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They were all in the course at last. The judges, elderly warriors and absolutely impartial, chosen from towns which had no interest at stake in the match, were seated on a little knoll, commanding a view of the ground, but at a sufficient distance to be in no danger from a maladroit handling of the ball. This was made of deerskin, stuffed hard with hair, and sewn up with deer sinews. The ball-sticks, of which each player owned his pair, were also partly made of deerskin, the two scoops or ladles being fashioned of a network of thongs on a wooden hoop, each furnished with a handle of hickory three feet long, worked together with a thong of deerskin to catch the ball between the rackets,–it being of course prohibited to catch the ball in the hand.

The drums beat furiously; the word was given; the ball was flung high in the air in the middle of the course, and the next instant one hundred and sixty young athletes rushed together with a mighty shock the force of which seemed to shake the ground. Some fell and were trampled in the crush; others madly clutched one another, friend or foe, with the ill-aimed ball-sticks, inflicting a snapping hurt like a bite,–a wound by no means to be despised. One, an expert, sent the ball with an artful twirl through the air toward the Ioco goal, and in the midst of a shout that rent the sky the whole rout of players went frantically flying after it, whirling with an incredible swiftness and agility when it was caught midway, and hurled back toward Niowee with a force as if it had been flung from a catapult. Here and there individual players in the frenzied chase made wonderful records of leaps in their efforts to catch the ball, springing into the air with a surprising strength and elasticity, and a lightness as of creatures absolutely without weight.

A good match they were playing; for more than half an hour neither side was permitted by the other to score a single point. The ball seemed for a time as if it were awing forever, 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!