With right half and full lined up in tandem behind him he was given the ball and shot through easily for several yards.

Then, his support gone, he staggered on for five yards more by sheer force of weight with two Dexter backs dragging at him, and there, for no apparent cause, dropped the pigskin.

The Dexter quarter-back, running in to stop Cowan, was on it in a twinkling, had skirted the right end of the _melee_ and was racing toward Erskine's goal.

It had happened so quickly and unexpectedly that the runner was fifteen yards to the good before pursuit began.

Devoe and Neil took up the chase, but it was a hopeless task, and in another minute the little band of crimson-adorned Dexter supporters and substitutes on the side-line were yelling like mad.