THE LAST GOAL

The second half began. A blast from the referee's whistle sent the two teams scurrying to their positions. Again Sheffield and the Elkana center faced each other in the middle of the floor; again the official tossed the ball high into the air; again he blew his warning signal as it reached the top of its flight.

But here the repetition of the first play of the game ended. As Sheffield raised his right arm for the tap, his elbow jabbed against the breast of his opponent, topping the boy off-balance. With a desperate effort, the latter tried to straighten and swing for the falling ball; but he was an instant too late. Sheffield whanged it straight and hard into Kiproy's waiting arms.

"Oh!" gasped Bunny, on the substitutes' bench. It was like the cry from some hurt.

No shrill of the referee's whistle marked the foul. Clearly, the official had been watching the flight of the ball, rather than the two opposing players who had leaped for it as it fell, and had thus failed to detect any unfair interference.

But the spectators had seen. A little hiss of disapproval grew to a buzzing growl, like a tiny breeze that nods the daisies in a distant field and snarls through the bushes as it comes close.

Kiproy bent to make a pass. Sheffield held up a staying hand.

"Wait!" he called. In the tense silence that followed, Bunny could hear him clearly. "I interfered with that toss-up—unintentionally; jabbed the Elkana center with my elbow. Call a foul, Referee!"

The noise broke anew, but it was the clapping of hands this time, and the stamping of feet and little shouts of approval, like a rollicking gale at play. Bunny looked out at Sheffield, through what seemed queerly like a fog, and said, "Oh, that's fine!" And even when some Elkana fellow was given a free trial for goal and netted a basket, he repeated, "Yes, that's fine!" At that moment, he liked Sheffield more than he ever had before.

Over at the blackboard, the boy rubbed out the ten under Elkana's name and traced an eleven in its place. Lakeville's total was still eight.

Sheffield outjumped the opposing center on the next toss-up, which was free of any semblance of foul, and whacked the ball to Barrett. Peter whirled completely around, to throw off the guard hovering in front of him, and started a dribble. But just as he was ready to make the pass, some Elkana player stepped in and captured the ball. It was not an unusual incident, but it made Bunny squirm. Peter had been just the tick of a watch too slow.

After that, things began steadily to go wrong. The four players who had been in the tank started to shrink when they should have charged, to submit weakly to an opponent's making a pass when they should have scrimmaged for a toss-up, to be always the tiny fraction of a second too late in catching, shooting, dodging. Elkana scored. It scored again. After perhaps three minutes of play in the second half, the figures on the blackboard read: Lakeville, 8; Elkana, 15.

"We're licked," Bunny muttered, digging his finger tips into moist palms, "unless—"

It was like a cue for Sheffield's action. Before the ball could be put into play again, the Lakeville captain stepped to the referee's side and said something in a quick, decisive manner. The man nodded. Then Sheffield lifted a beckoning finger toward the substitutes' bench.

Bunny looked at the other three, as if expecting one of them to rise at the signal, and the other three looked at Bunny the same way. None of them seemed to know which substitute he wanted.

"Come on!" called Sheffield gruffly; then, after one heart-breaking instant of hesitation, "All of you!"

At that, of course, they dropped the single blanket they had thrown over their shoulders and scampered out upon the floor. They tried to look unconcerned during the little journey, but nobody was much deceived. Barrett, Kiproy, Collins and Turner, walking wearily and dejectedly toward the bench, passed them without speaking.

There was no time for Sheffield to coach them in the style of game he wanted them to play. Possibly, too, he thought any instructions of his would be so much wasted breath. All he could do was to hope for the best, in a forlorn sort of way, and trust to their natural ability to net a basket when the opportunity offered. They knew the formations and the signals; individually, he admitted, they were crack players. Well—

Lakeville had practiced its deceptive forward crisscross at least one hundred times. When Sheffield hit the ball on the toss-up, he sent it directly across the floor to S. S., playing left guard, on the double hope that this unexpected maneuver would fool Elkana again and that young Zane would be ready for the catch.

Never had Bob Collins played it better. With a deceptive lunge, S. S. shook off the player hovering about him, dashed forward, took the pass, dribbled the ball till the very last safe moment, and then shot it across to Bi, at right guard. From him it zigzagged back to the opposite side, into Jump's waiting hands, and, with just enough delay to pull in the baffled Elkana players, on to Bunny, playing in one corner of the court, within easy looping distance of the basket.

All this time, of course, Sheffield had been racing down the middle, till he was now squarely in front of the goal, with only one negligent guard anywhere near him. But Bunny was also clear for the moment.

"Shoot it!" shouted the captain, eyes already raised to the basket for the try.

Bunny poised the ball in his hands. Sheffield's guard shuffled toward the danger zone. But even as he drew back his arms, Bunny whirled and made an overhand pass to his captain. So unexpected was this play, and so rapid the throw, that Sheffield came near being taken unawares.

But he set himself in time. Hard and true came the ball, zipping against his open palms, with every last Elkana player temporarily paralyzed by surprise. With something very like a smile, Sheffield balanced himself, taking plenty of time, and nonchalantly looped it upward for the gaping basket in front of him. It was a perfect goal.

Score: Lakeville, 10; Elkana, 15.

"Nice work!" Sheffield grunted to Bunny.

He wasn't sure—yet. But a minute later, when Jump, in the very shadow of the goal, lifted the ball high above his head and then flicked it back to his captain, six feet behind him, Sheffield knew for certain. He made that basket, too, and he ran laughing for the next toss-up, as if all the people in Elkana couldn't stop his team now. The Scouts were doing just what he had trained those others to do, just what he had declared the Scouts would never agree to do. They were feeding him the ball; they were playing, not for the applause and glory of shooting goals, but for the bigger thing, for the team itself.

Score: Lakeville, 12; Elkana, 15.

Neither side scored during the next few minutes. But that worried Bunny not one whit, and he guessed Sheffield felt the same about it. For Lakeville had come into her own at last, as if her five players were a single body with ten arms and ten legs. They rushed the ball toward their goal, tapping, tossing, dribbling, shooting it from boy to boy, looping it for the basket, scrambling after misses, and turning from offense to defense when Elkana took possession of it and began a march, with many side trips, in the other direction.

Elkana had not fought victoriously throughout the season without sound cause. Its team answered this new challenge like thoroughbreds. Put upon their mettle, the five players rose to a skill they had never shown before, and swept down the floor to the climax of another basket.

"Never mind that!" grinned Bunny, passing a grimy hand over his streaked face. "We'll beat 'em yet!"

"You bet we will!" Sheffield flashed back.

Hard on the heels of this stiffening determination, Lakeville scored again, and yet again. Sheffield shot both goals, but Bunny knew he was ready enough to give credit to the machine behind him.

Elkana led now by a single point. The score board read: Lakeville, 16; Elkana, 17.

Sixty seconds later, in a most peculiar manner, came the chance to tie the score. Lakeville had already failed on a direct side-center pass formation and on a single side cross-forward play that had counted in other games. Wisely, Sheffield called for the forward crisscross that had twice baffled Elkana.

It looked as if the play were to go through. Backward and forward across the floor, the ball wove its way, till it was time for the final pass to Sheffield, already in a favorable position to shoot the basket. But just at the last, an Elkana player sensed the trick. With flying arms, like a Holland windmill adrift, he swept down upon the Lakeville captain.

Sheffield dodged. So did the Elkana boy. Sheffield dodged back again, to confuse his opponent. The result was a semi-success. The other player had guessed wrong, and what happened was as much a surprise to one as the other.

With a crash, the two collided solidly. Sheffield fell flat on his back, the Elkana boy piled on top of him, and the referee's whistle shrilled.

"Foul for charging!" the official announced. "Free trial for goal for Lakeville!"

Bunny Payton fairly wriggled with eagerness. "Tie score if you make this goal!" he exulted, as Sheffield clambered to his feet dabbing at his eye with an open hand. "Not hurt, are you?"

"No. Where's the ball? Everybody ready?"

Bracing himself, feet apart, directly behind the foul line, Sheffield took the ball in both hands, raised it suddenly in an overhand loop shot—and missed the basket by a good six inches!

Nobody spoke. Nobody told him it didn't matter; for it did, mightily. Nobody even asked what the trouble was. But that wide miss, by a center who could net a goal nine times out of ten on free throws, was like a dash of cold water to the Lakeville team.

"But we won't quit," Bunny told himself, trotting into position for the next toss-up. "He'll have another chance in a minute."

It came even sooner than he expected. Scurrying here and there over the floor, apparently without aim or purpose, but in reality dodging and running with preconceived plan, the Lakeville five edged closer and closer to the basket, till in the end Sheffield caught a long pass almost in front of the goal. With a quick leap to one side, he shook off the Elkana guard; with the precision born of much practice, he looped the ball up and over.

The shot was long. Hitting the backboard a full foot above the net, the ball bounced back against the outer edge of the metal ring, hung uncertainly a moment, and then trickled free to the floor. For the second time in as many minutes, Sheffield had failed.

"Three minutes to play!" the timekeeper called, as they raced back to their positions.

Three minutes! And Lakeville one point behind! Bunny balled his nervous hands into hard fists and tried to swallow the lump that kept coming up in his throat. There was a chance yet, of course, but with Sheffield shooting wildly—

For the third time in succession, a little later, the Lakeville captain missed the basket. This throw was the worst of the three; a blind man, Bunny told himself bitterly, might have come as close. What was the good of feeding Sheffield the ball, if he chucked away his chances like that?

There couldn't be much more than a minute to play now. When Sheffield lined up against the Elkana center once more, he spat out a curt, "Everybody in it this time," and jumped and batted the ball to S. S. That in was the signal for the old forward crisscross. Bunny shook his head doubtfully, but ran to his place.

The ball darted to and fro, like a swallow winging for safety: from S. S. to Bi, from Bi to Jump, from Jump to Bunny. Everybody was running and shouting, quite as if each player had gone suddenly insane. "Here you are!" somebody would call. "Shoot it!" "Watch out!" "Careful!" "Plenty of time!" "Plenty of time!" And then, having tantalized some opposing rusher, "Come on!" "Shoot it!"

By now, Sheffield was down the floor, in front of the basket and a little to the left. But Bunny was as close on the other side and less carefully guarded. Elkana, you see, had discovered that Lakeville's captain was usually the final link between the last pass and the try for goal. As a result, its players were beginning to watch him like hawks.

"Shoot it!" yelled Sheffield, trying vainly to shake off the Elkana guard.

Bunny bounced the ball long enough to give this order time to register in his brain. "He means for me to try for a basket," he decided happily. He tapped the ball to the floor again. "And I can make it, too; I know I can."

None of the Elkana players seemed to be worrying about him in the least. Bunny dribbled the ball a little nearer the goal, keeping a wary eye on Sheffield, who was twisting and doubling and flopping about, like a—like a chicken with its head off.

"That's just what he looks like," Bunny grinned to himself. "Shucks! If I did pass him the ball, he'd throw it wild. He's done it three times now."

"Shoot it!" ordered Sheffield, in a frenzy of excitement. He ran back a few steps and threw up his hands. Bunny wanted to think he was pointing toward the goal, but some curious prick of his conscience suggested that he might be motioning for a catch.

There was only a second or two to decide now. Down in his heart, Bunny was sure—absolutely sure—that he could make the goal. He could already see himself holding the ball with both hands in front of his chest, pushing it upward till his arms were straight from shoulders to fingertips, and launching it, straight and true, upward and over and down, in a great looping shot that would nestle it in the swaying net below the iron hoop. He knew, just as certainly as he knew he was standing there, that he could score that goal.

"And I don't think Sheffield can," he argued stubbornly. "He—he's like a chicken with its head off."

Out of the corner of his eye, as he dribbled the ball, he saw an Elkana boy sweeping toward him. It must be now or never. With a quick lunge ahead, he diverted the other's straight line of charge; then, stepping backward abruptly, he found himself clear for the moment. The ball bounded from the floor and plumped upon the open palm of his right hand.

But something stayed the left hand from clapping upon that side of the leather, preliminary to the try for goal. Instead, turning a little, he swung his right arm in a circle, shouted a warning to Sheffield, now temporarily free of heckling guards, and shot the ball to him.

"It's playing the game," he said to himself in a half-whisper. Just the same, it hurt, even more than he cared to admit, to make that sacrifice.

The Lakeville captain seemed to catch the ball exactly in position for looping it toward the basket. In the twinkling of an eye, Sheffield had tossed it upward, using the same overhand shot Bunny had partially begun.

Up and up sped the ball, with ten open-mouthed players following its course with twenty popping eyes; up and up, till it seemed it would never stop, and then, after a languid pause in mid-air, down and down, going faster every instant, till it plopped squarely within the metal rim of the basket and swished on into the hanging net.

The goal was scored. Lakeville now led, 18-17.

In the midst of a scrimmage, directly after the next toss-up, a sudden crack from the timekeeper's pistol signaled the end of the game. Lakeville had won. The road to the championship would be easy traveling now.

Sheffield took his honors without any display of emotion; he was that sort of winner. To the four substitutes who had made possible the victory, he merely said, "Good work, fellows!" But Bunny guessed he meant a good deal more than the words expressed.

"Why didn't you try for that last basket yourself?" he asked Bunny, as they piled downstairs to the dressing room. "You could have scored."

"Yes, I think I could," Bunny admitted honestly. "I was afraid of you, too, after you had missed those others, but—"

"Something in my eye," explained Sheffield; "got it in when I took that tumble. That's why those shots went wild. But it was out before your last pass."

"I gave you the ball," Bunny went on doggedly, "because I knew that was the kind of game you had planned—feeding it to you and letting you shoot the baskets. You didn't exactly tell us, of course, but we knew. And a Scout is supposed to be obedient to his leader and—"

"I see," nodded Sheffield, and let the matter drop. "By the way, why didn't you fellows go swimming with the rest this afternoon?"

"How—how did you know about that?"

"Heard you talking to Barrett and Kiproy and Collins and Turner just before I called them for the second half. But I don't see why—Yes, I guess I do, too. Your Scouts asked you if they could, didn't they?"

"Yes."

"And you wouldn't let them, I suppose. Right!" He turned to Bunny with a smile in his eyes. "Obedience to the leader again, eh? Sort of apron strings. H'm!"

Bunny couldn't make out whether Sheffield was sneering or just turning the matter over in his mind. But when he began a stumbling explanation, the captain cut him short with a question.

"Would you Scouts object," he asked, "to being tied—well, say loosely—to my apron strings in basketball?"

"Why—"

"Because if you wouldn't mind accepting me as a leader in the game," Sheffield went on evenly, "I have an idea we might show those other high schools quite a nifty little team."

In view of the fact that Lakeville simply romped through the balance of the schedule to the championship, it is to be supposed that the Scouts didn't object to obeying the captain. In any event, after another week of strenuous practice, the notice on the bulletin board of the high school read: