know what--" She
pulled her hands away. "But you were great!" She laughed shrilly.

"Oh, it was your friend McNish did the trick," said Captain Jack. "Very
neat bit of work that, eh? Very neat indeed. Awfully clever chap! Are
you going home now?"

"No, I am waiting." She paused shyly.

"Oh, I see!" said Captain Jack with a smile. "Lucky chap, by Jove!"

"I am waiting for my father," said Annette, tossing her head.

"Oh, then, if that's all, come along with me. Your father knows his way
about." The girl paused a moment, hesitating. Then with a sudden resolve
she cried gaily,

"Well, I will. I want to talk to you about it. Oh, I am so excited!"
She danced along at his side in gay abandon. As they turned at the first
corner Maitland glanced over his shoulder.

"Hello! Here's McNish," he cried, turning about. "Shall we wait for
him?"

"Oh, never mind Malcolm," cried the girl excitedly, "come along. I don't
want him just now. I want--" She checked herself abruptly. "I want to
talk to you."

"Oh, all right," said Captain Jack. "He's gone back anyway. Come along
Annette, old girl. I have been wanting to see you for a long time."

"Well, you see me," said the girl, laughing up into his eyes with a
frank, warm admiration in hers that made Captain Jack's heart quicken a
bit in its steady beat. He was a young man with a normal appreciation of
his own worth. She, young, beautiful, unspoiled, in the innocence of her
girlish heart was flinging at him the full tribute of a warm, generous
admiration with every flash of her black eyes and every intonation of
her voice. Small wonder if Captain Jack found her good to look at and to
listen to. Often during the walk home he kept saying to himself, "Jove,
that McNish chap is a lucky fellow!" But McNish, taking his lonely way
home, was only conscious that the evening had grown chilly and grey.

CHAPTER IX

THE DAY BEFORE

Business was suspended for the day in Blackwater. That is, men went
through their accustomed movements, but their thoughts were far apart
from the matters that were supposed to occupy their minds during the
working hours of the day. In the offices, in the stores, in the shops,
on the streets, in the schools, in the homes the one, sole topic of
conversation, the one mental obsession was The Great Game. Would the
Maitland Mill Hockey Team pull it off? Blackwater was not a unit in
desiring victory for the Maitland Mill team, for the reason that the
team'