Now, Heady, who had set the whole kidnapping scheme on foot as soon
as he joined the Dozen at Kingston, had brought to the Academy no
particular love for study; but he had brought a great enthusiasm for
basket-ball.
And this enthusiasm was catching, and he soon had many of the
Kingstonians working hard in the gymnasium, and organizing scrub teams
to play this most bewilderingly rapid of games.
Most of the Lakerimmers went in for pure love of excitement; but when
Heady said that it was especially good as an indoor winter exercise to
keep men in trim for football and baseball, Tug and Punk immediately
went at it with great enthusiasm.
But Tug was so mixed up in the slight differences between this game
and his beloved football, and so insisted upon running (which is
against the rules of basket-ball), and upon tackling (which is against
the rules), and upon kicking (which is against the rules), that
he finally gave up in despair, and said that if he became a good
basket-ball player he would be a poor football-player. And football
was his earlier love.
Sleepy, however, who was the great baseball sharp, made this
complaint, in his drawling fashion:
"The rules say you can only hold the ball five seconds, and it takes
me at least ten seconds to decide what to do with it; so I guess the
blamed game isn't for me."
Out of the many candidates for the team the following regular five
were chosen: For center, Sawed-Off, who was tall enough to do the
"face-off" in excellent style, and who could, by spreading out his
great arms, present in front of an ambitious enemy a surface as big
as a windmill--almost. The right-forward was Heady, and of course the
left-forward had to be his other half, Reddy. Pretty managed by his
skill in lawn-tennis to make the position of right-guard, and the
left-guard was the chief of the Crows, MacManus. The Dozen treated
him, if not as an equal, at least as one who had a right to be alive
and move about upon the same earth with them.
The Kingston basket-ball team played many games, and grew in speed and
team-play till they were looked upon as a terror by the rest of the
Interscholastic League.
Finally, indeed, they landed the championship of the various
basket-ball teams of the academies. But just before they played their
last triumphant game in the League, and when they were feeling their
oats and acting as rambunctious and as bumptious as a crowd of almost
undefeated boys sometimes chooses to be, they received a challenge
that caused them to laugh long and loud. At first it looked like a
huge joke for the high-and-mighty Kingston basket-ball team to be
challenged by a team from the Palatine Deaf-and-Dumb Institute; then
it began to look like an insult, and they were angry at such treatment
of such great men as they admitted themselves to be.
It occurred to Sawed-Off, however, that before they sent back an
indignant refusal to play, they might as well look up the record of
the deaf-and-dumb basket-ball men. After a little investigation, to
their surprise, they found that these men were astoundingly clever
players, and had won game after game from the best teams. So they
accepted the challenge in lordly manner, and in due time the
Palatiners appeared upon the floor of the Kingston gymnasium. A
large audience had gathered and was seated in the gallery where the
running-track ran.
Among the spectators was that girl to whom both Reddy and Heady were
devoted, the girl who could not decide between them, she liked both
of them so immensely, especially as she herself was the champion
basket-ball player among the girls at her seminary. Each of the Twins
resolved that he would not only outdo all the rest of the players upon
the gymnasium floor, but also his bitter rival, his brother.
There was something uncanny, at first, in the playing of the
Palatines, all of whom were deaf-mutes, except the captain, who was
neither deaf nor dumb, but understood and talked the sign language.
The game opened with the usual face-off. The referee called the two
centers to the middle of the floor, and then tossed the ball high
in the air between them. They leaped as far as they could; but
Sawed-Off's enormous height carried him far beyond the other man, and,
giving the ball a smart slap, he sent it directly into the clutch of
Reddy, who had run on and was waiting to receive it half over his
shoulder. Finding himself "covered" by the opposing forward, he passed
the ball quickly under the other man's arm across to Heady, who had
run down the other side of the floor. Heady received the ball without
obstruction, and by a quick overhead fling landed it in the high
basket, and scored the first point, while applause and wonderment were
loud in the gallery.
The Kingstonians played like one man--if you can imagine one man with
twenty arms and legs. Sawed-Off made such high leaps, and covered so
well, and sent the ball so well through the forwards, and supported
them so well; the twin forwards dodged and ran and passed and
dribbled the ball with such dash; and the guards were so alert in the
protection of their goal and in obstructing the throwing of the other
forwards, that three goals and the score of six were rolled up in an
amazingly short time.
Sawed-Off was in so many places at once, and kept all four limbs going
so violently, that the spectators began to cheer him on as "Granddaddy
Longlegs." A loud laugh was raised on one occasion, when the Palatine
captain got the ball, and, holding it high in the air to make a
try for goal from the field, found himself covered by the towering
Sawed-Off; he curved the ball downward, where one of the Twins leaped
for it in front; then he wriggled and writhed with it till it was
between his legs. But there the other Twin was, and with a quick,
wringing clutch that nearly tied the opposing captain into a bow-knot,
he had the ball away from him.
At the end of the three goals the Kingstonians began to whisper to
themselves that they had what they were pleased to call a "cinch";
they alluded to the Palatines as "easy fruit," and began to make a
number of fresh and grand-stand plays. The inevitable and proper
result of this funny business was that they began to grow careless.
The deaf-mutes, unusually alert in other ways on account of the loss
of hearing and speech, were quick to see the opportunity, and to play
with unexpected carefulness and dash.
The swelled heads of the Kingstonians were reduced to normal size when
the Palatines quickly scored two goals. It began to look as if they
would add a third score when the desperate Reddy, seeing one of the
Palatine forwards about to make a try for goal, made a leaping tackle
that destroyed the man's aim and almost upset him.
Reddy was just secretly congratulating himself upon his breach of
etiquette when the shrill whistle of the referee brought dismay to his
heart. His act was declared a foul, and the Palatines were given a
"free throw." Their left-forward was allowed to take his stand fifteen
feet from the basket and have an unobstructed try at it. The throw was
successful, and the score now stood 6 to 5 in favor of Kingston.
The game went rapidly on, and at one stage the ball was declared
"held" by the referee, and it was faced off well toward the Palatine
goal. Sawed-Off made a particularly high leap in the air and an
unusually fierce whack at the ball.
To his chagrin, it went up into the gallery and struck the girl to
whom the Twins were so devoted, smack upon her pretty snub nose.
Though the blow was hard enough to bring tears to her bright eyes, she
smiled, and with a laugh and a blush picked up the ball and dropped it
over the rail.
The Twins both made a dash to receive this gift from her pretty hands,
and in consequence bumped into each other and fell apart.
The ball which they had robbed each other of fell into the clutch of
Pretty, who made the girl a graceful bow that quite won her heart.
Pretty was, by the way, always cutting the other fellows out. This was
the only grudge they ever had against him.
The Twins were now more rattled than ever; and Heady determined to
do or die. He saw one of the Palatines running forward and looking
backward to receive the ball on a long pass, and he gave him a vicious
body-check. He knew it was a foul at the time, but he thought the
referee was not looking. His punishment was fittingly double, for not
only did the referee see and declare the foul, but the big Palatine
came with such impetus that he knocked Heady galley-west. Heady went
scraping along a row of single sticks and wooden dumb-bells, making a
noise like the rattle of a board along a picket fence.
Then he tumbled in a heap, with the Palatine man on top of him. As
the Palatine man got up, he dislodged a number of Indian clubs, which
fairly pelted the prostrate Heady. This foul gave the Palatines
another free throw, and made the score a tie.