The end of the second half crept nearer and the score still remained tied.  Grace, who was becoming more and more apprehensive as the minutes passed, stood anxiously watching the ball, which was being played perilously near their opponents’ goal.  Catching the eyes of Miriam, who stood nearest it, Grace made a desperate little upward motion.  Miriam understood and redoubled her efforts to secure the ball, which she finally did by springing straight up into the air and intercepting it on its way to the basket.  A shout went up from the freshmen which grew to a roar.  Miriam had thrown the ball unerringly to Grace, who caught it, and facing quickly toward the freshman goal, balanced herself on her toes preparatory to tossing her prize into the basket.

“She’ll never make it,” groaned a freshman.  But her remark was lost in the clamor.

With one quick, comprehensive glance, Grace measured the distance, then with a long, swift overhand toss she sent the ball curving through the air.  It dropped squarely into the basket, bounded up in the air, then dropped gently into place.

[Illustration:  Grace Measured the Distance.]

For the next few minutes pandemonium reigned in the gymnasium.  The happy freshmen burst into song and drummed on the floor in expression of their glee.  The freshmen team had outplayed that of the sophomores.  Only once before in the history of the college had such a thing occurred.  To Grace Harlowe and Miriam Nesbit was given the principal credit for this latest victory.  Grace’s goal toss had been a record-breaker.  Never had a freshman been known to make such a toss.

Now that the excitement was over, Grace felt suddenly weak in the knees.  She started for a seat at the side of the gymnasium, but before she reached it there was a rush from the freshman class.  Her classmates lifted her to their shoulders and began parading about the gymnasium floor, singing: 

    “Nineteen——­ is looking sad,
      Tra la la, Tra la la,
    I wonder what has made her mad,
      Tra la la, Tra la la,
    Her coaching was in vain,
    The freshman team has won again,
    Little sophomores, run away,
    Come again some other day.”

Then there followed a song that brought a shout of laughter from hundreds of throats, and one in which the sophomores did not join: 

    Backward, turn backward, O ball in your flight,
    Why did you drop in the basket so tight? 
    Sadly the sophomores are rueing the day
    They asked the freshmen in their yard to play,
    Sophomore banners are hung at half mast,
    Sophomore tears they are falling so fast,
    Sophomore faces are turned toward the wall,
    Sophomore pride has had a hard fall.

Grace had been seized and carried around and around the gymnasium on the shoulders of her exulting classmates, who sang lustily as they marched, then gently deposited her in the dressing room.  Miriam also had received that honor.  When the two girls left the dressing room twenty minutes later, they were taken charge of by a delegation of admiring freshmen and informed that there would be a dinner given that night at Vinton’s in honor of them.