On Monday, facing a patched-up First Team, the Fighting Scrub dug its claws deep and gouged and tore its way to a one-score victory. There was no luck about it, either. It was no fluke win. Scrub just took the ball away from a somewhat dreamy First near midfield and hammered and thrust its way to the six yards. Johnny Thayer sustained facial abrasions that made him look like an utter stranger to his companions, Lou Stiles delayed proceedings while they pumped air back into him, and Tom walked with a pronounced limp for the rest of the day, but between them they landed the ball on the six yards. Coach Otis, pursuing his charges with stinging comments and much excellent advice, wore a somewhat dazed expression by then. Sportingly, however, he refrained from strengthening his team with even one of the eager aspirants who dragged their blankets along the side-line. “Watch the ball, First!” he snapped. “Hold them now! Higgs, get down, man! Close up there, Smythe, and stop this play! Throw them back, First!” “Let’s have it!” shouted Sim hoarsely. “Smear ’em, Scrub! Let’s have this score!” “Get into it, Scrub! Fight!” panted Tom. “Smash ’em up! You can do it! Show ’em who you are! Come on, you Fighting Scrub!” “Third down,” called Manager Macon, refereeing, “and about four to go!” Then he blew his whistle. The lines swayed, First thrust forward desperately, Sim, doubled over the ball, turned his back to the mêlée as Tom plunged past. Then Johnny Thayer reached for the pigskin, wrapped his long arms about it and crashed into the faltering Tom. Confusion, grunts, smothered words, the grinding and rasping of canvas against canvas, and then a sudden forward movement of the right of the line that as suddenly stopped and the shrill blast of the whistle. Macon dived into the pile and the confusion became order. “Not over! About a foot to go, Scrub! Fourth down!” The Scrub yelled its triumph, the First snarled back, the coaches hurled commands and Sim gave his signals again. What had yielded eleven feet was surely good for one, and Johnny, leading the tandem, the ball tightly hugged, dashed again at the same point and, as he struck the line, thrust the trampled turf away from him and went up and forward over the shoulders of the enemy and, ere the tide set backward, held the ball for an instant well past the last white streak! First trotted, walked or limped back to the gymnasium a few minutes later with, for the time, nothing further to ask of life. Tom, smiting Johnny between his broad shoulders, asked solicitously yet joyously: “How’re you feeling, old son?” And Johnny, grinning painfully with swollen lips, croaked: “Like a two-year-old, Tom! Say, didn’t we give ’em fits?” “Fits? We trampled on ’em, Johnny, we trampled on ’em! The Fighting Scrub, that’s us, boy!” CHAPTER XV TOM’S LUCK TURNS