Side by side with Regan, a certain shame steadied Stover. They went silently through the surging, arriving multitude, all intoxicated with the joy and zest of the great game. In and out, newsboys howling papers with headlines and pictures of the team thrust their wares before their eyes, while a pestiferous swarm of strange pedlers shrieked: "Get your colors here!" "Get your winnin' color." Suddenly Stover saw a headline--his name and the caption: STOVER THE WEAK SPOT "Let's get a paper," he said, nervously drawn to it. "No you don't," said Regan, who had seen it. "Come on, now, get out of here, some one might walk on your foot or stick a hatpin in your eye." "What time is it?" "Time to be getting back." "Tom, do you know how much I weigh?" said Stover irrelevantly. "What the deuce?" "I weigh one hundred and forty-one pounds," said Stover solemnly, as though imparting a State secret. "Go on, be loony if you want," said Regan. "I've seen bruisers before a fight act like high school girls. If you've got something on your mind, why talk it out, it'll do you good." "It's awful--it's awful," said Stover, shaking his head. "What's awful?" "It's awful to think I'm the weak spot, that if they only had a decent fullback there would be a chance. I've no right there--every one knows it, and every one's groaning about it." "Go on." "That's all," said Stover, a little angry. "Well, then come on, I'm getting hungry." "Hungry! Tom, I'd like to knock the spots out of you," said Dink, laughing despite himself. "Dink, old bantam," said Regan, resting his huge paw on Stover's shoulder in rough affection, "you're all right. I say so and I know it. Now shut up and come on." CHAPTER X Almost before he knew it Stover was in the car and the wheels were moving at last irresistibly toward the field. There was no longer any pretense in those last awful moments that had in them all the concentrated hopes and fears of the weeks that had rushed away. The faces of his own team-mates were only gray faces without identity. He saw some one's lips moving incessantly, but he did not remember whose they were. Opposite him, another man was bending over, his head hidden in his hands. Some one else at his side was nervously locking and unlocking his fingers, breathing short, hard breaths. He remembered only the stillness of it all, the forgetfulness of others, the set stares, and Charlie de Soto fidgeting on the seat and nervously humming something irrelevant. Caught up in this unreasoning intensity of a young nation, filled, too, with this exaggerated passion of combat, Stover leaned back limply. Outside, the street was choked with hilarious parties packed in rushing carriages, blue or orange-and-black. Horns and rattles sounded like tiny sounds in his ears, and his eyes saw only grotesque blurred shapes that swept across them. "I'll get 'em off--they won't block any on me--they mustn't," he said to himself, closing his eyes.