ckle him
unfairly. But the big fellow merely grinned in a sarcastic fashion.
Then, less than two minutes later and while there was a wild rush on,
Slugger Brown, by a sidelong and unexpected leap, hurled Jack to the
ground and spiked him in the leg with his shoe.

CHAPTER XVIII

SLUGGER BROWN IS EXPOSED

To be thrown down so violently was bad enough, but to be spiked in the
leg hurt so much that Jack could not repress a gasp of pain.

"Get off of me, Brown!" he panted when he could speak. "What do you
mean by spiking me that way?"

"Didn't spike you!" retorted Slugger Brown, scowling viciously.

The whistle blew and Gif came running towards the pair. "What's the
matter?" he demanded.

"Brown tackled me unfairly and then spiked me," answered Jack.

"It's false!" roared the accused one. "I threw him down according to
the rules and I didn't spike him at all!"

The pain in Jack's leg was so intense that he could hardly stand. Fred
and some others came rushing to his assistance, and between them he
managed to hobble to a bench at the side of the football field. A crowd
began to collect, and all wanted to know what had gone wrong.

"Let us take a look at your leg, Rover," said Mr. Crews. "That will
show whether you were spiked or not." The limb was exposed, and then a
cry of dismay went up.

"Why, look there--it's all bloody! Slugger Brown must have spiked him
for keeps!"

"That's a shame--if he did it on purpose. He has no right to have
spikes in his shoes."

"I didn't do it on purpose! It was an accident!" cried the accused
player. "I didn't know I had spiked him or that I had spikes. Maybe he
cut himself on a stone or something like that."

"No; he has been spiked," announced the gymnasium instructor, after
examining the wound. "Come, Rover; we'll go to the gymnasium and I'll
attend to that and bind it up for you."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Brown, for doing such a thing to
my cousin," said Fred.

"That's right!" broke in Randy, who had come up.

"You stop your talking!" answered Slugger Brown, uneasily. "It was an
accident, I tell you. Anybody on the team might have done it."

Colonel Colby had been on the other side of the field, but now he came
hurrying forward to see what was amiss. He told Mr. Crews to do
everything that was necessary for Jack, and then turned to Gif.

"I think it would be as well for you to retire Brown for the present,"
he said in a low voice.

"Just wh