempt to elude him, stopped further progress with a neat and decisive tackle. Another time Hugh gained twelve yards before he was brought down from behind, again he almost got clear and reeled off the better part of twenty, and, on the last attempt, with the ball under the shadow of the enemy’s goal near the eighteen yards, he dodged his way through at least a half-dozen opponents and scored the first’s fourth touchdown. All that sounds as though Hugh played most of the game himself, but it is needless to say that he didn’t or that his part was only a small part after all. He held his own well on defence and several times made short gains on the wings, but lack of weight told against him. One thing he did not do, however, was fumble. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of either Bert or Vail. Bert played three periods at left half and Vail one period at right, going out in favor of Hugh. Vail’s fumble was not costly, but Bert’s was, for he dropped the ball when tackled in the line and a lower middler fell on it and three minutes later the pigskin was floating over the cross-bar for lower middle’s first field goal. The whole truth is that Bert played poorly that day. His sins were not only of commission, like that fumble on the twenty-yard line, but of omission, as when, time after time, he was stopped short in his tracks before he had penetrated the enemy’s first line of defense. Siedhof, who replaced him, while not especially effective, at least gained occasionally through a not very strong line. Bert was ill-tempered and depressed that evening, and when Hugh, feeling very happy over his showing, tried to cheer him up, Bert sneered at him. “You think you know a whole lot, don’t you?” he asked. “Think you’re a regular fellow now, I guess. You’ve got a whole lot to learn yet about playing half, let me tell you. When George Vail gets back you’ll last about ten seconds and then you’ll find yourself ‘chewing the blanket’ again.”