Miss Davis had decreed that three practice games between the two sophomore teams should be played to decide their prowess. The winners should then be allowed to challenge the freshmen, who were being put through a similar contest, to play a great deciding game for athletic honors on the Saturday afternoon following Thanksgiving. She also undertook to make basket ball plans for the juniors and seniors, but these august persons declined to become enthusiastic over the movement and balked so vigorously at the first intimation of interference with their affairs that Miss Davis retired gracefully from their horizon and devoted her energy to the younger and more pliable pupils of the school. Not yet arrived at the dignity of the two upper classes, the sophomores and freshmen were still too devoted to the game itself to resent being managed. To find in Miss Davis an ardent devotee of basket ball was a distinct gain. Miss Archer, although she attended the games played between the various teams, was not, and had not been, wholly in favor of the sport since that memorable afternoon of the year before when Mignon had accused Ellen Seymour, now a junior, of purposely tripping her during a wild rush for the ball. Privately, Miss Archer considered basket ball rather a rough sport for girls and they knew that a repetition of last year's disturbance meant death to basket ball in Sanford High School. Two of the three practice games had been played by the sophomore teams. The squad of which Marjorie was captain had easily won the first. This had greatly incensed Captain Mignon and her players. A series of locker and corner confabs had followed. Mary, who did not aspire to basket ball honors, had been present at these talks. In the beginning the discussions had merely been devoted to the devising of signals and the various methods of scoring against their opponents. But gradually a new and sinister note had crept in. Mignon did not actually counsel her team to take unfair advantages, but she made many artful suggestions, backed up by a play of her speaking shoulders that conveyed volumes to her followers. It began to dawn upon Mary that these "clever tricks," as Mignon was wont to designate them, were not only flagrant dishonesties but dangerous means to the end, quite likely to result in physical harm. Her sense of honor was by no means dead, although companionship with Mignon had served to blunt it. She had remonstrated rather weakly with the latter on one occasion, as they walked toward home together after leaving the other girls, and had been ridiculed for her pains.