"There goes the whistle!" Marjorie leaned eagerly forward to see the freshman team come in from the side room which they were using. Her alert eyes noted that Muriel looked sulky, Mignon stormy, Susan Atwell belligerent, Harriet Delaney offended, and that Helen Thornton, the substitute who had replaced her, had been crying.
Marjorie felt a thrill of pity for the unfortunate substitute. It looked as though she had spent an unhappy quarter of an hour in the little side room.
The teams changed sides and hastened to their places. Again Mignon and Ellen faced each other. Then the whistle shrilled and the second half of the game was on.
From the beginning of the second half it looked as though the freshmen might retrieve their early losses. They worked with might and main and made no false moves. Slowly their score climbed to six. So far the sophomores had gained nothing. Then Ellen Seymour made a spectacular throw to the basket and brought her team up two points. With the realization that they were facing defeat the freshmen rallied and made a desperate effort to hold their own, bringing their count up to eight.
Two more points were gained and the score was tied, but the time was growing short. Helen Thornton had the ball and was plainly trying to elude the tantalizing sophomore who barred her way. She made a clumsy feint of throwing the ball. It slipped from her fingers and rolled along the floor. There was a mad scramble for it. Mignon and Ellen Seymour leaped forward simultaneously.
The crowd in the gallery was aroused to the height of excitement. Marjorie, breathless, leaned far over the gallery rail. She knew every detail of the dear old game. She saw Mignon's and Ellen's heads close together as they sprang; then she saw Mignon give a sly, vicious side lunge which threw Ellen almost off her feet. In the instant it took Ellen to recover herself the French girl had seized the ball and was off with it. Eluding her pursuers, she balanced herself on her toes, and threw her prize toward the freshman basket. But it never reached there. A long blue figure shot straight up into the air. Elizabeth Corey, a girl whose sensational plays had made her a lion during her freshman year, had intercepted the flying ball. She sent it spinning through the air toward the sophomore nearest their basket, whose willing hands received it and threw it home.
Mignon's trickery had availed her little. The sophomores had won.