It was soon made clear to the two scouts why the boys at the other end
of the seat were amused. For the rest of that half, Springdale used
only the most ordinary, old-fashioned football. It was quite plain
that the Springdale coach, either because he feared the two visitors
might really learn something of use to them, or because he wanted to
have a joke on them, had instructed the team to show nothing. Lanny and
Chester exchanged amused glances when, on Weston’s twenty-yard line,
with four to go on fourth down, Springdale chose to lose possession of
the ball by a hopeless plunge at guard rather than make her distance
by a trick play or even try for a field-goal. In the last quarter
Springdale was hard pressed to keep her goal line from being crossed,
for Weston, using every play in her programme, got as far as the six
yards and might have gone over if, in her eagerness to score, she had
not fumbled on the threshold. The game ended soon after that, the
figures on the board unchanged, and Weston, possibly puzzled by her
adversary’s strange choice of plays in the last half, but evidently
well pleased at the outcome, trotted off with the airs of a victor,
while a small group of supporters at the far end of the stand waved
brown-and-white banners and cheered proudly!
When Lanny and Chester arose to leave they found that their neighbors
in the row were waiting for them to pass out ahead. With a slight
frown, Lanny led the way, crowding past the youths, and Chester
followed silently. As they passed, the enemy indulged in pointed
remarks to each other. “Seen any spies about to-day, Hal?” “I thought I
saw a couple of the things.” “Guess they didn’t learn much, eh?” “No,
it’s a poor day for spies.” “Too bad to come all that way for nothing!”
“Yes, isn’t it? Poor chaps, I’m sorry for them!”
Lanny only smiled untroubledly, and Chester, trying to look quite as
if he heard nothing, gazed intently at the back of Lanny’s head. But
when he was squeezing his way past the last boy in the row a foot went
out and Chester, stumbling, had to catch Lanny’s shoulder to keep from
falling. Instantly he turned and confronted the grinning face beside
him.
“Don’t do that,” he said quietly, “or you’ll get hurt.”
There was something in Chester’s countenance that silenced the retort
on the Springdale youth’s lips, and it was not until Lanny and Chester
were in the aisle and on their way down that the fellow’s courage
returned. Then, raising his voice, he called:
“You wouldn’t hurt anyone, you Clearfield spy!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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