Third Base Thatcher
Date: 2023-04-24T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Schools -- Juvenile fiction; Baseball -- Juvenile fiction; Teenage boys -- Juvenile fiction; Baseball stories

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Title: Third Base Thatcher

Author: Everett Scott

Illustrator: Leslie Crump

Release date: April 24, 2023 [eBook #70640]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Dodd, Mead and Company

Credits: Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIRD BASE THATCHER ***

THIRD BASE THATCHER

THE BASEBALL BOOKS

- PITCHER POLLOCK
- CATCHER CRAIG
- FIRST BASE FAULKNER
- SECOND BASE SLOAN
- THIRD BASE THATCHER

He leaned on the very first ball pitched

THIRD BASE
THATCHER

BY

EVERETT (Deacon) SCOTT

SHORT STOP OF THE YANKEE BASEBALL TEAM
1922 CHAMPIONS OF THE AMERICAN LEAGUE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

LESLIE CRUMP

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1923

Copyright, 1923,
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
The Quinn & Boden Company

BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY      NEW JERSEY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER | | PAGE
I | Foul! | 1
II | The Fight in the Dark | 9
III | Forced Out | 18
IV | On His Own | 25
V | The Cub Reporter | 35
VI | With the Wreckers | 45
VII | The Wreck | 49
VIII | The Victim | 58
IX | To the Rescue | 64
X | One Hundred Thousand Dollars | 70
XI | Back to Pennington | 79
XII | “All Out for Baseball” | 85
XIII | “You, Too, Thatcher” | 94
XIV | Indoor Practice | 100
XV | All Out for Baseball | 120
XVI | The Scrub Team | 131
XVII | A Stiff Schedule | 148
XVIII | On the Bench | 157
XIX | Gould Is Set Down | 167
XX | Fire! | 177
XXI | Third Base Thatcher | 198
XXII | Treachery? | 210
XXIII | Voices | 229
XXIV | The Big Game | 250

ILLUSTRATIONS

He leaned on the very first ball pitched | Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

He rushed into another furious attack | 16
“I—I—think he’s still alive,” Jeff answered | 116
With a terrific jump Jeff shot up in the air | 282

THIRD BASE THATCHER

CHAPTER I
FOUL!

It was the last minute of play. The score stood 14 to 14. The teams of ’25 and ’26, the Freshman and Sophomore classes of Pennington Institute, were in a mad scramble on the gym. floor. It was the last game of the interclass basketball tournament and on the victory hung the school championship. Both teams had severely trounced the older teams of the Junior and Senior classes in a series of three games each, and likewise they had humbled each other, each class being credited with a game. This one told the tale, and it had been madly fought from the first whistle, as the score, chalked on the blackboard above the heads of the madly cheering crowd of students who lined the gallery running track, attested.

Suddenly, out of the mêlée of flying arms and legs, panting and perspiring bodies and tense, almost grim, fighting faces on the gym. floor, shot Thatcher, a Freshman forward, a clean-limbed, black-haired boy of rather more than average height. As if by signal from somewhere in the crowd of milling players the ball shot upward and forward and thumped into his hands. Just a step behind him was Gould, the Sophomore guard, slightly shorter, but stockier and as fast as an antelope. His face was set with an unpleasant expression of anger; there was that about him that suggested a determination to win whether by fair means or foul.

Thatcher dribbled the ball once, then poised momentarily and lifted it for an overhead shot at the basket for the winning two points. Gould, in desperation, hurled himself forward, tried to stop the shot, and, failing, fell to the floor with a crash. The ball was describing a graceful arc toward the back board from which it caromed into the basket.

“Foul! He tripped me!” cried Gould as he rolled over on the floor.

The referee’s whistle shrilled just as the ball slipped through the basket, the cords playing a crisp tattoo on its bulging leather sides.

“Foul!” announced the referee. “Basket void. Free shot for the Sophs.”

Thatcher, astonished at the sudden turn of the incident, stood still under the basket for a moment while Hoffman, the Sophomore captain, swept down and gathered in the ball to take it to the other end of the court for the free shot to which the foul entitled him. Suddenly the Freshman forward snapped into angry action.

“Here! Wait! It’s a fake, Mr. Thomas. I didn’t trip him. He fell purposely to make it look like a foul. It was a trick, I tell you. I didn’t touch him.”

“He did. He lies. He tripped me!” yelled Gould, getting to his feet.

Thatcher looked at him coldly, and with the utmost self possession spoke to him.

“You have the effrontery to stand there and say that, Gould, when you know it isn’t true! I’m surprised at your sportsmanship.”

Gould’s face grew livid under the sting of the reproach.

“You lie,” he snorted, “you know you tripped me. Didn’t he, Mr. Thomas?”

The referee, surprised himself at the turn of events, confessed:

“He fell, Thatcher, and it looked to me like an ugly foul. That’s my decision.”

“I can’t blame you, Mr. Thomas, for he did make it look real. He’s a good fakir. If I—”

Gould, enraged now, stepped in front of the Freshman forward, and shaking his clenched fist under Thatcher’s nose, roared:

“I’ll smash your face if—”

“Stop! Enough of that. Get off the floor, both of you. You’re ruled out of the game. Hoffman, shoot the basket,” snapped the referee, realizing suddenly that he had already permitted matters to go too far.

Hoffman toed the foul line, coolly lifted the ball, took careful and accurate aim and shot it upward and forward. The sphere went whirling prettily through the air, thumped against the back board and dropped neatly through the basket. The referee’s whistle sounded. He reached for the ball to carry it to the center again when the timekeeper sounded his whistle and the game was over. The score was 15 to 14 and the Sophomores had won. Pandemonium reigned in the running track gallery where crowds of second year men cheered and stamped and whistled to the consternation of a big group of chagrined Freshmen.

Thatcher, who had lingered on the side line of the court long enough to see Hoffman shoot the basket and win the game, was joined by the four other freshman players and two substitutes and together they made their way to the spiral stairway that led to the locker room in the basement. No one spoke a word for some time until Buck Hart, the captain and center, a second year man but taking some Freshman work in class and thus eligible for the “fresh” team, crossed over to the bench on which Thatcher was sitting and slipping an arm across his shoulder affectionately, said:

“It’s a doggone shame, Jeff, but don’t you take it too hard. You were playing to win, that’s all.”

“Yes, I was playing to win, but I wasn’t playing dirty, Buck. And the worst of it is I believe Mr. Thomas still thinks I tripped him, the dirty fakir that he is.”

“Well—er—ah—he sure fell hard, Jeff. Didn’t you have something to do with it?” asked Buck.

“What! Why, Buck, you wouldn’t think that of me, would you?” exclaimed Thatcher, a look of pained surprise on his face.

“Well—ah—it looked sort of rough to me. I saw him go down and he was right in front of you. Looked bad to me and I was surprised to think you of any of us should foul so deliberately.”

“But, hang it, Buck, I didn’t. Oh, please believe me, I had nothing to do with it. I never have played dirty in my life and believe me I’m not beginning now. It was he who played dirty. It was a rotten trick. When he saw he couldn’t stop the shot he threw himself down on the floor—fell purposely and then howled that I had tripped him. It was quick thinking on his part all right, but dirty work. He saw that if he could get away with it he would spoil my basket and give his side a chance for a free shot to win the game. And, thanks to his cleverness, it worked out just the way he doped it.”

“Gee whizz, the dirty skate,” exclaimed Cas Gorham, a sub, who had gathered around Jeff, with the rest of the members of the team.

“Gould is a hard loser, I’ve found out. They tell me last year in baseball he pulled some shady trick and—say—gee whizz—I forgot—this isn’t the last you’ll have to do with Gould. He played third base on the scrub team last year and he’s got it doped out that he is naturally going to inherit that position on the big team this year since Squires graduated. And, by jingoes, that’s the job you are going to try for.” It was Brownie Davis who was speaking, one of the fellows who had been instrumental in getting Thatcher to come to Pennington.

“That’s my regular job. The position I played best on the Y. M. C. A. team last year, you know,” said Thatcher with a smile.

“Sure, we know. Don’t we all remember that was one of the best amateur teams in the state?” said Rabbit Warren, slapping Thatcher on the back.

“Well, that will be your chance to square accounts with him if you don’t get a chance before that,” said Buck Hart. Then he added, “But look out for him, Jeff. If he pulls that sort of stuff he’s as crooked as a cruller. Keep your eye on him. Coach Rice told me to-day he was going to post notices for baseball candidates to report in the gym. for cage practice in two or three weeks. We’ll be rooting for you, Jeff.”

“Well, maybe I can keep him on the bench or on the scrub team this year. I’ll try mighty hard you bet. But even if I do win the job away from him that won’t take the sting out of this defeat. Honestly, fellows, I’m as sorry as the dickens that I should be the cause of losing the game and the school championship, even though I didn’t play dirty myself.”

“Tut-tut, little one, don’t take it so hard,” said Buck Hart sliding into his trousers. But it was evident to Jeff that he was not the only one of the team who took the defeat bitterly. All of the fellows had played hard and clean to win and for Thatcher to know that he had had the foul called on him, even though it was not his fault, made him feel deeply chagrined. Indeed, it made him bitter toward Gould, who had played so unsportsmanlike, and it made him so disconsolate and discouraged that he had very little more to say in the locker room, hurrying through the ceremony of a cold shower, and dressing as swiftly as he could and seeking his own room in Carter Hall, where he flung himself into a chair and gave over to bitter reflection.

CHAPTER II
THE FIGHT IN THE DARK

The mood lasted. Jeff Thatcher said very little as he went to the coat-room adjoining the dining hall and discarded his street clothes for the white coat of a waiter, for Thatcher earned a good portion of his tuition expenses by waiting on one of the scores of tables in the big student dining hall.

Usually he found a great deal of fun in his work at the tables, for there was always a lot of good-natured badinage and joking passed among the fellows. But somehow this evening, as the students filed into the big hall, he felt quite different than ever before. It seemed to him that most of them, and especially the Freshmen, looked at him reproachfully, and about all of them there seemed to be a suggestion of strained quietness as he approached.

At first Thatcher could not account for it. But suddenly he realized, with a sense of shock, that they too believed that he had played unfairly, that he had fouled Gould and that he had lost the game for his team by trying unsportsmanlike tactics and being caught at it. He was loath to think that this was true. He could not believe it at first. But when in the lull between serving students and clearing off the tables he stopped to realize that even Buck Hart, the captain of the team, and the other players as well had thought that he was guilty of the offense, he understood the rest of the fellows, some present as spectators and hearing the referee’s decision, and others getting the news by hearsay, could be of the same opinion.

This hurt Thatcher more than he believed was possible. Always he had taken great pride in the fact that no one could question his sportsmanship. He had played fair in the most desperate situations, and he had preferred to lose rather than resort to fouling, cheating or disobeying the rules of the game. And now to have the fellows believe that he had committed this offense hurt him to the quick. How could they believe it? he asked himself, how could they think that he would do such a thing when they knew his record for clean sportsmanship?

Jeff Thatcher, like a tortoise, literally crawled into his shell; at least his sunny disposition did. It vanished into the depths of his soul and he became morose, almost sulky, which was far from his normal attitude. Silently he served his table to the end of the meal. Then, instead of joining the rest of the squad of waiters at their special tables which were set in the dining hall after the rest of the students had departed, he hurried away to the coat room and took off his white coat.

Attired once more in his street clothes, he hurried to his room in Carter Hall and put on his overcoat, determined to take a walk, he knew not where, or do something to be alone with his unpleasant thoughts.

Brooding over his misfortunes, he left Carter Hall and started across the hard, frozen ground of the campus. There was a suggestion of snow in the air—a cold March snow, for the backbone of winter had not been broken and for weeks bitter weather had lingered with them. Snow was in the air now and no doubt of it. Indeed, as Jeff passed under an arc light at the bend in the road that led behind the gymnasium building, he noticed vagrant flakes floating down the shafts of light. But he gave them small heed, and like a grumpy old turtle, which he felt he resembled very much, he turned up the collar of his coat and tramped on into the shadow of the gymnasium building.

Suddenly, out of the blackness, two figures loomed up. Thatcher, because he was thinking and thinking hard, saw them only when he almost collided with them. Not recognizing them he tried to avoid them by going around them, but one, the bigger of the two, stepped in front of him again and growled in an ugly voice:

“You tried to make a liar out of me this afternoon, didn’t you?”

Thatcher noted then that it was Gould, with a Sophomore companion known as Birdie Pell. He knew too from the odor on the breath of Gould where they had been and why. Both had been “out of bounds” to steal an after dinner cigarette, a serious offense at Pennington and a particularly serious offense in the case of Gould who was a basketball and baseball man.

Thatcher stopped in his tracks and looked Gould squarely in the eyes. His wrath was rising steadily but he knew that he had it well within control.

“Gould, I don’t have to try to make a liar out of you. You are naturally one of that breed. As for dirty playing, there isn’t anything dirtier ever put on a basketball suit that has come to my notice.”

Stung by this retort, and angry at being ridiculed in front of Pell, Gould lost his temper completely.

“What’s that? You eat those words, Kid, or I’ll jam ’em down your throat.”

He stepped forward pugnaciously and shook his clenched fist under Thatcher’s nose.

Still surprisingly calm, Thatcher maintained his position and calmly pushing Gould’s hand aside, said coldly:

“Don’t wave that dirty thing in front of me that way. Put it where it belongs. As for making me eat anything, you aren’t big enough or man enough to do it.”

“Why, you—you rotten Freshman. That means fight,” said Gould, now losing himself completely. He started to take off his overcoat.

Somehow Jeff Thatcher found great satisfaction in the turn of events. The word fight had a ring to it that brought joy to his soul. Although he had not realized it, his mental condition was such that nothing short of physical combat could present a safety valve of sufficient capacity to give vent to his feeling. Almost eagerly he threw off his overcoat and dropped it to the graveled drive.

It was a terrific fight while it lasted. All the wrath and ugliness of Gould, the tricky one, the conceited one, was pitted against the anger and resentment of Jeff Thatcher, and from the moment they squared off in front of each other it was evident to frightened little Birdie Pell, the sole witness to the historic affair, that it would be give and take to the bitter end with no weakening of spirit and no quarter given.

Both boys were athletes in the best of condition, though Jeff Thatcher, slightly younger than his antagonist, had taken better care of himself. Both knew more than the rudiments of boxing, as was evident from the start. Alert, eager, yet cautiously watchful, they stepped stealthily around each other there in the darkness. Gould was the first to lead, stepping in and flashing a vicious straight left to Thatcher’s face. But Jeff countered with such amazing speed that Gould’s blow was made harmless by a jolting left that he received full in the face.

It stung him like a whiplash, for with a grunt, half of pain and half of anger, he stepped in again with both hands driving piston-like into Thatcher’s face. The attack was so vicious and so strong that Jeff could only stagger back, block and stall as best he could, watching for an opening to cut in with a smashing blow that would break up the attack. He found it. Gould, in his haste and rage, stumbled slightly and with his loss of balance dropped his hands ever so little. Jeff, alert and waiting for this, started an upper-cut from the hip that had all the strength of his powerful back and arm in it. Like a striking snake it darted in between Gould’s hands and landed with a sickening smack on the point of Gould’s chin. His head snapped back and his body sagged forward for the slightest fraction of a second, and Birdie Pell, with a cry of alarm, stepped toward him, for the younger boy thought that Gould had been knocked out.

The Sophomore went down to one knee, stayed there for a moment and brushed his arm across his eyes as if to clear his whirling head. Then suddenly with a roar of anger he leaped to his feet and rushed into another furious attack. But he was in a towering rage now and his efforts were far from the well-timed blows he had used before. Thatcher saw this with a degree of satisfaction and it was with less difficulty that he side-stepped and blocked each blow and shot home crashing lefts and rights, each time an opening presented itself. He was hammering Gould badly now and the Sophomore’s anger was mounting higher and higher and his blows were becoming wilder and wilder with each passing second.

He rushed into another furious attack

Then suddenly a strange and astonishing thing happened. The darkness in which they had been fighting was suddenly shattered and illuminated by a flood of white light from two glaring searchlights, as a car, approaching unheard by the three boys, swung swiftly around the corner of the gymnasium building, and with squeaking brakes came suddenly to a stop.

The two antagonists and Birdie Pell stood silhouetted against the white glare, staring stupidly at each other and into the blinding lights. Then Gould, coming to his senses, suddenly exclaimed: “Dr. Livingston—beat it,” and rushing for his coat, which Birdie Pell held in his arms, he and the smaller boy ran out of the shafts of light and into the blackness of the night.

As for Jeff Thatcher, he realized with a sickening sensation that it was Dr. Livingston’s car. He realized too that the Headmaster had caught them in the act of fighting, a thing that was forbidden on the school grounds—an offense that merited serious punishment.

With sinking heart he saw the big, overcoated figure of Dr. Livingston step out of the car and come toward him.

“Well, Thatcher, what does this mean?”

Jeff could not think of an appropriate answer but evidently Dr. Livingston did not expect any.

“Fighting, eh? This is serious. I’m sorry, Thatcher. Were the others Gould and Pell?”

Jeff’s lips closed in a straight line. It was a question he could not in honor answer.

“Never mind. I saw them and recognized them both. Go to your room, Thatcher, and report to me at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. This, as you know, warrants serious discipline.”

And Jeff, with the unpleasant feeling of a culprit caught in the act, turned toward Carter Hall.

CHAPTER III
FORCED OUT

“This warrants serious discipline.”

Dr. Livingston’s words, with their uncomfortable portent kept racing through Jeff Thatcher’s mind as he sat in his room in Carter Hall. He knew all that this would mean to him. Not that, ordinarily, he was afraid to face whatever punishment was due him, but in this case he realized it would be far more serious to him than it would to almost any other boy in school. And the unpleasant part of it was that although Gould would receive the same disciplining, he would not suffer half as much as Thatcher would. Disciplining to the Sophomore, and to Pell for that matter, for he would unquestionably be implicated, would mean nothing more than so much punishment to be endured until they had paid the penalty, then they would be free to go on in their usual happy routine at school.

But for Thatcher it meant a great deal more. It meant disaster. It meant the sacrificing of an opportunity to play baseball on the best school team in the state; it meant that he would have to forego the happiness of school life, and most of all, it meant sacrificing his opportunities for an education. Thatcher realized that all this was in the balance and there is little wonder that he regretted his rash actions in getting into a fight with Gould on the school ground. It would have been far better if he had passed on, or if it had to be a fight, he should have refused to fight except out of bounds where school laws did not reach; across the bridge over Wading River, or on the other side of the town.

“What a fool I was,” he muttered as he sat on the edge of his bed, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands.

Footsteps sounded in the hall outside his door, and presently it was pushed open, then shut with a bang.

Thatcher raised his head just long enough to see that it was Wade Grenville, his roommate, who had entered.

“Hello, Wade,” he mumbled, scarcely rousing himself from his disconsolate attitude.

“’Lo, Jeff. For the love of Pete, what’s the matter with you? Still feeling sore over Gould’s dirty trick? Cut it, Jeff, cut it. Don’t take it so blamed hard. The rest of the fellows have forgotten it already; passed it up as a mucker’s trick and figure to get square on Gould and the Sophs some other time. That’s the way you want to take it. Buck up,” and he flung his cap on his own bed across the room and went over and clapped his hands affectionately on Jeff’s shoulder.

Jeff looked up and smiled ruefully.

“I’m square, I guess, or nearly so, but—”

“What? Say, Jeff, what’s that cut on your cheek? and—and—say, by jingoes, you’ve been fighting. Jiminy, was it with Gould? Did you lick him? Good stuff, old Kid, only why didn’t you tip a fellow off. I’d like to have seen you clout him one just for luck and the rest of the fellows would have enjoyed it too. Where did you pull it off?”

“Why—why—it wasn’t prearranged. It just happened. We ran into each other out back of the gym. and had it out and—and—well, we got caught.”

“Great cats, you don’t say!”

“Yes. It’s true. Wish it wasn’t.”

“Jiminy. Who caught you?” Wade looked at Jeff admiringly as he asked the question.

“The old man himself, of course. Who should it be but Dr. Livingston,” Jeff replied bitterly.

“Jingoes, that’s rough, Jeff.”

“Worse than that.”

“Aw, never mind. You’ll be out of trouble by baseball time, though. Buck up.”

“Out of trouble by baseball time? Yes, I guess I will. And out of Pennington, too.”

“Aw, he won’t fire you out. He’s not a stickler like that. He’d only take away your special privileges and—Jiminy, you’ll lose your table job, won’t you?” Wade began to look concerned.

“Yes, and my newspaper and magazine privilege, and my laundry business and that will be the finish.”

“Finish?”

“Yes, finish.”

“Why, what do you mean, Jeff?”

“Hang it, man, don’t you see, if I lose all my special privileges I won’t be able to stay in school. Those jobs pay my way here. I haven’t a cent otherwise and if they are taken away from me I’ll have to quit school and go to work. I haven’t a cent coming in from home—haven’t any home, really. I lived with my uncle, you know, and he can’t contribute anything. I’ve been hustling for my own living ever since Dad died, and that’s three years ago. So you see, if I lose my jobs here, I’m a goner. I’ll have to leave school and go to work to support myself.”

“Jingoes, that’s tough, Jeff. But maybe Dr. Livingston will take all those things into consideration and—and—”

“’Fraid not, Wade. You know what a stickler he is for rules and obedience. Fighting on the school grounds is a serious offense, as he said, and the penalty is only one thing,—all special privileges are withdrawn and the unfortunate chap has to spend two weeks in bounds. Of course it doesn’t make a bit of difference with Gould or Pell, they both have rich fathers to foot their bills—Gould has, at least—and they have been too lazy to work up jobs the way I’ve had to. The only special privileges that will be taken away from them will be the privilege of leaving the school grounds, going to the basketball games and attending whatever ‘spreads’ and ‘hops’ that might take place in the next couple of weeks. The worst privation they’ll suffer is that of going without their cigarettes; they won’t be able to go across the bridge to steal a smoke. At that they’ll probably take a chance and sneak their smokes in their rooms. Wish that was all I’d have to suffer, believe me, smokes don’t mean a single thing to me, but leaving Pennington means the whole world, right now. Gee, it’s going to be tough.” And Jeff slumped back into the attitude of dejection that Wade had seen him in when he entered the room.

Wade sat down on his bed, too, and was glumly silent for a long time. He knew that Jeff had spoken the truth. There was small hope that Dr. Livingston would waive rules even in the case of Jeff Thatcher, and Wade thought of all that Jeff’s going would mean to him. They had been roommates and pals for months now; since the beginning of the school term in September. It was going to be a hard ordeal to part with Jeff,—life at Pennington was not going to be the same for him; at least that was how he felt at the moment.

“Jiminy, it’s going to be rough on the both of us, Jeff,” he said finally, “but it’s going to be especially tough for you.”

“Well,” said Jeff with a forced smile, “the worst is yet to come. Come on to bed. I don’t much feel like trying to digest Cæsar and his Gaelic Wars to-night, and anyhow I guess it won’t make much difference whether I’m prepared in Latin to-morrow or not. Come on, turn in.”

CHAPTER IV
ON HIS OWN

Both Jeff and Wade spent a restless night. Jeff lay awake until long after the clock in the Congregational church tower across the river in New City boomed the hour of midnight, so overwrought were his nerves over the day’s occurrences and the interview with Dr. Livingston and what it would bring forth on the morrow. And as he lay there tossing between the blankets he realized more and more how hopeless his case was and how cheerless the outlook for his own future was.

What was he to do? Where was he to turn? He could not go back to live with his uncle without finding employment for himself, and where would he turn to find this? Where—

A thought occurred to him that kept him awake for nearly an hour longer. One of the privileges that would be taken away from him as a result of his disobedience to the school rules was the privilege of acting as school correspondent for the New City Daily Freeman. He had secured the position by bearding “Boss” Russell, the city editor of the Freeman, in his office and making application for the job almost before his predecessor, Harold Hall, was graduated from Pennington. And ever since he had been contributing paragraphs of school news to the paper, stories of the football and basketball games, and various other “write ups” for which he had been paid space rates, and had in that way earned a neat sum each week which managed to keep him in clothes and buy some of his books. His work had been acceptable to the paper, he knew, and he wondered, now that he was going to be thrown out on his own, why it wouldn’t be possible for him to join the staff of the Freeman as a cub reporter. It was a great idea. He would try.

And then, thinking of the romance of being a reporter, some time between midnight and daylight he fell asleep and dreamed that he had suddenly become a newspaper man, indeed the only employee his particular dream newspaper had. He was reporter, city editor, typesetter, printer and pressman all in one, and he had a wild nightmare of a career that ended when he got into an altercation with a big printing press and the iron monster stood up on its hind legs and began clawing the air, finally grabbing him in its teeth and, like some prehistoric monster, it shook him back and forth until he woke up with a yell to find Wade Grenville standing over his bed and pulling him out from between the blankets by the slack of his pajamas.

“For the love of Pete, turn out. It’s seven-thirty. You haven’t a dickens of a lot of time to get cleaned and report for chapel. Come on, Jeff, shake a leg. You’ve got a tough day ahead of you, you poor kid.”

“Aw, don’t remind me of it, Wade. I hate to face the Old Man and hear sentence pronounced.”

“Well, you’ve got to face the music. I hope he gives it to Gould and Pell as stiff as he can. Blast ’em! If it hadn’t been for that dirty trick Gould pulled you wouldn’t be in this peck of trouble. Go ahead. Wash up.”

Jeff made little ceremony of his morning toilet. He turned on the water in the wash basin until it gushed out with such a splash that it spattered the walls and slopped over onto the floor. Then, in his undershirt and trousers, he plunged his head and arms into the basin and wallowed around like a seal, puffing and snorting and blowing and adding a great deal more to the water that was already on the floor, until presently there seemed to be more there than there was in the bowl. Then he came up for air, and with eyes squeezed tight shut and his face distorted, he began feeling around for a towel, which Wade obligingly wadded up into a ball and threw at him, shouting at the same time:

“There, you blamed hippopotamus; there’s your towel. Why in the dickens do you have to have the floor knee deep in water before you feel you are properly washed. Now I’ve got to put on my rubber boots or my bathing suit before I can cross the room to get my necktie. Every time you take a wash this room looks like that painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, only more so.”

“Aw, let me alone. You’ll be sorry when I’m not around to muss up your old floor. You wait and see.”

“Jingoes, you’re right I will, Jeff. I— Great guns, there goes the first bell. Grab your things and get ’em on. Come on quick.”

A mad scramble followed and both fellows only just squeezed into the last of their clothing as the final bell rang and they dashed for the hall and the chapel door.

But Jeff’s thoughts were far from being on the services and the announcements. Indeed, when he was thrown back among the boys again he realized once more with an aching heart how hard it was going to be to leave all this behind, and the prospects of a position on the Freeman did not seem half as alluring as it had the night before.

Somehow news of the fight had got through the school and Jeff found himself the object of admiring glances from the Freshmen and glowering looks from the Sophomores, and when the boys filed out from chapel Buck Hart, Rabbit Warren, Cas Gorham and Brownie Davis, got him aside and congratulated him.

“Great stuff, old fellow. Wish you’d have given him a black eye for me. That’s a fine lump he has on his cheek and his nose will never be the same,” said Buck.

“He sure looked cut up this morning. I had a good look at him,” said Rabbit Warren, slapping Jeff on the shoulder.

To all this Jeff smiled ruefully. It was on his tongue to tell them too that in reality he had got the worst of it, but he glanced up in time to see Dr. Livingston coming down the hall. The principal caught his eye and motioned to him to follow, and Jeff broke away from his admirers and hurried to the Doctor’s office.

Gould and Pell were already there, and Jeff was surprised to see how many scars of battle the former bore. His nose was in an unpleasant state of redness and abnormally swollen and there was just the suggestion of blackness about his right eye. There was a slight cut on his right cheek, too.

Dr. Livingston sat down in his chair and swung around to look at all three. They were silent for several minutes while he looked at them frowningly. Finally he spoke in a sharp, crisp voice.

“You three boys know the rules of the school as well as I do. I am very much put out with you. Gould, you and Pell stay in bounds for a month. No privileges whatever, and report to Professor Battel for an extra hour’s Latin every day during the period. And mind you, if there is one complaint against you from any quarter out you go, dismissed from the school. I’ll not have boys of your stamp around here. You are both on probation, so mind your conduct. Go to your class. Thatcher, I want to see you alone a moment.”

Jeff’s heart seemed to drop into his shoes as Gould and Pell departed. “Why does he want to see me alone?” he asked himself.

Dr. Livingston looked at him in silence for some time after the two boys had gone. Finally he spoke, and to Jeff it seemed as if his tone was a little more fatherly than it had been to Gould or Pell.

“Thatcher,” he said, “this is the most unpleasant task I have had in all my career with boys. I have laid awake most of the night thinking of just what this was going to mean to you but I can see no way out. Rules are rules, and you know it as well as I do. That holds not only in school but in life generally, and the quicker you find it out the better off you’ll be. Rules are rules, laws are laws, and when you break either of them you must be punished. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot make an exception even of you, and I realize in making this decision just how disastrous it is going to be for you. My only hope is that somehow you will find a way out of the difficulty. I will have to suspend all your privileges for the rest of the term, and you will have to remain in bounds for two weeks at least. That is the minimum penalty, as you know. I’m very, very sorry.”

In spite of his best efforts at self-control tears welled up in Jeff Thatcher’s eyes and a great lump gathered in his throat as Dr. Livingston talked. It was several seconds before he could speak without breaking down completely.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he finally gulped, “but I guess it means the end of my career at Pennington. I can’t stay if my privileges are taken away. I—I—” Jeff gulped and turned away, starting tear-blind for the door.

“I’m sorry too, son. I only hope you’ll find a way out of the difficulty. I’d help you if I could but there is no way I can grant you special privileges under the circumstances. Go to your class now and see if there isn’t some way you can work the situation out.”

But to Jeff there was no way out. He puzzled over it all day in his classes and all evening in the privacy of his room, for Wade had gone to a concert in town with several other fellows and Jeff was left alone with his unpleasant problem. He pondered over every phase of it until he became so discouraged and unhappy that he realized in desperation that he would have to quit Pennington forthwith, leave while yet he had a few dollars in his pockets with which to take care of himself while trying to find a position.

He listened. The big clock over in New City was booming the hour. He counted the strokes. It was nine o’clock. Why not leave now? Leave while Wade and the rest of the fellows were away. He knew that he did not have the courage to stay and bid them all good-by. He realized he would break down and probably make a chump of himself. Now was the time to go. And besides, he realized, now was the time when he could best get at Boss Russell, the city editor of the Daily Freeman, and perhaps secure the position he so much needed. He would go.

Hastily, almost eagerly, he packed up his few belongings and put them in his suitcase. Several little personal things he purposely overlooked, for he wanted to leave them for Wade to remember him by. In twenty minutes he had completed his task. Then he sat down at his desk in the corner and hastily scribbled Wade a note telling him of his plans. He read this over once, tucked it into an envelope, and dropped it on Wade’s bed. Then he picked up his suitcase, snapped out the light and stepped out into the broad hall and tiptoed his way to the big side door of the building, fearful lest he should disturb Dr. Hornby, the professor in charge of the house.

Out on the campus, he paused a moment in the shadow of the building and looked about. It was a hard pull to leave. It made his throat and eyes fill up once more, and it was only with the utmost self-control that he kept from breaking down as he finally stepped out among the tall elms on the campus and hurried toward the big gate and the street where a trolley to New City stood waiting at the end of the line.

CHAPTER V
THE CUB REPORTER

Fortune and Boss Russell favored Jeff Thatcher. When he appeared at half past ten that night in the Freeman office the city editor was in a quandary over the illness of two members of his staff and the resignation of a third, and when he peered over his glasses at Jeff Thatcher as he stood in front of his desk, he realized that here was part of the solution to the unpleasant situation of finding himself short-handed.

“You are young,” he told Jeff, “but your school stuff has been mighty good for a beginner, and I’ll take you on as a cub, if you want to take Mulvaney’s place. I’ve moved Mull up as special assignment man and you can run his obits and cover the hospitals for accident cases.” And so Jeff became a member of the Freeman staff with surprising quickness. Indeed, he started out forthwith to make what was to be his nightly rounds of undertaking establishments and hospitals even at that late hour, and at first he took a keen delight in the work.

There was no such thing as an assignment book in the office of the New City Daily Freeman. That method was far too slow for city editor, Boss Russell. He preferred to give out assignments over the city desk just as fast as they developed. He would hand them over with a few penciled notes, or a newspaper clipping or so, and some terse, snappy instructions that usually were enough to inspire any one of his staff of reporters to write the best story of his career. If he did not he stood a good chance of being fired. Boss Russell wanted the best that was in a man all the time. And he usually got it.

Jeff Thatcher watched this nightly distribution of assignments for two weeks. He watched it at first eagerly, hopefully speculating on what his would be. But as nights went on he watched it none the less eagerly, but far from hopeful. He soon grew to know what his assignments would be. Boss Russell had a method all his own of breaking in cub reporters. Jeff began to realize that it was a method that treated said cub as if he were a machine. He had already begun to feel like the cogs in a watch or the gears in an automobile. Life became a constant succession of visits to certain undertaking establishments for obituaries of the people who had died that day, a nightly trip to police headquarters to copy the unimportant police slips of accidents, a visit to the Memorial Hospital, after which he would return to the Freeman office, there to sit down in front of a typewriter and laboriously grind out paragraph after paragraph of names, dates and ages of people who had been injured and who had died during the past twenty-four hours. Jeff began to feel like a dead one himself.

Night after night he watched the line of reporters file by Boss Russell’s desk to get their assignment and fare forth on some interesting news quest, but always when he, usually last, arrived at the desk, the city editor would wearily pass over to him a cryptic note “undertakers, headquarters, Memorial Hospital, Jones wedding,” or perhaps the last would be varied with such notations as “see Dr. Bisbee on Brinkerhoff accident,” or “Look in at Æolian Hall, Plumber’s Association dance.” It was always the same. Jeff had come to the conclusion that he never would get a real news story to write. He wondered why cleaning streets or delivering milk would not be just as interesting and perhaps a lot more remunerative.

The night of March 15 was no different than all the rest. As on a succession of nights previous, he got the same terse notation. With very little enthusiasm he ran his eyes over the slip of paper. “Undertakers, Memorial Hospital and drop in at Erie Railroad Yards and find Tim Crowley. He had a three-legged calf born on his farm yesterday.” Jeff looked at the last notation twice and smiled grimly.

“Three-legged calf. Huh, it’s a little different than a hod carrier’s dance, but I won’t set the town on fire with the story I might write about that,” and, with a grunt of dissatisfaction, Jeff buttoned up his overcoat and turned up his collar and fared forth into a near zero night, and started on his monotonous rounds of undertaking establishments, meanwhile wondering vaguely what the fellows were doing over in Pennington, and wishing mightily that he might be sent out on a story across the river to Montvale, where the old school was located.

Goodness knows the town was full of good news stories; why couldn’t Boss Russell trust him with one of them. There was the prolonged street car strike in Montvale. Why couldn’t he get an assignment to go over there and write a story of one of their frequent riots. Then he would have a chance to look in at Pennington, anyhow, and tell some of the fellows what he was doing. Why couldn’t he get sent out on a good fire story such as the warehouse fire on the east side two nights ago. That would have been a story worth writing. Spectacular stuff about bursting gasoline barrels, heroic firemen and all that. There was a murder mystery in town, too. That Italian banker who had been found dead in his own doorway with the Mafia death sign on his forehead. Why didn’t Boss Russell turn him loose on that story, and see if he had ingenuity enough to find Joe Gattiano, the suspected murderer who had mysteriously disappeared from town. Other reporters had tried and failed and the story was old now. Why not let him try his hand? Goodness knows he couldn’t spoil the story or fare any worse than the other Freeman reporters had. Even the moth-eaten and written out Third National Bank theft would be a relief. Perhaps he could find some clew of the absconding paying teller, Roderick Hammond, who nearly a month ago had disappeared from the bank at the same time that a hundred thousand dollars worth of Liberty Bonds were discovered to be missing. Nothing had been heard of Hammond or the bonds since, and now after columns of speculative stories had been printed the case was dropped and forgotten. Jeff wished that Boss Russell would give him a chance to revive even that case again. But no, it was “undertakers, Memorial Hospital and—and—plumbers’ dances, or three-legged calves or—or—beans.” Jeff snorted the last in disgust as he turned into the first mortuary chapel on his list.

Jeff Thatcher was a cub reporter. But he was not the cubbiest cub reporter that had ever tried to break in on the Freeman. He was a born newspaper man. He loved the work. Ever since he had shed knee trousers he had been enthusiastic about journalism, and about the next best thing to finishing out his course at Pennington, in Jeff’s estimation, was serving as a reporter under Boss Russell. The Freeman was a morning paper. It came onto the news stands and street corners in the dark hours before dawn so that newsboys could deliver it in time to have it read over breakfast tables or in the street cars while New City’s business men were on their way to office, store or shop. And to get a newspaper out at that time of day meant that reporters, typesetters and pressmen must work all night. Jeff came into the editorial rooms at six o’clock at night just when other young business men were going home to their evening meal and rest. And Jeff, with others of the staff, worked on through the night until two or three o’clock in the morning gathering news of the day’s happenings and writing stories that were read by Boss Russell and his trained copy readers and sent upstairs to the composing room to be set in type to be printed in the morning editions.

It was a hard life, for Jeff had to reverse his whole method of living, working nights and tumbling into bed at four or five o’clock in the morning to sleep until noontime or later. But if it was hard it was also fascinating and Jeff realized that it could be made more fascinating if he could only get a chance to work on some of the really big news stories of the day instead of plugging along writing obituaries and paragraphs of but little consequence.

Grumbling inwardly and feeling more or less discouraged, Jeff left the Memorial Hospital, where he had looked over the book of the day’s arrival and departure of patients, and talked with the intern. He turned in the direction of the big Erie Railroad yards located west of the city, where he hoped to find Tim Crowley, and learn the details of this bovine prodigy that had been born out on Tim’s little farm a mile or so from New City.

The railroad’s yards covered several acres of ground and included a big station, a dispatcher’s office, roundhouse, freight yard, and machine shop, and myriads of switch towers, semaphores and block signals, the red and green lights of which blinked and winked at him in the cold winter night as Jeff picked his way across the network of tracks to the building in which the dispatcher’s office was located. It was mighty cold and growing colder. Wind whipped the steam and smoke from the roundhouse gustily across the yard, icicles of huge proportions hung from the dripping spouts of the crane-like nozzles of the water tanks, and the few switch engines that sputtered about the yards, shunting cars here and there,—coughed hoarsely as if the cold had somehow gotten into their iron chests and made them a bit asthmatic.

Jeff pushed open the door of the dispatcher’s office, to be greeted with a rattling fusillade from a score of clicking telegraph instruments that were spattering the air full of, to Jeff, unintelligible dots and dashes. It was warm and cheerful in there and he made for a bulky steam radiator that was hissing comfortably, as he pulled off his gloves and breathed on the tips of his fingers.

Tom Kelly, the big, good-natured chief dispatcher, in shirt sleeves and vest, got up from his desk and came over to greet him.

“Hello, Jeff. Ain’t seen you in a week. What gust of wind blew you over in this direction?” said Kelly.

“Came over to see Tim Crowley. Where is he and what is there to the story about his—”

“Oh, that three-legged calf. Funny blamed thing, isn’t it? But it’s facts. Some of the fellows saw it. Tim’s the wrecking boss. You’ll find him on the wrecking train over on track sixteen. It’s warm and cheerful over there and the whole wrecking crew are probably playing cards in the ‘hack.’ If you get over you might be just in time to have a midnight snack with them. They eat about this time,” said Kelly, looking at his watch.

“Thanks. So long. See you again some time,” said Jeff, buttoning up his coat once more and going out into the night.

CHAPTER VI
WITH THE WRECKERS

Jeff knew where track sixteen was and it did not take him long to find the wrecking train. There it was on a siding with a clear way to the main track. It was a train of caboose and six flat cars, two of which were equipped with tremendously powerful, but squatty and flat-looking derricks. The others were loaded with boxes of tools, and all sorts of emergency equipment. The train reminded Jeff of an engine or hook and ladder truck of the city fire department ready to get away at a moment’s notice.

A warm glow of light came from the cupola and the more or less smudged windows of the “hack,” as Kelly had called the caboose, and Jeff knew that the wrecking crew, who lived in the train, in shifts day and night, week in and week out the whole year through, were inside card playing or reading or amusing themselves as husky railroad men do while awaiting word of trouble or a wreck that calls them out to clear the line.

Jeff stamped his way up the steps of the hack, shoved open the door and stepped inside. Gathered around a table in the yellow glare of a big electric light, that hurt Jeff’s eyes momentarily, were the wreckers, big broad-chested, broad-shouldered, experienced railroad men who seemed to Jeff the impersonation of courage, resourcefulness and reliability. They were the men who were responsible for keeping the line open so that trains could run uninterruptedly no matter how grave the catastrophe or how serious the damages. And they were good-natured and hearty men, as was evident from the greeting that the boss of them all, big Tim Crowley, gave him, when he introduced himself and began to ask questions about the three-legged calf.

But Jeff had scarcely got well started on his catechizing when the door of the caboose was flung open and banged closed again and a man from the dispatcher’s office, still in his shirt sleeves despite the cold and with his green eye shade on his forehead, burst in upon them. In his hand he held a piece of flimsy yellow paper, a dispatcher’s telegraph blank, on which was typed a brief but evidently important message.

“Tim, No. 89, fast freight out of New City is piled up at Granville cross-over. Ten cars off the track and some of them smashed to pieces. Both tracks are blocked. Tracy, the conductor, says it’s a bad mess. Engine 1107 with Ed Dixon is backing down to pick you up. Cold night for a wreck, ain’t it? Wish you luck,” and passing the yellow slip to Tim he slammed his way out and raced back to the dispatcher’s office.

For a moment Jeff did not realize what was happening. But as he heard the hoarse blasts of an engine not far off and felt the jarring clank as it backed against the wrecking train and coupled up he understood it all.

“You best beat it if you don’t want to take a lively ride,” said Tim with a smile, as the men put their cards away and got up from the table.

“Beat it! What? With a wreck on the line and me on board the wrecking train ready to roll. Not on your life; that is, of course, if you will let me go along,” said Jeff, looking eagerly at Tim.

“As a reporter there ain’t no rules against it, I guess,” said Tim, sliding into his heavy coat. “Go along if you want to. Tumble out, men.”

It took a remarkably short time for the crew, swarming over the train of flat cars, to get everything ready for the run, and by the time the engine was coupled on everything was “ship shape,” to quote the wrecking boss, and the men were back in the hack.

With several deep-toned, almost arrogant blasts big, panting 1107 got under way and began clanking over frogs and switches, making toward the tracks of the main line. Jeff crawled up into the cupola of the hack where Tim and three other husky wreckers sat, looking out above the flat cars toward the engine ahead.

“You’ll have a ride this night,” said Tim to Jeff, smiling as he spoke. “Ol’ eleven-o-seven is a speed boy, an’ with Ed Dixon in the cab we’ll be yanked along somethin’ fierce. Sixty mile an hour won’t be a patch to what we’ll make. The dispatchers have cleared the track from here to the wreck. They always do for the wrecking train. Ain’t only one train that can have the right o’ way over us and that would be a hospital train with nurses and doctors aboard which they’d send out if this was a passenger wreck. But t’ track’s clear to-night with everything in sidings, so ol’ Ed Dixon will burn up the rails.”

CHAPTER VII
THE WRECK

Jeff noticed that “Ol’ Ed” was proceeding to fulfill Tim’s predictions with a will. The wrecking train was gathering speed with every passing second. The clank of rail joints as the wheels passed over them developed from a measured beat to a steady hum. Jeff had never moved so fast in all his life. Up and down grades they roared, around curves they snapped with a vengeance that threatened to send the caboose off the tracks and whizzing through the air like the snapper of a whip. “Ol’ Eleven-o-seven’s” whistle seemed never to stop shrieking for grade crossings, and Jeff wondered what would happen to a luckless automobile or team of horses that might get caught on one of the crossings as the wrecking train plunged down upon them.

Mile after mile was clicked off with measured regularity and in twenty-two minutes by Jeff’s watch the thirty-five miles to the wreck were covered and the monster engine began to slow down as grinding, spark-flinging brake shoes were applied.

Jeff and big Tim and the rest knew that they were approaching the wreck long before the train began to come to its crunching stop, for far ahead on the tracks, far beyond the stabbing white ray of the engine’s searching headlight, they could make out a pink glow in the sky and a blotch of lurid red behind some trees.

“There it is and it’s caught fire, too,” said Tim, letting himself down from the cupola and slipping off his heavy coat again. “Come on, men. Tumble out. We got a job to do. The line must be open before the commutation trains start to come down to-morrow morning. Lively now. Snap to it.”

And snap to it they did. Jeff marveled at the enthusiasm with which they prepared to go out into the near zero weather and do battle with a stubborn wreck that was on fire in the bargain.

By the time the train had come to a halt and the wreckers had tumbled out, Jeff could see by the rays of the searching headlight, in all its stark unpleasantness, a huge mass of twisted iron and steel, up-ended cars, overturned trucks and splintered ties and débris through which licked red-tongued flames. Here was the wreck that was blocking the line, the wreck that these men must clear away before daylight. It was a sight almost horrible to behold. Part way down the embankment and turned on its side was the locomotive, steam and smoke still curling about it. It looked like some prehistoric giant wounded and dying. A smoke pall hung over the entire scene, into which the wreckers, armed with axes and crowbars plunged, looking more like gnomes than human beings in that weird setting.

Keyed up with the excitement of it all, Jeff, also armed with an ax that he had hastily seized from an open tool box on one of the flat cars, followed them, and soon he found himself in the thick of things. Piled up across the right of way and down the embankment on either side were what an hour ago had been ten big red and yellow freight cars. Now they were junk; just a mass of terribly twisted, splintered and crushed wood and iron, all mixed up with railroad ties and corkscrew-looking rails that had been torn from the roadbed by the force of the catastrophe.

Tim, the boss wrecker, stopped a moment and looked the mess over. In particular he looked at the fire that was raging at the other end of the wreck.

“Looks like that fire was going to help us some in getting this thing clear. But we can’t wait for that. Hello, Tracy,” the last was said to a railroad man who came out of the smoke, followed by two others. He was the conductor of the luckless freight.

“Hello, Tim. Rotten mess, ain’t it?”

“You said it. Any one hurt? How’s the engineer and fireman?”

“Both back in our hack. Pretty well shaken up but outside of a slight burn that Norton got they are both all right. They’ll be out to lend a hand as soon as they get some of the cinders picked out o’ their hides.”

“Fine. All right, men. We clear the eastbound track first. You, Casey, take your men and get that No. 1 derrick up here. You, Saunders, start to cut away and move that stuff so we can get the derrick up to the first car. Come on, men, snap to it. Casey, tell that biscuit-shooter of ours to get that hot coffee and sandwiches on the job in a hurry. We want a snack before the cold gets into us. Shake a leg. Shake both of ’em.”

The wreckers went into action. The engine’s big headlight illuminated the scene and made the night as light as day. Men with crowbars and axes fell to clearing the wreckage that might obstruct the movement of the derrick. Another crew attended to the laying of temporary tracks by means of which the engine could be shunted from the front to the rear of the wrecking train so that the first of the big derricks could be moved slowly up into place close to the wreck.

All this was accomplished in a remarkably short time considering the work involved, and while Jeff worked and sweated with the rest of the men and gulped down innumerable cups of steaming coffee and ate all the sandwiches he could consume as they were brought up by the grinning negro cook of the wrecking train, the first big derrick was moved up into place and like a giant elephant began to slowly nose its way into the wreck.

Then didn’t the men work! With this giant helper the task of clearing one track seemed to simplify. The men burrowed into the wreckage like so many field mice, carrying the chains of the derrick with them. These they snapped around heavy trucks, backed away and gave the signal, and the derrick would slowly lift the obstruction out of the way and swing it around onto one of the flat cars or off onto the embankment where it was deposited for the time being. Whole sections of freight cars were lifted by this mastodontic machine, as slowly it crept further and further into the heart of the wreckage foot by foot, clearing one track so that the line would be partially opened as soon as possible.

Jeff left off toiling when this big thing came into action, for it was the first time that he had ever seen one of the machines at work and he could not do other than stand and marvel at its power. But the wreckers kept right on working. They had all stripped themselves of their heavy coats and now worked in sweaters, and many of them even in shirt sleeves, despite the zero weather. And Jeff could see that most of them were sweating with the terrific exertion that the work called for. Indeed he could hardly believe that human beings could keep right on laboring the way they did and not drop from exhaustion. Already he was so tired that he could scarcely swing the ax he had been wielding and yet he realized that he had not done one-tenth part of the work any one of the wreckers had. The realization made him feel almost ashamed of himself, and gritting his teeth, he spat on his hands and prepared once more to wade into the wreckage with the rest of them.

But before he bent to his task, Big Tim Crowley, who had been climbing over the wreckage, jumped down from the slanting roof of a partly crushed car almost alongside of him. Jeff noticed that there was a strange look on the face of the big boss, as he spoke to Tracy, the conductor, who was prying at a stubborn mass with a crowbar.

“Tracy, you sure none o’ your crew was caught in this?”

“Yep, they’re all accounted for. Why?”

“Well, there’s some poor devil pinned down in under that mass toward the other end and the fire’s movin’ up on him fast. I heard him groaning and I located him. He’s pinned down under an up-ended truck with almost a whole freight car piled on top of him. And t’ fire’s creepin’ in there, too. T’ worst of it is he’s too far into the wreck for us to reach him with t’ derrick, before t’ fire gets to him, and if we go digging for him we’ll bring a whole pile of wreckage down on top of him.”

“Great Scott, you don’t say so,” said Tracy, standing up and looking troubled. “I know he ain’t one of my train crew but he might be a hobo. Kahalan said he thought there was a ’bo tryin’ t’ hop aboard when we left t’ yard at New City, but he said it was too danged cold to go out and drive him off t’ bumpers if he did get aboard. Poor devil. I’ll bet that’s who it is an’ he got nipped.”

Others, including Jeff, had stopped working now and were listening. Jeff looked off toward the other end of the wreck where the fire, undiminished in its fury, was eating into the mass of splintered woodwork that had been perfectly good freight cars a few hours since, and shuddered as he realized the horrible position the man was in; as he realized the horrible death that he was facing, pinned in there waiting for the flames to reach him.

“Well, hobo or not, we got to get him out if we can,” snapped Tim. “But t’ worst of it is he’s in about the nastiest place in t’ whole wreck. We can’t cut our way down to him because there’s a truck and twisted brake beams and like of that in the way, an’ if we go pryin’ around tryin’ to clear things out to get at him we’re liable to bring the whole mass slidin’ down on top o’ him and crush him to death. Anyhow, come on, fellows, we’ll see what we can do.”

CHAPTER VIII
THE VICTIM

A half dozen men swarmed over the wreck in the wake of the burly boss and Jeff went along with them. It was rough going over the mass of débris, and the tangle of iron and wood seemed to grow thicker as they approached the point where the fire was raging.

So close to the flames that their faces felt scorched, Tim Crowley stopped and got down on his hands and knees, and with his face to an opening between some timber that seemed to reach down into the heart of the mass of wreckage, he shouted:

“Hello, down there!”

Jeff heard a groan, and then a far-off voice call:

“For God’s sake, get me out of here or I’ll be burned alive.”

“How are you caught?”

“I’m lying flat. Just pinned in by wreckage but my legs are both broken, I think.”

“Legs both broke,” repeated Tim looking up at the rest. “How are we goin’ t’ get him out o’ here? We got to do it in twenty minutes or the fire will drive us away and roast him alive. Come on, some o’ you men, cut this opening larger if you can, but be blamed careful because it’s like a lot of kindling wood an’ if you get too rough the whole thing will slide down on top o’ him and crush him. See how that car door wabbles there an’ that hunk o’ timber is just held in by the end. It will crush him flat if it all goes down.”

Two men started to cut away at the opening and Jeff watched them for a moment. Presently one stopped as his ax clanked on metal and sent out sparks.

“Ain’t no use here, Boss. There’s an iron bumper underneath wedged in so tight that there ain’t but a foot or so of room between it and that truck that’s standing on end. And if we try to move the bumper the truck will fall right down the hole through the wood and smash everything under it.”

Tim looked at the situation and shook his head.

“That’s right. We don’t dare disturb that or the whole thing will go to pieces. An’ that hole ain’t large enough for a man t’ git down into unless—” he paused and looked at Jeff. And Jeff at the same moment got the same idea. He stepped closer and looked at the hole.

“I’m smaller than the rest of you. Perhaps—perhaps—maybe I could get down and work my way into where he is if—if the whole thing don’t cave in on me before I get there.”

“Bully for you. That’s nerve all right,” said Tim, beaming with almost fatherly pride on Jeff, “on’y you got to make it in a hurry and git out again before the fire gets much closer.”

Jeff paused a moment to consider.

“Suppose he’s a big man. Then what’ll I do? Can’t get him through that hole if he’s as big as you fellows are,” he said.

“Well, let’s hope he ain’t. Anyhow if you can get him up near that hole and climb out yourself, we’ll grab hold of him and try and pry that truck and bumper apart long enough to yank him through. Then the whole thing can go to pot after that. It’s a chance all the way ’round but it’s better than letting t’ poor chap be burned to death down in there, which he will be in a mighty few minutes.”

That thought moved Jeff to action. He took off his heavy coat and his lighter one underneath. Thus stripped for action he stepped down into the narrow opening between the up-ended truck and the heavy steel bumper, and slowly, cautiously let himself down until presently he found himself standing on something solid directly underneath the almost tottering truck. In the semi-darkness of the wreckage he took a survey of the situation, then shouted:

“Hello, down there! where are you! I’m coming down to get you.”

A groan and a feeble attempt at a call sounded beneath him and to his right.

Slowly, cautiously, Jeff began to feel his way downward through the débris, half crawling, half climbing, but always feeling first for a secure footing for he knew that to step on anything insecure might cause him to fall and his weight precipitated violently against the wreckage on either side might cause the pile to collapse and send the teetering truck and the heavy bumper down on top of him and the poor victim of the wreck below.

It was almost painful progress, he moved so slowly, and it was a journey made hideous by the perils that were imminent. Already smoke curls were being drawn through the wreckage by the draughts down here, and the semi-darkness now became shadowy with sinister flickering light that showed between the jagged pieces of timber. Jeff knew that the fast moving fire was not so very far off. It would be terrible to be pinned in down there himself and burned to death along with the man he hoped to rescue. The very thought made cold chills creep down his back and perspiration stand out on his forehead. And added to this was the terrible horror of being crushed to death under some piece of timber or steel work that a slip of his foot might dislodge. Jeff had to exert all the will power he possessed to keep himself from any hurried action or any suggestion of panic, for he knew that the slightest error in judgment on his part might prove fatal to himself and the helpless man somewhere down there below him.

Foot by foot he climbed downward. Twice he paused to shout and each time the groan and feeble voice that answered him was nearer. A third time he paused and called. Then he waited. But no answer came. Again and again he called, and then with a shock it was borne in upon him that the man he was after had either become unconscious or had passed out while he was trying to get to him. Jeff came nearer panic then than ever before. He looked frantically about him and groped with outstretched hands hoping to come in contact with the man.

Suddenly from above a flood of light filled the wreckage. Jeff looked up hastily to discover that the wreckers had brought an electric battery lamp and were shining the rays down through the hole through which he had come. Eagerly Jeff looked about him, searching, hoping. Then with a start he discovered a hand protruding from beneath a board just below him. Beyond the board he could make out the outlines of a painfully twisted body, inert and apparently lifeless.

With a shout to the men up above, Jeff began to climb down again and presently he crouched beside the man. Hastily, eagerly he felt inside a flannel shirt. He was still alive but breathing heavily. As carefully as the limited space would permit Jeff picked up the limp form and gathered it in his arms. Then he started to climb once more.

CHAPTER IX
TO THE RESCUE

But if the journey downward called for caution, the climb back made care even more imperative. Jeff had to hope that each timber he stepped upon would bear double his own weight. He had literally to feel every step of the way.

And to add to the terrors of the situation, smoke was drawing through the wreckage now in veritable gusts, and Jeff could hear the roaring crackle of the fire close at hand. Indeed the atmosphere down there between the timbers was hot and choking with gas and smoke. He was tired, too. Almost exhausted. Every step upward was an effort. His head bothered him. It seemed too heavy for his shoulders, and there was a strange buzzing sound inside. He wondered vaguely whether he was going to collapse himself. He realized with a sense of horror that if he did he would be burned to death in ten minutes. That thought seemed to clear his head for a moment, and he climbed more hastily and with less caution, trusting entirely to good fortune that he did not dislodge any of the wreckage. Upward he struggled. Presently he found himself once more directly underneath the tottering truck with its heavy iron wheels. The opening was just above him. He saw eager hands reaching downward through it. He wondered vaguely, whether the man he carried was too big to get through the opening. He hoped not.

Somehow he stood upright and lifted the limp form toward the hands that grasped through the hole. Then his burden was lifted out of his arms and he saw the apparently lifeless body with its grotesquely dangling legs moved slowly upward through the hole and disappear from view. The hands reached downward again and he reached up to meet them. A moment he stood there, and tried to master himself. His head was spinning, his eyes hurt and his lungs seemed bursting for the want of fresh air. He tried to think that the ordeal was nearly over; that in just a minute he would be out into the cool night once more where he could gulp down great lungfuls of pure air. He exerted every bit of will power he had to master himself, for somehow he knew he was slipping, that he was fainting, that he was on the verge of collapse down there underneath the heavy up-ended railroad truck. And he knew that if he did collapse no help could save him from a certain and horrible death.

In a frantic effort he reached still higher toward the opening. Cold hands touched his, slipped off, then touched again. One clamped heavily about his wrist, another reached downward and fastened onto his sleeve. He felt himself lifted upward. Then he knew no more.

Jeff Thatcher came to with the feeling that there was something urgent he wanted to do, something he must do before he could rest quietly. He opened his eyes and looked about and after a moment he realized that he was lying on one of the bunks in the wrecking train caboose.

Hastily he sat up and looked about. Across the car in another bunk he saw another man lying under blankets, his white face turned toward him and heavy eyes watching him. There was something hauntingly familiar about the face.

The stranger spoke.

“You all right now? Feeling better?”

“I’m all right, thank you. And you?”

“I’m done for, I guess. It’s too bad you went to the trouble and risk of saving me. I’m going to pass out anyway. Something wrong inside my chest. But I’d rather die here than be burned to death down there. It was a heroic thing you did, boy. They told me all about it.”

“It was nothing. I mean I—I—just had to do it. It was my job. Say, haven’t I seen you before? Haven’t I—say, I know who you are. You’re Roderick Hammond, the—the—cashier of the First National.”

“Know me, ’eh, in spite of my week’s growth of whiskers and my attempt to look like a hobo. Well, you’re right, old boy. I’m the absconding bank cashier, and the bonds are right here inside the lining of my coat. You better take them and return them to the bank for me, will you? And if there’s any reward you take it. I played in good luck up until to-night. I’ve been hiding right under the nose of the police and newspaper reporters in New City for a month. Why I chose to-night to try and get away I don’t know, and why I decided to ride the bumpers of that particular fast freight I can’t guess. I suppose it’s one of Fate’s little jokers. Let me go just so far and then—bing, and it’s all off. I won’t be alive in twenty-four hours from now, boy. I think a rib or two has punctured my lungs, so I want you to have all the glory of returning the bonds and telling the story. I—”

Jeff jumped down from the bunk with a start. Now he knew what the urgent thing was he had to do. Find a telephone and call up Boss Russell.

“Wait a while. I’ll be back. Got to find a ’phone and get this all in to the Freeman,” he said to Hammond. Then, finding his overcoat which had been thrown over him as he lay in the bunk, he slipped into it and hurried out of the deserted caboose.

The first person he met was Tracy, the conductor of the wrecked freight.

“There’s a signal tower about a mile down the track. That’s where I telephoned about the wreck from,” he answered to Jeff’s query and Jeff, fatigue forgotten, started on a run down the track toward the blinking red and green light which he knew was the tower.

“Where in time have you been? It’s three o’clock and the first edition is on the press,” roared Boss Russell when he recognized Jeff’s voice over the telephone.

“I—I—why—” and then Jeff told him everything in a wild burst of language.

“Great guns! You don’t mean it. Wait—wait till I stop the presses. Here, you give that dope to Sullivan, the rewrite man. He’ll put it in type. What?”

“Why—why—Aw say, Boss, can’t I write the story?” asked Jeff.

“Write the story! Why, boy, that story will be in type and on the street before you get started back from the wreck. You write the yarn about the three-legged calf if you have time, but stick on the job at the wreck there and come home with the crew. And to-morrow night I’ll give you the choice of any assignment you want. That’s a good kid. Good-night.”

CHAPTER X
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS

It was long after daylight when Jeff, heavy eyed and weary to the point of exhaustion, staggered out of the Erie terminal at New City and stumbled toward a trolley car that would take him home. He was happy though, in spite of his exhaustion. He had covered his first big story. He had gathered all the details and turned them into the office by means of the telephone, in such shape that Sullivan, the rewrite man had been able to grind out three columns of story. Indeed, as Jeff glanced at the headlines of the copy of the morning Freeman he had bought from the terminal news stand he realized that he had really covered two stories, for Sullivan in addition to writing the story of the wreck had written a second story on the rescue of the absconding Third National Bank paying teller, his subsequent death and the recovery of the one hundred thousand dollars in stolen bonds, which Jeff had turned in for safe keeping at the Treasurer’s office of the railroad and asked that they be put in the company’s safe until word of their return was passed on to Mr. Davidson, the president of the Third National, who would doubtless send a messenger to bring them safely back to the bank.

Jeff had only ambition enough to just glance at the first page of the Freeman as the trolley car carried him jerkily toward home and the bed he so much yearned for, and as a result it was not until hours later that he discovered how Sullivan, at the instigation of Boss Russell, had told all the details of the daring rescue of the dying Roderick Hammond; how a cub reporter of the Freeman staff, with the wreckers, had the courage to climb down into the perils of the mass of débris and carry out the unconscious man; how he identified him, and recovered the bonds, and how in spite of these achievements he had stayed on at the wreck all night long, sending in reports every half hour until all the editions had gone to press.

In truth, when Jeff woke up, considerably refreshed at three o’clock that afternoon, and then for the first time read the front page of the Freeman closely he was surprised and embarrassed to discover how much of a hero Sullivan had made him. His name seemed to appear in almost every paragraph of the story and before he had read half way through it he paused to mention to no one in particular that

“The blamed story seems to be more about me and my fool stunt than it does about Hammond and the bonds.”

But the real surprise of the whole situation occurred when Jeff read the last paragraph of the story. It seemed to hit him a little harder than all the rest and burn into his memory. It ran something like this:

“—and the dying man in almost his last breath told Thatcher that the ten $10,000 bonds were sewed in the lining of his coat, and that he wanted Thatcher to return them to the Third National Bank from which he had stolen them and claim whatever reward was due him.

“Enoch Davidson, president of the Third National, when informed by telephone from the Freeman office of the recovery of the bonds at an early hour this morning, announced that a reward of two thousand dollars had been offered for the return of the securities and this would go to the heroic young reporter of the Freeman staff just as soon as the bonds were back in the bank’s vault.”

“Gee whizz. I plumb forgot about that. Poor Hammond did say that there was a reward for the return of the bonds and that he wanted me to get it, but I guess I forgot about it right away in my hurry to get the story over. Jiminy, I wonder if that can be true. Two thousand dollars. Oh, my goodness. Never heard of so much money except in a bank statement. It can’t be true. I—I—can’t take it. It belongs to the wrecking crew more than it does to me. I just happened to be handy, that’s all. Anyhow, I can’t return the bonds in person and get the reward. Left them with the treasurer’s chief clerk in the railroad office and asked them to get in touch with the bank. Gee, maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Maybe I should have hung onto them. But I was so doggone tired that I couldn’t take the responsibility for them any longer, so I did the best thing I could. I wonder if they got back to the bank or—or—gosh, I wonder.”

It suddenly occurred to Jeff that perhaps he had not finished all of last night’s work after all. Perhaps he should not have been so eager to get to bed. Perhaps he should have gone right up to Mr. Davidson’s house and given the bonds to him, and then gone home and to bed. He was not thinking of the reward as these thoughts teemed through his mind. He was thinking rather of responsibilities that had been his and that he had not seen through to the end as he should have done.

“I’m a poor dub—I am,” he muttered as he jumped out of bed and began to crawl into his clothes. “Of course, everything is probably all right about the bloomin’ old securities, but just the same it was my job to see that they got back into the proper hands instead of leaving them to some one else to take care of while I drifted off home and went blissfully to bed. I am a fool. One hundred thousand dollars and I treat it as if it were a lead half dollar. Oh, my, what a dub. Now what shall I do?”

Jeff sat down on the edge of the bed and thought the situation over. Obviously the only thing for him to do was to call up the bank and find out whether the securities did get back to them. His telephone was at the head of his bed. He picked it up and called the bank number. The girl at the switchboard of the bank wanted to know who was calling Mr. Davidson, but when Jeff said “Thatcher of the Freeman,” she exclaimed, “Oh, all right. Hold the line. He wants to speak to you.”

“Wants to speak to me,” said Jeff to himself as he held the wire. “I’ll bet he does. Probably wants to know where I’ve been with those fool bonds and what I did with ’em. Oh, my gosh. Why didn’t I take them up to his house instead of leaving some one else to take care of them,” and Jeff experienced a sickly sensation in the vicinity of his stomach as he stood there nervously waiting for the bank president to come onto the telephone.

“Hello,” boomed a voice at the other end.

Jeff jumped, moistened his lips and tried to speak. The words came with an effort.

“Mr.—Mmmm—er—Davidson, this is Thatcher, Freeman—you know. Say, did—did—are the—have you got those bonds? I left them in the—huh—what—you have? Oh, great. Gosh, I’ve spent a terrible ten minutes. I just woke up to the fact that I had not done my whole job last night, but I was so doggone tired that I guess my brain wasn’t working full time. You see, Hammond gave me the bonds before he died,—had me cut the lining out of his coat and take out the ten bonds all in a neat little package. Say, I never knew before that one hundred thousand dollars could be in so small a bundle. Well, I slipped them into my inside pocket, and I am afraid I was so busy after that that I didn’t pay as much attention to them as I should have, but on my way back on the wrecking train (poor Hammond was dead by that time I guess. A doctor from Granville took him to the Fieldborough Hospital about four o’clock this morning but he said he wouldn’t live an hour) I thought of the bonds again. I realized that it was a heap of money for me to be carrying around in my inside coat pocket, so I spoke to Kelly, the chief dispatcher, about them when I got into the terminal, and he took me over to the treasurer’s office and introduced me to the chief clerk who was reporting for work. He said he would put them in the safe and notify you, and I thought that would be all right because I was so dog tired I was afraid I might fall asleep in the trolley and have my pockets picked. If I’d have been a little brighter I would have thought of taking a taxi up to your house and giving them to you. But I guess my nut was a little fogged for sleep.”

“Fine. That’s all right, my boy. You did a good job. I think you acted wisely. The Treasurer of the railroad, Mr. Anson, called me up himself about nine o’clock this morning and we got the bonds all right. Of course, you know there is a reward waiting for you down here amounting to $2,000. Come down and get it.”

“Oh, about that,” said Jeff, suddenly becoming embarrassed again, “I didn’t call up for that. I—er—you see, I don’t think I can take that. I just happened to be the fellow small enough to get through the hole, that was all. And if I hadn’t been along one of the railroad men would have got him out and earned the money, so I think it really should be divided among Tim Crowley’s men.”

“Tut, tut, my boy. No such thing. You earned it. Anyhow, come down and see me just as soon as you can. Come down now, I want to talk with you. About Pennington, you know. I’m very much interested in the school. It’s my old school, and I had a talk with Dr. Livingston over the telephone this morning. So come down as soon as you can.”

“Gee, I’ll come down for that. You bet I will. I’ll get my lunch and be down in half an hour. Good-by.”

Jeff was out of breath with nervousness and excitement as he hung up the receiver.

“Jiminy, I guess I was long winded with him over the telephone, and he’s a bank president, too. But I had to tell him all about it. And he wants to talk to me about Pennington. Jingoes—wonder what’s in the wind. Maybe Dr. Livingston has decided to give me another chance. Whoops! I’ll get some lunch and go right down to the Third National.”

And grabbing hat and overcoat he hurried downstairs to greet his aunt, a tiny thin little woman whose face seemed always troubled to Jeff, but whose disposition was always sunshine in spite of the fact that she and her husband, Jeff’s Uncle Frank, had to struggle constantly to make ends meet. She had kept his lunch warm in the oven and when Jeff told her all the news that had developed and she saw quite readily that he was in a hurry, she made haste to put the food on the table for him. And Jeff fell to with a will, for this was lunch and breakfast combined for him.

CHAPTER XI
BACK TO PENNINGTON

Jeff had often seen Mr. Davidson on the streets of New City and on the few occasions when he had been in the Third National Bank for some reason or another, but except for the talk he had had with him over the telephone that afternoon he had never really had any personal contact with him. Somehow he had always gone on assuming that he was a crotchety sort of an individual, dyspeptic and irritable and perhaps close fisted and stingy. In truth, he subconsciously had that opinion of all bank officials, and the result was that he was very nervous and ill at ease when he entered the waiting room behind the glass paneled door marked President and gave his name to the girl who occupied the room, and who, he correctly concluded, was Mr. Davidson’s secretary.

She disappeared into the inner office to reappear after a moment.

“He’ll see you in just a moment, Mr. Thatcher. Take a chair, please,” she said in such a formal way that Jeff, fingering his hat brim nervously, sat down on the very edge of one of the big mahogany chairs lined up against the wall, wondering the while just how he was going to get on with the town’s most important banker.

Fortunate for the state of his nerves he did not have long to wait, for presently a buzzer, somewhere in the room, sounded sharply, and reminded Jeff of the noise an angry hornet makes just before it is ready to sting. The girl at the desk looked up at him and smiled.

“All right. You may go in now,” and Jeff mechanically got to his feet, opened another glass paneled door and discovered himself facing Mr. Davidson.

The banker looked at him coldly for a moment over the rims of his glasses and Jeff stood awkwardly in the doorway, hardly knowing just what to say or do.

Then a strange transformation took place on the countenance of Mr. Davidson. He smiled, and in his smile was all the warmth and good-fellowship Jeff could ask for. Immediately he felt at ease in the banker’s presence.

“Hello, young man. So you are Thatcher, the chap the Freeman printed so much about this morning, eh?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” admitted Jeff, “but you see I am on the staff and I guess that Sullivan, he’s the man who wrote the story, felt obliged to develop a hero so he picked on me. I didn’t do a thing that any other chap wouldn’t have done under the same circumstances, so I don’t deserve much credit,” and Jeff’s sincerity concerning his modesty made Mr. Davidson smile broader than ever.

“That’s a fine way to feel about it, my boy. But my inquiries, and I have made a number of them to-day, reveal to me that you are not fully aware of what you have done. The facts remain, Thatcher, that you saved a poor unfortunate from being burned to death and you recovered one hundred thousand dollars in Liberty Bonds. It seems to me that these things speak for themselves and speak rather plainly.” Again he smiled and Jeff felt decidedly self-conscious and embarrassed.

“You legitimately won a reward of $2,000, my boy,” went on the banker, “and it is yours if you care to claim it. You see—”

Jeff interrupted him.

“No, no. I can’t. It is not my place to take that money. Give it to Tim Crowley who was the one to discover Hammond pinned down there in the wreckage. Or, better still, divide it among the men of the wrecking crew. They earned it. If they had not come to the scene of the trouble the bonds and Hammond would have been destroyed in the fire and no one would have known a thing about them beyond the fact that a poor hobo had been caught in the wreck.”

“That’s all true enough and good reasoning, Thatcher. Somehow it pleases me to hear you speak that. I am going to see that Crowley and his men are properly rewarded for their part in it. But you,—what am I to do about you? Here is $2,000. It’s yours.”

Jeff hesitated a moment. Then shook his head.

“No, I can’t take it. Somehow it doesn’t seem right. I went down in that hole to save a man’s life if I could, not to earn $2,000.”

“Oh, fine. That’s just what I wanted to hear,—hoped you would say,” exclaimed Mr. Davidson jumping to his feet and coming over to Jeff’s side. He went on:

“I don’t want you to take the $2,000. Not now. That is too much money to give to an eighteen-year-old boy and the fact that you refuse to take it leaves the way open for me to help you the way I would prefer to help you,—the way I had planned to help you ever since Dr. Livingston called me up this morning. Thatcher, I want to send you back to Pennington at my expense,—or rather at the expense of the bank. I will see that your tuition is paid and your room and board cared for. Whatever money you need outside of that you will have to earn yourself as soon as you are permitted the privilege. Dr. Livingston assures me you are perfectly capable of doing that too after this term. Until that time comes I’ll advance you a little to help out. Will you let me—let the bank rather, do that for you?”

Just why a strange mistiness gathered before his eyes and why a lump should rise in his throat as Mr. Davidson spoke Jeff could not understand. Nor could he comprehend why he found it so difficult to say anything without gulping hard to keep from crying. Somehow the banker’s kindness simply overwhelmed him. It was the one thing in the world he wanted most and now to have it possible seemed too good to be true.

Mr. Davidson saw how it affected him and pressed his shoulder kindly, almost fatherly.

“There I knew you would let us do it. That’s fine. It pleases me a lot to be able to help you, Thatcher. I guess I told you over the telephone that I am an old Pennington boy myself. I worked my way through the same as you were doing until—until that mess you got into sort of killed your chances of staying on for the rest of the term. I know all about it, Thatcher. Dr. Livingston told me and how he regretted the necessity of making you live up to the rules of the institution. Of course, you realize he really had no alternative. Rules and laws are rigid things, my boy. I hope you never have to feel the seriousness of them any more than you have already.”

He was silent for a moment after that and so was Jeff. Then, suddenly, he exclaimed:

“They tell me you are a baseball man, Thatcher. That’s fine. I used to pitch for Pennington in my day. I want you to go back there and make the team this year and I’ll be out to see you play often. That’s all, boy. Take care of yourself and write to me the same as you would to your father.”

CHAPTER XII
“ALL OUT FOR BASEBALL”

“Boss” Russell was waiting for Jeff when, a little later than his usual hour for reporting, he appeared in the editorial rooms of the Freeman. There was a smile on the usually grim face of the editor.

“Hello, my boy. Been waiting to see you. Want to congratulate you and thank you for last night’s work. We beat the town on both stories. The first editions of the Sun and the Call were out without a line of it and when we bloomed forth with the news about the wreck and Hammond and the bonds, they tumbled all over themselves to rewrite our stories to run in the second editions. It was great work and I’m ready to do almost anything within reason for you, Thatcher,—that is, if you want me to. Mr. Davidson called me up at my home this noon, however, and told me that he had a plan for you that sounds better than anything I can do for you. Have you been to see him yet?”

“You bet I have, Boss,” said Jeff, still jubilant over the result of his interview with the bank president.

“Good. Are you going to accept his proposition?” asked the editor.

“Why—er—I want to. That is, if it is all right with you, sir.”

“Boy, I wouldn’t stand in your way a bit. Indeed, I’ll help you. You can be school reporter again when—er—I understand there’s a reason why you can’t handle the job this term.”

“There is,” said Jeff ruefully. “All special privileges have been denied me and I suppose I’ll have to sweat out my punishment when I go back. But I’ll take my medicine the same as I always have.”

“That’s the boy, Thatcher. And remember, if you ever want to come back into newspaper work and I’m still boss here, why just you come and knock on my office door. But go back to Pennington now by all means. I’m interested in that old school, too. Had a son who graduated from there back in 1910. You don’t remember him, of course. He played baseball; was captain in his senior year.”

“Oh, is that so. Bud Russell, wasn’t he? Shucks, I’ve seen his name on the list of captains any number of times. Played catcher, didn’t he? Sure. Gee, I want to make that team this year. I’m going out for it and try mighty hard.”

“Good, and if you make it, I’m going over to Montvale and see you play. When are you getting through here?”

“As soon as possible, Boss. I don’t want to waste a day’s time. I’ll have to plug like the dickens to catch up with my classes now. I’ve been out nearly three weeks and it’s getting close to the end of March now.”

“Well, my boy, you can get through now. No, work to-night. Dig out that list of obits, run in on the hospital and—er—yes, look in at the Pipe Fitters’ Association Ball at Concordia Hall. Then you can get through. I’ll have a new man on the job to-morrow.”

“Very good, sir,” said Jeff smiling for the first time as Boss called off the list of his assignments.

And so Jeff made his last rounds of the undertaking establishments, visited Memorial Hospital for the last time, looked in at Concordia Hall, and came back to the editorial rooms, to pound the old typewriter for the last time.

After his copy had been turned in he purposely stayed around the noisy editorial rooms for some time, for despite the fact that he was glad to be going back to Pennington in the morning, he was loath to leave that noisy, paper-littered room with its many busy typewriters, its array of desks, its battery of clicking telegraph instruments and the many busy men who were working feverishly to get out the first morning edition.

But when a lull came in the press of work he said good-by to his friends on the staff and shook hands again with Boss Russell.

“Good-by, my boy. Be a good kid and make the team. Stop in at the cashier’s office and get your envelope. There will be ten dollars extra in it for your part in last night’s scoop—shush—not a word—you earned it.” He held up his hand in protest as Jeff thanked him.

Then he gripped Jeff’s hand again, very heartily.

“So long, my boy. Don’t let any one put anything over on you.” And Jeff left the editorial rooms with Boss Russell’s last words for some reason reoccurring in his mind.

“Don’t let any one put anything over on you,” he mused. “Well, now, I wonder if any one will try. Shouldn’t be surprised if Gould and Pell tried to get back at me for a certain unpleasant affair, but I don’t think they can put much over on me if I keep my eyes open. Then, again, maybe I’m too suspicious. Bet they are both good fellows when you know ’em.” And dismissing the idea he hurried home and to bed so as to be up and abroad early in the morning.

It was not a long trip by trolley from New City, across Wading River bridge and out to the suburbs of Montvale where Pennington Institute was located, but Jeff Thatcher, all eagerness to go back to the old school, was up betimes and off on an early trolley car. He arrived while chapel was still in session, and waited patiently in Dr. Livingston’s office until the Headmaster returned to his desk.

“Hello, Thatcher,” was the cheery greeting when he saw Jeff as he entered his office. “Heard you were coming back. That’s simply bully of Mr. Davidson. Fine work you did, too, Thatcher. Er—of course, you realize that you still have a penalty hanging over you. No special privileges this term and you cannot leave the school grounds for two weeks without special permission.”

“Yes, sir, I realize it. I’ll take my medicine, sir,” said Jeff.

“Good. That’s a fine chap. Well, let’s forget the late unpleasantness. Go back to your class. Take your old room, and no more fighting. I think Wade Grenville will be glad to see you. I’ve noticed he hasn’t been in the best of spirits since you left.”

Wade was glad to see him. So was Buck Hart and Cas Gorham and Brownie Davis and Rabbit Warren and all the rest of the fellows, when he met them at Freshman’s corner, the northeast corner of the building where for school generations members of the Freshman class at Pennington gathered at odd times.

“Whoops, he’s back. He’s here again. Dr. Livingston told us about it yesterday,” cried Wade, rushing up to him and pouncing on him good-naturedly.

“Oh, boy, our young hero has returned,” affectionately shouted Buck Hart.

“Rah for the hundred thousand dollar bond hero,” yelled Rabbit Warren enthusiastically.

A dozen boys had gathered around Thatcher by that time, all celebrating his return gleefully and all wanting to know the details of his brief adventure in the business world and his thrilling experiences with the wrecking crew.

And while he was in the midst of this hub-bub two Sophomores turned the northeast corner and strolled past the group. Thatcher looked up in time to look full into the face of Gould. For a moment he was slightly embarrassed. Then he smiled and nodded cordially to his former antagonist indicating very plainly that any malice he might have harbored had disappeared.

But Gould refused to meet him half way. He did not return the nodded greeting. Instead he turned to little Birdie Pell, who still followed him like a shadow, and remarked with the utmost sarcasm in his voice.

“Well, well, I see our young movie hero has returned. The school is saved from certain disaster.”

And Birdie, not always an appreciative audience for his older companion, refused to laugh.

“The dirty mucker,” exclaimed Wade Grenville indignantly.

“Oh, let him wait. Jeff fixed him once. He’ll fix him again when they go out for baseball. Jeff, you’ve simply got to win the job of holding down third and cut him out of it,” said Rabbit.

“I’m going to try blamed hard you can bet on that. When is Mr. Rice going to call for candidates?”

“Very soon. I think they are fixing up the cage in the gym. for indoor practice now. That means that notices should be posted for candidates to report mighty soon,” said Buck.

Just at that moment Brownie Davis joined the group coming from the direction of the gym.

“All out for baseball, fellows. Coach Rice is just sticking a notice on the bulletin board for candidates to report in the gym. to-morrow afternoon,” he said with a great show of importance at being the first to deliver the welcome news.

“Wow, that listens good,” exclaimed Thatcher enthusiastically. “Come on, let’s have a look at it,” and the group rushed over toward the gym. and gathered around the bulletin board where Mr. Rice was just putting the last thumb tack into his very important announcement.

CHAPTER XIII
“YOU, TOO, THATCHER”

First call for baseball material at Pennington Institute brought out a strange and interesting group of boys all eager to make the team. They ranged all the way from sub-freshmen and members of the junior high school to seniors and members of last year’s squad. They presented a weird sight too, for the call had emphasized the fact that there were no uniforms available that early in the season and that each candidate would be expected to furnish his own clothes.

The result was a motley array of baseball clothing, some of it strange enough to make a seasoned player split his sides with laughter. Some of the sub-freshmen and junior school candidates appeared with trousers that were miles too large and shirts that had to be rolled to elbow length in order to give their hands the necessary freedom. They wore caps of various periods of baseball history, and one chap appeared in football pants and jersey as a fitting substitute for a real uniform.

There were many among the group, however, who wore the regulation uniform of the school, buff trousers and shirt with blue under jerseys and buff and blue striped stockings. They were the members of last year’s squad of regulars and substitutes who had not been graduated.

Among the latter was Gould. He wore the uniform of the junior team of the year before on which he had played third base, and he assumed an attitude of strutting importance as he elbowed his way through the crowd of students onto the gym. floor. It was very evident that he felt himself very much a part of the little group of last year’s veterans who would compose the foundation and main support upon which Coach Rice hoped to build a winning team this year.

Jeff Thatcher appeared with the first call for candidates and he wore a snappy gray and blue uniform of the New City Y. M. C. A. team, the state championship “Y” team of the year before. His appearance in this outfit made a distinct impression among the younger candidates on the floor. It made an impression on Gould, too, who for a moment, upon seeing him, appeared surprised. But he passed this off with a remark to one of the older players, which Jeff could not help but hear, to the effect that:

“Our young million dollar bond hero is all dressed up with no place to go.”

But it happened that Buck Hart was within hearing distance and he turned on Gould with a sharp retort:

“Don’t you worry about his not having any place to go. He’s going after the job of third base and believe me, there’s one fresh young Soph who will know all about how fast he’s going.”

And Gould, not having courage enough to talk back to Hart, who was one of the best athletes in the school, discreetly turned his back and sauntered over to inspect the batter’s cage.

Coach Rice called the fellows to order and lined them up the long way of the gym. floor.

“My, what a whale of a lot of candidates,” he exclaimed as he counted them and looked them over. “Too big a crowd for me to handle in here. Guess some of you fellows will have to wait until I call for outdoor practice. For the present I am going to take all of your names. Then I’m going to ask only the old fellows and a few of the others to report in the gym. The rest of you will have to wait until outdoor practice begins.”

A wave of disappointed groans went up and down the line and Mr. Rice smiled.

“Sorry. Wish I could push the four walls of the gym. out far enough to accommodate all of you. Then we’d all be happy. Mr. Clarkson, will you take their names?”

Mr. Clarkson was the assistant coach in charge of the scrub team and as he went down the line taking the name of each boy he questioned them as to their previous playing experience.

When he came to Jeff he looked at the New City Y. M. C. A. insignia on his shirt and asked:

“Did you play with the New City ‘Y’ team last year?”

“Yes, sir. Third base,” said Jeff.

“Good,” he exclaimed. “We’ll need a third baseman this year. But you’ll have to work hard for the job. Wish you luck.”

“Thank you,” said Jeff cheerfully.

Finished with the list, he and Mr. Rice went into conference over it for a few minutes, then the head coach, the list in his hand, walked to the floor and announced:

“I want only the following boys to report here every afternoon for indoor practice. The rest of you, I am sorry to say, will have to wait until the outdoor practice begins, which I hope will be about the tenth of April. But cheer up, fellows, that’s only a little more than three weeks away. These fellows remain—the rest are dismissed for the time being—Blackwell, Stone, Daily, Wiggins, Hart, Gordon, Simmons, Gammage, Sloan, Hecht, Stafford, Runyon, Daws, Gleason, Dixon and Gould. That’s all—er—no—you, too, Thatcher, you stay, please. That’s all.”

Coach Rice paused so perceptibly after Gould’s name that Jeff Thatcher’s heart sank. For a moment he felt that he was going to be denied the privilege of getting the indoor training with the candidates, which he knew was of the utmost importance to men who would have to fight for positions on the team.

Coach Rice had read off the names of all of the older men on the squad,—the men who had been out for the team the year before, and had not intended to add any more new material to the indoor squad. Thatcher was evidently an after thought and Jeff realized that his “Y” uniform and the record his team had made the summer before were entirely responsible for the addition of his name to the list. Evidently Coach Rice expected something of him or he would not have been willing to make him a member of his already large group of indoor candidates.

And as Jeff walked over to join the squad of former players who gathered at one end of the gym. while the rest of the boys disconsolately filed out-of-doors or climbed into the running track balcony to watch the start of indoor training, he wondered vaguely whether he was going to be able to justify the confidence that his uniform had inspired in the veteran coach of the Pennington squad.

Mentally he resolved to do his utmost to make the team, and as he made the resolution he could not help but glance toward Gould, whom he detected looking at him with an unpleasant expression on his dark countenance.

CHAPTER XIV
INDOOR PRACTICE

Indoor practice was not new to Jeff Thatcher. He had had a great deal of it for two successive seasons with the New City Y. M. C. A. team and he knew all about its limitations and its fun as well. The Pennington Institute gym. was not a large one as gymnasiums go and Jeff felt that Mr. Rice had picked a rather large squad for indoor work. There were sixteen husky youngsters capering about the gym. floor, all in baseball togs, save of course the cleated shoes which were tabooed. Instead they all wore rubber-soled basketball shoes to the immediate benefit of both themselves and the gym. floor.

Coach Rice and his assistant let them amuse themselves as they chose for ten minutes while they opened dusty lockers and brought out a variety of gloves and balls and several bats. When these made their appearance there was a wild yell from the squad and they all stampeded in the coach’s direction and made a wild scramble for gloves and balls. Fortunately there were enough to go around or else those who were slow in a scrimmage or the least bit diffident about crowding themselves forward would surely have been left out of the distribution.

Jeff scrambled with the rest and emerged from the mêlée with a seasoned fielder’s mitt that had seen enough service to be as flexible and as well broken in as the most fastidious ball player could desire. Indeed, as he slipped it on, he exclaimed:

“Oh, boy! Look what I drew. That’s a regular one. Just my size, too, and—”

“Hi, Freshman, that’s my glove,” cut in an unpleasant voice, and Jeff looked up to find Gould bearing down on him, his hand stretched out to seize the glove that Jeff was examining.

Thatcher looked him over coldly.

“Oh, is it?” he said evenly. “How do you get that way?”

“Don’t get lippy to me, freshie. That’s my glove. I used it all last year. I was looking for it in the pile,” said Gould, with a show of authority.

“Oh, were you? So was I, and I found it first,” said Thatcher.

“What d’you mean?” snapped Gould, crowding close to Thatcher, with an ugly look in his dark eyes.

“What do I mean? Why, I mean to keep it. And if you don’t like it let me see you get it, you—”

“Here, cut that, Gould,” said some one, and Buck Hart crowded his big body in between the two of them.

“Cut what?” stormed Gould.

“Oh, hush. Don’t try to get away with anything with me. You want that glove Thatcher got because you got an old rag. Cut it or I’ll put the argument up to Mr. Rice. You know where you’ll come off then. The glove belongs to the man who gets it first, if he wants it. If you don’t want the hunk of leather you’ve got, go over and pick another one from the pile. Don’t try to take anything away from some one else; especially Thatcher,” he added with a grin, “because Thatcher can just about smear your nose all over your face if he wants to, and you know it. You’re just trying to make it uncomfortable for him because you know he isn’t anxious to fight again. His first fight with you cost him too much.”

Gould glowered at Hart and Thatcher alternately and grumbled something about people who butted into other people’s business, but he did not have the courage to continue the argument after that.

“He’s a nasty kid,” said Buck to Thatcher as he fell in beside Jeff and walked across the gym. to where Coach Rice was talking to a group of candidates.

“—and remember,” he was saying, “don’t any of you be foolish and try to use speed or curves or anything else. This is just to limber up the throwing muscles that have been dormant all winter and are probably stiff and clumsy. I don’t want any tendons pulled or any cases of Charley horse or glass arms to start the season with. If you’ll take my advice you just toss ’em about a little. All ready, fellows. Come on. Line up eight men at the south end and eight men at the north end. Snap to it. That’s right. Now go to it.”

The fellows lined up along the north end and spread out across the gym. and presently a hearty game of catch was in progress in which eight men from one end of the floor tossed to eight men at the other end of the floor. But to the slight embarrassment of Thatcher and the evident displeasure of Gould, both discovered that the formation of the two lines of candidates brought them facing each other. They were on the receiving end of each other’s throws. Jeff had the ball and for a moment as he saw who his partner was he paused and smiled. He appreciated the irony of the thing.

Gould, on the other hand, scowled unpleasantly and growled.

“Come on. Throw it, you.”

“All right. Here you are, old sour face,” said Thatcher, in no way awed by his glowering looks, and he threw the ball smoothly and evenly down to Gould.

It was returned with a snap, for Gould must needs find some vent for the spleen that was in him. But this did not bother Thatcher. The ball thumped pleasantly into his glove and the mere feeling of the sphere and the sound of it as it smacked against the leather sent a thrill of joy tingling up and down his spine. It was great once more to have on a glove and feel the weight of the thumping ball. He enjoyed the game of catch immensely, despite the fact that he did not like his partner, and he returned throw for throw with enthusiasm.

The gymnasium presented an interesting spectacle then to the fellows watching from the running track. The air seemed full of baseballs. Eight snowy white spheres were weaving back and forth and plunking into gloves with a rhythm that was blood stirring to the dyed-in-the-wool baseball enthusiasts who were looking on and they waxed enthusiastic despite the fact that they were not working with the candidates.

Despite the admonitions of Coach Rice the fusillade of baseballs became hotter as muscles were limbered up and the candidates began to feel their blood mounting. Again and again he had to shout at the top of his voice:

“Ease up there. None of that speed stuff. Cut it down. Cut it down. You, Hart, cut down on the steam. Daily, ease up there—EASE UP—don’t you understand English? Gould, that’s enough. Any more of that burning them in and off the floor you go. Don’t be so enthusiastic. You’ve got the whole spring and summer to burn up the air.”

Thatcher smiled as the coach called Gould down. He knew that it was not through enthusiasm alone that he was “burning up the air.” There was the sting of malice about each snappy throw that Gould put over and Thatcher realized that his partner would be perfectly glad if he should by chance let one of the throws slip through his glove. Indeed, Gould made catching the throws as difficult as possible, and Jeff had to be on the alert all the time to get them as they came speeding in. But he found a certain degree of pleasure in that, too, for despite some of the awkward positions that he was forced to get into to receive the ball, he got them all and he was glad of the opportunity to show Gould that he did know how to handle a glove, even on the first day of practice.

For twenty minutes that game of catch kept up. Then suddenly Coach Rice blew a whistle and stopped it.

“All right. That’s enough, fellows. No more baseball to-day. Form two circles now. That’s it. Spread out. Mr. Clarkson, you take one group and I’ll take the other. Get the medicine balls.”

Those big cumbersome pieces of gym. paraphernalia were rolled out onto the floor, one for each group, and presently the fellows were engaged in a lively game of passing the ball from one to another. There was no restraint in this game and the passing became fast and furious, the heavy ball going around the circles with lightning swiftness and the fellows grunting each time they caught or passed the ball. So it kept up, the pace of passing growing faster and faster and faster, until all of the baseball candidates were perspiring freely. Indeed, the sweat was running down Jeff Thatcher’s face in trickles and he was panting with the exertion of the work-out.

Suddenly the coach’s whistle blew and the passing stopped.

“All right, fellows. Bully work-out. Great pep. Now for the showers and the tank.”

“Let’s go,” yelled the panting Buck Hart as he started for the stairs to the basement, taking off his shirt as he ran.

A wild yell followed and the rest of the sixteen candidates streamed along in his wake, undressing as they ran. Indeed by the time most of them reached the locker room they had but to peel off their trousers, unlace and kick off shoes and stockings, and they were ready for the showers.

Like a lot of porpoises they streamed inside the tiled shower room and dashed under the hissing sprays, crowding, pushing and shoving for a place under the cold streams of water so that they could close up their perspiring pores and be ready for a plunge into the warmer water of the tank.

With that horde of husky youngsters under the showers the tiled room rang with the shouts, gulps, snorts, and screams of pure delight as they splashed under the cold sprays of almost icy water. There were spills on the slippery tile floor, but that did not count for much. There were squabbles over the proprietorship of the remarkably few pieces of soap that were in use; there were water fights and wrestling matches, but none of them proved serious.

It was Buck Hart as usual who led the crowd.

“Last one into the tank is IT. Wow,” and he made a dash for the swinging door that cut off the shower room from the long tiled room in which was the swimming tank with its inviting blue-green water.

Like so many otters they went overboard and the splashes and yells would have made a stranger believe that an army was taking a plunge instead of less than a score of boys.

Jeff Thatcher was overboard with the first of the group. Diving and fetching up half way across the tank he came up with a snort and a shake of his head to clear the water out of his eyes; then, turning, he watched to see who would be the last one in. But as he turned, a head bobbed up out of the water just in front of him, and to his surprise he saw that the swimmer was Birdie Pell.

“Hello, Thatcher,” said Pell, surprised and somewhat embarrassed to discover his chum’s sworn enemy facing him.

“Hello, yourself,” said Thatcher, “how’d you get in?”

“Shush-s-h, I sneaked it. Only baseball candidates supposed to be in this afternoon, but I felt like a swim, so I sneaked down.”

“Look out Rice doesn’t catch you,” said Jeff.

“Oh, I’ll keep under water while he’s around and he won’t be able to find me among this bunch if he should come in.”

“Duck. Here he comes now,” said Jeff, for Mr. Rice shoved his way through the swinging doors and came to the edge of the tank.

Pell submerged like a beaver and Jeff, not anxious to see him discovered, began a prodigious splashing and milling about with the rest of the fellows. Out of the tail of his eye, however, he could see Pell’s form moving under water toward the spring board float at the far end, and Jeff knew that the little Sophomore would come up under the float and stay there until Mr. Rice had gone.

But the coach did not go. Instead he stood on the edge of the tank and watched the fellows for about five minutes. Then he blew his whistle for attention and shouted:

“That’s enough, fellows. Just a plunge. Turn out now.”

One by one the boys, with pink, glowing skin, climbed up the brass ladder at the upper end of the pool and made for the locker room. Jeff lingered as long as he dared, for he wanted to see if Pell would reappear from under the spring board float. Indeed, he lingered so long that he was the last one in the tank and Mr. Rice spoke to him.

“Come on, Thatcher, you water rat. Climb out. You’ll get another swim to-morrow.”

There was nothing else for Jeff to do but to climb out then and follow the coach into the locker room, leaving Pell alone in the tank and hiding under the spring board float, where, Jeff knew, there was just enough clearance between the bottom of the float and the surface of the water for a swimmer to float flat on his back and keep his face out of water.

For some reason it worried Thatcher to leave Pell hiding there. Twice he looked back to see if he could see the boy, but he realized that if Mr. Rice saw him glancing backward that he would suspect immediately that some one was hiding under the float and then Pell would be caught. This Jeff did not want to have happen, and so he went on into the locker room and said nothing about the Sophomore, concluding of course that as soon as Mr. Rice had left the basement Pell would make his getaway.

In the scramble for towels and the general babble of the locker room, Jeff forgot Pell for a little while until he saw Mr. Rice disappear up the stairs toward the gym. floor. Then he went to the door of the tank room to pass Pell the word.

The diminutive Sophomore was standing on the float poised for a back dive.

“Hi, Pell, he’s gone,” called Thatcher guardedly, “you’d better come out now.”

“Nix, not if he’s gone. I’m going to have a real swim.”

Thatcher looked at him in silence for a moment. He recalled the rules of the school regarding the swimming pool. No student was permitted under any circumstances to be alone in the pool. There must be some other person in the pool at the time. This provision had been made after the body of one boy had been found in the pool. He had gone in swimming alone and something had happened, and because no one had visited the tank the rest of that day or that night, his body was not found until the following morning. After that a strict rule had been instituted that no boy should enter the tank alone.

By staying there Pell was breaking this rule. Jeff wondered whether it was his duty to stay in the tank room until Pell had finished.

“It is not,” he finally told himself. “If he wants to break the rule let him. It’s his business. If he’s caught he can take his medicine.” And he turned back into the locker room.

He started to dress, slipping into his underclothes. Then by some strange freak he decided to brush his hair before dressing further. On his way to the big mirror at the end of the room he had to pass the tank room door, and out of idle curiosity he pushed it open and glanced inside. Pell was not to be seen.

Jeff stood there a moment puzzled. There was no disturbance on the surface of the water. Had Pell left the pool and come in to the locker room to dress? Jeff did not recall seeing him enter but perhaps he had come in while he had his back to the door. Perhaps—

Jeff gasped. As he stood there in the doorway he saw a hand break the surface of the pool. There was something horrible, something ghastly about that hand. It came up with clutching fingers. It seemed to be reaching vainly for something. The fingers worked convulsively, closed upon thin air, then disappeared beneath the surface again.

“Great goodness, it’s Pell! Something has happened to him. He is drowning!” exclaimed Thatcher.

Frightened almost to panic for a moment, Jeff rushed through the door and across the tiled floor of the tank room to the edge of the pool. From the marble slabs that lined sides and top of the pool he could see in the green-blue depths little Pell’s naked body twisting and turning convulsively under the surface. He could see his arms outflung and his clawing, grasping hands clutching and slipping at the smooth tile at the bottom of the pool. He could see his horribly distorted face upturned; his bulging eyes stared straight toward Jeff.

All signs of panic left Thatcher then. He realized that Pell’s condition was very serious. And somehow the fact that he alone was there to help the drowning Sophomore seemed suddenly to give him the courage and cool-headedness that was necessary in the emergency.

For a fraction of a second he stood poised on the edge of the pool, then in a beautiful deep dive he plunged under and with strong strokes swept down to the bottom and seized Pell by the hair. The tank was seven feet deep where Pell had been diving and so it was impossible for Jeff to stand on bottom. He did however plant his feet firmly on the tiles and shoved himself toward the surface, dragging Pell after him and bringing his head above water, too.

But the half-conscious drowning Pell never knew what was taking place. Instinct, however, moved his arms, and his grasping hands closed around Jeff in a death grip, and before Thatcher realized it, he was being strangled in a deadly grasp. Jeff had expected this, and as they both went under again, he forced Pell’s head around, pushed his own hands and arms up between the arms that were entwined about his neck, and with a superhuman effort, broke the grip. And when they came to the surface again Pell was so far gone that he made no further resistance.

On his back and holding Pell’s dragging body under the chin, Jeff swam toward the brass ladder and climbed drippingly out. He dragged Pell up onto the marble coping and then gathered his limp form into his arms and hurried toward the locker room.

His appearance at the doorway of the locker room in dripping underclothes with the white and bloodless form of the little Sophomore in his arms caused consternation for a moment. The fellows who saw him rushed toward him, exclaiming.

“I—I—think he’s still alive,” Jeff answered to the hasty questions that were put to him, “but for Pete’s sake lend a hand here and hurry up or he will pass out. He’s full of water.”

“I—I—think he’s still alive,” Jeff answered

“Right,” exclaimed Buck Hart, lifting Pell out of Jeff’s arms and laying him on a bench. “Here, fellows, a little pep now. Take hold.”

Eager hands grasped Pell and followed Buck’s directions.

First they stood the unconscious boy all but on his head while quarts of water drained out of his nose and mouth.

This done they laid him flat on the floor and proceeded to administer artificial respiration. Slowly and carefully, but with the necessary vigor, they worked his arms while they inflated and deflated his chest with the pressure of their hands. All of the boys were white and most of them were very much frightened, and doubtless had it not been for the cool-headed direction of Buck Hart and Jeff Thatcher, Pell would not have fared so well as he did. But they had scarcely worked over him five minutes when color began to come back into his ashen cheeks and his eyelids began to flutter.

“His heart is getting stronger. Keep it up, fellows,” said Jeff, who was working his chest up and down.

“Good. He’s breathing feebly. Keep up the good work,” added Buck Hart.

And this gave the fellows encouragement, for they worked with a will, then, and in a remarkably short time Pell opened his eyes and stared glassily at the lights overhead.

“Oh, boy, I guess we’ve saved him,” exclaimed Thatcher in a relieved voice.

“I guess we have. But Birdie dear had a narrow squeak,” said Buck Hart.

“I’ll say he did. Suppose we should send for Mr. Rice?” asked Jeff, thinking of the coach for the first time.

“That’s what we should have done in the first place instead of monkeying around ourselves. But I don’t think we need to now. He’s coming through, and if we get the coach here he’ll raise a pack of trouble for Pell. Let’s not.”

Pell’s eyes were clearing. He was smiling now and he seemed to understand what the fellows had been saying, although he did not attempt to speak. Still they worked over him, and faster and faster he regained strength and consciousness, until presently he began to struggle feebly to sit up. They helped him into a rickety locker room chair and began to rub him dry with towels. The friction of the rubbing was as good as a stimulant to the boy and before long he raised his head and said weakly:

“What happened? Last I remember I tried a back dive off the float and my foot slipped. Must have cracked my head on something.” He felt of the back of his head and brought his fingers away with a pink stain on them.

“Guess you did crack your head,” said Buck Hart, examining the wound. “There’s a lump there as big as a goose egg and a pretty bad bruise, too. Believe me, you are lucky, Birdie. If Thatcher hadn’t dragged you out when he did you’d be a dead one now.”

Pell looked at Thatcher gratefully.

“Did you save me, Thatcher? Thanks, old fellow.” And he held out a trembling hand.

“Don’t think of it,” said Jeff, shaking hands; “here, get some clothes on. You are shivering.”

Jeff and Buck somehow managed to get him into his clothes and to get him over beside a sizzling steam radiator, where they made him comfortable while they dressed themselves. And Jeff noticed with a feeling of contempt for Gould that during all their efforts to bring Pell around the older Sophomore had done nothing to be of service to his supposed chum.

“Fine kind of a friend he is,” thought Jeff, as he was crawling into a basketball uniform that he intended to use in lieu of the wet underclothing that he hung over the steam radiator to dry.

CHAPTER XV
ALL OUT FOR BASEBALL

But in spite of the efforts of the fellows to keep Pell’s accident in the pool a secret it became known throughout the school in a matter of hours.

Every fellow in the locker room realized that Pell had been breaking a rule,—a very strict rule, and while none of them approved of this and in their hearts felt that he deserved punishment, they were not willing to go back on him to the extent of making his misdemeanor and the resulting accident known. Indeed, while there were few among them who really cared very much for Pell they all felt that under similar circumstances they would want the fellows to stand by them and they tried to cover up the little Sophomore’s difficulties as much as possible.

Thatcher and Buck Hart, along with Wiggins and Dixon, were the most concerned about trying to get Pell out of the locker room and back to his room in Newkirk Hall. The rest of the fellows of the baseball squad left the gym. in twos and threes or larger groups and went to their rooms, while these four lingered behind with Pell, who was still weak and trembling from exhaustion. The accident had taken a greater toll of his strength than most of them realized.

“Are you feeling all right now?” asked Buck Hart.

Pell forced a smile and tried to stand up. But his legs refused to obey and he sat down weakly.

“Thought I was, but I guess I’d better rest a little longer,” he said, a little ashamed of his weakness.

“All right. Rest a bit longer,” said Buck. Then turning to Honey Wiggins and Dixon, he said: “Honey, you and George needn’t wait. Jeff and I will get him over to Newkirk. Fact is, I don’t think you’d better wait. Four of us helping him back will look mighty funny. I think Jeff and I can get him over and be less conspicuous about it.”

“Well, maybe so,” said big George Dixon. “All right, Hon and I will blow, then. Sure you don’t need us?”

“No, Buck and I can manage,” said Jeff.

Pell looked around the locker room and then back at Jeff and Buck.

“Where’s Gould?” he asked curiously.

“Gould? Oh, he went out with the bunch,” said Jeff, and in spite of himself he could not repress all the scorn that he held for the Sophomore for deserting his supposed chum.

“Huh,” grunted Pell, after a moment’s silence. He evidently intended to say more but reconsidered. Still in that grunt Jeff detected the fact that Pell’s eyes were opened to the value of Gould’s friendship.

“How about it now? Feeling any stronger?” asked Buck as he heard the doors upstairs slam behind George Dixon and Honey Wiggins.

“Try to stand now,” urged Jeff; “we’ll support you between us and get you over to Newkirk and to bed. You’ll get an hour’s rest before the supper bell and that will brace you up.”

Pell got to his feet once more and walked slowly, but steadily, to his locker, where he managed to get into his overcoat and hat. Then with Jeff and Buck partly supporting him, yet not being conspicuous about it, they helped him up the stairs and out of the building into a fast gathering March twilight.

Across the campus they hurried, as fast as the weak and still trembling Pell could move. And under the cover of the half light they managed to reach Newkirk Hall and get Pell into his room without encountering any one.

Pell’s teeth were chattering when they bundled him into his blankets and turned on the steam radiator in his room. Jeff paused and looked at him a minute.

“Jiminy, old fellow, you’re shivering so you shake the bed. Think we had better call Dr. Stout?”

“No, don’t do that,” protested Pell; “I’ll be all right by supper time, I think.”

But when Jeff and Buck left him they did not agree with him in that respect.

“I’m afraid the shock and exposure and everything has just about done him up,” said Jeff to Buck.

“I don’t like to see him have chills that way. Looks bad to me. But we won’t call the Doctor unless he doesn’t show up for supper,” said Jeff.

Both boys went to their rooms and made themselves ready for the evening meal. Wade Grenville burst into the room, late as usual, and began to tumble into clean clothes.

“How’s Pell?” he asked, between splashes in the wash basin in the corner of the room. “Get him to his room all right?”

“Yes, we got him there all right without any one seeing us, but I think he’s a mighty sick kid. If he don’t show up for supper we’ll have to call Dr. Stout,” said Jeff.

“Oh, nonsense; he’s a tough little rooster. He’ll show up, all right. There goes the bell. Jiminy. Wait up, Jeff, till I put on my collar.”

Both boys made a wild, last minute dash down the hall toward the dining room, only to almost bump into Dr. Livingston at the dining room door.

“Well, what’s the matter. Can’t you fellows shave time just a little closer than this?” asked the Headmaster sarcastically, the humor of which was not lost on both of them.

But as they stepped inside the big room, the door opened behind them and Pell walked in. Dr. Livingston turned to see who the late comer was.

“Well, Pell,” he said, still with a suggestion of sarcasm, “you are nearly as late as Thatcher and Grenville. Can’t you— Why, what’s the matter, boy?”

Pell had closed the dining room door behind him and started on obviously unsteady legs toward his table. Two spots of color burned in his cheeks and his eyes were strangely bright. As he started to step past the Headmaster, he paused momentarily and tried to steady himself. Then as he stepped out again he suddenly collapsed. His trembling legs gave way under him and he dropped in a heap on the floor.

Dr. Livingston and Jeff reached down and lifted him to his feet. Then, with the whole school looking at them, the Headmaster gathered the boy up in his arms, exclaiming:

“Why, you’re sick, Pell—terribly sick, with a high fever. Thatcher, call Dr. Stout.”

But there was not need for Jeff to call the physician. When the little Sophomore collapsed, Dr. Stout had jumped up from his place at the head of the junior school table and hurried through the crowd of boys to the side of the Headmaster.

Together they carried the boy out of the building and across the campus to the infirmary, while Professor Reisenberg brought order in the dining room and made the students start on their meal.

Neither Dr. Stout nor the Headmaster returned to the dining room while the students were eating, and when the boys left the hall the conclusions they reached among themselves were that Birdie Pell was very ill.

And such proved to be the case, for in the morning it was announced from the chapel platform that the boy had developed a slight case of pneumonia and that Dr. Stout had spent the night fighting to keep it from getting any more serious. The shock of the accident along with the exposure had proved too much for Pell.

For two weeks he lingered in the infirmary, with Jeff and Wade and Buck Hart and many other boys frequent visitors to his room, when he was permitted to receive them. Meanwhile, however, indoor practice had continued with increasing enthusiasm among the members of the squad of sixteen. Honey Wiggins, big George Dixon and Cy Gordon, the pitching candidates, were warming up to their task of working out their arms, and with Tad Sloan, the captain and regular catcher of last year, and Al. Canner and Mickey Daily acting as substitutes, the three slabmen were shooting balls across the gym. with real vigor, sometimes even trying curves and shoots when Mr. Rice would permit them to unlimber all they had for a brief period.

A batting cage, almost entirely surrounded by corded netting, was installed at one end of the gym., too, and the fellows began to discover how pleasant it was to swing a bat once more. With the corded netting draped all around the room to enmesh a stray ball, the candidates were permitted to slug as hard as they cared to, and they went at the work of finding their batting eye with a will.

Jeff was particularly keen for this batting cage practice, for he had long ago developed that co-ordination of eye, brain and muscle that makes a three hundred batter, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than proving to a pitcher that there were few curves or jumps that could fool him. He noticed, too, with a certain eagerness, that Mr. Rice had watched him while he occupied the batting cage, and he felt certain that he saw approval in his eye as he watched his freedom of swing and the way he put his shoulders and body behind some of the smacks that sent the horse hide against the corded netting with a thump.

Indeed, the coach even went so far after one slashing wallop of the ball as to remark his approval.

“That’s real stick work, Thatcher. Great stuff. Wish some of the rest of the fellows would get the hang of the thing the way you have it. All you need is to correct your feet a little more and you’ll be a three hundred hitter some day.”

Jeff was thoroughly pleased to have won that much praise from the coach and he could not help smiling with a sense of satisfaction as he stepped out of the cage to give his place to another batter. He smiled more, too, when he noted an expression of jealous hate on the face of Gould.

“That sort of thing gets his goat, I guess,” he said to himself as he walked over to relieve Mickey Daily of his catcher’s mitt and his job of catching the curves of Honey Wiggins. Daily was next in line for practice in the batting cage.

And so the indoor practice progressed satisfactorily enough through the last week in March and the first week in April. The weather was fast developing into an ideal spring. The cold weather that had lingered all too long in March disappeared completely with the first day of April and spring seemed to sweep down upon the country with a rush. Budding trees began to show a fresh greenness, shrubbery about the campus showed color that was a source of cheer after the bleakness of winter. Robins appeared on the broad lawns of the campus and searched diligently for worms that were crowding toward the surface in the damp and rapidly warming loam, blue birds were awing and their soft, almost delicate song could be heard from the maples and elms that lined the driveway. Song sparrows were tuning up in the woods across the river and the colony of barn swallows that nested under the eaves of the library building returned in force.

“Oh, boy, this is swell baseball weather,” exclaimed Jeff one day as, hurrying across the campus he encountered Coach Rice and Tad Sloan, the captain, moving toward the baseball diamond.

“Great, isn’t it?” said Tad Sloan, who was a short, stocky chap of a quiet but forceful type, and a senior at Pennington.

“I’ll say so,” said Jeff, wondering with interest why the captain and the coach were walking toward the diamond.

Tad evidently noticed the look of inquiry Jeff shot at them, for he smiled and spoke.

“We’re going over to see how wet the ground is. If the sun has dried the diamond out sufficiently Mr. Rice says he will call for outdoor practice beginning this afternoon.”

“Oh, boy, that will be swell,” exclaimed Jeff, delighted with the prospects.

He hurried on to his classes then, eager to spread the glad possibilities, and for the rest of the morning each time he and Wade and several other baseball enthusiasts passed the bulletin board in the hall they looked eagerly for the posting of a new notice there.

And at the end of the last period that morning they were not disappointed. There it was in big letters.

“All out for baseball! Squad and new candidates will report for practice at 3 o’clock. North field.”

CHAPTER XVI
THE SCRUB TEAM

With the beginning of the outdoor season baseball practice at Pennington took on an entirely different atmosphere. In the first place the squad was increased to more than twice its regular size with the first day of the season. To be sure it began to dwindle almost immediately for many of the new candidates discovered that they were hopelessly outclassed by the rest of the men, or else many of them who had just come out to “fool around” with the squad soon realized that they were in the way of better players and “cluttering up the field,” as Mr. Rice good-naturedly put it, so one by one they dropped out of the practice and found more pleasure in acting as spectators than in romping around the field.

So, by the third day of the outdoor work, the squad had again been reduced by men dropping out, until there remained about thirty players; enough to compose three teams with a couple of substitutes to spare.

Immediately this happened Mr. Rice and his assistant, and coach of the scrub teams, Mr. Clarkson, proceeded to organize a first team, a first scrub team and a second scrub team which amounted to a junior team, composed of the younger boys of the squad, and after that practice began in earnest.

Of course, the first team was picked entirely from among the sixteen players who had taken part in the indoor practice for the previous three weeks. Of the sixteen original players Coach Rice built up a team composed, first of all, of Tad Sloan, captain and catcher, long Lafe Gammage, last year’s first baseman still in his old position, Mickey Daily at second, Buck Hart short stop, Gould, last year’s second string man at third, Dave Gleason in right field, Jed Stafford center field and Dutch Hecht in left garden. Big George Dixon, the holdover pitcher from last year, was assigned as the first team pitcher. This aggregation was called the Penningtons.

The second, or scrub team, called the Penguins, was built up of the best material available of the remaining candidates. Al. Canner, the substitute catcher, was behind the bat catching for Honey Wiggins or Cy Gordon, both of them second string pitchers; Dick Runyon held down first, Cas Gorham played second, Brownie Davis made the short field, Jeff was picked to fill third, with Rabbit Warren at center field, Wade Grenville, Jeff’s roommate, in right field and Fat Daws holding down the job of left fielder.

Of course, all the fellows realized, and it was hardly necessary for Coach Rice to announce to them, that all the positions were temporarily filled, and it depended entirely upon the ability and the amount of baseball brains displayed whether the men would hold onto the jobs they were assigned to or whether they would move up to the first team or down to the second team.

As they had been selected, however, both teams were mighty good collections of baseball talent, and as it soon proved very evenly matched for skill and baseball brains. Of course, the first team had certain advantages because the fellows were generally older and a little more experienced in baseball playing, but that did not count for a great deal when all was said and done.

To be sure it was not the pleasantest thing possible for Jeff to be classed as a second string man, but he realized that Gould, being a scrub team man of the previous year had first call on the third base position.

“I’m going to give him a rub for the place though,” he assured himself secretly when the selection of teams had been announced and he found Gould in the position he coveted.

North Field provided two diamonds, one at the extreme north end and one at the south end, and the last named was considered the scrub team’s home grounds, while the big diamond at the north end was the home grounds of the first team. Every afternoon for the first week of the outdoor practice the two teams turned out upon their respective diamonds and proceeded to limber up in earnest. The first few days were devoted to throwing and batting practice as in the gymnasium, but in addition to this the coaches took the fellows for short jogs about the field to stretch their legs and develop their lung power.

They devoted some of this early work to correcting individual faults. Mr. Rice and Mr. Clarkson watched each player carefully, as he ran, fielded or took his turn at the bat, and whenever they saw any of the boys making errors or developing minor faults they were quick to take them aside and give them careful and painstaking drilling until such faults were corrected.

In that way every afternoon of the first week of the outdoor season was taken up with preliminary work and it was not until Saturday that Mr. Clarkson felt that the Penguins were ready for their first clash with the Penningtons.

It was a five inning game and it was played on the Pennington’s home grounds with the Penguins batting as the visiting team and it developed into a real battle before the fifth inning finally closed,—a contest in which Jeff Thatcher and Rabbit Warren stood out conspicuously among the scrubs. It resulted disastrously for the first team not in the matter of scores so much as in the loss of one of its capable group of outfielders. Dave Gleason went to the bench with an injury to the calf of his leg; a strained tendon which besides being very painful threatened to keep him off the field indefinitely. This happened in the very first inning and as a result Jeff’s roommate, Wade Grenville, was the first player to be moved over from the scrub team to the first team. He took Gleason’s place in right field and Tiny Drexel, a diminutive Sophomore and substitute scrub team fielder was moved into the line up.

Gleason’s injury resulted when he slid for the plate in the first inning trying to squeeze over the first run on a close decision. He tallied all right but when the dust had cleared away he could not get up. Al. Canner, the scrub catcher, and Coach Rice, who was umpiring, had to help him to his feet. He was lying with his right leg doubled up under him in a position that told plainly enough that no boy could fall that way and not suffer as a result.

“My golly, he’s broken his leg,” exclaimed Al. Canner throwing off his catcher’s mitt and stooping over him.

“Fine slide, Gleason, but I’m afraid it’s going to cost you something, poor kid,” said Mr. Rice lifting his body so that his leg could be straightened out.

The coach felt of the member carefully while Dave’s face was distorted with pain.

“Isn’t broken. Ankle isn’t even sprained. Where does it hurt you, Dave? In there?” Mr. Rice dug his thumb deep into Dave’s calf and he groaned with pain.

“Shucks, that’s too bad. I know what it is now. Pulled a tendon. That means a mighty painful leg for you for weeks. Guess you’re on the bench for a while. Here, you fellows, lend a hand. He can’t step down on his right foot. It will hurt too much. Lift him. Put his arms around your shoulders. That’s the way. Take him over to the bench and one of you run over and call Dr. Stout.”

Dutch Hecht and Lafe Gammage came over from the bench and all but carried Gleason back to the stand where they made him comfortable while one of the boys on the side lines ran off to the administration building to get Dr. Stout.

“Wade, you go out and play right field for Gleason. Clarkson, put Drexel in for Grenville, will you, please? All right, everybody on your toes now. I want my team on its toes every second of every minute of a game.”

The run that Gleason brought over was the first run and the only run that the Penningtons made in the first two innings. But it was quite sufficient to keep the Penguins in second place, for none of them seemed to be able to find big George Dixon for anything but the scratchiest kind of a hit. He fanned the first two men up and while Brownie Davis reached first on an infield hit and an error by Gould at third, he stayed there because Dick Runyon’s best efforts at bat could not help him any.

Jeff was the first man up in the second inning, and while he found the third ball Dixon shot over for a slashing solid smack he did nothing more than give Gould a chance to retrieve the error he had made in the first inning. Jeff’s drive was a hot liner that shot across the diamond about waist high and looked good for a single, but Gould somehow managed to get his hands onto it and knock it down. Then with a snappy throw he got the ball to Lafe Gammage about two-fifths of a second ahead of Jeff, thus making the first out of the inning and smothering Jeff’s chances to get on base.

Tiny Drexel, who followed Jeff, fanned after three balls had been waited out, but Rabbit Warren who was next on the batting order laced out a clean single between first and second and Fat Daws followed with almost a duplicate of the same bingle and advanced Rabbit to third, taking second himself on the throw to nip Warren which did not succeed in its purpose.

With two on it began to look as if the Penguins would have a chance to flap their wings and crow or utter whatever kind of a noise Penguins are supposed to utter. But their triumph was short-lived for Honey Wiggins, while he could handle a stick better than the average pitcher, was not equal to the job of bringing in the necessary run to tie the score. He knocked a long, sky scraping foul that lumbering Dutch Hecht gathered in with that serene certainty that marked him as the most reliable kind of a left fielder, and the inning closed with Rabbit and Fat Daws still on. The score 1 to 0 in favor of the Penningtons.

The second inning closed with the big team unable to find Honey Wiggins for more than one hit which Captain Tad laced out himself. But the sturdy catcher was left on third after Lafe Gammage and Mickey Daily on instructions from the coach had sacrificed him into the position to score. Buck Hart was not able to get a hit beyond the infield and he was easily thrown out at first by Cas Gorham who fielded his drive with ease and threw the ball to Dick Runyon while Buck was still ten feet from the first sack.

Again the Penguins met a stone wall defense in the beginning of the third inning and could not get a man beyond second base. But when the Penningtons came up for their half of the same inning it “looked as if the old ball game was going up in smoke right there,” to quote Rabbit Warren.

Wade Grenville led off the batting order that inning and as he stepped to the plate his old team mates began to josh him.

“Hey, you Penguin, what are you doing in there?” yelled Cas Gorham.

“Oh, look at our first victim,” yelled Jeff. “Come on, Honey, put one over for this boy. We’ve got to get him right off. On your toes now, every one.”

Honey evidently did put one over with the first ball pitched but the “victim” refused to be “got.” Wade leaned on the horsehide with a smash that sent it cannon balling into left field and just out of reach of Fat Daws, who made a good recovery and snapped over a throw that cut Wade off from making more than one base on his drive.

“Wow, look at that for a starter,” yelled Buck Hart on the coaching line. “Come on now, fellows, let’s all be the same kind of victims. Let’s go!”

Jed Stafford was the next batter up and Honey Wiggins knew how dangerous this port side stick artist was and he eased over two balls before he sizzled across the first strike. He tried to slip strike two over on the next ball but Jed liked incurves, which were outs to him and he met the ball with the end of his bat for a neat little Texas leaguer over Cas Gorham’s head and just out of his reach. Wade romped down to second and Stafford was safe on first by a mile and a quarter.

The redoubtable Dutch Hecht was up next and Honey Wiggins knew that Dutch was just as sure at the bat as he was in the field. For a while it looked as if he intended to pass the fielder for he put over three balls in succession. Of course, Dutch, with natural baseball brains, waited out the next two just to see if he could draw another ball and make first, thus filling the bases. But when it stood three and two it was noticeable that he gripped the bat harder and dropped his shoulders forward a little, ready to land on the next delivery.

Land he did, but, thanks to Honey Wiggin’s strategy, he did not land as solid as he might have for Honey gave him a high one right at his shoulder and Dutch cut under it enough to shoot a swift head high drive straight for third base.

Jeff was right in line with it and he did not need to move to get his glove on it. With a snappy throw he got the sphere over to Cas Gorham before Wade could get back to his base and the result was a double play with Stafford left on first. That made the Penguins breathe easier, but they were not out of the woods yet, for big George Dixon was up for the next man at bat and he promptly laced out a hit that got him on first and advanced Stafford to second. Again the Penningtons had two men on base and a dangerous hitter up. Captain Tad selected his bat and walked to the plate.

“Two down, Honey, old boy. Play to this one,” coached Brownie Davis, and Rabbit Warren from the field yelled, “You’ll pull out of this yet, Old Stocking. Let’s go.”

“Let’s go is right. Play the batter. He can’t get anything by us,” encouraged Jeff as he slapped his hand into his glove and moved out a trifle.

Drexel, Daws and Warren were moving out, too, for when Captain Tad leaned on it sometimes he leaned hard enough to make it interesting for the fielders. He did this time.

Contrary to expectations Honey Wiggins shot over a swift ball that grooved the plate, and contrary to expectations also Captain Tad swung hard at the first ball pitched. There was a loud crack and Jeff started backward. But the ball was still mounting when it passed over his head. He turned and watched Rabbit Warren racing across the outfield. Stafford and Dixon, running on anything for the third out, lumber past and start for home. Captain Tad was streaking for second as fast as he could go which was very fast indeed.

Back ran Warren, going as fast as he could travel and keeping his eyes on the ball over his left shoulder. Back he ran into deep left field, and he was still going when the ball started falling plummet like just ahead of him. Rabbit made a wild lunge and a dive. The ball plunked into his glove and he went down and rolled over and came up to his feet, the ball still gripped in his mitt. It was the most spectacular catch of the day and the Penguins and Penningtons went wild with enthusiasm.

“Some ball playing for the first day of the season,” yelled Mr. Clarkson enthusiastically, as the sides began to change. The score was still 1 to 0 and the fourth inning had started.

And it remained 1 to 0 in spite of the best efforts of the Penguins, for George Dixon, pitching in almost mid-season form, still held the fighting scrubs down through the remainder of the game and Honey Wiggins, with the fine support he was receiving from the rest of his team, tightened up perceptibly and did not let the first team squeeze in another tally. For the first game of the season it was a fine exhibition of baseball and the eighteen players left the field bubbling over with enthusiasm.

The locker room in the basement of the gym. was an interesting place when the whole squad gathered there to change their dusty and sweaty uniforms for more appropriate clothes for the dining hall.

“Jiminy, that was a great catch you made, Rabbit, old boy,” said Jeff enthusiastically, slapping his friend on the shoulder.

“Well, I had to match that double play you pulled, didn’t I?” said Warren grinning from ear to ear.

“Sure you did, you old Indian. I begin to think we’ve got a better team than the first team at that. Notice how anxious Coach Rice was to get Wade over on the other side just as soon as Dave Gleason pulled a tendon. Poor Dave. Heard anything from Dr. Stout?”

“Yes,” yelled Buck Hart from another section of locker, “I passed him coming in and he says Gleason has a mighty mean leg. He’ll have to use a crutch for a week or two or perhaps longer.”

“Shucks, that’s too bad for Gleason. But the Penningtons needn’t worry. We have lots of bright young men on the Penguins ready to step into the breach. Look at Rabbit Warren, for instance. Why, he’s the original skyscraper. When they won’t come down to him he flies up and gets ’em. He’s been putting hair tonic on his shoulder blades, and hanged if I don’t think he started to grow wings the way he climbed up for that one to-day. Give him time and he’ll be—”

Further remarks of a similar nature were cut short from Jeff by a sweater that came sailing through the air and wrapped neatly about his head. When he unwound it Rabbit Warren was grinning at him.

“No more publicity this evening, Jeff. That’s a good job for one day. You’ll talk me onto the first team yet.”

“Well, believe me, if Wade Grenville wasn’t rooming with me he wouldn’t have made it to-day. See what I did for him. Why, Rabbit, you wouldn’t believe it, but I make Wade stand on the bed every night and catch glasses filled with water. If he spills any he has to sleep in a wet bed. That’s why he’s such a good fielder. How about it, Wade?”

“Yes, you old sleeper, you. All the practice I ever get from you is practice in how to snore in three languages. Fine lot of help you are to me. I’m thinking of changing my room now that I have advanced to real company. That Penguin outfit is some bunch of birds. They know about as much about baseball as—”

Wade did not get any further before several members of the scrub team began to bombard him with everything from catcher’s mitts to baseball shoes and he had to beat a hasty retreat into the shower room.

CHAPTER XVII
A STIFF SCHEDULE

That Saturday afternoon game was the first of a series of five inning games between the Penningtons and the Penguins that extended over a period of just one week; the first week preceding the opening of the season for the Pennington team with the game with Erasmus Hall which was dated for April 21st. And it was during these games that the Penguin players, Jeff Thatcher included, hoped to make sufficient impression on Coach Rice to be allowed to play at least a part of the first game.

The result was a veritable whirlwind series in which the Penningtons and the Penguins fought it out from the first ball pitched to the last batter up. And to give the scrub team credit, it was composed of such high caliber material that in the seven games played they won and tied three games, only permitting the first team a clean cut victory in the first game of the series and in the fourth; that played on Wednesday afternoon when the first team closed the fifth inning with a rally that all but completely rattled Cy Gordon, the youngest of the three pitchers, and caused him to let them pile up four runs in the one inning drubbing the scrubs to the tune of 6 to 1, which was the worst beating that either of the teams had suffered.

The Pennington schedule was a stiff one; according to Coach Rice the hardest they had had in years, for it provided for two games a week and in some weeks three games were scheduled. It began with the Erasmus Hall game, which was not a big game but usually an interesting one for the school from Flatbush brought down to Montvale an aggregation of scrappy ball players who fought for every run and every out, and it was generally considered an excellent game on which to test the mettle of the team from the bigger institution. Following the Erasmus game came a number of games of more or less importance ranging from the East Winton and New City Y. M. C. A. teams to the game with the Princeton Freshmen which occurred about the middle of May. That was the first of the really big games and from then on the Pennington team was supposed to keep going in full stride through the rest of May and on to the middle of June when the climax of the baseball year was reached in the game with Lawrencetown, an institution of about the same scholastic standing as Pennington and jealous of annexing the State Championship each year. It was generally a fight between the schools for this championship and the game was rated of such great importance that although the ’varsity P was awarded for baseball to a player who had played in seven games of the season one of the seven must needs be the Lawrencetown contest. So, of course, the objective of all the members of the Pennington baseball squad was to become of so much importance to the team that the coach would feel it quite necessary to include them in the batting order of the team when it faced Lawrencetown.

And Jeff Thatcher was not the only one who realized that it was never too early to begin fighting for that objective and that is the reason why he and several others of the scrub team put everything they had into the first five games of the practice season. Indeed, he and Rabbit Warren played such heady baseball and handled their bats so well that in the last game of the series on Friday afternoon, they were both shifted to the first team as a temporary expedient by Coach Rice, just by way of determining whether the Penningtons could be made any stronger with them in the batting order.

Friday’s game proved to be a terrific contest, and for four innings it went on a scoreless tie with both teams fighting a terrific battle for supremacy. In the first half of the fifth inning Al. Canner, the Penguin catcher, laced out a three-bagger from one of Dixon’s deliveries and Cas Gorham followed him immediately with a single that drove home the first run of the game. It looked to Jeff then that his old friends of the Penguins were set up to win another game, and win it without his help. But Dixon tightened up and struck out the next two men and caused Gould, who was playing in Jeff Thatcher’s place on the scrub team, and accepting his reversal with very bad grace, to raise a high fly into Rabbit Warren’s hands. That retired the side and the Penningtons came to the bat full of fight but one run behind their juniors.

Lafe Gammage was the first man up and Long Lafe poled out a single first crack out of the box, finding one of Honey Wiggins’ air tight curves to his liking. Mickey Daily followed him with a bunt which rolled down the third base line and was retrieved by Gould only just in time to throw him out at first. But Lafe arrived safely on second. Buck Hart was up and Jeff Thatcher was on deck. It was up to either one of them to bring in that single run and tie the score, if they could not do more.

Buck tried very hard indeed, but the best that he could do was send a sizzling liner at Brownie Davis who almost succeeded in making a double play of it, whipping the ball down to Dick Runyon so fast that Dick had plenty of time to snap it back to Cas Gorham who narrowly missed touching Lafe Gammage out as he slid back to second.

It was up to Jeff then. There were two out and a man on second and one run needed to tie the score. Jeff weighed two bats methodically as he walked to the plate. Outwardly he appeared very calm, but inwardly he was as nervous as a cat. Could he do it? he kept asking himself as he stepped up to the rubber. But the moment he squared away to face Honey Wiggins the nervousness left him and he felt as calm and collected as if he were about to recite a lesson in the class room.

“Get this baby, now,” he heard a mean voice coach from third base and he turned his head to see Gould glowering at him. Jeff smiled then and down in his heart he resolved to make good.

He watched Honey Wiggins as he squared away in the pitcher’s box and took the signals from Al. Canner.

“Come on, Honey,” coached Canner. “This is the only one you have to put away and the game is ours. Easy meat.”

Honey wound up. Jeff gripped the bat and moved his body slightly forward. The ball came whistling toward him. It was a wide breaking out curve and Jeff knew that it would shoot over the rubber for a strike. He was not easily fooled with a wide out and he measured with calculating eye and struck.

It was a beautiful line drive straight at Gould, and it had all the force behind it that Jeff’s powerful arms and shoulders could muster. Gould lunged for the ball. It hit his glove, bounced high and went on into the outfield for a single. Big Lafe was making his long legs go like a windmill as he raced down the third base line for home. He made it standing up and Jeff was safely on second before Fat Daws could throw in to Brownie Davis. The score was tied. Jeff had accomplished his purpose.

It was well that he had, too, for Wade Grenville, who followed him in the batting order got Honey Wiggins in a three and two hole and then for some unaccountable reason reached for a wide one and sent a grounder down first base line for the third and last out of the game.

“That was a bone head play of mine,” said Wade when both he and Jeff reached their rooms.

“I can’t see why you reached for it,” confessed Jeff. “If you had passed it up you would have walked.”

“I know it, Jeff, but somehow I thought I could pole out a safe single over Dick Runyon’s head and perhaps get you home on it.”

“A laudable ambition, Old Scout, but I wish you’d played safe. Now if I had pulled that, why—”

“Aw, cut it, Jeff. Quit kidding. Say, that was some smash that you shot down to Gould. He handled it as if it was a hot potato and it looked as if it might have been real hot at that.”

“I guess it was, Wade. I was afraid I was a goner at first. It headed right for his mitt. I didn’t realize it had so much steam on it until I saw it bounce off his glove. Jiminy, I’ll bet he’s so mad he could eat nails and not notice it.”

“It’s great work, Jeff, old fellow. I’m mighty glad to see you get a chance at the job. I think Coach Rice has got his eye on you for it at that.”

“But Gould is pretty good,” confessed Jeff.

“Yes, he is. But I think you are just a shade better. And goodness knows your disposition is—”

“Yes, but disposition don’t count so much in baseball,” said Jeff.

“Oh, don’t you fool yourself, Jeff. It counts a heap. I’ll bet a doughnut hole that Gould can go up in the air and get mad quicker than any man on the team when he’s losing. And when a man blows like that, why he isn’t much good to the team until he gets his feet on the ground. Now is he?”

“Well, perhaps you’re right, Wade.”

“Perhaps? I know I am, Jeff. Keep up the good work. I hope Mr. Rice gives you a chance in the Erasmus Hall game to-morrow. Perhaps he will. Hope he starts the game with you. Can’t tell. He might. My, but wouldn’t Gould be peeved if he did? Anyhow, I’ll say you are a likely substitute.”

CHAPTER XVIII
ON THE BENCH

But Wade’s hope was not realized. Jeff and Rabbit Warren and Cas Gorham were among the substitutes whose names appeared on the bulletin board with the regular team the next morning. Of course, Honey Wiggins and Cy Gordon, the two extra pitchers, were also among the second string men called into uniform, but their names along with those of Jeff, Rabbit and Cas Gorham, appeared very definitely under the list of “substitutes.” For some reason Jeff had a feeling of discouragement when he realized that Coach Rice did not yet recognize him as having first-team ability and for a few minutes he was inclined to grouch and feel peeved about it. But his better sense soon dominated the situation and made him realize that he, a Freshman, should be listed as a substitute and Gould given the position at third if for no other reason than that the Sophomore had devoted all the previous season toward trying for the job, and evidently had been willing to play on the scrubs for an extended period just to be in line for the job this year.

“Gould is good,” he acknowledged to himself, as he stood in front of the bulletin board and mentally disciplined himself. “Just because he is hot tempered and ugly; just because I do not think so much of him and most of the fellows of our bunch don’t like him is no reason why he shouldn’t be playing third base. For a while the best I can expect, I guess, is to be a sub on the big team and just hope to get a show once in a while. I’ll bet just hanging around like that is going to get Gould’s goat. Blame it, I want his job and, believe me, I’m going to make myself so good that Coach Rice will have to give me more than a substitute’s show. I’ll just—”

“Wow, I knew you’d get a chance, first shot,” said some one behind Jeff, and turning he discovered Wade looking at the bulletin board.

“Knew I’d get a chance? What do you mean?” asked Jeff.

“Why, you poor fish, don’t you see your name on the list?”

“Yes, I see it there. But look just above it. See that word. It reads s-u-b-s-t-i-t-u-t-e. Can’t you read?”

“Well, what does the young man want? Does he want to be crown prince or emperor or what? My goodness, Jeff, it’s something to be in uniform and on the bench. I think if you get that far you’ll get a chance in the game. Anyhow, you are making progress.”

“I suppose I do want too much. But look at you, you lucky duck. Make the first team right off.”

“Well, that’s a combination of luck and circumstances. If Dave Gleason hadn’t pulled a tendon and if the rest of the fellows out for fielding positions were just a little more lucky I’d be warming the bench this afternoon myself. Just luck, old kid, and I’m afraid that it won’t last any too long. Rabbit Warren is moving along too fast to make me very happy. First thing I know they will bench me and shove him in. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened to-day. I bet you and Rabbit will get a show before the game is over. So will Honey Wiggins.”

But Wade’s prediction was only partly right. Honey Wiggins did get a chance. Coach Rice put him in in the seventh inning because he did not want George Dixon to go the entire route and possibly strain his arm. But Honey was the only one of the five substitutes who did get a chance.

Gould played an air-tight game, fielding one hundred per cent and getting two hits out of five times up, and drawing a pass once. Whether the presence of Jeff inspired him to do great deeds just to show the aggressive Freshman that he hadn’t a chance in the world for the job, or whether he was improving so steadily that he was fast reaching the top of his form Jeff could not guess, but certainly he played brilliant and heady ball in every inning but the ninth. His success seemed to make him more cocky than ever then, and he all but started a fight with the man on the Erasmus Hall coaching line. They exchanged words that fairly made the air sizzle with their sharpness, and Gould was all for fighting it out there and then until Umpire Stephens came over and stopped the argument with a threat to put both Gould and the other offending player off the field if they did not hold their tongues.

On the bench, beside Mr. Rice, Jeff could see that Gould’s nastiness did not please the coach at all. He frowned and looked very much displeased while the argument was taking place, and Jeff heard him remark to Mr. Clarkson:

“That’s the worst of that boy. He’s mean clear through sometimes. If it wasn’t that he deserved a chance, and that he is a fair enough third baseman I’d throw him out of the squad. I’d yank him out now if the game wasn’t so nearly finished, just to show him that I will not stand for fresh players on a Pennington team.”

But the inning closed with the next out and that was the end of that, and Jeff and Rabbit and Cas Gorham wended their way to the locker room more or less discouraged with their luck.

On their way across the campus Jeff noticed a boy coming slowly out of the infirmary door. He was bundled in a heavy coat despite the pleasant spring warmth of the day, and he looked thin and hollow-eyed. Jeff had to look at him twice before he recognized him.

“Well, hello,” he exclaimed, “if it isn’t Birdie Pell. Up and around now, eh?”

“Yes, up, but not very much around. I feel as weak as the dickens and I can’t go very far or do very much without getting disgustingly tired out. I wanted to get over and see the game to-day but Dr. Stout would not let me. Said I would have to be content with just strolling in the sunshine for a week or so before I get on my feet again. How did the game turn out?”

“Oh, we trimmed ’em, 8 to 5, but it was a good game at that. They have a whale of a pitcher in Jack Sibley. Long, lean southpaw who can make a ball do most anything. He had our fellows buffaloed for about four innings. Then they got to him in the fifth and hammered out five runs before he steadied down. I guess they did not have another man to put in in his place or they would have derricked him. They have a good team though. A little ragged in spots and that’s about the only reason why we beat them. When they get in mid-season form they are going to be some team, let me tell you. I believe they will be able to give the Princeton Freshmen a rub. They play each other some time in May.”

“Did you play?” Pell asked, and there was something about the question that made Jeff wonder just what the little Sophomore was thinking.

“No, I was on the bench. So was Rabbit and Cas here. Gould played third and played a dandy game,” said Jeff, generously giving his rival full credit.

Pell looked at Jeff quizzically for a moment. Then he said:

“Shucks, I’d love to have seen the game. But I may see the Sweetwater game next Saturday if I am good and get back some strength.”

“Hope you do,” said Jeff moving on to catch up to Rabbit and Cas.

“Pell looks as if he had had a tough time of it, doesn’t he?” said Cas.

“Seems to have changed a heap, too,” said Rabbit Warren. “He used to be a blamed fresh kid, always hanging out with Gould. They made a fine pair. I think Pell has been flattered by the companionship of Gould and, believe me, Gould has been just wise enough to work little Birdie for all he is worth. I wonder if they are as thick as they were? Haven’t noticed Gould wearing a path to the infirmary door visiting Birdie, have you?”

“No,” admitted Cas Gorham, “and I think Birdie realizes, too, that Gould isn’t such a great friend as he pretends to be. I think it sort of hurts his pride or something or other. He seems different. Isn’t as cocky or fresh as he used to be when he teamed up with Gould. Used to be a regular blamed pest; fresh as they make ’em.”

“Oh, don’t fret, they’ll be back together again. Birds of a feather, you know. Pell’s close call has taken some of the wind out of his sails, but I’ll bet he’ll be just as fresh as ever once he gets on his feet again and gets his running mate Gould along with him,” said Rabbit Warren skeptically.

“Well, now I don’t know about that,” defended Jeff. “Gould didn’t even lend a hand when Pell was in that pickle down in the locker room. Buck Hart and I had most of the disagreeable work to do. Not that the rest of you fellows didn’t want to lend a hand and didn’t offer to help out all you could. That was all right. But why didn’t his good friend Gould look after him? I think Pell, as sick as he was, noticed that Gould had gone back on him and I’m inclined to think he’s through.”

“Oh, don’t you fret. You just wait and see if I’m not right. When Pell gets around again his freshness will all come back, and when he gets that way Gould is about the only fellow in school who will stand for him.”

“I wonder if Pell is naturally a pest or whether his association with Gould made him so. I mean by that, Gould is a fresh duck himself and I’m half inclined to believe that Birdie Pell has just aped Gould all the way. Tried to be as big and as boastful as his pal. I wouldn’t wonder but that if Pell got to traveling in decent company he’d be a fair sort of a fellow himself.”

“Well, maybe you are right,” said Rabbit, “but you’ll have to show me. I can’t believe it until I see it work out that way. And one thing, I won’t take the little pest under my wing to try and make a regular fellow out of him. It would be too much of a contract, let me tell you.”

For some strange reason after he returned to his room that night Jeff thought a great deal about Birdie Pell and what Rabbit Warren and Cas Gorham had said concerning him. He wondered after all whether they were right or whether he was right in thinking that perhaps Pell was a likeable sort of fellow if he once got out of the company of Gould. He was half inclined to believe that he was more right than either of the other two boys, but he realized that he was hardly in a position to provide the right sort of company for Pell since he was a Freshman and Pell was a Sophomore. Pell would naturally chum with the Sophomore bunch and probably held the same ideas about Freshmen that the rest of the Sophs did. Jeff, however, decided to watch developments in Pell. He even went so far as to contemplate approaching Dal Hoffman and several other Sophomores whom he knew more or less intimately and liked because they were good wholesome fellows, suggesting perhaps that if they were willing to tolerate Pell’s company for a little while they might develop him into a regular fellow and a worth-while sort of a chap.

CHAPTER XIX
GOULD IS SET DOWN

But Jeff never made the suggestion to Hoffman and the other Sophomore friends he knew intimately, first of all because he thought it was a rather delicate matter to handle without considerable deliberation. And by the time he got through deliberating he discovered that the prediction that was made by Rabbit Warren was in a fair way toward being fulfilled. Birdie Pell and Gould were chumming together again, and Birdie was apparently developing into just as much of a nuisance because of his freshness as he had been before his accident in the swimming pool.

Birdie had hardly been definitely discharged from the infirmary before Jeff discovered him one evening strolling with Gould toward the shadows of the gymnasium building around which they disappeared. Jeff knew as well as if he had been told that the two of them were on their way toward the back road that led across the Wading River bridge to the woods on the far side which was out of bounds and so much out of the way that they could plan to do almost anything and not be detected. They were going to the woods to sneak a smoke. They were up to their old ways again and Jeff watched them in disgust. Anything that one had to sneak out of bounds to do was hardly worth doing to Jeff’s way of thinking.

“By Jove, I believe Rabbit was right. Birds of a feather do flock together. It looks as if they were both tarred with the same stick. And Gould is the worst of the two because he is older and should have more sense. He is leading that kid into trouble and I’m afraid Pell hasn’t the backbone to say no to anything.”

Jeff was thoroughly disgusted with both of them after that and gave the redemption of Pell very little thought. He had too many other things to occupy his mind.

Spring was coming on with a rush. The first of May arrived with all the balminess that that delightful month can bring. The majestic old elms and maples on the campus were a brilliant green now with lush young leaves, the ivy that sprawled over the brick walls of the school buildings was colorful with new leaves and bright green tentacles that were reaching out for new places into which to hook their tiny fingers. All of the birds were back now, even the sputtering wrens that nested in the bird boxes that the students of another generation had erected around the school grounds, and tiny warblers of all descriptions were whisking from one tree to another diligently seeking worms and worm eggs and thus clearing the fine old trees of any breeding summer pests that might destroy them. It was great to be alive such days.

It was baseball weather, too; baseball weather of just the right sort and all of Jeff’s otherwise unoccupied time was devoted to thoughts of the game and his efforts to develop himself into a permanent member of the first team. He had not missed a single day’s practice since the call for baseball candidates had been issued, and he had devoted himself conscientiously to the work of rounding into excellent physical shape and his best playing form.

And his efforts had not been without recognition either, for Coach Rice and Mr. Clarkson had been watching him with critical eye ever since he had been a member of the squad, and they had both gone to great pains to help him in his efforts, giving him suggestions and pointing out minor faults in his form which when corrected went a long way toward making him a better all around player.

Since the first game of the season with Erasmus Hall he had been accepted as one of the regular substitutes for the big team, and every Wednesday and every Saturday thereafter his name appeared on the bulletin board with those called out for the game. Indeed, by the end of the second week in May he had played in three games, once substituting for Mickey Daily on second base for an entire game, when that sturdy little streak of lightning had to go to the infirmary with a slight case of tonsilitis, and twice being put into the game for Gould at third base when Mr. Rice felt that perhaps the team would work better with the substitution than with the regular player.

Of course, Gould was none too pleased with these changes that kept him out of the batting order and he made manifest his disagreeableness in various ways much to the disgust of Jeff and the rest of the members of the team who were not at all partial to having him in the game. But it was a notable fact that the next game following the games in which Jeff had played, Gould put up a much better exhibition of baseball. He seemed to have it in him to play harder, as if he meant to show Mr. Rice and the rest just what he could do when he tried. Jeff noticed this with the rest of the fellows of the team, and the coach as well, and he came to the same conclusion as the rest of them did; that Gould was not giving his best to the team only when he had to.

If there was anything that made the head coach angry it was just that fault in a player. His instructions always were, “Play it hard, no matter how easy the game. Play everything hard.” And when he found a player softening up on his play, or trying grand stand stuff, or showing off in any way he was the first to call that player down.

That is what he did with Gould after the Fayville High School game. As the Sophomore was getting dressed in the locker room the coach sent a boy downstairs to tell him that he wanted him to report to his office. Gould reported on his way out of the building and the coach treated the third baseman to one of the severest lectures that he had delivered to any boy and Gould in humiliation became very surly and ugly, and answered back in a manner that was decidedly disrespectful.

“Look here, Gould,” said the coach, concluding the grilling he was giving the Sophomore. “You are a fair baseball player when you want to try. But it isn’t very often you want to try, it seems to me. I’m about sick of it. I think you are not putting enough of yourself into the game. You are not giving enough of yourself to the team. You are just giving enough to slide by and that isn’t what I want. I want a fellow to play hard all the time. Play everything hard. You know that as well as I do. Let me see your hands.”

Gould wonderingly held out his hands. Mr. Rice looked at them closely.

“Hum, just as I thought. Trying to slide by. Giving some of your physical resources to smoking, eh? Oh, don’t try to deny it. I’ve suspected it for a long time and now I’m convinced. That’s nicotine on your fingers, isn’t it? You are one of those chaps who sneak out of bounds every night after supper and steal a smoke or two. Gould, you can’t match baseball against cigarettes. Every time you smoke you give just so much of your physical energy and resource to tobacco and you have just that much less to give to the team. You have doubtless hurt your wind and your heart by smoking. You have slowed up your brain just a little. Your eyes are a little duller. The coördination of your muscles isn’t quite so keen as it should be. You are lazy and willing to let down except when you have to exert yourself, and the exertion costs you just a little bit more than it does a boy who doesn’t smoke. I knew I’d find the answer to it all in cigarettes, or late nights or both. I’ve watched too many boys these years past to let you put anything like that over on me. I am sorry it has come to this, Gould, but until you can give me one hundred per cent of yourself, until you can give the team and the school all your interest and not divide it with cigarettes and pleasures, you will have to go back in the line of substitutes and give your position to a fellow who is willing to play hard and work hard, and give all his interest to the school, the team and to me.”

Gould was sullenly silent for several minutes after the head coach had stopped talking. Then he moistened his lips and spoke:

“Look here, Mr. Rice, you are accusing me of something that you are not certain of. Those yellow stains on my fingers may not be nicotine. Suppose I said it was iodine; that I hurt my finger in practice yesterday. What about that?”

“Why, if you told me that, Gould, and looked me in the eyes as you told me, perhaps I would believe you. But that wouldn’t make me change my opinion that you have not given everything you have to the team except when you had to. And I’m sick of such tactics. From now on you will have to fight for your place in the sun; your place on the team. You’ll have to give everything you have to the team or you will not be in the batting order very frequently. Saturday I am going to keep you on the bench and put Thatcher in for the whole game. And until you can convince me that you have taken baseball seriously and that you will play hard all the time I am going to keep him in the line up. Understand? That’s all, Gould.”

That was Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning the team was posted for the next game, which was the first out-of-town game of the season and Jeff, as he entered the gym., that afternoon, was surprised to be greeted by Wade Grenville who had a broad smile on his face.

“Put her there, Old Hickey. You’ve made it at last.”

“Made what? What’s happened? What do you mean?” exclaimed Jeff, totally surprised.

“Why the regular team, you ninny. You are slated to start the game at third Saturday over at East Hampton. Look. There it is on the board. See.”

Jeff looked at the bulletin and was surprised to discover that in the batting order announced, his name appeared in the place of Gould at third base and Gould’s name was among the list of substitutes.

“Well, by jingoes!” exclaimed Jeff jubilantly. “What’s happened?”

“Happened, you old chump? Why, Coach Rice has recognized your superior brand of baseball. That’s what. He’s tied a can to Gould which most of the fellows think he should have done long ago.”

“But Gould is good, Wade. There must be something behind it all. I wonder—”

“Hello, Thatcher,” said Mr. Rice, coming up behind the group of boys. “I’m going to give Gould a rest. He seems a little stale so I’m going to keep him on the bench to-morrow and let you start the game. It all depends, of course, on how you play, whether you finish it or not. Play hard, my boy. Play it hard every step of the way. Good luck.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rice,” he said with enthusiasm. Then as the coach passed on up the hall he turned to Wade and exclaimed:

“Oh, boy, it sure looks like a chance. Play hard! Will I! Watch me! I’ve simply got to make good. I want a chance to play in that Lawrencetown game and win my P.”

CHAPTER XX
FIRE!

The Custer School at East Hampton always put a snappy and thoroughly aggressive ball team in the field and Pennington always arranged to crowd that game past the middle of its season, so that there was no chance of the East Hampton boys catching her with an under-developed team.

It was the only over-night trip on the Pennington schedule and Coach Rice summoned the team to appear at the gymnasium ready to take the bus for the three-thirty afternoon train on Friday for a five-hour ride to East Hampton.

It was a lively party that gathered with suitcases, bats and gloves in the big gym. doorway when Terry McCall, the bus driver, swung his big yellow automobile stage down the drive and backed up to receive the load of passengers. Of course, the stage was not large enough to accommodate the whole squad of fourteen boys without crowding and there was a lively scramble for seats and some horse play before they all managed to wedge themselves in somehow and get adjusted as the bus started snorting and lurching toward the station.

They only just made the train. It stood puffing impatiently in the station when Terry swung his bus around with a flourish, and the boys streamed out of the rear door and rushed madly for the steps of the day coach. A train trip with a baseball team is always a merry party as Jeff knew for he had taken more than one as a member of the New City Y. M. C. A. team the year before, and he joined in the general fun and gentlemanly boisterousness they indulged in as they took possession of a day coach that held few occupants besides themselves.

But the boisterousness gradually subsided as hour after hour of wearying train travel rolled by, and long before they reached East Hampton even the noisiest of them had long since subsided, raising only an occasional appeal for “eats.”

It was a hungry crew of boys who detrained at East Hampton and made a rush for the Custer School stage that stood backed into the graveled approach waiting for them. And then the clamor that they raised once they got inside was a noisy call for food, for it had been arranged that they would take their evening meal, a little late to be sure, in the dining hall of the school whose baseball team they were to cross bats with the next day.

That evening meal, however, turned out to be a miniature banquet, for the managers of the Custer School team had arranged to have the boys of their squad eat with the Pennington group and a really elaborate spread had been arranged, which was concluded with speeches by the team captains and the coaches and any of the boys who could in any way provide entertainment “stunts.”

The last “stunt” on the program was a really clever dialogue between the Custer School captain, Roy Milliken, and the team’s mascot, “Spike,” a Boston bull dog of very likeable disposition. Roy and Spike talked to each other in “dog language.” Spike, apparently uninvited, jumped on top of the table and stood in front of Roy with one foot in a dish of olives. Roy pretended to be horrified at the dog’s conduct and proceeded to scold the animal in surly tones, whereupon Spike began to talk back in barks and growls until he seemed to work himself up to a furious pitch. The little act had all the fellows in stitches before it was concluded and the more they laughed the more Spike seemed to enjoy himself, barking and growling and raising a terrible to-do until Roy affectionately swept him off the table into his arms and gave him several caressing pats on the head before putting him on the floor where he proceeded to make the rounds of the boys in the room, getting acquainted with all the new fellows from Pennington.

Jeff loved dogs and when the animal got around to him he picked him up in his arms and stroked him and playfully pulled his ears, and the dog, satisfied, snuggled down in his arms and stayed there until the party broke up and the boys began to leave for their rooms.

Arrangements had been made to have the Pennington boys occupy extra rooms on the second floor of one of the school buildings during their stay and the entire squad was conducted across the campus by the boys of Custer School with whom they had become really chummy.

It was a big, old fashioned brick building, which a half a century before had represented the entire school, class rooms, dormitories and master’s quarters all being in the one structure. But the school had grown since and the original building was now one of the minor buildings of the school group and given over entirely to rooms for most of the members of the junior class.

As at Pennington, Jeff and Wade were roommates and it was with a sigh of relief that they found the room they were to occupy, turned on the lights and threw themselves onto the two couch beds that occupied opposite corners.

“Oh, my, I’m tired out,” said Jeff, beginning to unlace his shoes.

“So am I. But we’ve had a bully time so far, haven’t we?”

“I’ll say so,” said Jeff, suppressing a yawn as he kicked off his trousers.

“Some nice fellows at this school. I like ’em all. They are a bunch of huskies, too. Bet they can play ball,” said Wade, crawling into the top piece of his pajamas.

“We’ll know to-morrow, old son. Last in turns out the light. I’m in,” yelled Jeff, tumbling under the blankets and settling down on his pillow.

Wade snapped out the lights and followed Jeff’s example, and in less than five minutes’ time husky snores began to make the room noisy.

A terrific clatter and clanging, yells and the tramp of feet awakened Jeff. He sat bolt upright in bed with a strange frightened feeling. The terrific medley of sounds continued, and above the racket he heard the shriek of a weird whistle—a fire siren.

“Wade! Fire!” he exclaimed. Then he added, “Great cats, the room is full of smoke. It’s here. In this building. Wade! Wade!”

He bounced out of bed and went groping about the room in the blackness trying to find the electric light switch. He found it, snapped it on but no light responded. The electric current had failed.

“Jiminy crickets! No light! This is a mess! Wade! Wade!”

“Wad’deyah wan’?” grumbled Wade sleepily. Jeff heard him toss in his bed.

“Asleep in all this racket. Think of that,” cried Jeff groping toward Wade’s corner of the room. He found the bed and seizing his roommate he shook him roughly.

“Lemme go. Git out, you chump,” grumbled the still sleeping Wade kicking violently at Jeff.

“Come out of this, you chump,” yelled Jeff, seizing him and dragging him from the bed to the floor.

Wade fell out of bed with a thump and grumblingly got to his feet.

“What’s all the infernal racket for, Jeff? What’s— Say, I smell smoke. Jeff! What—!”

“Oh, you do smell smoke, do you? It’s about time. My golly, the house could burn down on top of you and you’d never wake up. Get into some clothes, quick. Remember where you put ’em? Lights are gone. Have to get something on in the dark. Hurry. Room’s full of smoke,” cried Jeff feeling about in places where he remembered putting his clothes.

He found his coat, trousers and shoes, and he made haste to get them all on, meanwhile feeling about him for his suit case that contained his baseball uniform. He found both his own and Wade’s together and seizing them he cried to Wade:

“Come on, for goodness’ sakes. We’re about the last ones in the building I guess.” Coughing with the smoke that was getting into his lungs as it swept through the room on the draught created by the open window, Jeff crossed the room, stumbling over various articles of clothing that strewed the room. Gropingly he reached the door and found the knob. A moment he waited as he called:

“Wade, are you ready?”

“Yes, let’s get out of here quick,” said Wade, bumping into him as he, too, groped for the door.

“All right. We’ve got to open the door and close it quickly though, because there is no telling what the draught might do in the way of bringing the fire this way. Ready. Let’s go.”

Jeff swung open the door and stepped out into the hall and Wade crowded close behind him. They slammed the door shut with a bang and looked around.

A dull red glow, ugly and sinister, lighted the long hall, and clouds of smoke, thick and black and disconcerting, rolled past them. The noises in the building had ceased but outside they could hear shouts and calls, the tooting of fire engines’ whistles, the sound of breaking glass and the swishing slosh and steady pounding of streams of water.

“My goodness, the firemen have their hose lines going already!” Jeff exclaimed to Wade. “We must be the last ones in the building. All the rest have cleared out long ago.”

“Yes, and I wonder if we are going to get out before we get trapped,” said Wade with an unmistakable note of concern in his voice.

“Sure, we will,” said Jeff with encouragement that he did not entirely feel.

“Well, let’s go. But which way? Listen! What’s that noise? Sounds horrible!” exclaimed Wade.

Jeff listened and cold chills crept up and down his back. It was a steadily growing moaning roar—the voice of the fire as it gathered in volume and swept through the building. A sinister crackling sound accompanied it, too, and the dull glow through the smoke grew brighter.

“Jiminy, that’s some fire,” cried Jeff, becoming slightly panic stricken as he realized how close the fire was.

They started down the hallway together, making in the direction they felt the stairs must lay. They hurried forward, through the smoke that was thickening fast, protecting their eyes and nose with their free arms while they lugged their suit cases with the other.

“Jiminy, where are those stairs?” panted Wade after a moment.

“Just ahead, I’m sure,” coughed Jeff.

“See any red exit lights? Might be a short way to a fire escape,” said Wade.

“Nope, all the lights in the building are out, evidently. I wonder if the fire started in the power plant in the basement. Bet it did. Seems to me—”

Crash! Bang!

Somewhere down stairs in the building came a terrific, crashing explosion. Jeff and Wade staggered under the concussion, and the whole building shivered and shook for the fraction of a second.

“Great cats, what was that?” cried Wade in real terror.

“Must have been a boiler in the basement. Come on, for goodness’ sakes, let’s get out of here or we’ll be trapped sure,” cried Jeff, for a moment losing control of himself and permitting utter panic to sway him.

But an instant later he got a firmer grip on himself and began to think more clearly than he had at any time since he first discovered the fire. Thicker, blacker smoke was rolling into the hallway now and behind them Jeff could hear the roar of flames more clearly. There was a peculiar slope to the floor, too, which led Jeff to believe that somewhere down the hall in the direction from which they had come a hole had been torn in the floor by the explosion. He realized instantly that if this were true that hole would create a new draught that would bring the flames up onto their floor in terrific volume.

“Quick, Wade, we’ve got to move mighty fast now or the whole building will be in flames. Wow, there are the stairs. There, right ahead.”

Outlined through the smoke he could see the iron railings of the stairway, and seizing Wade by the arm he plunged toward them, Wade following eagerly beside him.

They reached the top step and started down. Great clouds of thick, black, gaseous smoke were rolling upward toward them. They wondered vaguely whether they could struggle through them and make the first floor and the open air safely. Down stairs they could hear the flames roaring louder than ever. They could hear the hiss and spatter of hose lines, too, and the thunder of the water pounding against the floor and side walls.

“Must be a ripper of a fire. Listen to the water they are pouring into it,” exclaimed Jeff, as they started down the stair well.

Down they went step by step, working their way cautiously, for by this time they could not see where they were putting their feet and each had a vague fear that at any moment they might step off into space and go tumbling down the stair well, so thick was the smoke. The draught was drawing it up the stair well in ever increasing volume and Jeff realized that ere long the flames would follow. He knew that they must get clear of the stairs as soon as possible and out of the building before many minutes had passed or else they would be doomed. Already they were both nearly suffocated with the terrible nauseating smoke fumes.

They continued on. Presently they reached a landing and a bend in the stairs; as they turned they could behold part of the flame-swept lower story of the building, and they gasped with horror as they realized what a terrific fire was developing there. It was a veritable furnace toward the far end of the structure, and they realized too that the flames were sweeping toward their end of the building with terrifying speed. The structure was surely doomed.

Presently they reached the floor, and found themselves in a cooling draught that came evidently from an opened door that led to the campus. They could not see the doorway for the smoke, but they knew in which direction safety lay and they turned to go.

But as they did, a strangely pitiful sound came to Jeff’s ears. It was the sharp whimper of a dog in pain and fright. It came from somewhere up the hall, and Jeff stopped and clutched Wade’s arm.

“Listen. That must be Spike, their mascot. Bet he’s caught in the building. We ought to save him, Wade, if we can.”

“Yes, but where is he? We ought to save ourselves, too, Jeff. Come on, boy. Don’t take a chance. Safety is right ahead. Let’s get out while we can.”

“You go, Wade. There, I heard him again. He must be right here somewheres. You go on out. I’ll follow directly. Just want to find that pup. Go, Wade,” and Jeff shoved his roommate ahead of him toward the door and turned back to find Spike, whose whimper he could still faintly hear.

Jeff was coughing and gagging with the smoke. His lungs felt as if they would burst for want of a breath of pure air and his head spun with the blood that was pent up there, yet he took a half dozen steps into the swirling smoke, calling at the same time in hope that the dog would come to him. Presently he found himself in the stair well again, with the thick black cloud of smoke sweeping past him. He turned and stepped aside to avoid the terrible volume of the smoke borne upward on the draught, and called again and again hopefully. But as far as he could make out not even an answering whimper was uttered.

“Perhaps he’s found his own way out. In that case I guess I’d better be going myself,” said Jeff aloud. Then turning, he started in the direction he thought the doorway lay. A half dozen steps forward he walked, groping blindly. But his hands came in contact with nothing at all. Had he gone in the right direction? No, the door was this way to the left. He moved to his left a little and tried again, only to presently fetch up against a blank wall. This startled him. Perhaps the door was here. He groped about again, panic mounting swiftly. He stepped briskly forward and the next moment he beheld with terror that he was facing tongues of flames that were advancing toward him.

Hastily he retreated. Then in his excitement he tried to recall which was the front and which was the back of the building, but for the life of him he could not remember. Then suddenly the truth dawned upon him. He was lost—lost in a strange, flame-swept building. He had heard of firemen being in similar circumstances, and he recalled with horror the fate of some of them. More than one had perished in this way. Such thoughts were far from encouraging. What should he do? Which way should he turn? The smoke was terrible—almost unbearable now. He knew that if he did not find the doorway soon he would be overcome with the fumes and gases and then he knew that he would perish.

The flames were drawing closer, too. Weird lights flashed through the swirling smoke. It suddenly seemed to Jeff that he was surrounded by fire. And he knew that he could not stay in the building much longer and not be overcome. Blindly he started in another direction, hoping again to find the stairs, or the doorway, or perchance a window through which he could get one single breath of fresh air. On he plunged until suddenly he brought up with a bump against a jutting corner in the wall. This did not help him to locate himself. Indeed it confused him more. Here were two passages, one straight in front of him, the other leading off to his right. Which way?

He started on again straight ahead, then suddenly above the roar of the fast approaching flames he heard one terror-stricken howl, followed by a series of whines. Spike again, and he was close at hand. This seemed to steady Jeff’s nerves. He stopped, listened, then called:

“Here, Spike— Where are you— Good old Spike. Come here.”

Again he heard the whine almost at his feet, and reaching down he groped about in the smoke.

His hand came in contact with the animal, huddled beside a bookcase Jeff had not noticed before. Jeff sensed something strange about the animal and immediately began feeling for his collar. Hooking his fingers into it, he drew Spike out of his hiding place and lifted him into his arms, dropping his suit case with its contents of precious baseball paraphernalia which until now he had not realized he had been carrying through all his peril. In the smoke he made a hasty examination of the dog. He was injured. Something had fallen on him, perhaps as a result of the explosion. One side was badly cut and bruised and his two front legs hung limp and helpless.

“Crackey, Spike, you sure got it rough, didn’t you?” said Jeff soothingly. “How did it happen that the fellows went off and left you. Or did you get lost and—and—say, you are crippled, aren’t you? You can’t get out of here alive alone, that’s sure. I don’t know whether I’m going to get out myself. But we’ll try, old fellow, we’ll try.”

He snuggled the dog close to his chest and then, still protecting his eyes and nose with his crooked arm, he staggered on down the passageway again, hoping that somehow, by the merest chance, the merest good luck, he would find an exit, or perhaps come in contact with some of the firemen who must be fighting the flames inside the building. He knew that he must find relief soon or—

He tripped. Something smooth and round was under his feet. It was a line of hose! Instantly stories he had read and heard told of how firemen had saved themselves under similar circumstances came to his mind. The hose line led somewhere. It was a guide to the way out of the building. Many a fireman, by following a hose line, had found open air, and relief from smoke punishment. They usually followed it on their knees with their faces close to the cold, pulsating rubber, for the water throbbing through the line generated a layer of cold, sweet, fresh air about the hose which could be breathed.

Jeff dropped to his knees and holding his nose on one side of the hose and Spike’s on the other he struggled forward, following the line. On he crawled. His knees and elbows were soon skinned and filled with splinters. But he knew that if he kept on he would sooner or later find a way out. It was hard going and even with his nose to the hose line he could not get enough clear air to overcome the gases he had swallowed. He was growing weaker. He only hoped that he had strength enough to keep up a little longer. He exerted every ounce of will power he possessed and fought stubbornly. Then suddenly, to make the situation more horrible than ever, the hose line began to move. Some one was pulling away from him his only guide to safety. Jeff in desperation clutched at the smooth black rubber tube madly! Slowly it drew away from him! In desperation he half struggled to his feet and shouted frantically! And the next instant he beheld four vague shapes looming out of the smoke and coming toward him. They were firemen. They had come to his rescue.

The firemen half led and half carried Jeff, semi-conscious and still clutching Spike, to the open air and safety. A great shout went up from the crowd outside when they saw them appear in the doorway of the building and make their way through swirling smoke clouds to the campus.

Eager hands seized Jeff and carried him out of the danger zone; then with a crowd of Custer and Pennington boys gathered around, Jeff was laid on the grass, and one of the school physicians began to work over him.

“I’m—all—right— Don’t fuss—over—,” said Jeff, after a moment. “Just—give—me—a—drink—of—water.”

The drink was provided and so were restoratives, but the clear, fresh, invigorating air was the best restorative of all, and soon Jeff was able to sit up and grin sheepishly.

At the sight of his smile Wade Grenville set up a wild shout which developed into a cheer that echoed across the whole campus.

“Where’s Spike?” asked Jeff, when the shouts had subsided.

Roy Milliken crowded forward then and shook Jeff’s hand. “Thanks, old fellow,” he said huskily to Jeff. “Spike and I got separated on our way out and I guess he must have thought I was lost and went back to find me. Poor beast got smashed up. A couple of the fellows took him over to the basement of the gym. and made him comfortable. Thanks again, old man; it was a mighty gritty thing to do.”

“Shucks, don’t mention it. I’m going over to the gym. myself and have a plunge.”

“Right-o, go ahead. It will make you feel a heap better. And I’ll get trainer Al Meyers to give you a good alcohol rubdown afterward. Then you’ll be fit to play baseball this afternoon; that is, if there is to be a game.”

CHAPTER XXI
THIRD BASE THATCHER

The question of whether there was to be a game or not was long debated that morning by the Custer School authorities. The fire had created no end of excitement at the school and in the village. And when the news of the burning of the fine old school building got abroad by means of the newspaper telegraph system anxious parents from all corners of the country began to telephone and telegraph concerning the safety of their boys.

It was long after daylight before the firemen got control of the fire and finally put it out, and when the last of them had gone back to their stations the gaunt, smoking ruins of one wing of the building stood out against the green spring verdure of the campus, stark and grimly fire-blackened.

There was a tremendous feeling of unrest among the students, too, for all of them had been aroused from their beds at an early hour that morning and of course none of them had returned to catch up on their sleep. Under such conditions the school authorities were not certain whether to attempt to play the scheduled baseball game or not.

At eleven o’clock that morning a conference was called in the administration building by Headmaster Dr. Shwagert, of Custer School. Coach Rice and Mr. Clarkson, and the Pennington captain, Tad Sloan, were included, with the two coaches of the Custer School team, Roy Milliken, and several of the school department heads. And at this conference the advisability of playing the game was carefully talked over. The conclusion was, however, that the students needed something to take their minds off the catastrophe of the night and announcement was made that the game would go on.

The announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by the students and the players of both teams as well, for all of the boys were as eager for the contest as they had been before the fire. To be sure, most of the Pennington boys, including Jeff, had lost their baseball togs and some of their equipment in the flames, but an hour’s rummaging in the gymnasium of the Custer School brought to light enough available equipment and cast-off uniforms to fit out the players who had lost their things, and by noon time everything was ready for the contest.

The game was arranged for two-thirty, as it had been originally scheduled, and of course the entire student body of the East Hampton school turned out and lined the field. Even the mascot, Spike, was brought out from his resting place in the basement of the gym. and taken to the Custer School’s bench, where, swathed in bandages, he was propped up on several gay pillows requisitioned from some of the boys’ rooms, and despite his suffering he evidently enjoyed the attentions showed to him, because he made a valiant effort to wag his stump of a tail every time any of the boys approached him. And he seemed especially grateful to Jeff, for when the third baseman went over to give him an affectionate pat the dog licked his hand by way of thanking him for his rescue.

But as a contest the game was far from a success. Indeed it was a very poor exhibition of baseball on the part of both teams, for when the boys got out on the field they realized soon enough that the excitement, keyed-up nerves, and loss of sleep had left them in far from fit condition to do their best as athletes.

Coach Rice approached Jeff just before the game was called and taking him aside spoke to him in a very fatherly fashion.

“Look here, Thatcher, I planned to start you at third to-day, as I told you. But you had a rather trying experience last night which must have taken a hard toll of your physical resources. I am inclined to keep you on the bench to-day and let Gould play. You may need a rest more than you need the physical exertion of playing the game. How do you feel, boy?”

Jeff’s disappointment was evident instantly.

“Oh, look here, coach,” he said eagerly, “there’s nothing the matter with me at all. Really there isn’t. I feel as fit as a fiddle. That swim and rub down I had just about set me up. And I got a good nap over in the gym., too. I’m just crazy to play.”

The coach was silent for a moment while he studied the boy. Then he smiled and said:

“All right. I’ll let you go in. But promise me when you feel that the exertion is too much for you you will let me know. I don’t want to be responsible for having you break down when you get back to school and cause you to have a session in the infirmary, you know.”

“Oh, don’t fear, coach. I’m all right. Just let me go in.”

The coach gave Jeff his way, but the new third baseman soon realized that Mr. Rice knew a lot more about the physical capabilities of boys than he did. He was far from being at the top of his game and his playing was decidedly ragged. But at that he seemed to have himself better in hand than most of the other players, for they were all just as ragged as he was and some of them a great deal more so. About the only one who seemed to have his feet on the ground at all was sturdy little Tad Sloan, the catcher and captain. He played a good, heady baseball game, and he tried valiantly to instill his own confidence into the rest, but with little success.

The game opened up a veritable “swat fest,” to quote the baseball writers. The Custer School pitcher, Ray Strong, was in bad shape during the first three innings and the visitors found him for several bunches of clean hits ranging from sizzling singles, to a long three-base drive by Dutch Hecht that brought in two runs.

But big George Dixon seemed to be no better off than the Custer School man, for he was “as wild as a tom cat,” as Coach Rice expressed it. He passed the first and second man up and served a wide out to the next Custer batter, who promptly landed on it for a smash into right field that brought both runners home and put him in a position to score on the next hit, which was not long in coming. Indeed, the Custer School players buried Dixon under an avalanche of hits in the first and second innings and he finally appealed to Coach Rice to take him out until he could steady down. Honey Wiggins went in after that and seemed to be just the man to step into the breach, for he steadied down and actually struck out two of the opposing players for the first two strike outs of the game.

They took out Ray Long, too, in the third and put in a young husky with terrific speed and fine control, but very little versatility in pitching anything but straight balls. He was good, however, and he seemed to be working on something more than pure nerve which had been Long’s case for the first three innings.

Each side had scored heavily in the opening innings, with the advantage going to the Custer School team. The tally stood 8 to 6 at the beginning of the fourth inning. But both teams showed signs of steadying down, however, and with the advent of new pitchers the hitting suddenly let down. Indeed, Honey Wiggins held the Custer team to two hits in the succeeding three innings and neither of them amounted to more than getting a man on base.

The new Custer pitcher also kept the hits scattered until the beginning of the seventh, when big Lafe Gammage, the second man up, slammed a likely bingle between short and third, and Mickey Daily beat out a pretty bunt and advanced Lafe to second. There were two on and one out. Buck Hart was up next and Buck was due for a hit.

The speed artist on the Custer mound looked the situation over carefully and realized that he was in a hole. He tried to coax Buck to swing at an offering a trifle wide that zipped over with the speed of a cannon ball, but Buck refused. He tried another one a little low and Buck only smiled. There were two balls on him and no strikes.

The Custer pitcher calculated that it was time now to put over a strike, figuring that Buck would pass it just on a chance that it might be called a ball, so he whipped over one that fairly sizzled as it cut the inside corner of the plate. Buck saw it was a likely ball, and he made a vicious stab at it and connected. It went crashing toward the first baseman, who was playing close to his bag, and it looked for a moment as if Buck had batted into a double play.

It was a terrifically hot ball that the first baseman tried to field, but he fumbled it, the sphere shooting at a tangent toward second base. Wildly he scrambled for it, while the pitcher raced to cover first. Meanwhile, Lafe had gone down to third and Mickey Daily was racing to second. The chances for a double play had gone glimmering with that error and it was evident that it was going to be a hard job to even catch Buck at first. Lafe overran third, and watching the scrambling first baseman started for home, Gleason, on the coaching line, gave him the signal and he sprinted for the plate.

By that time the first baseman had fielded the ball, and seeing a runner streaking for the plate he whipped the horsehide down to the catcher. But the throw was low, and as the catcher tried to dig the sphere out of the dust Lafe slid over with long arms and legs flying, and the umpire called him safe.

That left Daily on second and Buck Hart on first and Jeff Thatcher was the next man up.

Jeff had one hit to his credit so far. He decided that he wanted another to bring Daily in and tie the score. And he got it. He leaned on the very first ball pitched and smashed it over the second baseman’s head for a fine clean single, and meanwhile Daily, who was working on a long lead off the base, scored standing up, while Buck Hart went to third. The score was evened up, with a man on first and a man on third and only one out. It looked as if Pennington could sew up the game right there,—it looked that way but it did not work out that way. Instead, Dave Gleason, the next man up, batted into a double play. Jeff was caught at second by a snappy play by the Custer short stop, and Dave Gleason was thrown out with a yard or two to spare at first and the side was retired.

With the score tied the Custer team came up to the bat for the last half of the seventh full of determination. And they started to make good with the first player, who found Honey Wiggins for a hit just out of reach of the shortstop.

The next player up was one of the best batters on the Custer team and Jeff had been watching him the entire game. As he picked up his stick, Jeff noticed that the Custer coach passed him a signal. He could not interpret it but he made a wild guess at it. The man at the bat was a slugger. A wise coach, under the present circumstances, with all of the players looking for a slashing hit, would doubtless signal the batter to bunt and try and beat it out while the man on first went down to second. Jeff realized that there were a dozen chances to one that he had guessed wrong; but playing for a lucky break, and instead of backing out when the slugger came to bat, he set himself for a sprint in toward the plate.

He started a moment after the ball left Honey Wiggins’ hand, and sprinted toward the batter. And he had guessed right. The Custer slugger shorted his bat and bunted a soft rolling bunt that bounded directly toward the oncoming Jeff. On the run Jeff scooped it up, snapped it down to first, and Lafe Gammage, on his toes, relayed it to second for a double play. The Pennington crowd went wild, and there were cheers for Jeff even from the Custer School contingent, for he had displayed a brand of snappy baseball in a game that had been as ragged as could be, which, perhaps, was one reason why his play stood out so conspicuously. But regardless of that fact the cheers sounded good to him, and especially good came the shout from right field, where Wade Grenville yelled:

“That’s baseball, old Frog.”

With two out it looked as if the inning would be closed with the next man up, and Honey Wiggins pitched to him, determined to make him fan. But Honey did not know how really dangerous this batter was or he would have been more discreet. The third ball that was served to him evidently looked to be just what he wanted, for he swung with all his might. A startling crash resulted, and the horsehide went soaring up and up and out, far over Jeff Thatcher’s head and on into left field. Dutch Hecht was running back as fast as his short legs could carry him, which was mighty fast at times. But in this instance Dutch and his legs were not equal to the occasion, for when the ball hit the ground Dutch was still running toward the spot it dropped, and when he finally recovered it and threw it back to Jeff, a wild shout went up from the stands, for the runner had crossed the plate for a home run, and, as it proved, the winning run of the game, for in the remaining two innings neither Custer nor Pennington were able to score again, and the final tally was 9 to 8 in favor of the home team.

But despite the loss of the game Jeff did not feel as despondent as might have been the case, for on their way back to the Custer gymnasium, Coach Rice came over to his side and walked with him a little way.

“That was heady baseball you played in the seventh inning. I like to see a man use his head that way. Of course you got a lucky break, too, but I like to see a man on his toes and ready to take advantage of lucky breaks just as you did. I guess we’ll have to give you the regular job at third base, Thatcher.”

CHAPTER XXII
TREACHERY?

Spring swung swiftly onward toward June and the finals,—the examinations toward which every fellow in the school had been looking forward since mid-year with a certain amount of worry and not a few misgivings. And one after another the games on the baseball schedule were becoming history as each Saturday and Wednesday slipped by. Each game was becoming harder now, for the Pennington team was reaching the stiffest part of its schedule. But the team was making a fine record in spite of the strong combinations that the players were pitted against. Bedford Hall was well trounced in a sizzling game that brought out all sorts of fine baseball; Carlton Hill Prep was defeated by a narrow margin; Brunswick, the hard-hitting champions of Sussex County Scholastic League, were beaten in a ten-inning game, and even the Princeton Freshmen were humbled after an extra-inning session that reached a dramatic climax when Wade Grenville poled out a home run right after a smashing double by Buck Hart. Binghamton High, Hanover Prep and the Crescent Club of Dover were humbled successively, and the Pennington team seemed to be moving along irresistibly toward a complete clean-up of its schedule, when quite suddenly it received a setback that probably did the team more good than several more victories.

The Washington-Childs School team came to Pennington. It was a little school and actually a little team. The nine was composed of boys none of whom was older than seventeen, and many of them looked to be about fifteen. They were all short, stocky, sturdy players except the pitcher, who was the giant of the squad, a long, rangy country boy with hands as big as fielders’ mitts; at least they looked that big as they dangled at the ends of his grotesquely long lean arms. His feet were big and his face was big and round and good-natured and covered with freckles that ranged from the size of pinheads to some the size of a dime. He looked more like a country clown than a baseball player, and the Pennington boys looked at him and smiled. Here, they thought, was a break in their stiff schedule. This would be a romp; a veritable walkaway, and unfortunately they went onto the field with that attitude of mind.

Their supreme confidence was elevated to the heights of absolute conceit, after the first inning, for the visiting team was set down hitless while they poled out three safe drives off of the freckle-faced pitcher’s delivery which netted them a run. It certainly looked easy.

But the confident Penningtons soon discovered that things are not always the way they look from first appearances. Somehow, it really looked as if it were an accident, one of the Washington players landed on George Dixon’s delivery for a two-bagger in the second inning and the next man up placed a neat sacrifice hit between first and second and advanced the runner to third. Then in business-like fashion the next player up, a lad not a day older than fifteen, slammed a single just out of reach of Mickey Daily, and the man on third romped home. The inning ended with the next man up, but the score was tied.

The Pennington players came in, slightly puzzled to understand just how it all happened. They were still quite certain that it had all been an accident and they decided to alter the score right there in the last of the second and take a lead that would just about discourage the visiting team.

But accidents seemed to continue to happen. Jed Stafford, always a reliable hitter, was the first man up, and the good-natured face full of freckles in the pitcher’s box proceeded to bend some mystifying curves over the plate that Jed could only marvel at but could not possibly find with the end of his bat. It took four pitched balls to send Jed back to the bench, as puzzled as ever.

“Jiminy, that boy has something on the ball, believe me,” he assured Coach Rice.

“Hum, I noticed you didn’t have anything on the end of your bat,” said the coach sarcastically; “you fanned like a novice. I guess when you kids get through you’ll know you’ve been up against a pitcher. He’s just about the best man to step in that pitcher box this season or I miss my guess.”

The coach was right. He of the long arms and the freckles made the heavy hitting Dutch Hecht, the next man up, look like an amateur. He gave him three balls, at which Hecht refused to strike, and then he proceeded to bend three more over the plate in such fashion that Dutch simply grunted as he swung at the last.

About that time the opposing catcher began to liven up, too, and talk a little. And the line of baseball “guff” he handed out completely took the wind out of the next batter’s sails, and he fanned, too. Pennington had gone down one, two, three,—three successive strike outs, an “accident” that had not happened to the team all season.

To be sure, the fellows took a brace right there. Their conceit had been nicely taken down and they decided that the only way they could beat the combination they were facing was to take them seriously and play their hardest. They did. But somehow their hardest did not seem to amount to much. The visiting players, with all the confidence in the world, waded right into George Dixon and spattered hits around the diamond and outfield something scandalous, and while the Pennington players did their best to keep these hits from developing into runs, their best was none too good and five runs did slip through.

As for the opposing pitcher, he of the freckles, long arms and a smile, there seemed to be nothing in the way of curves that he could not deliver to perfection when he had to. He had slow balls and swift balls, too, floaters and a mystifying assortment of almost everything in the pitching line, and the result was he made the Pennington players look like a lot of sand-lot kids. Indeed when the dust finally settled and the game was neatly folded away in the official score book, the Pennington players discovered that the Washington pitcher had left a humiliating record behind him. He struck out ten men, and allowed six hits from which they managed to get one run, and that in the first inning. That was all. They had been defeated to the tune of 5 to 1. The worst beating they had received during the entire season so far.

“Crackey,” said Wade Grenville to Jeff, in the locker room after the game, “I never faced anything like that for pitching. He’s going to be one of the best pitchers in the country when he gets three years more on his shoulders. There didn’t seem to be a thing he couldn’t make the ball do.”

“It surely was air-tight pitching. I begin to think we don’t know a thing about the game the way they trimmed us. Some pitching, I’ll say.”

“He was a wiz. I’d almost believe he was a ringer,—a semi-pro. or something like that,” said Buck Hart disconsolately, as he pulled off one cleated shoe and threw it into his locker.

“Oh, he’s no ringer,” said Coach Rice, who came up in time to hear Buck’s remark. “He’s an honest-to-goodness student at Washington-Childs and he sure had you fellows looking like a lot of posts.”

“I’ll tell the world,” said big George Dixon; “I’ll tell ’em, too, that he’s no ringer, either. I know who he is. He’s Badger Clark, a fellow from Iowa; rich ranchman’s son; and I’ve heard that Yale and Harvard and Princeton are all trying to make him believe that he’ll make the mistake of his life if he doesn’t register at their particular institution next year.”

“Well, whoever gets him will be mighty fortunate,” said Coach Rice.

But that defeat, coming as it did in the tightest and hardest part of the Pennington schedule, really helped the fellows, for whatever conceit and overconfidence had been accumulating as a result of their succession of victories disappeared over night. They suddenly realized that they were just a baseball team and not a lot of champions, and they settled down to afternoon practice with more of a feeling that practice was necessary than they had had heretofore.

The team had not undergone any radical changes during the season. Rabbit Warren, Cas Gorham and Brownie Davis, the three first string substitutes, were given a number of chances to fill in for regulars who were taken out for some reason or another, and Gould, who still reported for each game in uniform, was given an occasional opportunity to fill in for Thatcher, Buck Hart or Mickey Daily; but he was listed as being among the substitutes and Thatcher became the permanent third baseman of the team, clinching his hold on the position by playing a steady and dependable game as he well knew how to play, giving his best to the team and occasionally flashing bits of brilliant baseball that pleased the coach and his assistant and made the rest of the players proud of him. He was Third Base Thatcher and living up to his name.

But Gould hung on despite the discouragement of losing his job as a regular. He hung on for much the same reason that Jeff had been eager to become a fixture on the team. Gould was a Sophomore, and as a Freshman the preceding year he had been a substitute third baseman, but he had not been given the privilege of playing in the Lawrencetown game and thereby winning his letters,—winning the privilege of wearing a buff “P” on cap and blue jersey. He wanted that honor. He wanted to win his letters and that was the one reason why he stuck to the squad as a substitute, hoping, of course, that chance, or luck, or something would make it possible for him to play in the Lawrencetown game long enough to be entitled to that privilege.

The school ruling was that to win a letter for baseball a player had to play in seven scheduled games during one season, but one of those seven games had to be the game with Lawrencetown. Gould had taken part in more than seven games and so had Jeff, but it was necessary for both of them to play in the Lawrencetown game before they could be awarded the honor they strove for. So Gould clung on, although it was evident that Thatcher had made the regular position at third, hoping no doubt that something would happen, or that Coach Rice would relent at the last moment, as coaches frequently do, and shove him into the game just so that he could earn his letter.

But as the schedule was played it began to look as if there was small opportunity for Gould to get the chance he was looking for. Coach Rice did not seem to consider him with any more favor than he had immediately after the Fayville High School game. He made Gould earn every opportunity to play at all, and he demanded every bit as much energy and loyalty and attention to practice as he did from the regular players.

Gould was not of the temperament to accept a situation of this sort with good grace. The humiliation he had suffered at being put among the substitutes had been a bitter pill for him to swallow, but to be continued as a second-string man while he watched Thatcher make good in his old job hurt his natural conceit and pride more than he was willing to admit even to himself.

He went about with a perpetual grouch, and he did far less bragging than he had done before. He became very unpopular in his class, too, because of the disposition he developed, and there were few of his former friends who appeared to care very much about him. Yet in spite of it all one boy clung to him as closely as ever and seemed to admire him as much as he had in former days. That was Birdie Pell. It seemed very strange to most of the fellows that this should be so. Jeff, for one, could not understand why the little Sophomore should still insist on chumming with Gould, who to appearances had developed into a thoroughly unpleasant person. Others tried to understand it, too, and failing, classed Birdie Pell in the same category as Gould, and as a result had very little to do with him. Yet this seemed to make but very little difference to Pell, for he went blithely on his way of palling with Gould, until they became a thoroughly lonesome couple, finding their own pleasures and developing their own interests.

Jeff devoted a great deal of thought to this strange companionship and tried to analyze the reason for it. But in the end he had to give it up as a problem too deep for him to solve. For some reason he liked Birdie in spite of his associations and some unpleasant faults of personality. And Pell seemed to think well of him, for even though Gould hated Jeff with a hate that was almost sinister Birdie was always pleasant to Thatcher even in Gould’s company. When they passed Thatcher on the campus, though Gould glowered and looked ugly, Birdie always smiled and had a cheery word, and in the halls of the school buildings Pell frequently stopped to chat just a moment with Thatcher while classes were changing.

As the spring term drew on toward June and the time for final examinations, Jeff found that he had a lot more to think about than baseball. School work was piling up fast and getting stiffer and stiffer for the entire year was being reviewed and new work was being crowded in as well. With the examinations looming ahead, Jeff, and most of the other fellows, were cramming hard, burning the midnight oil, so to speak, whenever they could find opportunity.

Especially were the baseball men studying hard, for there was a scholastic rule at Pennington that no boy could play on any of the athletic teams representing the school unless his school standing was all that it should be.

The final examinations were scheduled for the eighth of June and the last and crucial game of the season, the Lawrencetown game, was scheduled for the following Saturday, which was the fifteenth of June, and all of the players realized that to be eligible for the big game of the season they would all have to pass the examinations with flying colors.

And besides this highly important reason Jeff had still another reason for wanting to make a good showing in his studies. The other reason was Mr. Davidson, the President of the Third National Bank, who was making it possible for Jeff to remain at Pennington. During the school term Jeff had written repeatedly to his benefactor just by way of keeping in touch with him and informing him of his school standing, and the few letters that he had received in answer to his messages were always hearty, encouraging and very cheerful. Indeed Mr. Davidson maintained what almost amounted to a fatherly interest in Jeff, and especially was he interested in his baseball career.

Several times he had motored over to Pennington of a Saturday afternoon and watched the team play, and he was always very careful to seek out Jeff and have a cheerful chat with him before the boy went back to the locker room.

Realizing this interest in him, Jeff studied hard as the final examinations approached. Indeed he soon became a veritable “bone,” to quote Wade Grenville, who frequently had to roar to Jeff to turn out the light and come to bed. In truth Jeff became so serious over his studies that he often carried one text book or another about with him, snatching odd moments to study. Especially did he carry around his Cæsar, for he realized that he was weaker in his Latin than in any other study. And strange to relate it was this conscientious habit that brought Jeff Thatcher no end of trouble and resulted in a situation that threatened again to wreck his whole career at Pennington.

Jeff carried his Cæsar in his outside jacket pocket most of the time, and one day early in June, having a half hour to spare before climbing into his uniform for practice he sat in the sun on the gym. steps and thumbed over his translations, committing a particularly hard passage to memory. He worked at it right up until the time the other members of the squad began to arrive in the gym., then, as he thought, he slipped the book into his pocket and went down stairs to the locker room to undress and put on his baseball uniform, leaving his school clothes in his locker, which unfortunately was not all that its name implied, for it did not always lock with safety.

He spent about three hours on the field with the rest of the squad, and then, returning late to the gym., he dressed and started for his room. Arriving there, he felt for his Cæsar and discovered that it was not in the pocket in which he felt certain he had slipped it. He started to trace back in his memory to see if he could recall just when he had used the book last and remembered that he had been sitting on the gym. steps studying for some time before he went to the locker room. He wondered whether he could have left the book lying on the steps, and to make certain he retraced his steps to the gym. and began to look around in the gathering twilight.

Mr. Clarkson came out of the gym. door while he was looking and, seeing him, asked if he were looking for a book.

“Why, yes. My Cæsar, sir. I must have left it here, though I could have sworn I put it in my pocket.”

“I saw a junior school boy pick up a book on the steps here not an hour ago. I was going into the gym. as he was coming out, and I suggested that he take it over to the office. I guess you’ll find it there,” said the assistant coach as he passed on.

Jeff hurried over to the office only to discover that it was six o’clock and the door was locked. Dr. Livingston and his assistants had evidently left the building for the day.

“Oh, well, I’ll get it in the morning. I’ve got that bloomin’ translation almost pat now, anyhow, so I won’t worry. I’ll try and bone up on algebra to-night. I’ll pick up the book first thing in the morning,” he assured himself, as he hurried off to his room to dress for dinner.

But he had no time to go to the office before breakfast next morning, and he lingered so long in the dining room that he came very near being late for chapel, and consequently had no time to retrieve his lost book before the regular morning exercises.

However, he had the missing text book on his mind, and therefore he was not disturbed when Dr. Livingston, while making announcements from the platform, asked that he report in the office before the first period. Jeff concluded that the Headmaster wanted to give him his book, and, perhaps a bit of a scolding for carelessness.

After chapel Jeff walked over to the office and, after knocking, entered. Dr. Livingston was evidently plunged in deep thought. When he looked up, at Jeff’s entrance, Thatcher noticed that there was a pained and discouraged expression on his face. He looked at Jeff unsmilingly as the boy crossed the office and stood beside his desk, and Jeff was puzzled and a little worried by his expression.

On the Headmaster’s desk Jeff noticed his Cæsar. He smiled then and reached for it.

“I guess I was a little careless, Dr. Livingston, I must have left it on the gym. steps.”

“Is that where you left it, Thatcher?” asked the Headmaster, almost wearily, as he laid his hand on the book to prevent Jeff from picking it up.

“Why, I must have. That’s where it was found, wasn’t it, sir?” asked Jeff in a puzzled tone.

“Yes, that is where it was found. I—I—rather hoped—” The Headmaster stopped talking. It was evident to Jeff that there was something unpleasant on his mind,—something that discouraged him,—made him feel that all his efforts to train his boys had gone for naught. Jeff thought that his carelessness at leaving the book around could not be responsible for all of the Master’s apparent emotion and he wondered what on earth could have happened. He was presently to know.

“Thatcher,” said Dr. Livingston, clearing his throat and looking at Jeff searchingly, “a really terrible thing has happened,—a terrible crime has been committed here in school and circumstances point to you as the criminal!”

The last was snapped out with such startling emphasis that Jeff grew weak and nervous. He felt as if his stomach had suddenly melted away, and that he was nothing but head and legs with no connection between.

For a moment he could not find voice to speak. When he did his voice was nervous and apprehensive.

“But—but—Dr. Livingston, I don’t understand. I—er—what is it?”

“Room 44 has evidently been entered, for an examination paper has disappeared,” snapped out the Headmaster, watching Jeff’s face carefully to see the effect of his words.

Jeff was stunned. Of all offenses at Pennington this was certainly the most serious. To enter Room 44 at any time and under any circumstances was the most dishonorable thing that a student could do. This was the room in which the examination papers were prepared and kept. All of the students were aware of this fact and honor bound to respect the restrictions that none was to enter that room under any conditions. Some one in school had violated this trust and suspicion pointed to him!

“How—why—this is terrible, Dr. Livingston. But—but why do you suspect me, sir?” asked Jeff.

For answer Dr. Livingston took his hand from the book before him and lifted the cover. Inside the fly leaf, neatly folded, Jeff saw a sheet of light green paper which he recognized only too well as the form in which the examinations in Latin were always printed at Pennington.

“Your book was found, Thatcher, with this in it,” said Dr. Livingston wearily.

CHAPTER XXIII
VOICES

Jeff staggered back as if he had been struck a blow in the face. Was this treachery? The evidence was certainly accusing.

But suddenly his nervousness passed and just anger and resentment took its place. His face became red and he could feel his collar grow too tight for him.

“Of all the rotten, crooked tricks, this is the worst I have ever heard of, sir,” he exclaimed. “Now I know why that book was not in my pocket where I put it and where I knew it should be. Whoever stole the examination papers also stole my book from my pocket and put one of the papers in it. Then he left the book where it would be found and turned in at the office, so you could find this evidence. That is just about the meanest trick a fellow could do.”

Dr. Livingston looked at him searchingly for several seconds and it seemed to Jeff as if the cloud that had settled over the Headmaster lifted just a little.

“Thatcher, did you enter Room 44?” he said sternly and in a manner that demanded a truthful answer.

“No, sir. I have never been in the room, sir,” said Jeff drawing himself up erect and looking the Master squarely in the eyes.

“Did you steal the examination papers that are missing?” continued Dr. Livingston.

“I did not. I have never before seen that paper that you just showed me folded in my book.”

“Do you know anything about this disagreeable situation at all,” demanded Dr. Livingston, finally.

“Nothing more than you have told me right here, sir!” replied Jeff.

Dr. Livingston was silent for several seconds. Again he spoke:

“Thatcher, I believe you. But here is mighty unpleasant circumstantial evidence that I must accept until a better case can be made out for your defense or damnation. Until then you are barred from taking the final examination. Of course, you are set down from the baseball team and any other athletic team in school. You must keep within bounds at all times and you must be in your room at eight o’clock every evening. I’m very sorry, Thatcher, but you realize the seriousness of the situation. I am going to conduct an immediate investigation and will clear this thing up as soon as possible and”—the Headmaster stood up and put his hand on Jeff’s shoulder—“Thatcher, I hope you are telling the truth and that you can prove your statements, for, my boy, I like you a great deal and it would hurt me more than you can believe to know that you were party to any dishonorable acts. When I saw your name in this book here it made me feel sick at heart, my boy. Go, now, and we will try to work this out happily for you, anyway.”

Jeff could not choke back a lump that came into his throat as the kindly Headmaster spoke to him, and in spite of his best efforts tears mounted to his eyes and spilled over onto his cheek. He had never had the benefit of paternal affection and the fatherly attitude of the venerable Dr. Livingston reached a strangely responsive heartstring.

“Thank you, sir,” he said in a thick voice as he turned to leave the office.

Jeff was considerably disturbed by the developments of the morning and he went to his classes in a strangely confused and upset state of mind. Indeed, it was not until the noon recess period, just before the mid-day meal, that he managed to get control of himself again, and then only after he had had a long talk with his roommate, Wade Grenville.

“Whe-e-w-w-w,” whistled Wade, when Jeff unburdened himself to his chum, “of all the rotten dirty, skunky tricks in the world, there never was a worse one than that. And believe me, old kid, I think I know the birds who did it.”

“Who?” said Jeff, in a manner indicating clearly that he, too, had already made up his mind as to who was at the bottom of it all.

“Why, Gould and Birdie Pell, of course. There aren’t any other fellows in the school who would stoop to a trick as low as that,” said Wade with conviction.

“Well, I suspect Gould myself. But—er—well, I can’t believe Pell would do anything like that,” said Jeff.

“Tut-tut—he’s as bad as Gould. Wouldn’t wonder but that Gould had talked him into doing it and kept his own skirts clean.”

“No, no. I can’t believe that,” said Jeff.

“It’s a mighty rotten set up just the same—and—by jingoes something should be done about it. Something—er—say, Jeff, this is a matter for we students to take a hand in. By jingoes, we’ve got to find the cowards who are responsible and show them up. I’m for that. I’ll get Buck Hart and Rabbit Warren and Lafe Gammage and Honey Wiggins and a couple others and we’ll find the skunk who did it or—”

“No. Don’t do that, Wade. Don’t—”

“Tut-tut, Little One. You haven’t got a word to say. I’m going to run this end of it. Not a word now. I’ll tell you all about it after the thing is all over,” said Wade.

And in spite of Jeff’s best efforts to persuade his roommate not to interfere Wade took it upon himself to spread the news of what had happened among all of Jeff’s friends, and organize his special little committee of students who were to take it upon themselves to smoke out the fellow or fellows behind the “frame up” as they chose to call it. Indeed, Wade worked so well that by the end of the afternoon session the committee’s plans were all laid, but he refused to divulge anything to Jeff.

But during the afternoon a new development entered the situation, which, while it helped matters a little, did not tend to remove all suspicion from Jeff. At about the time the baseball men were gathering at the gym. for the regular afternoon practice word was sent to Jeff’s room to report to Dr. Livingston again. He was quick to obey the summons and at the office he found Professor Hatfield in conference with Dr. Livingston.

“Thatcher,” said Dr. Livingston, “Professor Hatfield has just shed some light on the unpleasant situation we were discussing this morning, and while it does not entirely clear you from having the Latin examination paper in your possession it does absolve you and every other boy in the school from the breach of school honor in entering Room 44. Professor Hatfield has charge of that room, as you know, and he is the custodian of the examination papers. He tells me that yesterday at noon he entered the room and took a copy of the Freshman Latin examination away with him, putting it in his inside pocket, so he believed. But when he went to look for it late last night he discovered that it was gone. He has tried to trace back in his memory how he might have been responsible for its disappearance and he has come to the conclusion that he must have lost it out of his pocket while crossing the campus. That explains the paper missing from Room 44 and it removes any suspicion that you or any one else had broken the school’s code of honor and entered Room 44 without permission. Now, then, Thatcher, that brings me to the point of asking you more questions and I want you on your honor as a gentleman to answer me truthfully and take your punishment if punishment is coming to you.”

“Dr. Livingston, I am always truthful, and I have always taken whatever punishment is coming to me in a manly fashion, I believe,” said Jeff.

“Yes, I think you have,” said the Headmaster.

“What questions do you want to ask me, then?” asked Jeff.

“Did you find the paper Professor Hatfield lost?” asked Dr. Livingston.

“No, sir,” said Jeff.

“You are sure you did not pick it up, and noting what it was decided to look it over first before reporting it and returning it to me?”

“No, sir. I never saw the paper before you showed it to me this morning, sir,” said Jeff.

“All right, but the evidence is against you, Thatcher, and I must still deny you certain privileges. You will be permitted to take the final examinations. We will work out a new set of Latin questions, so as to be certain that this missing paper has not passed through more than your hands. But you must remain within bounds, be in your room at the hour I designated this morning, and you cannot take part in any athletic contests whatsoever until this case is cleared up and we know all the facts. Go to your room, boy.”

Feeling somewhat relieved, but still angry and resentful that any one should play such an ugly trick on him, Jeff returned to Carter Hall. As he crossed the campus he looked out toward the ball field where the team was at afternoon practice, and he bit his lips in disappointment. Because of the dishonesty of some one else he thought he was forbidden the privilege of practicing with the team, forbidden the privilege of playing in the remaining games and especially the Lawrencetown game nest week. That would mean that he would not win his letter. That would mean— Jeff stopped short in his tracks. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. Had Gould found the examination paper and used it to keep him out of the Lawrencetown game! If he played in the Lawrencetown game Gould would not win his letter. But if he remained ineligible, Gould was the logical man to take his place and in playing the game he would win the honor he most coveted. Had Gould planted the lost examination paper in his Latin book just to keep him out of the Lawrencetown game? Jeff began to believe that it was very likely.

Jeff’s non-appearance at practice that afternoon caused a number of questions to be raised by the players and students who always watched the team warm up, and Wade Grenville was not slow in supplying the information as to just what had happened and why Jeff was being denied the privilege of practicing with the team and playing in the remaining games of the season.

The attitude of practically all of the fellows was the same. They asserted that a mighty low-down trick had been played on the third baseman, and even Gould, who was filling Jeff’s place, seemed to profess to be disturbed by the unfairness of it all, and was loud in his insistence that if Thatcher was not responsible for his own undoing, the fellow who stooped to such meanness should be smoked out and made to confess.

But Wade refused to be deceived by what he believed was a bit of stage play on the part of Gould, and he refused to accept the attitude of Birdie Pell as anything but sham. Yet, Birdie appeared to be very resentful of the way Thatcher had been “framed” as dishonest, and he insisted that he would do his utmost to help find the fellow who was responsible.

When Wade heard him make this statement he looked at the little Soph more searchingly for a moment. Then he said:

“Well, Pell, I guess you won’t have to look far among your friends to find out who did it.”

Little Pell colored up at this and seemed about to make a retort. Instead, however, he bit his lips and turned away in silence.

In the locker room that afternoon Wade passed secret word among certain of Jeff’s friends, suggesting that they linger about the gym. a little later than usual.

Buck Hart, Honey Wiggins, Rabbit Warren, Cas Gorham, Brownie Davis and Mickey Daily composed the little group who remained behind in the locker room after the rest of the baseball squad had left. Wade became the spokesman at this impromptu meeting.

“Fellows,” he said, “I believe Jeff has had a mighty shabby deal put over on him by some one, and I think it is up to us to find out who did it. I don’t mind saying I have my suspicions and I for one am going to try and get at the facts in the case. I’ve been thinking that perhaps a little committee composed of the few of us here might be able to do more in the way of shedding light on the whole business than Dr. Livingston and the rest of the members of the faculty can. Thatcher doesn’t like my idea of getting you all together. He calls it gang spirit, or mob rule, or Ku Klux stuff, but just the same I think we can help a lot toward getting this mystery cleared up if we work together.”

“Sounds good,” said Lafe Gammage.

“Right-o. What’s the idea, Wade?” said Mickey Daily.

“We’re with you, Wade. Count us all in and give us the dope,” said Rabbit Warren.

“Well, here’s the way I figure it, fellows. I think that Gould is at the bottom of the whole thing. I’m going to interview him in his room to-night, and if I can’t make any progress with him, I want you fellows to be ready to come in and help me out. Not physically—that is, not unless we have to. But I don’t believe that we’ll need to use force. Just the presence of you fellows all in a group will go a long way toward making Gould understand that he will have to come across with facts and not try to lie out of anything.”

“All right, we’re with you. Aren’t we, fellows?” asked Buck Hart.

“I’ll say we are. Right-o,” came the response.

“Good. I’ll go to Gould’s room at eight o’clock. You fellows gather around outside about that time and be handy. No use of us all piling in on top of him right off. We’ll give him a chance first. All right?”

“Right as can be,” came the response. And the meeting broke up, the fellows leaving the gym. in a group.

Wade refused to discuss his plans with Jeff at all that evening, although Jeff tried his best to learn them.

“Never mind what we plan to do, Jeff, but we are going to get to the bottom of this thing if we can,” said Wade.

“All right, hang it. If you won’t let me in on it I can’t make you. But let me tell you, Wade, I don’t want any gang stuff or strong arm methods or anything like that. Don’t stoop as low as that for me, Wade. The whole thing isn’t worth it,” said Jeff.

“Oh, we won’t. I’ll promise you we won’t use force under any circumstances, but we are going to see the thing through, let me tell you.” And Wade picked up his hat and went out.

Jeff was half inclined to follow him. Indeed, he took up his hat to do so when he realized that it was eight o’clock and that he was not permitted the privilege of leaving his room at that hour.

Wade crossed over the campus and went straight to Newkirk, in which most of the Sophomores were quartered. On the front step of the house he found Rabbit Warren and Honey Wiggins waiting and several other fellows were coming down the drive. He could make out their forms in the gathering half light of evening.

“Wait here, fellows. I’ll whistle if I want you,” said Wade, and he entered and went upstairs to the second floor.

As he walked in the direction in which Gould’s room lay, he suddenly became conscious of voices raised to more than conversational pitch which sounded rather strange in the silent hall.

As Wade approached Gould’s room he presently recognized the voice speaking as that of Birdie Pell, and he could not resist the impulse to stop and listen. They were in Gould’s room and the transom above the door was open.

“—and I’ve stuck by you through a lot of messes,” Pell was saying, “but, by jingoes, if you are implicated in this I’m through with you, cousin or no cousin. I don’t care a whoop whether your father does get miffed and refuse to pay my expenses here. By jingoes, I’ll work my way through and be quit of a dirty mucker like you.”

“But, Birdie, I didn’t do it, I tell you. You can’t believe I would be as low down as that, can you?”

“No, I can’t, but, by jingoes, you have made yourself such a crab around the school that Wade Grenville and all of Thatcher’s friends suspect you and are perfectly willing to believe that you would do it. And if you didn’t do it you and I have got to find out who did, just to clear you. Get me. Hang it, you make me so mad sometimes I’d give you a good beating if I was big enough. If you hadn’t been such a darned grouch and crab, and so conceited and pig headed you wouldn’t be under suspicion now. You don’t suppose I like to have you act—”

In justice to his own conscience Wade could not listen any longer and he knocked at the door.

There was silence for a moment. Then Gould, in a husky voice, said:

“Come in.”

The boy was pale of face and visibly overwrought when Wade stepped in and closed the door after him.

“I know what you’ve come for,” he said, in a voice that trembled. “But I swear to you, Wade, I do not know a single thing about it. I may be a ‘mucker,’ as Birdie has called me to-night, but honestly, Wade, I’m not as low down as all that.” Gould was so sincere and so overwrought that Wade could see tears in his eyes and his voice choked.

Jeff’s chum felt dreadfully sorry for him and almost half inclined to believe that he was telling the truth.

“Look here, Gould, I’m not the only fellow who believes that you had a hand in this. They are all downstairs. Can you go down and tell them what you have told me. If you can I believe you are honest. If you can’t, why, it will—”

Gould swallowed hard, seemed to grow a shade paler, and made a valiant effort to pull himself together.

“I’ll go down. I want to tell them all that they are mistaken. I must be a mucker to have them all believe me capable of such a low-down trick.” Gould got his cap, and followed Wade out into the hall and down the stairs, and Birdie, evidently feeling very unhappy for his chum, trailed after them.

Rabbit Warren and Honey Wiggins were still sitting on the steps while Mickey Daily and the others stood under an elm tree near by. As the three boys came out of the door they all gathered in a little group at the foot of the steps expectantly. Wade stepped aside to give Gould the opportunity to face them, and the former third baseman stepped forward and stood in front of them for a moment.

“Fellows,” he said, in a husky voice, “Wade and Birdie Pell have told me that you believe that I planted that Latin examination paper in Jeff Thatcher’s book and left the book where it would be found and turned in so that he would be blamed for dishonesty and barred from the team. I want to tell you all that I do not know any more about the whole thing than you do, and that’s the honest truth. I want you to believe it is the truth, too. It makes me mighty unhappy to know that you can all think me capable of such an act, but it makes me realize, too, that I have probably been a cheap, rotten sort of a skate for some time. I want you all to overlook that and give me another chance to be a regular fellow. I tell you I never stooped to anything as low as the deed you are accusing me of, and if you do not believe me I will do anything that you fellows say to—”

Gould did not finish his sentence. Out of the dark came the sound of feet running up the graveled drive, and presently a figure burst upon the scene. It was Jeff Thatcher, hatless and out of breath.

“Good, I hoped I’d find you all here. Fellows, it’s a mistake, thank goodness. Ollie Simms, the janitor, is responsible for the whole business. Here’s how it all happened. He has just been over to Dr. Livingston’s office and explained, and Dr. Livingston called me in to let me know all about it. Seems Ollie found the examination paper on the path across the campus while he was on the way over to the gym., and on the basement steps he found my Cæsar, where I must have lost it out of my coat pocket. He shoved the paper into the book and intended to bring them over to the office. But he got busy with something else and he laid the book on the gym. steps and forgot about it. Little Jimmy Wild, a sub-freshman, found it and turned it in to the office. So there is the solution of the whole business and I am exonerated. And now, what I want to do is to apologize to Gould here for the ugly thoughts I have had about him and the ugly deeds I have believed him capable of.”

Jeff stepped up the steps and extended his hand to Gould and his former enemy gripped it with tears in his eyes.

“Thanks, Jeff,” he stammered, “I must have been carrying myself like a mucker these last few months to make you believe I could be capable of such a deed. I want to apologize for that and I want to apologize for many other things too. That basketball foul last winter, for instance. I lied then, Jeff. That was a mucker’s trick that I have regretted ever since. I’m going to be a regular fellow after this or I’m going to quit Pennington.”

Buck Hart and Wade Grenville stepped up followed by the others.

“We, too, want to apologize, Gould. We are blamed sorry, but, honestly, you have laid yourself open to it with your lax ways, your smoking, your egotism and some of the shady stunts you have pulled in the past. But we are all willing to let that stuff be far in the past. We are for you, Gould, and little Birdie Pell here, too.”

“Fellows,” said Gould, “Birdie Pell is about the best chum a fellow could have. He’s stuck to me through a lot of what must have been to him discouraging situations and he has always tried to make me see how rotten I have been, but I guess I have been such an infernal egotist that I have not been willing to pay much attention to him. He’s my cousin, fellows, and a dandy kid. But even his relationship did not stand in the way of his throwing me down to-night when he thought I had stooped to such a low trick as I was accused of.”

“Fellows,” said Wade Grenville, “we’ve been misjudging these two chaps a heap, and I guess I’m a lot responsible for some of the unpleasant feelings we have all held against them. I propose a yell for both of them.”

The “rahs” were given with enthusiasm and echoed across the campus with such feeling that presently heads were appearing at various windows.

“And now,” yelled Buck Hart, “let’s give the same to Jeff Thatcher because I think of us all he has been the most tolerant.”

And Jeff Thatcher heard his name go echoing through the night on the end of nine rousing “rahs.”

CHAPTER XXIV
THE BIG GAME

The days immediately preceding the final examinations were long dreary days of hard work and very little time for thoughts of baseball for Jeff or any of the other fellows at Pennington. They were not even relieved by a mid-week game nor was the afternoon practice carried on for any extended period. All of the fellows were too much worried and fretted by their school work. But they did have events of real importance to look forward to after the examinations were held and they were, in the order of their importance to Jeff, the final game of the season with Lawrencetown and the commencement “hop” and various other “spreads” that immediately preceded or followed the game.

That Lawrencetown game loomed up to Thatcher as the most important event in his school career so far, and he looked forward to it with a tremendous lot of interest. Perhaps it was this enthusiasm that carried him through the deadly examination week and kept him from growing gray with study. Still, he was mighty glad when the last exam was over and he could fare forth to the gym. and the baseball field, light hearted and unburdened with worries about his scholastic standing.

The last examination occurred on Wednesday afternoon, and Jeff answered the last problem with a suppressed cheer and turned in his paper. He felt as if a load had dropped from his shoulders with that act, and he made haste to quit the study hall and hurry over to the gym. to get on his baseball togs.

He found Wade and Honey Wiggins in the locker room ahead of him and they were as jubilant as he was, and while he was getting into his duds more and more members of the team came straggling in, all bearing happy grins to know that the unpleasant period was behind them.

“Whew-w-w. That’s all over, thank goodness,” said Captain Tad Sloan. “All over but the shouting. They will announce our marks after chapel to-morrow morning. Let’s hope we all pass. Anyhow, now for a real practice. Come on. Let’s go.”

A real practice it proved to be, the fellows cavorting on the diamond until dinner time. And whatever mental disquietude remained was dispersed next morning when the marks were announced from the chapel platform, and it was made evident that every fellow on the baseball squad passed with flying colors. That meant that none of them would be disqualified or dropped from the team because of a poor scholastic record, and the way was wide open for the team to prepare itself for the big contest.

Thursday afternoon practice was just as good as Wednesday’s had been, and Friday the team warmed up in its preparations by playing a sizzling five-inning game with the Penguins, who were brought together again for the especial purpose of giving the big team a good work out. There was a mass meeting in chapel on Friday evening at which the cheer leaders stirred the student body into a perfect frenzy of cheer and song, and made them so worked up to have the scalp of Lawrencetown that it began to look as if the baseball diamond would be the scene of a mob encounter or something equally as dreadful. New school yells were developed for the occasion, and practiced until the chapel rafters rang. All the members of the team were brought up on the platform one by one (much to the consternation of Jeff and a number of other more or less bashful spirits), and as each appeared they were roundly cheered by the enthusiastic and thoroughly excited students. Altogether it was really a thrilling scene and Jeff became as excited as any of the rest of them.

Jeff and Wade went to bed that night so thoroughly keyed up that it was some time before either of them could get to sleep. And when they did finally drop off it seemed to them as if they had only had their eyes closed about five minutes when the seven o’clock bell sounded, and they awoke to the realization that it was Saturday morning and that the day of the big contest of the year was actually at hand.

Attendance at chapel was the only school work required of the boys that day, and after the morning services were over the students flocked to the campus, where in the fine warm June sunshine, for the day was perfectly wonderful, they gathered in little groups to discuss the game. Some dashed off to the railroad station to meet the eleven o’clock train which would bring in loads of parents, friends and bright-eyed, prettily frocked girl friends, eager to attend the game and the “hop” after.

Jeff and Wade, having no friends of this sort to greet them, mingled with the fellows on the campus or on the steps of the school buildings until noon time when the call for dinner stirred them to action.

The noonday meal in the big mess hall proved to be more than a meal; it resembled a continuation of the mass meeting the day before in which the cheer leaders stirred up the boys to the point of singing enthusiastically, and “Pennington, old Pennington” swelled forth in such a mighty chorus that little prickles raced up and down Jeff Thatcher’s spine as he heard the chorus roared, and just at that moment he, and doubtless every other boy in the room, would have laid down his life if need be for the honor of the school.

The fellows piled out of the dining hall still singing and then, because it was one o’clock and the game was called at two-thirty, they all scattered to their rooms to “doll up” for the benefit of the horde of pretty girls who would be present, as indicated from the number who already had appeared and were strolling across the campus, with boy companions or with attentive parents.

Jeff and Wade, with a peculiar, nervous feeling, in the vicinity of their belts, for want of something better to do, went down in the locker room and got out their fielding mitts, which they proceeded to “work” into better shape by generous applications of saliva, soap suds, oil and other “dope” that had been recommended to them from various quarters. They meant to have their gloves in the pink of condition.

The call to get into uniform was sounded at one o’clock, but that was hardly necessary for by that hour the entire squad was in the locker room getting into their duds. Shortly after the head coach appeared there was a blare of brass out on the campus, and a ringing cheer, and the fellows all crowded to the basement windows to peer out at a line of fifteen yellow automobile busses that came careening up the long gravel drive, to come to a stop in front of the Administration Building. This was the Lawrencetown team and rooters, arriving for the fray.

Led by the band the rooters gathered in a column four abreast and started to parade around the campus, later turning in the direction of the baseball diamond where they took up their section of the bleachers and forthwith began to hurl challenges at the now crowded buff and blue stands along third base line. Cheer for cheer was hurled across the diamond while the rooters waited for the teams to appear.

Lawrencetown was given locker room in the basement of the Administration Building, and while they were getting into their uniforms the Pennington team completed that ordeal and appeared in a group on the steps of the gymnasium building where the Pennington band was waiting for them. Immediately the school’s marching song pealed forth, and the players, with Mr. Rice and Mr. Clarkson leading, and Captain Tad directly behind them, started across the campus for the field.

As they came into sight of the bleachers, a wild cheer started that rolled on and on and developed into a thunder-like roar as they finally reached the center of the diamond where they were scattered to their positions by the coach, while the school band took its place in the stands.

Warming up practice started with enthusiasm for the fellows had suppressed themselves so long that only a lot of vigorous physical action could serve to “let them down” and bring them back to normal.

Dutch Hecht found his particular mace and began “batting ’em out” to the outfielders, while Captain Tad, the sturdy little catcher, began to slash some hot ones to Jeff and the rest of the infield.

It was surely snappy practice and before long the Pennington rooters began to realize that their team was at the very top of its form and that if the Lawrencetown aggregation were as good, they were destined to see a game that would be historic.

And the Lawrencetown players soon proved that they were in every bit as good form. A wild cheer greeted their appearance about twenty minutes after the Pennington fellows had arrived on the field, and, of course, the home team came in to the bench while the fellows wearing the red and black stocking of the visiting aggregation took the field. There was snap to their practice, too. The infield worked as smoothly as a well-oiled machine, and their lightning-like handling of the ball, their snappy throws and remarkable “get” soon had even the Pennington rooters on their toes.

“They are good, mighty good, and you boys are going to know you were in a game when you get through to-day,” said Coach Rice. Then, looking at his watch, he added, “Come on, Tad. They are coming in now and here comes the umpire. Get your men out into the field. Here’s the batting order.”

Jeff, who was pulling on his glove, looked over Tad’s shoulder to read the line-up of players. He noticed with interest that the batting order had been shifted slightly. Long Lafe Gammage led off, with Mickey Daily next in line and walloping Dutch Hecht third man up. They were the “big stickers” of the outfit. Captain Tad followed and Wade Grenville came in fifth. Jed Stafford, also a reliable clouter, was sixth. He found his own name seventh, Buck Hart eighth and pitcher George Dixon last in line, though big George was not a weak batter as pitchers go.

“Well, fellows, let’s give ’em both barrels—all we got. Win the game in the first inning if we can but play hard all the way through,” said Captain Tad. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The fellows romped out to their positions and big George Dixon, with his slow deliberate stride, walked out to the pitcher’s box, spat into his glove, took the shining new ball that the umpire offered him, and turned to face the batter: the first man up of the Lawrencetown team, a chap by the name of Southers, who played second base and was a formidable batter.

“Play ball!” called the umpire.

Southers pulled down the peak of his cap and stepped to the plate.

Captain Tad thumped his fist into his mitt. “Come on, George. Get this first one. On your toes, fellows. Let’s go.”

George Dixon wound up his long arms, then uncurled like a steel spring. There was a flash of white between the box and the catcher, a thump, and the umpire shouted:

“Strike one.”

The big game of the season was on.

In spite of that auspicious start, however, George Dixon did not strike the first man out. He managed to get two and two on him and then tried to sneak over the necessary third strike. But Southers saw it was a tempting offering and slammed it for a beautiful long fly which found safety in the hands of Wade Grenville out in right field.

“One down. That’s the way they all have to go to-day. Give ’em the gate. Get this guy now,” came the peppery coaching from all corners of the diamond as the ball was relayed in to Dixon and Wild, first baseman of the red and black team, selected his particular mace and stepped to the plate. He was a versatile batter, and as he stepped into position he shifted about and decided to bat left handed against Dixon.

“Left or right. It doesn’t make any difference to you, George, ol’ boy. Put the bee on this boy. Thatta boy.”

Wild was a wily batter. He drew three balls before Dixon settled down to pitch to him, and then he poked the first good ball down to Buck Hart on a sizzling liner that Buck fielded to perfection and plunked into Lafe Gammage’s hands in plenty of time.

“Two gone. One more left,” coached Captain Tad, as he thumped his mitt and gave Dixon the signal. And Dixon, pitching to Freeman, the big left fielder of the Lawrencetown team, the heaviest hitter of them all, settled down and struck him out with four pitched balls, retiring the side.

The team came in and as Jeff walked toward the bench he looked up into the crowd along third base line and grinned, for there he saw Mr. Davidson, President of the Third National Bank of New City, sitting in the stand beside a charming lady whom Jeff concluded was Mrs. Davidson. As the banker caught Jeff’s eye he waved to him and called:

“I’m out to see you fellows win the big game, Jeff.”

“All right, we’ll win it for you, Mr. Davidson,” said Jeff lifting his cap.

Long Lafe was at the plate tapping his bat on the rubber and pulling down his cap when Jeff took his seat on the players’ bench beside Wade. Lefty Wells, the southpaw pitching ace of the Lawrencetown team was in the box adjusting his glove, and Captain Tad was on the first base line coaching.

“Show ’em where you live, Lafe,” called Tad.

The good-natured first baseman grinned as Wells wound up and shot a swift one over for a strike. He tried another of the same kind but Lafe, who was set for a slam, slashed at it and sent a Texas leaguer humming over the second baseman’s head into short center for a single.

“Wow, the first man on. Here’s where you score, Lafe,” shouted Tad, as he passed the signals he took from the coach on to Mickey Daily the next man up.

Obedient Mickey struck at the first ball over and hit it, trying hard to make the sacrifice play he was instructed to. But Bradley, the Lawrencetown shortstop, covered a little more ground than Daily thought he could and what was meant for a sacrifice resulted in a neat double play, Gammage and Daily going out in quick succession.

“Well, we got one big man left,” coached Captain Tad as ponderous Dutch Hecht stepped up, spat on his hands and took a squint at Wells. The Lawrencetown man knew how formidable Hecht was from previous experience with him and he was taking no chances. He never pitched to the left fielder at all and passed him to first on five pitched balls.

Little Tad had come in from the coaching box for he was on deck, and as Hecht lumbered to first Tad stepped to the rubber with a look of determination on his face. But there were two down and the best that the captain could do was to lace a grounder down to Dick Leslie, the Lawrencetown third baseman, who promptly threw Hecht out at second and retired the side. The score was 0 to 0 at the end of the first inning.

Nothing scintillating marked the second or the third innings. Both Dixon and Wells were pitching at the top of their form and with the best sort of support behind them the batters went down in almost one, two, three order, only two Pennington men reached first base in the two innings and only one Lawrencetown man got a clean hit, a slashing double by Taylor, the red and black team’s center fielder. But the hit went for nothing for the next man up could not advance the runner and his out retired the side.

The beginning of the fourth, however, was different. Freeman, the slugger of the Lawrencetown aggregation, was the first man up and Dixon, although he tried to play safe, put one of the variety that Freeman most liked within his reach and he landed on it for a two base clout into deep right field.

Oleson, the Lawrencetown catcher, and no mean man with the stick, was up next, and on the first ball pitched he poled out a single that all but scored Freeman. The heavy hitter rounded third and started for home when the Lawrencetown coach on the third base line warned him back to the base.

With a man on first and third and none out it looked serious for Dixon and the Pennington team. And it was serious. Miller, the Lawrencetown right fielder, was next up and he slammed a hot one to Buck Hart, Freeman going down with the crack of the bat. Buck played the man going home and with a lightning-like throw to Tad Sloan, nailed him at the plate. But it was such a close call at being a score that it gave the Pennington rooters heart trouble for a moment. Still, there were two men on, and only one out and a single meant that two runs would come in. And center fielder Taylor, already credited with a hit, was at the bat.

He made good a second time, lacing a single into short right field, and Oleson and Miller rounded third and started for home hardly twenty feet apart. Oleson made it standing up but little Tad was crouched over the rubber waiting for the ball as Miller came thundering down from third, and Wade Grenville with a fine throw shot it down into Tad’s mitt just as the runner slid feet first for the plate. Tad and Miller were all tangled up when the dust cleared away. The umpire signaled that Miller was out, and the little Pennington captain got to his feet with a look of pain on his face. His stocking was ripped down the shin and blood was oozing from a nasty spike wound that he had received in the mêlée.

When Miller saw what he had done he scrambled to his feet and put his arm around Tad’s shoulder.

“Sorry, old fellow,” he said. “That’s tough, but I couldn’t help it.”

“It’s nothing. Could have been much worse,” said Tad bravely, as he walked over to pick up his cage, limping slightly as he did so. Then he turned and shouted:

“Come on, fellows. Two down. Play the batter,” and he got a round of hearty applause from the bleachers and a rousing cheer besides, both for the fine play he had made and the gameness he showed after being spiked.

Play the batter they did. He was Dick Leslie, not a particularly strong hitter, and his best efforts netted Thatcher an assist for he scooped up a humming grounder and shot it over to Lafe Gammage with a will. Then the side came in and Captain Tad went over to the bench where Dr. Stout was waiting with some bandage and iodine to patch up his wounds.

Unfortunate Dave Gleason, still limping slightly from his injury sustained early in the season, crawled under the ropes and came over to the bench to congratulate Tad.

“Hope it isn’t as serious as mine was, old fellow,” he said as he slapped the captain on the shoulder.

“Nothing to it, old dear,” said Tad heartily as he made a wry face while Dr. Stout poured iodine into the wound.

But the Pennington players could not get to Wells as the Lawrencetown batters had reached Dixon. Wells never wavered and his port side delivery was as deadly in the fourth as it had been in the third, second and first; more deadly if anything for he struck the first and third men out while the second batter up, who happened to be Wade Grenville, was out on a high fly that the center fielder did not have to move twenty feet to get. The score at the end of the fourth was 1 to 0 in favor of the Lawrencetown aggregation, and the Pennington boys went into the field with the realization that they were up against a fighting team of ball players who were out to earn a victory and had a pretty clear idea of how they had to earn it.

The fifth inning opened auspiciously for the visitors. Shortstop Bradley lammed one just out of reach of Thatcher, for a single. But he tried to reach second while Dixon was pitching to Wells, the Lawrencetown pitcher. That was where he made his big mistake, for Captain Tad was waiting for just such an attempt, and he shot the ball down to Buck Hart, who had slipped over to second when the play started, and Bradley slid right into a neat put out, while the stands went wild with cheers for Tad and Hart. Wells went down after the next two balls were pitched, for he was a weak hitter, and Wild came up for the third man.

With two down Dixon played the batter, feeling that the support behind him could hold Wild down. The team so far had played an errorless game and he felt reasonably safe in pitching to the Lawrencetown batter.

The second ball across seemed to be just what Wild was waiting for and he leaned on it with all his strength. It was a wicked slash, and like a cannonball it crashed right back at Dixon. Before the pitcher could set himself to field it, it hit him on the elbow and made him double up with a grunt of pain. The ball bounded off between first and second and Daily fielded it and shot it down to Gammage in time to put out the runner.

The coach and Dr. Stout met Dixon as he walked off the diamond rubbing his arm, and they paused a moment to feel of the injured member. Dr. Stout looked serious as he felt about with practiced fingers.

“That was a wicked ball, Dixon, and I’m afraid—yes—I think there is a slight fracture of the end of the bone there. That settles your pitching for to-day, anyway. Too bad. Come over to the bench while I fix you up.”

“Wiggins, you warm up. You’ll have to go in next inning,” called the coach. “Gould, take Tad’s mitt and catch Wiggins for a while.”

Captain Tad became active immediately. He saw that the loss of Dixon might have a disheartening effect upon the Pennington players and he began to talk to them as only he knew how to talk.

“Come on, fellows. Up and at ’em. We’ve got to get them for this. It was an accident, of course, but let’s show ’em that it’s when we get hurt the most we fight the best. Thatcher, you are up first. Come on and do something. We want a hit from you. Go to it, old boy.”

Tad’s spirit of fight was infectious and Jeff went to the plate with a determination to make good that made him almost formidable.

Wells pitched to him, for doubtless he held Jeff lightly as a batter. The Pennington third baseman had not done anything notable with the stick so far that day.

The first one over was a ball. The next was a clean strike that Jeff let pass, and the next ball would have been the same, but Jeff interrupted its career with a vicious swing that smashed out a sizzling single; a clean hit.

“Wow, on your toes. This is our night to howl,” yelled Tad, hurrying over to the coach line.

“Go down with his arm,” he signaled Jeff, and Thatcher, obeying the captain, started for second on the first ball pitched, while Buck Hart, at the bat, stabbed at the ball but purposely missed it. Jeff saw Southers, the second baseman, set himself to catch the throw and he slid. In a cloud of dust he clutched the bag and looked up to see Southers recovering a fumbled ball. He made a mental note as he stood up and brushed himself off that that was the first error of the game.

Now, if ever, it was time for Pennington to score. With a man on second and none out, it was the opportunity of the game, and the Pennington players determined to take advantage of it. A single of the right sort could bring in a run, or at best move Thatcher on to third. Buck Hart spat on his hands, and with one strike on him settled down to the business at hand. And he was equal to the task, for presently he found Wells’ delivery for a hit that somehow got between third and short and enough out of reach to allow Thatcher to get to third, while Buck romped safely to first.

With a man on first and third and none out, scoring looked like a certainty, and the Pennington bleachers went into a frenzy of cheering, while the band blared forth a spirited school song.

Jeff, from third, looked toward the bench, curious to know who would be put up next. It was Dixon’s turn at bat, but Jeff realized that the pitcher could not take his place. Who would be put in to bat for him?

Watching the players’ bench, Jeff saw Coach Rice look the fellows over and motion to Gould. He said something to him, too, and slapped him on the back, and as Jeff saw that his rival for third base honors was going into the game as a pinch hitter he was thrilled with delight, for he realized, as the jubilant Gould did, that going in as a pinch hitter would mean that he would be credited with playing in the Lawrencetown game and as a result be awarded his ’varsity letter. Jeff was as much pleased as if it were himself who was being given the opportunity to make good, and he called down from third base encouragingly:

“Land on it, Gould, for a single. That’s all we need to tie things up.”

Gould grinned at him as he selected his bat and stepped to the plate, and Jeff hoped mightily that the pinch hitter would make good.

He did. Gould was capable, and when put to it could do as well as any fellow on the field. And there was resolution and determination behind the vicious swing that he took at the first pitched ball.

He connected in earnest and the sphere shot toward right field in a long, low arc that started Miller running back as hard as he could. But it was quickly evident that he would never catch that drive, and Jeff and Buck Hart romped home, while Gould tore around the bases as fast as he could go. It was a clean three-bagger, and had Gould been contented to remain on third he might have ultimately scored. But in his enthusiasm he tried to stretch it into a home run and he was caught at the plate. But he was given a hand and a rousing cheer when he stood up and brushed himself off, for the crowd recognized that he had brought in two runs and put Pennington in the lead; indeed, pandemonium reigned for some time, for the Pennington rooters had been hoping for just such a break in the game and they cheered themselves almost voiceless when it finally occurred.

But out of trouble once more and with one down the Lawrencetown pitcher tightened up and the next two batters were played out both on infield hits, and the team retired with the score 2 to 1 in Pennington’s favor at the end of the fifth.

Considerably heartened, the team took to the field determined to play air-tight ball behind Honey Wiggins, who made his way to the box, while a cheer with his name tacked on the end of it resounded from the bleachers. Honey was no slouch at pitching. He had been going well all season and improving steadily, until now he was almost as capable as big George Dixon, so his team mates had little doubt concerning his ability to make a good showing.

And he did. Although he was pitching against a fighting team, a team one run behind and determined to fight itself out of the hole and back to an advantage again, he held them down to three scattered hits in the succeeding three innings, and in the sixth and seventh sessions he struck out one batter, while in the eighth, although he passed the second man up and permitted the man following to find him for a hit, he held the succeeding two men down to infield drives that retired the side without a score.

In the same sessions, however, the Pennington crew could not do any better. Wells never broke in his steady pitching nor did the team behind him falter at all. They played the finest kind of baseball, and try as the Pennington players did they could not break through the wonderful defense, of an impregnable infield and an outfield that seemed to cover every foot of territory with extreme ease. In the eighth inning the Pennington batters began to find Wells more readily than they had any inning before save the end of the fifth, but that was where his fine support helped him out; although every fellow up landed on his delivery, and two safe hits were made, the five batters who came to the plate never scored. Wade Grenville, the first man up, got a clean single. Jed Stafford, next man in line, banged out an amazingly long fly that looked as if it was worth three bases anyway, but Freeman traveled back and stabbed it with one hand, bringing forth a wild round of applause and cheers from the rooters of both sides, for it was a wonderful catch. Wade managed to get to second on the throw in.

Jeff Thatcher was the next batter up and he too found Wells for a smashing drive that was picked up by Southers and shot down to third in time to cut the flying Wade off. Dick Leslie tried to double by catching Jeff before he made first, but Jeff beat the ball to the bag by more than a yard and was safe. There were two down, a man on first, and Buck Hart up. Buck Hart had made a hit before in the game and Wells was very cautious with him. Indeed he showed his head work by passing Buck to first and moving Jeff on to second, for he realized that the next man up was Honey Wiggins, the pitcher, and he was more willing to take a chance with Honey’s hitting ability than he was with Buck’s bit stick. With two men on and a single needed to bring in a run the Pennington stands went wild yelling for a single.

Honey looked desperate as he faced the Lawrencetown pitcher, but Wells, as cool as could be under the pressure of excitement, never wavered. He paid no attention to the men on base, and pitched to the batter as if he were the only man in the game. He put a perfect strike over for the first ball. Then Honey drew two balls in succession and another strike. With two and two, Wells tried to put over the third and final ball, but Honey saw how good it was and slammed at it. It was a beautiful line drive toward second and it certainly looked as if Honey had succeeded in poking out the necessary hit to score Thatcher. Jeff and Buck, running on anything, tore around the bases madly, but as Jeff rounded third he heard the plunk of ball against leather and he turned his head in time to see Southers coming down from a remarkable jump. He had made a wonderful catch and shut off the chance that Pennington had to add at least one more run to its advantage. The side was retired, but the score still stood 2 to 1 in Pennington’s favor in the beginning of the ninth.

With one frame left in which to do or die, the Lawrencetown players came in from the field all set to break things wide open. It was a fighting team, and a ninth inning situation of this sort was not new to them. They had played through more than one of them and made good during the season and they were determined to do it once again. The Lawrencetown stands started up a volume of cheering that surpassed anything in that line they had done so far during the game. The band opened up with all the brass it had, too, and the team, on its toes, began a line of coaching that indicated all too plainly to the Pennington team out in the field that the Lawrencetown boys were far from accepting the defeat that was staring them in the face. Their fighting spirit had only just been aroused to its full pitch and the buff and blue players knew that this was to be the really big Lawrencetown inning of the game.

All this by way of preliminary may have worked a little under the skin of Honey Wiggins, for with the first ball he pitched it was evident to Jeff on third and to several other players, as well as Captain Tad, that he was a little unsteady.

The catcher walked out to the box with the ball and gave him a word of encouragement, and Jeff from third yelled: “Steady, old boy. Don’t let this thing get on your nerve. We’ve got ’em beaten. Let’s hold ’em down this one session and it’s all over but the shouting.”

“We’ve got ’em where we want ’em. Steady, boy,” called Buck Hart as he spat on his glove and settled down to play short.

Southers, the head of the Lawrencetown batting order, was up. With one ball to his credit, he stood there grinning at Honey Wiggins, who, very deliberate in all his movements now, was striving to settle his jumping nerves. He wound up for the second ball and delivered it, a perfect strike. But Southers refused to let it be called a strike and landed on it for a clean single into right field.

The Lawrencetown stand went wild and so did the team. With a man on and none out and the opposing pitcher visibly nervous, things certainly began to look brighter. The heavy artillery was up, too, and as Wild, one of their big guns, stepped up to the rubber, the crowd began to storm for a hit.

And Wild got it; a clean single almost in the same place where Southers had placed his ball. Southers went down to second and Wild was safe on first, and there were none out. Freeman, the heaviest slugger of the Lawrencetown team, was the next man at bat. Things certainly did look serious for the Pennington team and bright and cheerful for the visitors.

When Honey Wiggins saw Freeman step to the plate he seemed to take a long time to think things over. He certainly was in a hole. Whether to pitch to Freeman and take a chance or whether to pass him was the question that seemed to trouble him. Finally he appeared to decide on the latter course, for he was very careful to keep the ball out of reach of the heavy hitter’s stick, and presently the umpire called:

“Ball four.”

Freeman walked to first and the bases were full, with none out!

The stands shook under the wild behavior and ceaseless cheering of the Lawrencetown contingent, for they realized only too well that a single would sew up the game for them. “A hit! A hit! Just one little safe bingle!” roared the crowd.

Oleson was up. Oleson, the only man to score for Lawrencetown so far that day. His name pealed forth in a roaring cheer as he took his place at the plate.

Honey Wiggins was in a worse predicament than he had been during the entire game, and his nerves were all gone, that was evident. Already Coach Rice had Cy Gordon warming up, and Honey looked appealingly toward the bench, as if he hoped that the coach would “derrick” him from the mound and take him out of his mighty unpleasant position.

But the coach motioned him to continue with the game, and Honey, to steady himself, tried three times to catch the runner off of first.

Meanwhile, Jeff Thatcher, on third, all on edge himself, was watching the batter and the Lawrencetown bench, where their coach sat. He saw signals passed, and while he could not read them, he concluded that Oleson had been instructed to do the obvious thing: try a squeeze play in the hope of bringing in the necessary run to tie and still leave runners in a position to score.

Honey Wiggins evidently guessed the play, too, and so did others on the team, for Buck Hart yelled:

“Come on, Honey, play the batter. On your toes, every one, and watch out for a hit-and-run play.”

Honey faced the batter, and as he did so every runner took a long lead off base. They started with the snap of Honey’s arm. But Honey, using his head, did not shoot over a ball that was good for a clean hit. It was high and swift, and Oleson, doubtless nervous himself, and knowing that he had to play the first ball, took a short, snappy swing at it. He connected. There was a report and a flash of white in the air in the direction of third base.

Jeff, on his toes, close to his bag, saw what had happened. He saw the white sphere coming toward him four feet above his head. It was a safe drive if it got by him, and it surely looked as if it would. All three men on base were moving under full steam and Oleson was sprinting toward first.

With a terrific jump Jeff shot up in the air and stuck out his gloved hand. There was a thump of ball against leather and Jeff, clinging to the sphere, dropped to the bag, then stepping out quickly, tagged the runner who was coming full speed down from second.

With a terrific jump Jeff shot up in the air

Then in the most matter-of-fact way he tossed the ball to Honey Wiggins and began to trot toward the bench.

For a moment absolute silence settled over the field. No one save Jeff seemed to realize what had happened.

“Man’s out—two out—three out!” called the umpire, after a moment’s puzzled study.

Then, as the crowd heard his decisions and realized what Thatcher, the third baseman, had accomplished, a cheer started that gathered and gathered in volume until it mounted skyward like a peal of thunder.

Unassisted Jeff had made a triple play![1]

[1] A play of this sort took place in the World’s Series of 1920 between the Brooklyn and Cleveland team when the Cleveland second baseman made a triple play unassisted. It was the first play of its kind ever recorded in a World’s Series and only the fourth on record in the history of the national game.

His brilliant catch of Oleson’s fly had put the batter out, and as he dropped to third and touched the bag, automatically Southers, who had left for home, also went out, and Wild, romping down from second, had been tagged out within five feet of third base, thus putting out the entire side in a single play and bringing to naught the most critical situation that the Pennington team had been in during the entire game.

Nothing as scintillating as this in the way of baseball had ever occurred at Pennington, or at Lawrencetown, either, for that matter, and the crowd went wild over Jeff.

His team mates, coming in from the field, literally mobbed him, and picking him up bodily, carried him on their shoulders toward the player’s bench, much to Jeff’s embarrassment. Then they started on a parade around the diamond, for the game had ended there, the score still 2 to 1 in Pennington’s favor, so it was not necessary to play the last half of the ninth inning.

The student body, led by the blaring band, fell in behind the triumphal procession of players, with Thatcher on their shoulders, and round and round the diamond they went in a wild snake dance that finally worked its way off the field and over to the gymnasium.

There, as the players mounted the steps, Jeff was cheered and cheered again, and then in a brief lull in the noise some one shouted from the crowd:

“Oh, you Third Base Thatcher. Won’t the girls be wild about you at the ‘hop’ to-night!”

Whereupon Jeff colored up like a turkey gobbler, and breaking away from the crowd, bolted into the gymnasium building and dashed down stairs to the locker room, while the rest of the joyous, grinning players streamed down the stairs after him, laughing and joking at his consternation.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes:

Printer’s, punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

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Table of Contents

- THIRD BASE THATCHER
- CONTENTS
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- CHAPTER I FOUL!
- CHAPTER II THE FIGHT IN THE DARK
- CHAPTER III FORCED OUT
- CHAPTER IV ON HIS OWN
- CHAPTER V THE CUB REPORTER
- CHAPTER VI WITH THE WRECKERS
- CHAPTER VII THE WRECK
- CHAPTER VIII THE VICTIM
- CHAPTER IX TO THE RESCUE
- CHAPTER X ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS
- CHAPTER XI BACK TO PENNINGTON
- CHAPTER XII “ALL OUT FOR BASEBALL”
- CHAPTER XIII “YOU, TOO, THATCHER”
- CHAPTER XIV INDOOR PRACTICE
- CHAPTER XV ALL OUT FOR BASEBALL
- CHAPTER XVI THE SCRUB TEAM
- CHAPTER XVII A STIFF SCHEDULE
- CHAPTER XVIII ON THE BENCH
- CHAPTER XIX GOULD IS SET DOWN
- CHAPTER XX FIRE!
- CHAPTER XXI THIRD BASE THATCHER
- CHAPTER XXII TREACHERY?
- CHAPTER XXIII VOICES
- CHAPTER XXIV THE BIG GAME
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE