ck your block
off! If you utter another peep during this game, I'll button up both
your blinkers so tight it'll take a doctor to pry 'em open. Get that?"

"Take your hands off me!" cried Herbert indignantly. "How dare you!"

"How dast I!" snarled Lander. "I'll show you how I dast if you wag
your jaw any more."

"I've got a right to talk; everybody else does."

"You double-faced, sneaking son of a sea-cook!" blazed Lander. "You
bet against your own school team, did ye? If you belonged in Barville
you might howl your head off; but as long's you camp around these
diggin's you won't do no rooting for them fellers. I'm going to keep
right on your co't-tail the rest of the time, and the first yip you
make I'll hand ye a bunch of fives straight from the shoulder. Now,
don't make no further gab to me unless you're thirsting to wear a mark
of my esteem for the next few days."

Even as Lander uttered these words Grant pitched the first ball, and
Whiting hit it--hit it humming straight into the hands of Chipper
Cooper, who snapped it to third for a double play, before Berry could
get back to the sack.

What a howl of joyous relief went up from the Oakdale crowd! They
cheered Chipper madly, and the little fellow, crimson-faced and happy,
grinned as he gave a tug at his cap visor.

But now came the great Copley, the most formidable Barvilleite, and
there were still two runners waiting impatiently on the sacks, ready to
make the best of any kind of a hit.

"Don't worry about this chap, Grant," called Eliot quietly. "He's just
as easy as anybody. You'll get him."

At this Copley laughed sneeringly, but he missed the first ball Rod
delivered to him, which happened to be one of the new pitcher's
wonderful drops. The uproar coming from the Barville bleachers seemed
to have no effect on Grant, something which Eliot observed with
satisfaction and rising hope. Rod pitched two balls which Copley
disdained, and then he fooled the fellow once more with a drop.

"Two strikes!" shouted the umpire.

"You've got him, Roddy--you've got him cold!" cried Cooper suddenly.
"Don't forget we're all behind you. Take his scalp, you old Injun
hunter of the Staked Plains."

High and close to Copley's chin the ball whistled into Eliot's mitt.
For a moment there seemed some doubt as to its nature, but the umpire
pronounced it a "ball."

"Close, Grant--close," said Eliot. "You should have had him. Never
mind, you'll get him next