For thirty yards they carried the ball down the field, before the stronger Andover team, thrown off its feet by the unexpected frenzy, could rally and stand them off. Then an exchange of punts once more drove them back to their twenty-five-yard line. A second time the Andover advance set out from the fifty-yard line and slowly fought its way to surrender the ball in the shadow of the goalposts. Stover played on in a daze, remembering nothing of the confused shock of bodies that had gone before, wondering how much longer he could hold out--to last out the game as the captain had told him. He was groggy, from time to time he felt the sponge's cold touch on his face or heard the voice of Tough McCarty in his ear. "Good old Dink, die game!" How he loved McCarty fighting there by his side, whispering to him: "You and I, Dink! What if he is an old elephant, we'll put him out the play." Still, flesh and blood could not last forever. The half must be nearly up. "Two minutes more time." "What was that?" he said groggily to Flash Condit. "Two minutes more. Hold 'em now!" It was Andover's ball. He glanced around. They were down near the twenty-five-yard line somewhere. He looked at McCarty, whose frantic head showed against the sky. "Break it up, Tough," he said, and struggled toward him. A cry went up, the play was halted. "He's groggy," he heard voices say, and then came the welcome splash of the sponge. Slowly his vision cleared to the anxious faces around him. "Can you last?" said the captain. "I'm all right," he said gruffly. "Things cleared up now?" "Fine!" McCarty put his arm about him and walked with him. "Oh, Dink, you will last, won't you?" "You bet I will, Tough!" "It's the last stand, old boy!" "The last." "Only two minutes more we've got to hold 'em! The last ditch, Dink." "I'll last." He looked up and saw the school crouching along the line--tense drawn faces. For the first time he realized they were there, calling on him to stand steadfast. He went back, meeting the rush that came his way, half-knocked aside, half-getting his man, dragged again until assistance came. DeSoto's stinging hand slapped his back and the sting was good, clearing his brain. Things came into clear outline once more. He saw down the line and to the end where Garry Cockrell stood. "Good old captain," he said. "They'll not get by me, not now." He was in every play it seemed to him, wondering why Andover was always keeping the ball, always coming at his end. Suddenly he had a shock. Over his shoulder were the goalposts, the line he stood on was the line of his own goal. He gave a hoarse cry and went forward like a madman, parting the interference. Some one else was through; Tough was through; the whole line was through flinging back the runner. He went down clinging to Goodhue, buried under a mass of his own tacklers. Then, through the frenzy, he heard the shrill call of time.