seen.  This was Marie Lanning, whose cousin Joe was in Sahwah’s class at Washington High.  Sahwah knew instinctively that when the struggle came she would go up against this girl.  The game would really be between these two.  Washington’s hope lay in Sahwah’s ability to make baskets, and the hope of the Mechanicals was Marie’s ability to keep her from making them.  So she studied Marie’s guarding until she knew the places where she could break through.

Marie Lanning also knew that it was Sahwah she would have to deal with.  But there was a difference in the attitude of the girls toward each other.  Sahwah regarded Marie as her opponent, but she respected her prowess.  She had no personal resentment against Marie for being a good guard; she looked upon her as an enemy merely because she belonged to a rival school.  Marie on the other hand actually hated Sahwah.  Before Sahwah appeared on the scene she had been the greatest player in the Athletic Association, the heroine of every game.  She was pointed out everywhere she went as “Marie Lanning, the basketball player.”  Now some of her glory was dimmed, for another star had risen, Sarah Ann Brewster, the whirlwind forward of the Washington High team, was threatening to overshadow her.  It was a distinctly personal matter with her.  Sahwah wanted to win that game so her school would have the championship; Marie wanted to win it for her own glory.  She did not really believe that Sahwah was as great as she was made out.  It was only because she had never run against a great guard that she had been able to roll up the score for Washington so many times.  Well, she would find out a thing or two when she played the Mechanicals, Marie reflected complacently.  She had never seen Sahwah play, and if any one had suggested that it would be a good thing to watch her tactics she would have been very scornful.  She was confident in her own powers.

Then there came a rather important game of Washington High’s on a night when Marie was visiting her cousin Joe.  He had tickets for the game and took her along.  Now for the first time she beheld her foe.  After watching Sahwah’s marvelous shots at the basket and the confusion of the girl who was guarding her, Marie began to feel uneasy.  It now seemed to her that Sahwah’s powers had been underestimated in the reports instead of over-estimated.  The game ended just as all the others had done, with a great score for Washington High and Sahwah the idol of the hour.  Marie looked on with a slight sneer when Sahwah, after the game was over, frankly congratulated the losing team on their playing, which had been pretty good throughout.  “Do you know,” said Sahwah straightforwardly, “that if you had had a little better team work, I don’t believe we could have beaten you.”

“Any day we could have won with you in the game,” said one of the losers, “the way you can shoot that ball into the basket.”

Without being at all puffed up by this compliment, Sahwah proceeded to make her point.  “My throwing the ball into the basket wasn’t what won the game,” she said simply, “it was the fact that I had it to throw.  It’s all due to the girls who see that I get it.  It’s team work that wins every time and not individual starring.”  Thus was Sahwah in the habit of disclaiming the credit of victory.