Then, on top of the draining weakness that had him in its grip, came a sudden feeling of nausea, and he knew suddenly what the man opposite him with his head in his hands was fighting. He put his arms over the ledge of the door, and rested his head on them, too weak to care that every one saw him, gulping in the stinging air in desperation. All at once there came a grinding jerk and the car stopped. From the inside came Tompkins' angry, rasping voice: "Every one up! Get out there! Quick! On the jump!" Instinctively obedient, the vertigo left him, his mind cleared. He was out in the midst of the bobbing mass of blue sweaters, moving as in a nightmare through the black spectators, seeing ahead the mammoth stands, hearing the dull, engulfing roars as one hears at night the approaching surf. Then they were struggling through the human barriers, and he saw something green at the bottom of a stormy pit, and a great growing roar of welcome smote him as of a descending gale, the hysterical cry of the American multitude, a roar acclaiming Yale. "All ready!" said Dana's unrecognizable voice somewhere ahead. "On the trot, now!" Instantly he was sweeping on to the field and up along the frantic stands of suddenly released blue. All indecision, all weakness, went with the first hoarse cry from his own. Something hot and alive seemed to flow back into his veins, and with every stride the spongy turf underneath seemed to send its strength and vitality into his legs. From the other end of the field, through the somber crowd, an orange-and-black group was trickling, flowing into a band and sweeping out on the field, while the Princeton stands were surging to their feet, adding the mounting fury of their welcome to the deafening uproar that suddenly bound the arena in the gripping hollow of a whirlwind. "Line up, you blue devils," came Charlie de Soto's raucous cry. "On your toes. Get your teeth into it. Hard, now. Ha-a-ard!" He was in action immediately, thinking only of the signals, sweeping down the field, now to the right, now to the left, stumbling in his eagerness. "Enough," said the captain's voice, at last. "Get under your sweaters, fellows. Brown and Stover, start up some punts." Dana and Dudley went back to practise catching. Brown, the center, pigskin under hand, set himself for the pass, while Stover, blowing on his hands, measured his distance. Opposite, Bannerman, the Princeton fullback, was setting himself for a similar attempt. In the stands was a sudden craning hush as the great audience waited to see with its own eyes the disparity between the rival fullbacks. Stover, standing out, felt it all instinctively, with a little nervous tremor--the quick stir in the stands, the muttered comments, the tense turning of even the cheer leaders.