A minute later, after Wyndham had punted, the whistle blew and the teams made for the water pails. The Wolcott band came to life again, and the cheer leaders swung their megaphones. Then Wyndham took the north goal and faced the enemy on the thirty-nine yards. There were no changes in the Wyndham line-up. Archer and Drayton were still the ends, Cotter and Weldon the tackles, Lothrop and Desmond the guards, Carlson the center, Stoddard the quarter, Whitemill and Jensen the halfs and Ogden the fullback. Nor had Wolcott yet altered her team. The opposing elevens were strikingly alike in appearance. Each presented a center trio of big, fairly heavy men closely matched for height and weight. Each featured fast, rangy tackles and rather light ends. In the backfield Wolcott had a slight advantage in weight, for James, her fullback, was a fellow after “Big Bill” Fargo’s style, although he lacked Fargo’s ability to start quickly and was far less dangerous on end runs. Wolcott’s quarter had weight and carried the ball frequently. Her halfbacks were fairly light and showed speed. One, Hoskins, had already proved himself a very shifty player. The second period saw a good deal of old-fashioned football on the part of Wolcott and a punting game on the part of the opponent. Wolcott used straight plunges and slants with sufficient success to take her to the Blue’s thirty-six yards. There her gains lessened and two sweeping plays and two forward-passes took her no further than the twenty-seven, where she yielded the ball. Hoskins was the Brown’s forward-pass ace, but Hoskins was so closely watched that he was unable to show anything. Wyndham punted on second down and watched for a break. With that wind quartering the field a fumble by a Wolcott back would have surprised no one. But the break didn’t come. Wolcott declined to catch the punts after two narrow escapes and the ball was allowed to roll, twice going over the goal line for touchbacks. Four penalties were handed out by the referee, two to each team, but none affected the fortunes of the game appreciably. The whistle ended the half fifty-two minutes after the kick-off. CHAPTER XXIV WATTLES AGREES The teams trailed off and the rival cheering sections became concertedly vocal once more. One had to either cheer or sing if only to keep warm! The Wolcott songsters followed the band through a martial effort that wasn’t a great success because most of the fellows had forgotten the words and sang “dum-ti-dum-dum” instead. Then Dodson, Wyndham cheer captain, tossed aside his big blue megaphone and threw his arms aloft. “Let’s have ‘We Beat Her,’ fellows! Everybody into it and make it snappy. All right! _‘We-e-e――’!_” Whereupon the visiting contingent answered with their latest effusion, sung to the tune of a popular ballad of the year: