Instantly there was a commotion.  Winona, white with the agony of the blow, leaned hard against Bessie Kirk, and clenched her fists to avoid crying out.

“Are you hurt?”

“What’s happened?”

“You’ve had a nasty knock!”

There was quite a crowd round Winona, and a chorus of sympathy.

“Put in a substitute!” urged Bessie.  “You’re not fit to go on!”

“No, no!  I’m better now,” panted their captain, with a wan little smile.  “I’ll manage, thanks!  Yes, really!  Please don’t worry yourselves about me!”

The game recommenced and Winona, with a supreme effort, continued to play.  The pain was still acute, but she realized that on her presence or absence depended victory or defeat.  Without her, the courage of the team would collapse.  How she lived through the time she never knew.

Inspired by the heroic example of their captain, the girls were playing for all they were worth.  The score, which had been against them, was now even.  Time was almost up.  Winona set her teeth.  The ball seemed a kind of star which she was following—­Following anyhow.  As the French say, she “did her possible.”  The ball went spinning.  Next minute she was leaning against a goal-post, trembling with the violence of her effort, while the High School hoorayed itself hoarse in the joy of the hard-won victory.

“I say, old girl, were you really hurt?” asked Bessie anxiously.  “You’re looking the color of chalk!”

“Never mind, it’s over now!  Yes, I am hurt.  Give me your arm, and I’ll go back to the hostel.”

“You’re an absolute Joan of Arc to-day!” purred Bessie.

Winona, with a barked shin and bad bruises, limped for more than a week, but she was the heroine of the school.

“I can’t think how you ran, after that awful whack Ellinor Cooper gave you,” sympathized Marjorie.

“It was easier to run then than after my leg grew stiff,” laughed Winona.  “I suppose it’s the excitement that keeps one up.  Don’t make such a fuss, we’ve all had hard knocks in our time.  Agnes Smith got a black eye last spring!”

As the result of her wounds in the hockey field Winona made friends with Miss Kelly.  The latter was most prompt in applying lanoline and bandages, and proved so kind in bringing Winona her breakfast in bed, and making her rest on the sofa during preparation, that a funny little sort of intimacy sprang up between them.

“She’s fussy on the surface, but nice when you know her,” confided Winona to Garnet.  “If I’d been staying at the hostel, I expect we should have got on capitally next term!”

CHAPTER XV

Winona Turns Chauffeur