"A little more murder, fellows! Send them back on stretchers. That's the stuff. What the deuce is the matter, Bill, do you want to live forever? Use your hands, use your feet, use your teeth, anything! Whoop her up!"
Others in the line were more stolid, yet each in his way contributing to the nervous electricity that sent the team tirelessly, frantically, like mad dervishes, into the breach, while behind them, at their sides, everywhere, the coaches goaded them on.
No one paid any attention to the scrubs, fighting desperately with the same loyalty against the odds of weight and organization, without hope of distinction, giving every last ounce of their strength in futile, frantic effort, rejoicing when flung aside and crushed under the victorious rush of the varsity, who alone counted.
Against the scrubs Stover felt a sort of rage. Time after time he went crashing into the line, seeing the blurred faces of his own comrades with an instinctive hatred, striking them with his shoulder, hurling them from the path of attack with a wild, uncontrollable fury at their resistance, almost unable to keep his temper in leash. The first feeling of sympathy he had felt so acutely for those who bore all the brunt of the punishment, unrewarded, was gone. He no longer felt any pity, but a brutal joy at the incessant smarting, grinding shock of the attack of which he was part and the touch of prostrate bodies under his rushing feet.
Thursday and Friday the practise was lightened for all except for the backs. For an hour he was kept at his punting in the open and behind the lines, while the scrubs, reënforced by every available veteran, swarmed through the line, seeking to block his kicks.
To one side a little knot of coaches watched the result with critical anxiety, following the length of the punts in grim silence.
Tompkins, behind him, from time to time, spoke quietly, knowing that his was a nature to be restrained rather than goaded on.
"Watch your opposing backs, Stover. Keep your punts low and away from them so as to gain as much on the ground as you can. That's it! Here, you center men, you've got to hold longer than that! You're hurrying the kick too much. Get it off clean, Stover. Not so good. Remember what I say about placing your punt. You're going to be out-kicked fifteen yards; make up for it in brain work. All right, Dana?"