ey made a speech, and congratulated our gallant team
because we had that same day put Chester once for all on the map!"

"But, shucks! Toby, the tables were sure turned on us when we went over
to play that second game. Those chaps were on their toes that day, and
it was Hendrix and Chase, their star battery, that fed us of their
best."

"Yes, we did lose, all right, but don't forget that we fought tooth and
nail to the very last."

"Say, that rally in the ninth was a thrilling piece of business, wasn't
it, Toby? Why, only for our right fielder, Big Bob Jeffries, hitting
that screamer straight into the hands of the man playing deep centre
instead of lifting it over his head for a homer, we'd have won out.
There were two on bases, you remember, with the score three to four."

"Now we're tied, with one game each to our credit, and Harmony coming
over the day after tomorrow to take our measure, they boast. Jack has
been so confident ever since he picked up that new pitcher, Donohue, on
the sand lots in town, that I'm puzzled a heap to know what ails him
latterly."

"One thing sure, Toby, Jack is bound to speak up sooner or later, and
let his two chums know what's in the wind. I rather expect he agreed to
meet us here today so as to have a heart-to-heart talk; and if so, it's
bound to be about the matter that's troubling him."

"I certainly hope so, because when you know the worst you can plan to
meet the difficulty. And if only we could win the rubber in this series
with Harmony, it'd make little old Chester famous."

The two boys who were holding this animating and interesting
conversation stood kicking their heels on a corner where the main street
in the town was crossed by another. It was about ten o'clock on a
morning in early summer. Chester seemed to be quite a bustling sort of
town, located in the East. Considerable business was carried on in the
place, for there were several factories running, employing hundreds of
workers at good wages.

Certainly no town in the broad land could be more advantageously located
than the borough in which Toby Hopkins and Steve Mullane lived. It lay
close to the shore of Lake Constance, a beautiful sheet of clear water
three miles across at its broadest point, and at least twelve long, with
many deep and really mysterious coves, and also bordered by quite a
stretch of swampy land toward the south. Far up toward its northern
extremity lay the Big Woods, where during winters con