“Break it up! Break it up!” shouted the rooters.
The Cubs tried their best. Seeing the ball coming toward him on a straight pass, Dan reached for it.
At that instant, Pat darted in, striking the Cub’s arm just as his fingers would have closed upon the ball.
A howl of anger arose from the crowd. Mr. Veeley held up his hands in signal of another personal fowl on Pat.
Dan made the free throw. Pat was ordered off the floor.
“You can’t do that,” he protested. “We don’t have any regular substitute.”
His arguments were unavailing. Pat finally left the floor, muttering to himself. A lean, lanky substitute took his place.
After that, it was a losing game for the Purple Five. With Pat on the sidelines, the team collapsed.
The Cubs brought the score even, and then Dan dropped three baskets in succession to win the game by a six point margin.
“Well, we won, boy!” Brad declared as they trotted off the floor after the final whistle had blown. “You were great, Dan!”
“We didn’t have too much competition after Pat went out of the game,” Dan replied, brushing dirt from his shorts. “I wish we could have won with him opposing us.”
“It was his own fault,” Brad shrugged. “Mr. Veeley warned him.”
The Purple Five and their rooters took defeat with poor grace. There were mutterings of “We were robbed!” and remarks that the referee had been unfair.
“Maybe you want to call off the other two games,” Brad suggested quietly to Pat.
“No such thing,” the other boy retorted. “Next time we’ll lick you so you’ll never forget it. Besides, we need the cash.”
“What d’you mean?” Brad demanded, already guessing the answer.
“The gate,” Pat explained with an impudent grin. “You Cubs took in a lot of dough tonight. Well, we want our share. Half of it belongs to us.”
Word spread around the gymnasium of Pat’s outrageous demand. Brad and Dan brought Mr. Hatfield, fully expecting him to reject the request.
“Pat, you feel you should have half the money?” the Cub leader questioned him.
“Sure.” The captain of the Purple Five eyed the group of Cubs defiantly. However, his gaze wavered under the level scrutiny of Mr. Hatfield. “We earned it, didn’t we? What’s more, we’d have won the game, if we hadn’t been cheated.”
“Cubs do not cheat,” Mr. Hatfield replied. “When you know more about the organization, you’ll understand that. We play according to the rules, that’s all.”