Bert handed over the leather guard silently, but his expression wasn’t pleasant and Hugh heartily wished that the coach had chosen Zanetti instead of him. But there was no time for regrets then. He whispered his instructions to the quarter-back, repeated them in reply to Captain Ted’s anxious question, pulled the head guard on and sprang into place. It was third down and about fifteen to go. Weston called the signals, Trafford crossed to the other side of Parker, and Keyes stepped farther back and held his hands out, the halves crouched wide apart, and Weston, stooping behind Musgrave, repeated the signals. Then the ball came back, straight and fast, and Hugh snuggled it in the crook of his arm, started quickly, and, running low and hard, swept past his line on the heels of Siedhof, while Weston and Keyes sped toward the other end. For a moment, a critical length of time just then, Southlake lost sight of the ball. When she had solved the play Siedhof had spun a Southlake tackle from the path, and Hugh had responded to the frantic cry of “_In! In!_” and was through. Siedhof met the charge of a half, but went down in the encounter, and Hugh, twisting aside, circled out, passed the twenty-yard line, dodged another back and, with the hue and cry close behind, raced over the remaining four trampled white marks and was only stopped when a despairing quarter, wrapping tenacious arms about his legs, brought him to earth well back of the goal line! Grafton shouted herself hoarse, only letting up for a minute while Keyes directed the ball and subsequently booted it deftly over the bar. After that Grafton played on the defensive for the rest of that period and the next, and, although there were some anxious moments, kept what she had earned. While 13 to 0 didn’t sound as well as 19 to 0, it perhaps stood for quite as much if we consider the fact that Southlake was a stronger team today than when she had met Mount Morris.