Chapter XV: The Back Trail (2)

Uncle Silas Goddard’s cheery face grew troubled. Well, Markham was only a boy, and a very foolish one. He had had a hard lesson. No stock had been lost, and Uncle Silas felt that he ought not to be too hard on Markham. He was going to let Markham go, on a promise to leave the country and make something of himself in other parts. Any one at all acquainted with Uncle Silas might have known he would do that very thing.

“As for you, Nixon,” the big ranchowner went on, “there’s a job waiting in Montana for a chap of your heft and disposition. But do you want to return to the home ranch?” he asked quizzically. “Miss Hesther Morton sends a very kindly message to you by me. She is sorry for a lot of things, she says, and hopes to see you right soon.”

But Nixon J. Peters had seen another light. He recalled his saphead dreams of rescuing Hesther from a burning house, and the shamed red stained his cheeks to the tow-colored hair.

“Miss Morton, all at once, is wasting her consideration on the wrong party. Uncle Silas,” said Peters. “I’m for Montana as soon as you want me there.”

“Good!” exclaimed Uncle Silas, and clasped Peters’ hand with a fervor that suggested not only good will but hearty congratulations.

SOME INTERESTING FACTS

In Austria women are now employed as undertakers and gravediggers.

The ancients credited the raven with unusual longevity, but modern investigation shows that it is not warranted. The bird rarely lives more than seventy years.

United States government irrigation projects completed or under way represent an expense of eighty-five million dollars and involve the reclamation of more than two million five hundred thousand acres.

Geese are fattened for market in some parts of Europe by confining them in dark rooms, to which light is admitted at intervals, causing them to eat seven or eight meals a day.

Rabbit fur is said to be supplanting wool in felt-hat making in Australia, where thirty-two factories are in operation. The fur is considered much superior to the finest merino for this purpose, and millions of rabbit skins are used annually.

The Ottoman Empire is made up of Turkey in Europe—the strip of territory stretching across from the Black Sea to the Adriatic—Turkey in Asia, which includes Arabia, Syria, and Palestine, and provinces in the isles of Samos and Cyprus are also under the sultan’s rule.

The Municipal Building, New York, is the largest structure under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Public Buildings and Offices. It contains about one thousand offices and has about ten thousand visitors daily. It is the world’s largest building of its kind.

The Basket-Ball Boss

by Leslie W. Quirk

“THE deal can be closed at your earliest convenience. Very truly yours.... That’s all, Miss Ticknor. Bring in the letter just as soon as you write it, please.”

As the stenographer closed the door behind her, Freeman Judd spun his pivoted desk chair in a half circle, and, with hands clasped across his stomach, gazed thoughtfully at the calendar on the wall. For a full minute he sat this way without moving; then, whirling back again, he pressed the button at the side of his desk.

A freckle-faced, red-headed office boy answered.

“George,” said Mr. Judd, “I guess he’s waited long enough. Tell him to come in now.”

The office boy grinned appreciatively. A moment later the door opened to admit a dapper young man, who looked something as Freeman Judd must have looked twenty-five years before.

The embarrassment as father and son faced each other ended when Judd, senior, said brusquely, “Sit down, Vern; sit down! Chairs don’t cost anything in this office. What’s the matter now? What are you here for?”

The boy looked him frankly in the eyes. “Thompson Brothers fired me this morning.”

If his father was irritated, his face did not betray the fact. “As a business man,” he grunted, “you don’t seem to be much of a success.”

The boy swallowed. It was like downing a bitter dose of medicine. “You see, father,” he blurted out, “I’ve come to believe you were right and I was wrong. I want to start in the business here just the way I did four years ago.”

“Ah, you do!” Freeman Judd surveyed his son a little grimly. “Suppose we review this thing, Vern. You’re a rich man’s son. When you went to college, I gave you a good big allowance. I wanted you to have all the advantages that I had missed. What did you do there? Did you stick to anything? Did you learn one thing—one single thing—thoroughly?”

“Not a thing,” admitted Vernon Judd cheerfully, “unless you count basket-ball.”

“Basket-ball? H’m! I don’t see how that is going to help you make a success of life. Well, you graduated, though Heaven knows how, and came in here. Three months later you quit. Things were too slow for you. Your grandfather had left you a little legacy, and you wanted action.”

The younger Judd chuckled. “Didn’t I get it?”

“You did,” admitted his father, allowing his face the luxury of a smile; “you got the action and the Wall Street boys got your money. Since then you’ve tried a dozen things, never holding on to one of them longer than a month or six weeks. And now you breeze back and ask me to give you another chance.”

The boy leaned forward earnestly, his mouth tightening into the same lines of determination that marked his father’s.

“Dad, a week ago I took myself into my room and had a frank talk with myself. When I was through, I’d made up my mind to quit being a chump and to turn myself into something useful. I wasn’t fired from Thompson Brothers’ because I didn’t do my work, but because I wouldn’t stand for a piece of dirty office politics. I’ve found myself. This time I’ll stick it out. Do I get another chance, or not?”

Freeman Judd looked the boy over, much as though he were eying a horse. “Vern,” he said finally, “I never thought I’d do such a thing, but I’m inclined to give you another go at your old job. I know you’ve got the goods, and I believe at last——” A knock at the door stopped him. “Come in, Wallber.”

“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Judd,” said the head clerk, as he entered, with an envelope in his hand, “but the man who brought this said it had to have an answer right away.”

As he made out the letterhead, the boy’s face became a shade paler. His father scanned the communication with a frown.

“Vern”—the voice had taken a harsher tone—“this is a statement from Flett & Son. They say you owe them one hundred and fifteen dollars for some evening clothes, and that if it isn’t paid they will be obliged to sue.”

“It’s a rotten trick, dad. I bought the stuff eight months ago; I’d have paid for it, too, if I hadn’t lost my jobs while I was laying aside the money. I haven’t been dodging them. I explained how it was. Anyhow, they hadn’t any business sending a bill to you. I’m over age and——”

His father stood up abruptly. “It’s legalized blackmail,” he snapped. “They think I’ll pay this rather than allow it to get into the papers. And they’re right.” He paced up and down the room without speaking. Suddenly he faced the boy. “Vern, I’ve changed my mind about you. I don’t want you in here until you can prove to me that you are able to get a job paying enough to live on, and to hold it for a reasonable time.”

“But, dad——”

His father held up an interrupting hand. “No use talking. I have decided. When you have learned to stand alone on your own two feet, then you may come in with Judd & Company—not before. Any more bills? No? All right; I’ll pay this one. Then I intend giving you an order on the cashier for thirty dollars. Take that and buy a railroad ticket that will land you the greatest distance from New York. I don’t care where you go; the only condition is that you finally land a job, and that you keep it for a full six months. That shall be the test. Understand? Six months in the same position.”

Vernon Judd nodded soberly.

“When you’ve shown you can do that, and have lived on what you earn without running bills, come back and you’ll find a desk waiting for you. If you can’t do it, I don’t want to see you again. Well?”

“That’s a fair proposition, dad. Six months at the same job on a living wage. I’ll do it.”

Freeman Judd sucked in his lower lip. “Here’s your order for the thirty dollars, then. And remember, Vern, nobody wants to see you win more than your old dad. Good-by. As you go through the outer office, tell Wallber I want to see him.”

II.

The round football struck the branch and descended, bouncing merrily upon the head of the innocent bystander.

“We didn’t mean to, mister,” apologized the small boy who had done the kicking.

“Don’t mind me. I’d rather get a crack on the head than not.” In spite of a stomach that lacked breakfast, Vernon Judd managed a smile as he tossed back the “association” football.

Hard knocks aplenty had toughened Vern since the day the train dropped him into the bustling Middle Western city, an unknown person, in an unfamiliar place; and, what was more, he was without trade or profession. For three days he had been an “extra” hotel porter; for a week, till the dull season set in, he had opened boxes in a department-store basement; and twice he had earned scraps of money by unloading trucks. But of continuous employment he had found none.

He squared his shoulders now at the cheering discovery that both factories had entrances within a hundred feet of where he was standing. Along the big shop on his right ran the sign. “Landon Sporting Goods—Used All Over the World”; across the street, equally large letters shouted. “Bloss Company—Perfection Sporting Goods—For Sale Everywhere.”

Both Landon and Bloss, the original owners, were dead; but for years the managers of the rival factories had waged an advertising war from Cairo, Illinois, to Cairo, Egypt. Basket-balls, baseballs, footballs, hockey sticks, bats, golf clubs, boxing gloves, and everything else for the athlete had been boosted and knocked by each side. And here the two competitors glowered at each other less than a stone’s throw apart. To Vern, who all his life had read their advertising and used their goods, it seemed like coming suddenly upon the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte.

The job hunter meditated. “Let’s see. The year we had the big championship team we used the Bloss basket-ball; the year after that we used the Landon. It wasn’t as good, and we weren’t as good. All right, Bloss, old boy, you’ll get the first chance.”

He entered boldly. A pugnacious office boy on the other side of a wooden railing stopped him.

“Whatcha want?” demanded the guardian of the gate suspiciously.

Hard experience had taught Vern that discretion is sometimes half the battle.

“I want to see the superintendent,” he answered evasively.

“Creighton? Lissen, if you wanta job I’ll save you a lot of time right off the bat by tellin’ you there ain’t none.”

“You tell Mr. Creighton that Mr. Judd—Mr. Vernon Judd, of New York—wants to see him,” insisted the caller, with as much haughtiness as a man without a thin dime can muster.

Reluctantly the office boy slouched toward the door marked “Private.”

“All right,” he said, emerging a minute later. “Go on in.”

Vern had no more than entered the room before he saw that his hopes were doomed to failure. He had counted upon finding the superintendent an athletic type of man, to whom his own experience in athletics might appeal. Instead, he was greeted by a frowning, cigar-chewing individual, who plainly had never taken an active part in any game except from the side lines.

“Well,” he snapped, as he thrust some papers under the desk blotter, “what do you want? A job?” His voice rasped like a file. “Can’t you see that sign out there? Go to the other entrance between seven and eight Thursday morning. Don’t take up my time.”

“I know I am taking up valuable time, Mr. Creighton,” Vern returned quietly, “but I think I’ve had valuable experience that might fit me for——”

“Haven’t a thing for you. No use talking.” The shrill voice rose higher. “Not a thing. Nothing at all. _Good_ morning!”

The young man found himself on the street again, with a sense of injustice rankling in his mind. As he stood there trying to soothe his temper before tackling the Landon people, his eye caught the end of a tiny tragedy.

He heard an excited little scream. He saw a white-sleeved arm thrust frantically from one of the second-story windows of the Landon factory. He watched a square of snowy linen float out on a passing gust of wind. For a second it seemed that it would escape the clutches of the waiting tree and come safely to the ground; but just at the critical moment the breeze died, dropping the white handkerchief, like an opened parachute, across a network of autumn foliage. There it rested, twenty feet or more above the sidewalk and a dozen from the girl at the window.

Vern looked up. The instinct of mere politeness that had first urged him to offer assistance tautened into enthusiasm. He told himself the girl was more charming than any girl he had ever seen.

“I’ll get it,” he called encouragingly, though without the slightest idea in the world how he might bring about that end.

“If you will, please,” she begged. “It’s a bit of real Irish lace, and I haven’t any business owning it—let alone losing it.”

As he stared at the girl and the handkerchief, the inspiration came.

“Here, buddie,” he said, “lend me your football for a minute.”

Obediently the small boy tossed it over. It was round, but slightly smaller and not as heavy as the basket-ball to which he had been accustomed. Also, the handkerchief was much higher than any basket for which he had tried in a game.

He poised it carefully, swinging it up and down in his two hands to gauge the weight. Then, with a quick flirt of his arms, he shot it up and over.

It curved in a long arc and plumped squarely into the middle of the white patch in the tree. The twigs bent. The handkerchief fluttered down into his waiting hands.

As he stood there brushing the dust from the fragile fabric, the girl from Landon’s hurried out to him. “I want to thank you,” she said gratefully.

He looked at her. Risking the chance of being thought impudent, he said boldly, “And I want to know you. My name is Judd—Vernon Judd.”

She stared straight into his eyes for a moment, and was apparently satisfied with what she saw there. “I—I don’t think it will be difficult,” she said, almost in a whisper, and turned away, confused and blushing.

“Say, young fella!” Vern turned to the new speaker, who proved to be Creighton, the disagreeable superintendent of the Bloss factory, his face now stretching into a smile. “Say! I saw you make that basket-ball throw. Where did you ever play? What! You mean you were the center of that champ team, the 1911 five that were never licked? Listen!” He put his hand ingratiatingly upon the boy’s arm. “We have a basket-ball team in this factory that’s a world-beater, and we need a new man for center. Lemme see you throw again, to make sure that other toss wasn’t a lucky accident. Hey, Murph!”

A carrot-topped head popped out of the window over the entrance. “Get the big wastebasket, Murph, and hold it out there. I wanta see this guy make a throw. Come on, you; I’ll give you three chances, because it’s a hard shot.”

For once in his life, Vern felt nervous. The skill that had made him star of a star team seemed to have oozed quite away.

“Try!” the girl whispered. “You can do it. I know you can.”

Again he poised the ball and threw. Then, holding his breath, he watched it wing its curved path through the air—up, over, down; down, fair, and true, into the mouth of the waiting wicker basket.

“Yea, bo!” shouted the enthusiastic Murphy. “He can thread the needle all right.”

“Look here, my man!” Superintendent Creighton caught Vern’s coat lapel. “If I give you a job in the stock room at ten a week, will you get out and play on our basket-ball team this winter?”

“Will I?” asked Vern. “Try me and see.”

The girl from Landon’s extended her hand to him. “Here’s wishing you good luck,” she said, “till——”

“Till when?”

“Till the Bloss five meets the Landon five—till your team plays ours.”

III.

The “big five” from the Bloss Company lined up for the last minute of the final practice before the championship game of the season.

“Fast now!” jerked Captain “Red” Murphy as he tossed the ball to “Curly” Clark, who shot it to Clif Sefton, who underhanded it to Felber, who dribbled it a moment and then bounced it to Vernon Judd, who completed the circuit and play by landing it neatly and accurately in the basket.

“Attaboy!” Red growled. “Now the same thing on the other side, fellows—and lots of pep!”

Three times in succession, from three different and difficult angles. Vern had the pleasure of seeing his throws drop safely inside the iron-rimmed net.

“Good enough!” admitted Red. “We’ll show those Landon counterfeits how to play to-morrow night. Now just a minute.” He gathered the four regulars and the two substitutes about him. “Boys, you all know we’ve had the best season ever, and you all know this mix-up with Landon is going to be our biggest and most important game—and our hardest. We want to win a little worse than we want to go on living.” He turned to Vernon Judd. “But maybe you don’t understand what I mean, Judd. Of course, you’ve only been working here for five months and you——”

“Pretty nearly six,” corrected Vern. He had been marking them off on the calendar in his room.

“Well, anyhow, unless you’ve been through a basket-ball season with the sporting-goods teams, you can’t know how much it means to everybody in this place to beat the Landon bunch. We’ve got to do it, understand? Everybody that works here feels the same as college fellows feel about their team. But that ain’t all. This game gets into every sporting page of every big newspaper in the country. That means big advertising for the winners. And advertising—sport-page stuff in news—means better business, and better business means more money to all of us—oh, not a lot, maybe, but every little bit helps. Get me?”

“I think I understand, Murph.”

“Don’t do no harm to tell you, anyhow. The people we work for want us to win; the people we work with want us to win; we want to win ourselves, the same as all real players do. And, Vern”—he put his hand affectionately upon the young fellow’s jersey—“if you shoot baskets Saturday night the way you did just now, we will win—sure!”

As Vernon Judd left the factory’s model gymnasium, where the team had been holding its final practice, his body tingled from the rough-towel rub that followed the shower; but he also tingled internally from sheer pleasure and the joy of living. He had made good. Coming into the Bloss works practically a nobody, by merit alone he had won friendship and respect, as well as a place on a cracking good basket-ball five. Best of all, for the first time in his life, he was really interested in the business of earning a living.

Life as a whole had changed for him. Hard work in his department had brought him a boost in the pay envelope, and his spare moments were busied with a correspondence course in advertising. He wished his father could see him jump out of bed before the winter sun rose, to hurry to a job that had become a pleasure.

He was so busy patting himself on the back that only chance prevented his colliding with a footfarer bound the other way.

“Hazel Wayne!” he blurted, as his surprised glance showed him the girl from Landon’s whose acquaintance he had made through the rescue of the lace handkerchief.

Her face was pale and troubled. His quick eye noted that she was holding her library book almost ostentatiously.

“Practicing hard, Vern?” she queried, with a nervous little laugh, “Do you really think you’re going to beat us Saturday?”

“Sure of it, Hazel. You’d better order your mourning suit right now.” As he turned to walk with her toward the corner where the Weldon Park cars passed, it became growingly evident that she was ill at ease.

“What’s the matter, Hazel?” he asked finally. “If you don’t like something I’ve said or done, tell me what it was and I’ll apologize.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said, in a low voice, “no, there—there’s nothing like that.”

“But something’s wrong. What is it? We’ve been pretty good friends for over five months now. Surely you can tell me.”

Still she was silent.

“Is it Creighton?” he asked lightly. “Haven’t you changed your mind about him yet? Do you still think he’s a ‘low-down——’”

“Ss-s-sh!” She put her hand over his mouth. “Don’t—don’t ever repeat what I said about him—not to anybody.”

The Weldon Park car was bowling nearer.

“What’s wrong, Hazel?” he asked, leaning closer. “Tell me.”

It was plain she was struggling with herself. Twice she opened her mouth as though to speak. “No,” she said firmly, in the end. “I—I haven’t anything to say—nothing at all—except to wish you luck to-morrow night. That’s all.”

Thirty seconds later, as Vern watched the car whirl around the corner into Moneta Avenue, his face bore a puzzled twist that was still in evidence after a brisk walk had brought him back to the factory entrance.

“Hello, Billy!” he greeted the night watchman. “I left some correspondence-school stuff in my locker. I see there’s a light in the supe’s office, so it will be O. K. to pass me in.”

With a grunt of assent, old Billy led the way to the coat room and watched Vern take the leaflets from the locker shelf. Partly deaf, the watchman did not heed the fragment of conversation that floated down the corridor from Creighton’s open door.

“It’s all right,” the superintendent was saying. “Monday night ends it. I tell you, I’ve worked three months getting things fixed so I can tangle the factory into a dozen knots just before I——”

The voice trailed away into a confidential whispering that Vern could not catch.

Vaguely the words disquieted him. Was it possible that Creighton was all Hazel Wayne had said? How could she know? Hazel had never worked in the Bloss factory. Her job was in the Landon cashier’s office, and her father and brother were employed in the Landon leather-working department. Probably her distrust of Creighton was a woman’s whim, sprung of the natural bitterness resulting from his successful management of the rival factory. But the boy’s suspicions were not allayed at the sight of the superintendent’s startled face when he met Vern at the outer door.

“What the devil are you doing here?” demanded Creighton, with a worried glance at his late visitor, now turning to trudge up the street.

Vern’s answer seemed to reassure him a little.

“Come back,” he said abruptly. “Come into my office. I meant to have a little talk with you to-morrow, but we might as well thresh it out now.”

They sat down, facing each other.

“Judd,” said the superintendent, “you like your job, don’t you?”

Vern responded with all the enthusiasm he could muster. Creighton cocked his cigar in the corner of his mouth.

“You’ve done well here. You’re getting fifteen a week now, and you are in line to get more”—he paused—“if you can keep your mouth shut and obey orders.”

The tone of the talk was objectionable, but Vernon Judd’s six months were too nearly at an end for him to object. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly, “I want to advance, of course.”

Creighton leaned forward. “Judd,” he confided, “there’s one way for you to hang on to your job—and only one way.” The change in his voice was startling.

“What do you mean?”

The superintendent’s heavy eyebrows contracted in a sinister line. “The Bloss basket-ball team must lose to-morrow night. You’ve got to let Landon win. Understand? You—not the team, but _you_—must see that the game goes to them.”

Vern could hardly believe he had heard correctly. “Let Landon win! You mean I—I must throw the game?”

“Exactly! I’m glad you understand. You know how to do it, of course, and you can do it alone, because you make more baskets than all the rest of them put together. Get hurt; pretend you’ve injured your arm. I don’t care how you do it. But throw the game. Remember, I am your boss; I am the boss of the Bloss basket-ball team. If you expect to hold your job here, throw—that—game!”

Vern tried to think quickly. “But—don’t you want——”

“No, I don’t!” Creighton stood up, glaring fiercely. “No! No! I want the Blosses to lose that game. Never mind why! That’s none of your business. You want to hold your job. All right. Throw that game. If you don’t, the first thing I’ll do the following Monday morning will be to fire you.”

“But I haven’t done anything to warrant——”

“Bah! What are you doing here this time of night? Do you think the police will lake your word before they take mine? You’ve got folks somewhere. How will they like it when they hear you’ve been hauled into a police station for being a petty thief? I can do it all right, and I will—if you don’t throw that game. Think it over. Don’t try to double cross me, because it can’t be done. That’s all.”

Uneasy and troubled, Vernon Judd spent his trip to the boarding house trying to figure out a solution for the mystery. What was the tangled undercurrent? Was Creighton doing all this simply to win a few dollars by betting? The notion was ridiculous. Then what was the answer?

On the table in the front hall of the boarding house lay a note from his father that thickened his difficulties. It had come by the late mail. It ran:

DEAR VERN: Glad to learn from your letter that
you’ve been doing so well. As long as you have held out
over five months already, I am going to make this the
test. Win or lose this Bloss job—that is the deciding
factor in our wager as to the stuff of which you are
made. There is no reason why you should be fired from
Bloss & Company, and you must not let yourself be
fired. Stay with them till the six months are up—or
don’t come back.

FREEMAN JUDD.

Vern crumpled the letter in his hand. A pretty mess he had gotten into! All his notions of honesty and sportsmanship recoiled at the thought of throwing the game. Yet if he did not——

“_Br-r-r-r!_” It was the boarding-house telephone that roused him from his reverie.

“Hello! Excuse me for disturbing you, but I must speak to Mr. Judd.... Oh, is this you, Vern? This is Hazel Wayne speaking. I must see you now. I did have something to tell you before, but I couldn’t make myself say it. I’ve come all the way back to tell it to you now. I am at Baker’s Drug Store, just a block from your house. You’ll come right over, Vern, won’t you?”

He buttoned his overcoat and plunged out into the snowy night air. Hazel was waiting for him just outside the store, and as he appeared she hurried toward him.

“Vern, I had to see you to-night. I hadn’t been to the library when I met you before. I’d been waiting to talk to you after you finished your basket-ball practice. But I was—afraid.”

“What is it?” he asked gently. “You needn’t be afraid to tell anything to me, Hazel.”

She winked back one tear, but another rolled down her cheek. “Vern, you mustn’t think the—the wrong way about me, but that basket-ball game to-morrow night is a matter of life and death—almost. And your team mustn’t win. You must let the Landon five beat you, because——Oh, I can’t tell you why, but you must do it—you must. For my sake, Vern!”

She put both hands in his; then, before he could stop her, she was plunging blindly toward the car. He watched her as she stood a moment on the platform, shoulders shaking and a handkerchief to her eyes.

Boss, father, and girl all urging him to betray his trust! If he tried—if his team won—he would lose his job, his chance to make something of himself in the bigger business world, and the friendship of Hazel Wayne.

For the first time since he had known her, he realized that she was necessary to his future happiness.

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.

It was Bloss’ throw-in, and Felber, left guard, picked it up. Captain Murphy called a quick signal, dodged under the arm of the player who was covering him, and took the throw in the extreme left-hand corner of the court, in Landon territory. The other three players shifted to the boundary lines. Vernon Judd, dodging free, sped down the middle of the unprotected court.

Hazel Wayne watched him with fascinated eyes. She knew the play; it was the old crisscross forward pass. Why didn’t the Landon boys cover Vern? Must he assume the entire responsibility for the failure at the end? For she told herself positively that he would fail, that he had done all they might reasonably expect of him.

Murphy threw, gauging ball and player to a nicety. Ten feet beyond the center Vern caught it while running at full speed. Then, with a single bewildering movement, he lifted it high above his head and shot another basket with clean precision.

The score was now: Bloss, 4; Landon, 0. The Bloss adherents raised the rafters with their mad cheering. In the little balcony at the other end, Hazel Wayne leaned back with clenched hands.

“He doesn’t care enough for me to do what I asked,” she told herself bitterly; and she forced herself to smile and nod when the girl at her right expressed the hope that something would happen to Vern Judd before the game was done. She wished something would—almost! Not a serious hurt, of course, but——

By the time the ball was in play again, the Landon team seemed to have found itself. It reasoned rightly that if the other four Bloss players were to act as “feeders” to Judd, counting on him to shoot the baskets, the thing to do was to corner and pocket and guard him so closely that he would have no opportunity for unhampered throwing. So effectively did they carry out this campaign that for ten minutes or more he was hopelessly entangled in the mesh of opposing players.

They went farther. The Bloss star now began to bear the brunt of every attack. His arm was hacked on throws. He was tripped and fouled in all the artistic ways that could escape the eyes of the official. Twice he went to the floor with a crash, and once he was tumbled headfirst out of bounds.

But Hazel Wayne, watching the game with the eye of an expert, dared hope there was another reason for Vernon Judd’s sudden eclipse. And when the Bloss rooters began to move uneasily as he failed to score goals, and shrunk back when he should have charged, and submitted tamely to an opponent’s making a pass when he should have scrimmaged for a toss-up, she grew more and more convinced that he was no longer doing his best.

A little later, the referee caught a Landon player fouling him, and Vern took the ball for a free throw. Poising it carefully, he shot it high in the air, a good five feet to one side of the basket. The Bloss sympathizers, mouths open to cheer the scoring point, allowed them to close with dumb amazement. It wasn’t even a good try.

“Now watch us!” bragged the girl by Hazel’s side. “I heard this afternoon that Vern Judd had sold out, and I guess he has.”

Hazel looked at her with troubled eyes. All at once she felt cold and sick, as if something terrible had happened.

“It looks that way,” agreed the girl on her left. “Well, every man has his price. Sometimes it’s money, sometimes business politics, and sometimes a woman. I wonder——” And she glanced at Hazel out of the tail of her eye.

“He—he wouldn’t sell out,” Hazel told the girl weakly. “He isn’t that kind.”

The other laughed meaningly. “Isn’t he? Oh, I don’t——Look! Look! What do you think now?”

Vern had been clear for once. The ball came to him waist-high—and he dropped it! Like a flash, the captain of the Landon five caught it up and shot it half the length of the court to another player near the boundary line. He passed it to a third, who scored a neat goal on a side diagonal pass that gave him the ball directly in front of the basket.

The score was now: Bloss, 4; Landon, 2.

“A goal at last,” said one of the girls, sighing, “thanks to Mr. Judd.”

“It was an accident,” defended Hazel, angry without reason. “Anybody is apt to drop the ball now and then.”

Both teams scored again from the field before the end of the first half, and, during the last minute, Landon crept closer on a palpable body-check and free throw. When the whistle blew, the score was: Bloss, 6; Landon, 5.

The teams changed goals. The Bloss basket was now at the balcony end, where Hazel Wayne could lean forward and look straight down into it.

On the toss-up that began the second half, Vern’s attempt to whack the ball was so weak that it brought a hiss or two from the spectators. Worse still, it made them watch him suspiciously after that. When he failed twice on free throws, and Murphy took his place after the next foul, the crowd began to mutter.

“What do you think now about the little angel named Vern Judd?” triumphantly demanded the girl on Hazel’s right.

“I—I don’t want to talk, please!” said Hazel. She couldn’t think; she couldn’t understand her own emotions or the wonderful metamorphosis of her desires. Something had changed her whole point of view. The integrity of Vernon Judd meant more to her, all at once, than anything else in the world. Indignant at first that he should play so well when she had asked him not to, she was now praying that he would yet do his best, that he would strive to win like a clean sportsman, that he would forget everything save his own honesty and good name. If he wasn’t that kind——She dared not complete the thought.

The game wore on, with varying fortunes. Players from first one team and then the other rushed the ball up and down the court in zigzagging passes, tapping, tossing, dribbling, shooting it from man to man, looping it for the basket, scrambling for it when it missed, and trotting back to their positions when a goal was scored.

Eventually the Landon five began to assume the upper hand. There was no denying that its center outclassed Vern—or, at least, the Vern who was playing to-night. He could throw better, he could block better with his arm, he could bat the ball better on the toss-up. Because of these advantages, Landon finally assumed the lead by the slender margin of a single point in the 9-8 score.

“If I could only talk to him for a minute!” Hazel whispered to herself, watching the player fail in encounter after encounter. “If I could tell him to forget me, and play—play! I must have been mad to ask him to sacrifice himself for me!”

She watched, with staring eyes, as he whacked clumsily at the ball.

“Vern!” she called appealingly. “Vern!”

But he couldn’t hear her, of course. The whole gymnasium was a Babel of confused shouts. She could only lean forward, with her hands clutching the balcony rail, and follow him with her eyes; gloating when he broke free or handled the ball, wincing when opponents crashed into him, and telling herself always that if the opportunity offered he would prove his true character yet.

Some official at the side of the court made an announcement. Hazel could not hear what he said, and she turned to a man behind her for the information.

“It’s the usual warning that there are only three minutes more to play,” he explained.

Three minutes! Why, it couldn’t be possible. There must be some hideous mistake! Only three minutes before the game ended—and Landon one point ahead! That meant, unless some miracle took place, Bloss was beaten—beaten because a girl had asked a man to forget honor for her sake.

She had no watch. Yet she must time the game to its bitter end. The torture of waiting constantly for the final whistle, without knowing what moment it might come, was too great a strain to bear. Already her heart was pounding——

With a sudden inspiration, she dropped the finger tips of her right hand upon the pulse of the other wrist. The normal heartbeat was a little over seventy, wasn’t it? That meant practically a surge of the artery for every second.

She began to count—one, two, three, four, five, and so on up to the end of the first minute. Out on the floor, the ten players were scurrying here and there like frightened ants, apparently without aim or purpose, but in reality dodging and running with preconceived plans. But neither team scored again. Nor did Vern stand out conspicuously in the playing.

The second minute measured itself by her pulse beats. Now and then, during some tense moment, her fingers pressed so hard that she lost the steady throb-throb of the wrist. But she knew within a second or two when the final minute of play began.

The antlike players shifted toward the Bloss goal. They were almost constantly within throwing distance now, and one accurate toss would win. A dozen times the chance seemed to have come, but always there was some blocking Landon opponent.

“Fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four,” Hazel went on mechanically. Then, with a convulsive start, she realized what the figures meant. They were the final grains of sand in the hourglass. Her finger tips shook free of the wrist, and it was three seconds before they pressed the pulse again.

“Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty,” she resumed her counting, and lost the next beat as her heart stopped with the shock of apprehensive fear. Then she laughed with nervous relief. Sixty pulse beats weren’t quite a minute; there were from ten to fifteen still to record before the final whistle.

The ten players bunched just below the balcony, in front of the Bloss goal. As if realizing that the game depended upon their work during the next few seconds, they roused themselves above their natural speed and skill.

“Five fighting to prevent another basket,” Hazel told herself, “and four fighting just as hard to make it—no, five! Five! He is trying! I know he is! Oh, he must be!” But she could not be quite sure.

She saw Captain Murphy whisper something to him. Vern nodded. Then, so suddenly that she could hardly follow the play, the Bloss team scattered. The ball catapulted to the side of the court, where the whacking arm of Felber drove it back and toward the other end. Murphy caught it, whirled completely around to throw off the guard hovering near him, started a dribble, and finally made the pass straight toward the Landon goal.

Hazel raised her eyes in wonderment. Nearly halfway down the court Vern was sprinting. A warning cry from the captain made him turn on his heel and throw up his hands. But he was an instant too late. Clean and hard, with the crack of a gun, the ball caught him full in the face, staggering him backward.

He stood there, blinking like one who has suddenly lost his sight. The ball was in his hands. From all angles the Landon five rushed toward him. His own players shouted for the ball. His test had come, Hazel told herself breathlessly. Then, as he made no move, she stopped breathing altogether.

Her eyes were blurring with tears. She lifted her handkerchief to dry them, and saw that it was the square of Irish lace he had rescued the day they first met.

“Vern!” she called, putting all the breath of her full lungs into the cry. “Vern!”

He lifted his head. His eyes were winking rapidly, and he had difficulty in seeing her at all.

“Vern!” she called again. Leaning far out over the protecting rail of the balcony, she allowed her handkerchief to flutter down toward the basket below. It settled on the little ledge where the bracket of the iron rim met the wall.

There must have come to Vernon Judd the memory of that other time when he had arched a ball up and over and down upon Hazel Wayne’s Irish lace handkerchief. Perhaps the recollection brought confidence in his ability to do it again. Now, with a swinging, overhand-loop shot, he hurled the yellow basket-ball at the white target.

Like a winging swallow it rose till it reached the apex of its arc; then it sped downward to the backing board just behind the basket. The rebound drove it against the front rim. It bounded back again, brushed the handkerchief caressingly, and finally toppled gently into the netting for a goal. Almost on the instant, the final whistle shrilled.

The game was ended. The Bloss five had won by a score of 10-9.

V.

Judging by the expression on his face, Vernon Judd was about as elated over scoring the winning basket for the Bloss team as a criminal in court would be over receiving a stiff sentence.

“And that’s just what it amounts to,” he told himself, marching glumly off the playing court. “My sentence is that I be fired in disgrace from the factory, lose my six-month test to prove my right to a desk with Judd & Co., and sacrifice whatever chance I had of winning—her.”

Somebody slapped him on the shoulder. He looked up irritably, only to discover that it was his father.

“Why, dad,” he greeted, “what in the dickens are you doing out here?”

“In town on business,” explained Freeman Judd cryptically. “I heard there was a basket-ball game to-night, and I figured I could find you here. Quite a game, eh?”

Vern clenched his hands. “A bigger, more important one than you think, dad.” It was hard to go on and explain that his job at the factory hinged upon the outcome, but he managed it bravely.

His father heard him to the end, without interrupting. Once or twice he frowned a little, as if there were some worry on his mind, but he offered no comment. When the boy was quite done, he looked at him steadily.

“You played to win?” he asked.

“Of course. You see, I——”

“All right. I wanted to be sure, Vern. Now, about this job proposition of ours. You won’t stick out your six months with Bloss, you say. Too bad you came so close, my boy, but you know I never budge an inch. A bargain’s a bargain with me.”

Looking up quickly, Vern fancied he detected a twinkle in his father’s eyes. But when he searched for it again it was gone.

“I’m not asking you to go back on your proposition,” he said. “I don’t know exactly——”

“Vern!”

It was Hazel Wayne’s voice. He whirled quickly, and took the hand she extended.

“I want to congratulate you, with all my heart,” she said. “I’m glad you won, Vern.”

He was glad, too—now. It was the first thrill of the victory, but it was well worth while. Some day, he promised himself, he would make Hazel understand how much it had hurt him to win against her wishes.

“You don’t know how ashamed of myself I felt!” she rushed on. “You see, Creighton met me yesterday and told me he was coming over to Landon’s as superintendent and——”

“Creighton! At Landon’s!” exclaimed Vern in astonishment. A new hope sprang up in his heart. “When?”

“Next Tuesday, he said.”

“Oh!” The hope withered and died. On the intervening Monday Creighton would discharge him. “Go on, Hazel!”

“Well,” continued the girl, “he explained that as he had already signed his contract and was the Landon manager, he wanted the Landon people to have the winning basket-ball team this season. If you didn’t try too hard, Vern, that would be possible, he thought. I—I was to ask you not to.”

“But—why?”

“Because if I refused—if Bloss won—I was to lose my job. Father’s and brother Ben’s depended upon the game, too. Tuesday we’ll all be out of work. I don’t know how we’ll manage to live, but”—she smiled at him through her tears—“but I’m glad you won, Vern. It nearly killed me when I thought you weren’t trying honestly to win.”

“I was, Hazel. I know a lot of people didn’t think so, but I was.” He touched his arm gingerly. “Early in the game I bruised the biceps in my right arm in a nasty tumble. My whole arm got sore and stiff. I wanted to drop out and make way for a substitute, but Murph wouldn’t listen. And then, at the end, just before I scored that last goal, the ball hit me an awful whack in the face. It stunned me and blinded me. But I heard you call, and I caught a glimpse of your white handkerchief dropping. I remembered that other day—the first day I ever saw you—and I know absolutely I could shoot the basket. You really won the——”

“Listen, Hazel Wayne!” The voice was Creighton’s; his face was convulsed with rage. “Listen to me, young lady! You double-crossed me to-night, but you’ll pay for it. Out you go Tuesday, along with your old man and your kid brother—the whole kit and parcel of you. And I’ll see to it that you never get another job in this town.” He turned to Vern. “As for you, you young whippersnapper, I don’t have to wait till Tuesday. You’re fired! Understand? Fired! Just as soon as I can swear out a warrant——”

Freeman Judd stepped forward leisurely. “Just a moment,” he interrupted. “You can’t fire this young man.”

“Why not? I’m superintendent of the Bloss Company.”

“Wrong!” The elder Judd spat out the word with evident enjoyment. “You _were_ superintendent. But you can’t fire anybody now because you were fired yourself this afternoon at a meeting of the board of directors.”

“It’s a lie!” blustered Creighton. His eyes gleamed slyly. “If it ain’t a lie, though, I don’t care. I’ll be superintendent of the Landon works next week, and the Bloss Company will find——”

“Wrong again!” Freeman Judd stepped closer. “At five this afternoon the final papers were signed whereby the two concerns come under the same management and ownership. If it’s of any interest to you, I am the man who is merging them. I kicked you out of Bloss’ to-day after reading the reports of an expert accountant and a detective who’ve been checking you up for several weeks; I’ll make sure you stay out of Landon’s. So, Mr. Creighton, you see, you won’t be able to fire anybody from either factory.”

Creighton did not wait to argue. With a sudden leap, he lost himself in the crowd that was making for the outer door.

“Shall I go after him, dad?” asked Vern, his fingers working hungrily.

“No need,” smiled Freeman Judd. “He’ll run across some plain-clothes men just outside. Misappropriation of funds, malicious damage of property, and other charges to answer in court.”

Somebody plucked at Vern’s coat sleeve, and he looked down into Hazel’s startled eyes.

“Is he your father?” she asked, pointing.

“Why, yes! Let me introduce——”

“But he’s just bought both factories,” she said, “and he must be very rich, and—and I thought you were poor, working in the Bloss stockroom. I suppose now——”

“If dad’s new superintendent is willing, I’ll stick to my same job,” promised Vern; “at least, till I’ve been there a full six mouths. How about it, dad?”

“Vern, I’m going to like you better.”

“Thanks, dad. A little later, if you think I measure up, I want a desk job, with more money.” He looked into Hazel Wayne’s eyes once more. “Because, to tell the truth, I’m thinking about getting married as soon as the girl says ‘yes.’”

Hazel Wayne said “Oh!” But she meant “Yes.”

* * * * *

WISEHEAD: “All food when it is being thoroughly masticated contains the germs of tuberculosis.”

Do-tell: “No!”

Wisehead: “Yes, it does; because it’s in the last stages of consumption.”

Clem Frobisher’s Man-sized Job

By Allan Hawkwood

THE scenario writer and partner to Clem Frobisher let out a whoop in response to Clem’s proposal:

“Ed, let’s take a vacation. I’m getting tired of making films. Let’s go back to San Pedro, hire the old boat, and go fishing.”

“Wow! Say, cap’n, I had that notion myself! Do you mean it?”

“You bet I mean it!” Clem rose, and strode up and down, frowning. “I can be cooped up only so long, Ed; then something has to bust. Now that we’ve finished that big five-reel film, I’m going to get back to salt water for a few days.”

“Say, I can smell them fish now!” exclaimed Ed, in ecstasy. “An’ the engine-room oil an’ the ol’ bilge-water stink——Oh, golly! When do we go?”

“Catch a Pedro car, after lunch, charter the old _Sadie_, and off with us! Are you game?”

“Game?” The lanky Iowan grinned. “Say, cap’n, I’m so game that—that I’m growin’ horns right now!”

The Frobisher Producing Company, with Clem as its head, and Ed Davis as partner and scenario writer, had been established in Easthampton for some months. Further, it had made good, largely because of Clem Frobisher’s distinctive ability.