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 bodytingled 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, butyou—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.
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.