place.

"Oh, Jack, if you do play them I hope you beat them good," said Ruth,
when the girls and the cadets were ready to separate.

"We'll do our best," was his reply.

"I hope when that match comes off we'll be able to see it," said Martha.

"Of course you'll all have to be on hand," answered her brother quickly.
"We'll want you girls to encourage us."

"I want to see you beat Longley Academy," declared Mary.

"So say we all of us!" came in a chorus from the others.

CHAPTER VI

PLAYING HIXLEY HIGH

"Now for some real baseball practice, boys!"

"Right you are, Jack! I'm mighty glad it has cleared off at last."

"If we are going to have our annual game with Hixley High two weeks from
to-day we had better get busy," put in Gif Garrison. "I had no idea they
would ask for a match so early in the season."

"It's on account of the game they expect to have this year with Longley
Academy," remarked Walt Baxter. "You see, they are to play the new
school too."

"Yes, and I heard that those Longley fellows were boasting they were
going to do up Hixley, just the same as they were going to do us up."

"Gee, but that Tommy Flanders makes me sick!" broke in Fred. "I really
think he's the most conceited fellow I ever met."

"Just the same, I've heard he's a pretty good player," remarked Gif. "He
is not only a good pitcher, but quite a good batsman. And they say that
his crony is also quite a good all-around player."

The regular nine, minus two players who had left the school the term
previous, were out on the diamond practicing. A little later, with two
substitutes, they were to play a match of five innings against a scrub
team picked from the most available of the ball players left.

Jack Rover was in the box and was putting some swift ones over the
plate. As yet he did not have perfect control of the horsehide, and as a
consequence it occasionally went over the catcher's head.

Three games of baseball had been arranged for Colby Hall, one with
Hixley High, another with Columbus Academy, and a third with Longley.
They were to take place in the order named and at intervals of one week.

The practice soon came to an end, and then the five-innings game with
the scrubs started. This proved to be quite a contest, and Fred Rover
distinguished himself by knocking a three-bagger, while Jack struck out
six batsmen, much to his satisfaction. When the contest came to a close
the regular nine had won by a score o