The Argosy, March 1907 — page 142: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

f ‘1 . A ? A ed ian they") Ww ay o. > i > ‘In just two minutes,” retorted Uly, jumping up and starting for the door. ‘““My money’s in my room.” He was back in a jiffy and handed Joe a nice, brand-new one-hundred-dol- lar bill. “There you are,” he says to Nolan. ‘Now cover it.” Nolan was somewhat taken back when he found that Uly was in earnest, and I thought for a minute he was going to crawfish. ‘Where are you going to get your men?” he asked. “Right here in town. With the stones that builder Nolan rejected will the cor- ner-stone of the superior team be laid,” quoted Uly, like a preacher. Nolan put up his thousand, but I could see that he hated to, and that he was mighty suspicious. It was too easy even for Nolan. Next cay Uly was busy organizing his team. ‘There was a scrub eleven in town that Nolan used to practise on and Uly induced them to join him. He showed himself to be an experi- enced hand at the game, and certainly did good work coaching. Still it was evident to all of us that he didn’t stand a ghost of a show to win. We knew that he would have to go out of the State” to find a team strong enough to beat Nolan’s. : He had three weeks to get ready in and before that time was up we :were all feeling mighty sorry for him; he couldn’t win any way you wanted to look at it. . The papers got hold of the story and did a lot of joshing at Uly’s expense; but it proved to be good advertising, and on the day of the game the people be- gan to come in from the country and adjoining towns in numbers that sur- prised all of us. When Nolan saw the crowd we were going to have he looked up Uly and proposed that the winner take all the gate receipts. Uly agreed rather reluc- tantly, saying that he didn’t want to be all hog and was willing that Nolan get back a part of his thousand. The game was called for three o'clock, and by two-thirty Nolan and his team. were on the field. Uly had rented a shed, up at the west end, for a dressing- crak aero. room, and he and his team ~ had gone in right after dinner and were still there. It was five minutes to three when the shed door opened and something came piling out and tumbling down the field. At first no one could make out what it was; in fact it was within thirty feet of us before [ saw it was the team. And such a team! Uly had bought brand-new suits for his boys, everything from caps to shoes all made of nice clean white canvas. And all over these suits, caps, stockings, and even their hands and faces, Uly had painted footballs—Rugby footballs, exactly like the kind they were going to use in the game. And they were so natural that you couldn’t tell them from the real thing without feeling of them. Nolan started to kick right away, but Uly insisted that his men had on the regulation uniforms, and it was nobody’s business what color they were. ‘The um- pire sustained him, and Nolan had to give in. It was sure comical to see the expres- sions on the faces of Nolan’s men after they began to play. They were facing what looked like a wall of rolling, tum- bling footballs, and it was certainly be- wildering. Uly’s team had the ball, and instead of bunching themselves and bucking their opponents, as is customary, they would scatter as much as they could, running off in all directions, but always toward the goal, with Nolan’s men running from one to the other trying to locate the real ball and never finding it. Two or three would tackle one of Uly’s men, throw him down and feel all over him to see if any of the balls was. the one they were after. But it was of no use. They were just as helpless as if they were all blind, and they never got hold of the ball once. Nolan gave up at the end of the first half; the score then standing thirty-two to nothing in favor of Uly’s team, they having made six touchdowns and kicked two goals in thirty minutes. “Nolan,” said Uly that night, when they met in Joe’s place, “I owe you a debt of gratitude that I doubt I can ever pay. Three weeks ago-I was in what you would call extreme financial EOPMIGLOIOC) <Sa(eC)