but they always follow on the outskirts of the forwards, and if the ball
is forced past it is their duty to pick it up and make away with it like
lightning. If they are very fast they may succeed in carrying it a long
way before they are caught--'tackled,' as we call it. It is their duty
also to keep their eye on the quarter-backs of the enemy, and to tackle
them if they get away. Behind them again are the two half-backs--or
'three-quarters,' as they call them in England. I am one of them.
They are supposed to be fast runners too, and a good deal of the
tackling comes to their lot, for a good runner of the other side can
often get past the quarters, and then the halves have got to bring him
down. Behind the half-backs is a single man--the back. He is the last
resource when all others are past. He should be a sure and long kicker,
so as to get the ball away from the goal by that means--but you are not
listening."

"Oh yes, I am," said Kate. As a matter of fact the great throng and the
novel sights were distracting her so much that she found it hard to
attend to her companion's disquisition.

"You'll understand it quickly enough when you see it," the student
remarked cheerily. "Here we are at the grounds."

As he spoke the carriage rattled through a broad gateway into a large
open grassy space, with a great pavilion at one side of it and a staked
enclosure about two hundred yards long and a hundred broad, with a
goal-post at each end. This space was marked out by gaily coloured
flags, and on every side of it, pressing against the barrier the whole
way round, was an enormous crowd, twenty and thirty deep, with others
occupying every piece of rising ground or coign of vantage behind them.
The most moderate computation would place the number of spectators at