"Kennedy's ball," came the sharp cry of Slugger Jones, the umpire. Dink looked up and felt the blood come back to his body again--on the twenty-five yard line there had been a fumble and the advance was checked. Twice again the battered end of the Kennedy was forced back for what seemed certain touchdowns, only to be saved by loose work on the Woodhull's part. It was getting dark and the half was ebbing fast--three minutes more to play. A fourth time the Woodhull furiously attacked the breach, gaining at every rush over the light opposition, past the forty-yard line, past the twenty-yard mark and triumphantly, in the last minute of play, over the goal for a touchdown. The ball had been downed well to the right of the goal posts and the trial for goal was an unusually difficult one. The score was a tie, everything depended on the goal that, through the dusk, Tough McCarty was carefully sighting. Dink, heartbroken, despairing, leaning on his linesman's staff, directly behind the ball, waited for the long, endless moments to be over. Then there was a sudden movement of McCarty's body, a wild rush from the Kennedy and the ball shot high in the air and, to Stover's horror, passed barely inside the farther goalpost. "No goal," said Slugger Jones. "Time up." Dink raised his head in surprise, scarcely crediting what he had heard. The Woodhull team were furiously disputing the decision, encouraged by audible comments from the spectators. Slugger Jones, surrounded by a contesting, vociferous mass, suddenly swept them aside and began to take the vote of the officials. "Kiefer, what do you say?" Cap Kiefer, referee, shook his head. "I'm sorry, Slugger, it was close, very close, but it did seem a goal to me." "Tug, what do you say?" "Goal, sure," said Tug Wilson, linesman for the Woodhull. At this, jeers and hoots broke out from the Kennedy. "Of course he'll say that!" "He's from the Woodhull." "What do you think?" "Justice!" "Hold up, hold up, now," said Slugger Jones, more excited than any one. "Don't get excited; it's up to your own man. Dink, was it a goal or no goal?" Stover suddenly found himself in a whirling, angry mass--the decision of the game in his own hands. He saw the faces of Tough McCarty and the Coffee-colored Angel in the blank crowd about him and he saw the sneer on their faces as they waited for his answer. Then he saw the faces of his own teammates and knew what they, in their frenzy, expected from him. He hesitated. "Goal or no goal?" cried the umpire, for the second time. Then suddenly, face to face with the hostile mass, the fighting blood came to Dink. Something cold went up his back. He looked once more above the riot, to the shadowy posts, trying to forget Tough McCarty, and then, with a snap to his jaws, he answered: "Goal." XVIII