Instead of a return punt, the Princeton eleven prepared to rush the ball. "Why the deuce do they do that?" he thought, biting his fingers nervously. Opening up their play, Princeton swept out toward Bangs's end, forcing it back for four yards, and immediately made first down with a long, sweeping lunge at the other end. Suddenly Stover, in the backfield, watching like a cat, started forward with a cry. Far off to one side, a Princeton back, unperceived, was bending down, pretending to be fastening one of his shoe-laces. "Look out--look out to the left!" His cry came too late. The Princeton quarter made a long toss straight across, twenty yards, to the loitering half, who caught it and started down field clear of the line of scrimmage. A Princeton forward tried to intercept him, but Stover flung him aside, and, without waiting, went forward at top speed to meet the man who came without flinching to his tackle. It was almost head on, and the shock, which left Stover stunned, instinctively clinging to his man, sent the ball free, where Dana pounced upon it. "Holy Mike, what a tackle!" said Regan's voice. "Any bones broken?" "Of course not," he said gruffly. Some one insisted on sponging his face, much to his disgust. "How's the other fellow?" he said grimly. "He's a tough nut; he's up, too!" "He must be." The recovery of the ball gave them a short respite, but it served also to enrage the other line, which rose up and absolutely smothered the next plays. Again his kick seemed to graze the outstretched fingers of the Princeton forwards, and he laughed a strange laugh which he remembered long after. This time the punting duel was resumed until, well within Yale territory, Cockerell looked around and gave the signal for attack. "Now, Yale, stop it, stop it!" Dink said, talking to himself. But there was no stopping that attack. Powerless, not daring to approach, he saw the blue line bend back again and again, and the steady, machine-like rolling up of the orange and black. Over the twenty-five-yard line it came, and on past the twenty. "Oh, Yale, will you let 'em score again?" De Soto was shrieking. "You're on your ten-yard line, Yale." "Hold them!" "Hold them!" Two yards at a time, they were rolled back with a mathematical, unfeeling precision. "Third down; two yards to go!" "Yale, stop it!" "Yale!" And stop it they did, by a bare six inches. Behind the goal-line, Charlie De Soto came up, as he stood measuring his distance for a kick. "How are you, Dink? Want a bit of a rest--sponge-off?" "Rest be hanged!" he said fiercely. "Come on with that ball." Suddenly, instead of kicking low and off to the right, he sent the ball straight down the field with every ounce of strength he could put in it. The punt, the best he had made, catching the back by surprise, went over his head, rolling up the field before he could recover it. A great roar went up from the Yale stands, fired by the spirit of resistance.