Phyllis put up one hand in entreaty.

"Don't look at me like that," she entreated. "I'm only in the contest because you and Jan insisted. I won't even hit the target, and I know it."

"Never mind, I will," Janet comforted; "though, of course, we won't beat the Red Twins."

"I've put them together, and Phyllis and you directly after," Gwen explained; "then you'll see what you're up against. It isn't as bad as it looks. We still have Agnes Leiter, Puss Boroughs, and Poppy, all last year's team girls, and Marion West has been practicing all summer. She only missed out by a point for the team last year. Then there are a couple of Juniors, that have belonged to archery clubs at home, so we may pull through."

"But look what we're up against," Gladys groaned.

A bell tinkled as Miss Hull walked out of the hall, a soft grey dress floating about her, and a shade hat on her aristocratic head. It was a signal for the contest to begin.

Gwen had arranged the order cleverly. The girls who had been on the team the year before were played off first. As there were six to three in favor of the new wing, the score looked very one-sided, as Prue marked it on the board.

Then came the younger girls, who stood very little chance of scoring the required six points. They were worked off quickly, and then the real work began. Two girls from the new wing, would alternate with two girls from the old wing. Cheering followed every score, so that it was impossible to tell which side was ahead.

"Ann, you're up after Kitty," Gwen said as she hurried by. "Mind, you do us proud."

"Do my best," Ann replied shortly. She was working her fingers to take some of the stiffness out of them.

Kitty took her place marked by white tape.

"She's too little to be really dangerous," Phyllis laughed, as she strung her bow.

Kitty shot rapidly, but with a nice precision. Only one of her arrows went astray, and that pinned the leg in the target.

The other four hit. Two on the white, counting two, one on the red, counting three. Kitty waited an effective moment before she loosed the fifth.

"Make it a bulls-eye," one of the Red Twins shouted.

The arrow went its way through the air, and bore deep into the broad red circle.

"Making eight in all," Prue said in satisfaction. "Ann will do better than that."

"Look," Sally pointed across the lawn, where the Red Twins were sitting, their special bows lying across their knees. Kitty and Louise Brown were swooping down upon them.

"Don't you ever do that again, Bess," Kitty said angrily. "If you have any silly advice, and you feel you must yell it out, you're to wait until the player has finished. Do you understand?"

"I told her to keep still," May grumbled, "but she wouldn't do it."

"You see that she does next time," Louise advised.

The girls walked on. Their lecture had made no impression whatever on Bess Ward. She tossed her head with a great show of indifference, and started whistling.

"Yes, she's decidedly b.u.mptious," Gladys said quietly, as Ann rose to take her place. "If she so much as breathes aloud, when you're up, I'll murder her," and Gladys fastened her eyes on the Red Twins, and looked so threatening, that Bess squirmed uncomfortably.

Ann did everything that she did methodically, and though her hands may have been cold, none of the onlookers, who watched her carefully string her bow and fit her arrow, guessed it.

"Don't watch her, it gives her fits," Prue whispered almost in tears.

So the girls directed their gaze towards the target. One arrow whanged through the air and hit the red, so near to the bulls-eye, that the spectators gasped. Another arrow fell just beside it. The third pinned the blue, and the fourth and fifth returned to the red, in a little cl.u.s.ter.

"Fourteen, oh my Aunt Jane's Poll-parrot!" Sally exclaimed. "How perfectly beautiful!"

"I knew she'd do it," Prue exulted, as she wrote the number down, in broad white letters.

"Your turn, Sally," Gladys said. "You've got Louise's twelve to beat."

Sally groaned, but when she took her place, her wonderful blue eyes blazed from their setting of raven hair.

Four arrows sped through the air in quick succession. Sally did everything with a rush. The girls counted the total.

"Eleven," Phyllis groaned.

"If the next one is wide of the target--" Gladys did not finish the terrible thought.

They looked at Sally. She didn't look a bit fl.u.s.tered, but for some reason or other, she was taking her time.

Then she did a curious thing, but a thing so like Sally that neither the girls nor the faculty could repress a smile.

She suddenly closed her eyes very tight, and without taking aim, let go of her arrow.

"Aunt Jane's Poll-parrot!" Gladys whispered, as though she were praying the mythical bird to carry the arrow safe to the target.

Daphne put her hands over her eyes, and didn't take them down until the shout that rose high and clear told her that Sally's blind shot had found its way home.

"A blue!" Janet almost screamed. "Just one point more than she needed to beat Louise."

Sally threw down her bow, and came back to them.

"So much for that," she said grinning.

"Sally Ladd, I declare you're a caution!" Poppy squeezed her hand.

"Whatever made you take such a terrible chance, child?"

"Oh, life's a chance," Sally replied airily. "When I'm in a hole, I always trust in my luck, and it never fails me."

From that minute "Sally's luck" was added to the phrases of Hilltop.

CHAPTER XII-Janet to the Rescue

Daphne was the next up, after two more new wing girls had made creditable scores.

"She looks like Diana herself," Miss Hull said, to the old gentleman who was sitting beside her, and indeed Daphne's beauty never showed to such advantage, as when she stood beside her bow. But alas! looks are not everything. Although the beautiful curve of Daphne's arm, covered by its sheer angel sleeve, was grace itself, the refractory arrows fell almost anywhere but on the target. Only one struck home, and marked the red.