IV.
As the referee’s whistle sent the Bloss and Landon basket-ball teams scurrying to their positions the following evening, Hazel Wayne leaned forward, with a quick intake of breath. The game was about to begin. Whatever the outcome might mean to the workers and friends of the two factories, it meant infinitely more to her. She told herself that the Landon five would win, that it must win; but she could not stifle the fear in her heart.
“We’ll beat them,” said the girl at her right, a fellow worker in the Landon executive offices; “yes, we’ll beat them if——”
“——if Vern Judd doesn’t score too many baskets against us,” finished another Landon worker. “They say he’s a wonder.”
They both nodded sagely. The fear in Hazel Wayne’s heart became a hysterical laugh. Of course! And Vern wouldn’t try too hard, after what she had told him; surely he wouldn’t!
“Ready, Landon?” asked the referee. “Ready, Bloss?” He shot the ball high into the air, piped a shrill blast on his whistle as it began to descend, and the great game was on.
The two opposing centers leaped for the yellow ball. But Vernon Judd was the quicker and the surer. His right hand slapped it, shooting it unerringly to Captain Murphy. The thud hurt Hazel Wayne like a blow.
Dully, despairingly, she watched Murphy catch the ball and pass it to Clark, who shot it clear across the court to Felber. By this time Judd was racing up the middle, practically unguarded. As the ball came to him in a long, driving throw, he dropped it to the floor, tapped it closer to the basket, and then, with a pretty toss, looped it upward and forward, scoring the goal. At the end of the first minute, the score stood: Bloss, 2; Landon, 0.
Huddled forward in her balcony seat at the other end of the gymnasium, Hazel Wayne allowed her breath to escape with a gasp. He was trying, then; he was playing his best. Perhaps, though, this was only a flash, to allay suspicions. She would wait a little while before she condemned him.
Again the opposing centers leaped for the ball; again Vern shot it to a member of his team. This time, however, a lanky Landon youth intercepted the throw from Murphy to Clark, and the ball bounced out of bounds.