"Dick Merriwell! Dick Merriwell!" was the name quickly passing from mouth to mouth.
Both Lynch and Fletcher heard these comments, and they turned green with jealous anger.
"The fellow’s luck!" said Lynch to himself.
"This will drive me to drink!" muttered Fletcher.
Professor Zenas Gunn was watching this game for a purpose. While he believed in athletics, he had given very little attention to football, and had never watched an entire game. The outcry against football raised by Professor Gooch had caused Professor Gunn to decide to witness a complete game that he might decide to his own satisfaction in regard to the brutality of the playing.
Zenas Gunn found himself shouting with the others when Dick Merriwell made that grand leap into the air, but he quickly checked the outburst.
"Be still!" he muttered, putting his hand quickly over his mouth. "You’re acting like a boy, sir! Besides, that is Merriwell, the fellow who is under suspicion. But I can’t bring myself to believe that boy is guilty!"
The Fardale team lined up quickly for the attack, Captain Nunn finding time to give Dick a pat on the back and say:
From the side-lines Frank Merriwell looked on. He stood like a statue when his brother made the play that prevented Hurting from kicking a field goal, his face not seeming to change expression in the least; but had any one looked deep into his eyes he must have seen there was a glow of satisfaction and pride.
Now Fardale began a series of mass-plays that resulted in gains that took the ball fairly to the center of the field. By that time Rivermouth was prepared for this style of playing, and the gains stopped. Fardale was held for three downs and kicked.
Hurting made a fair catch and bored his heel into the ground on the spot, which gave him a free kick in return.
Then the great kicker of the Rivermouth team booted the leather almost to Fardale’s goal-line, where Singleton got it.
Big Bob resolved to try at a kick in return, but he must have been nervous, for he sent the ball out of bounds at Fardale’s forty-five-yard line. Rogers fell on it and brought it out for a scrimmage. There the teams lined up again, Fardale having lost the ball and some ground through this exchange of kicks.