From 4 to 4 the score had leaped quickly to 6 to 6, each team winning alternate goals. Couch, Wyndham’s point, had been sent off for illegal checking and a Wolcott forward for loafing off-side. Jeff Adams, who had taken Couch’s position, had proved an improvement, for, although light, he had broken up several attacks. Still later Coles had relieved Cragie at goal. Now, with the score still even and only a handful of minutes to play, all indications pointed toward an extra period. Wyndham wanted to win to-day’s contest, for it was the deciding test in the three-game series with her old rival――Wolcott Academy. Wyndham had lost the first, played on her home rink, but had romped off with the second, played at Cotterville. So far this school year the Dark Blue had proved supreme in football and had been defeated in basket ball; the deciding contest of the latter sport was still only a week old. A victory in hockey would atone for the basket ball repulse; indeed, more than atone, since at both Wyndham and Wolcott hockey was a major sport and basket ball a minor. Besides, Wolcott had carried off the hockey palm last winter, and while that fact might be forgotten by many of the onlookers it was well remembered by the players. Sitting on the bench, sweatered and blanketed, Clifton Bingham cast increasingly anxious glances toward the coach. Clif was only a substitute left wing; whether a first or second substitute he had never been able to determine; but he had taken his place in four of the eleven games played since ice had formed on the little pond and hadn’t done so badly. That was Clif’s opinion, at least. It was also the opinion, perhaps, not wholly unprejudiced, of Messrs. Kemble and Deane, who, with Clif, constituted what they themselves termed “The Triumvirate,” an offensive and defensive coalition of a month’s standing. It was undoubtedly natural that Messrs. Kemble and Deane should think well of their comrade’s hockey and that they should say so, and it was just as natural that Clif who, in spite of inherent modesty, liked to think well of himself and his deeds, should be impressed by their judgment. But what bothered Clif sometimes was that admiration for his hockey playing seemed not to extend to the coach. The coach was “Pinky” Hilliard, instructor in modern languages and Junior English. “Pinky” was new at this job. As an assistant football coach he had made good for several years, but not until last December had he been selected by a puzzled Athletic Committee to take charge of the hockey team. Good hockey coaches, unlike football or baseball coaches, don’t grow on every bush! But Mr. Hilliard had done well. There was no doubt as to that. After a poor start, the team had entered the third week in January and a winning streak simultaneously, and since the Lovell game, the third consecutive defeat, had come triumphantly through seven contests, losing only the first game with Wolcott. Just the same, in Clif’s opinion at least, Pinky was