A sudden stillness fell over the hall. Not a few of the players sank to the floor where they stood, while Knox picked up the ball and advanced to the line. Kenneth, watching with his heart in his throat, had a vague impression of Jim Marble bending across the rail in consultation with one of the Faculty. Then the ball rose gently from Knox's hands, arched in its flight and came down square on the rim of the basket. For a moment it poised there while hearts stood still. Then it toppled gently over the side to the floor. Knox had missed!
Lower House set up a frantic chorus of triumph. If only Marble or Collier could succeed where Knox had failed! But neither Jim nor the left guard was going to try, it seemed. For over at the Red's bench a lithe form was peeling off his sweater, and in a moment the cry swept the hall:
"Garwood's going to throw! Garwood! Garwood!"
"It's all right," Jim had whispered. "I asked the doc. Do your best. If you make it we win, Garwood!"
Kenneth, his pulses far from calm, walked out on the floor and picked up the ball. The shouting died away and the sudden stillness seemed appalling. He toed the black streak across the boards and measured the distance to the basket. Then, his legs astraddle, his knees slightly bent, he swung the ball once—twice—
There was a moment of suspense, and then—
Then pandemonium broke loose! The ball dropped to the floor unheeded, but above it the tattered meshes of the netting swayed where it had struck them going through! It was the cleanest kind of a basket, and it won the game and the series and the Shield for Lower House!
Kenneth, fighting off the howling fellows who would have perched him on their shoulders, caught a glimpse of his father's amused face, and broke for the stairway.
THE PROVING OF JERRY
"I'm awfully sorry," said Ned Gaynor earnestly, "but it isn't as though you had been blackballed, Jerry."