ver, and would fall to the ground no
more. The casualties were many; almost always after one of those sudden
rushes together of both factions that had a tremendous momentum as of
galloping squadrons, the ground would show as the moving masses receded
half a dozen figures prone upon the course; one with a broken arm
perhaps; another badly snapped by the inartistically plied ball-sticks
of friend or foe and crawling off with a bloody pate; sometimes another
lying quite still, evidently stunned and to be hastily dragged off the
course by spectators, before another stampede of the ball-players crush
the life out of the unconscious and prostrate wight. Nevertheless only
the normal interest, which however was very great, appertained to the
match until at a crisis a strange thing happened, inexplicable then, and
perhaps never fully understood.

The ball was flying toward the Niowee goal and the whole field was in
full run after it. The blow that had impelled it had been something
tremendous. A shout of triumph was already welling up from the throat of
all Niowee, for to prevent the scoring of a point in its favor it would
seem that there must be a thing afoot whose fleetness could exceed the
speed of a thing awing.

Amoyah, the deftest runner of all the Tennessee River country, was
foremost in the crown of swift athletes; presently he was detached by
degrees from it; now he was definitely in advance; and soon, spurting
tremendously, he had so neared the Niowee goal that the ball just above
must needs pass over it if a spring might not enable him to capture it
at the last moment. As agile as a deer, and as light as a bird, he
leaped into the air, both arms upstretched, holding the rackets aloft
and ready. He was a far-famed player, and even now the Ioco spectators
were shouting, Amoyah needs must win!

A mysterious silence fell suddenly. They all saw what had happened.
There could be no mistake. The rackets parted at the propitious moment
to receive the ball. The netting closed about it. And then, as if it had
met with no impediment whatever, the ball passed through the stanch web
of thongs and over the poles, and falling to the ground counted one for
Niowee.

The spectators from that town in their astonishment forgot to shout. The
onrushing crowd of players, bearing down upon Amoyah, having intended to
force him to drop the ball, which he had seemed predestined to catch, or
to throw it so ill as to deliver it into the powe