Was it too late even now? he wondered.

"Hi, Paul! Get under this one!"

The shout from Sanson roused Trexler to the realization that a fly was coming in his direction. He ran back a little, then forward. The ball seemed to be dropping with the speed of a cannon-shot, but he forced himself to meet it without shrinking. Thrusting up his hands awkwardly, he staggered a bit under its momentum, as he caught at it, and a burning sting tingled in the bare palm which had taken most of the impact. The ball, bouncing off, rolled to one side, and a laugh went round the field as he chased after it and threw it in. When he returned to his place Paul's face was crimson, but his lips were set in a stubborn line and he scarcely noticed the pain in his hand.

"I _will_ get the hang of it!" he muttered under his breath. "I'll learn to do it right if--if it takes all season!"

He stuck to his position as long as any of the others, and on the way home, with some embarra.s.sment, he spoke to Frank of his determination.

The latter was delighted and offered to help him in any way he could.

As a result, from that time forth the two rarely went anywhere without a baseball. Whenever there were a few minutes to spare they used them for throwing and catching. On the field, before and after the regular work, Frank knocked out flies or grounders, and in many other ways did his best to give his friend as much as possible of the practice he needed.

A baseball player isn't easily made to order. The normal boy seems almost to absorb his knowledge of the game through the pores of his skin, gaining proficiency by constant, never-ending practice that usually begins as soon as he is big enough to throw a ball. But much can be done by dogged persistence, and Paul Trexler had that quality to a marked degree. As the days pa.s.sed, dust began to gather on his camera and on the cover of his book of bird photographs. In this new and strenuous occupation he found little time for the things which had formally absorbed him. He regretted the many long tramps he had planned, but somehow he failed to miss them as much as he expected. Each noticeable improvement in his game filled him with a deep, abiding satisfaction, surpa.s.sing even the delight which he used to feel on securing a fine photograph. The climax came that afternoon when he was allowed to play on the scrub in place of one of the fielders who had not shown up. Not only did he fail to make any mirth-provoking blunders, but he even put through one play that brought forth a surprised, approving comment from Ranny Phelps himself.

"I don't know what you've been doing to him, Frank," the latter said to Sanson, who pa.s.sed on the remark afterward. "I've never seen anybody improve the way he has. That catch wasn't anything wonderful, of course, but when he threw to third he used his head, which is more than a lot of fellows right here on the field ever think of doing."

The latter part of the speech, especially, was typical of the handsome Ranleigh. He ran the ball-team as he did a good many other things, reaching decisions more often through impulse and prejudice than from a mature judgment. There could be no question of his knowledge of the game or his ability as a pitcher. The latter was really extraordinary for a fellow of his age and experience, and this, perhaps, was what made him so intolerant of less gifted players. At all events, he had a little trick of sarcasm which did not endear him to those on whom it was exercised. Most fellows take the ordinary sort of "calling down,"

especially if it has been earned, with a fair amount of grace, but it rarely does any good to rub it in, as Ranny so often did.

"You'd think he was a little tin G.o.d on wheels the way he struts up and down, digging into the fellows in that uppish, sneering way," Court Parker heatedly remarked one afternoon late in the season. "You might think he never made any errors himself."

"I don't suppose he really means anything by it," returned Dale Tompkins, rather deprecatingly. For some time that day he had been watching Phelps and wondering rather wistfully whether Ranny was ever going to entirely forget that impulsive flare-up of his so many months ago. For a long time, to be sure, there had been few signs of active animosity from the blond chap. It would be well-nigh impossible for any boy to long maintain that excessive coldness toward a fellow with whom he was so often and so intimately thrown. Especially since the beginning of baseball practice there had been a good deal of intercourse between them, but always Dale was conscious of a deep reserve looming up between them like some invisible, insurmountable barrier. And there were times when he would have given the world to break that barrier down.

Parker sniffed. "Then why does he do it? It only gets the fellows raw without doing a sc.r.a.p of good. You're a great one to stand up for him, Tommy! He's treated you mean as dirt. Didn't he promise to let you pitch in some of the games?"

"Why, n-o; it wasn't exactly a promise."

"It was the same thing. He made you think he was going to put you in, and all spring you've worked your arm nearly off, pitching to the bunch.

Then when a regular game came along he stepped into the box himself and hogged the whole thing nine innings. It's been the same ever since, except last week when you went in for one miserable inning after we'd won the game. I call that a--a--an insult. It looked as if he thought you weren't any good."

Dale shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe he does," he returned quietly. "He's a lot better pitcher than I am."

"Is he? Humph! He's nowhere near as steady, let me tell you. Wait till he gets up against a real team, and I shouldn't wonder a bit if he blew up. He did last year, and we mighty near lost the series. He can't stand being joshed, and Troop One is just the bunch to do it."

Dale laughed a little and set down his companion's disparaging remarks to temper rather than to any real belief in what he was saying. He had never seen Ranny pitch before this season, but he could not imagine him losing his superb control and "blowing up." He would have given anything for a chance to pitch against Troop One, but he had long ago given up hoping, Ranny made it only too clear that he meant to keep that honor for himself, just as he had monopolized the pitching in all the other games. Dale couldn't quite make up his mind whether this was from a deliberate desire to shut him out, or because the team captain really lacked faith in his ability and was afraid to trust him. Feeling as he did toward the other--liking, admiring him still, almost in spite of himself, Tompkins rather hoped it was the latter case. In either event, however, he was obliged to content himself with the cold comfort that with Ranleigh Phelps pitching his best Troop Five was practically certain to win.

The inter-troop baseball series had been arranged so that the two strongest teams were matched together on the concluding day. Both had won every game they had played so far, and the result this Sat.u.r.day afternoon would decide the championship.

Naturally there was a big crowd of spectators. Practically every boy in town was present, ready to root for his favorite team, and the grand stand was well filled with older enthusiasts.

When Troop Five won the toss and spread out on the field, Dale Tompkins, with a faint sigh, dropped down on the bench he had ornamented for most of the season. Watching Ranny Phelps walking out to the mound, a wave of envy, pure and simple, swept over him. He wanted to pitch--desperately.

At that moment he would have welcomed almost any contingency--even the unthinkable "blowing up" that Court had predicted--that would give him his chance. He had done practically nothing all the season, and it seemed unfair that the last game should come without giving him a single opportunity of showing his mettle.

"What's the use of trying at all if you never get a show?" he thought disconsolately.

But the mood did not last long. Dale was too keen a baseball fan not to become swiftly absorbed in the game which meant so much to himself and his brother scouts. There could be no question of Ranny's fine form. For the first five innings not a hit was scored against him. To be sure, several players made first on various errors, but none got beyond third, and in the meantime Troop Five had scored two runs.

"He's certainly some pitcher!" Tompkins remarked rather wistfully to Paul Trexler, who had taken a seat beside him. "Looks as if we had the game cinched."

"I hope so. If only he don't--er--blow up--"

"Blow up!" interrupted Tompkins, sharply. "Does he act like it? You've been listening to Court Parker's rubbish, Paul. I never saw any fellow pitch a steadier game."

But though he had been swift to deny the possibility, Trexler's remark lingered in Dale's mind, and almost unconsciously he began to watch for signs which might confirm it. The fellows that composed the rival team were rather older than the average scout and of a certain rough-and-ready type which made their joshing apt to carry more sting than that sort of thing usually does. So far, however, there had been little in the pitcher's manner or behavior for them to take hold of, and the stream of commonplace chatter and joking seemed to affect Ranny as little as water does a duck. He took it carelessly, with now and then an apt retort which turned the laugh against the other fellows, and throughout the sixth and seventh innings his work continued to show much of the smooth perfection it had displayed from the first.

It was in the beginning of the eighth that Tompkins's face began to grow a little troubled. Ranny had several rather noticeable mannerisms, which were especially apt to appear on the flood-tide of success. Whether deliberately or not, he had hitherto suppressed them, but now he seemed momentarily to relax his vigilance.

He had struck out the first batter, and as the second stepped up to face him the pitcher paused, swept the grand stand with a leisurely glance, and then tossed back his head in an odd, rather affected gesture before starting to wind up. The gesture had probably originated on the gridiron, where hair is worn rather long and is apt to trail into one's eyes; here it looked a bit foolish, and instantly one of the opposition, who was coaching at first base, a red-headed fellow named Conners, seized upon it.

"See him shake his mane, fellows!" he yelled in a shrill falsetto. "Don't let him scare you, Blakie; he's tame!"

"He'll be the goat, all right, before we get done with him," chimed in another.

Ranny hesitated an instant in his swing, bit his lips, and then put the ball over. It was wide, and, as he caught the return, there was an angry flush on his handsome face.

"Don't he blush sweetly?" shrilled Conners, dancing about off first.

"He'd make a peach of a girl!"

Ranny wound up hastily and pitched again. It was a straight, speedy ball, but in his annoyance he must have forgotten that this was just the sort Blake liked. The latter met it squarely with a clean crack that brought Dale's heart into his mouth and jerked him to his feet to watch with tight lips and despairing eyes the soaring flight of the white sphere over the diamond and on--on--seemingly to the very limits of the outfield!

CHAPTER XVII

DALE'S CHANCE

To Tompkins, watching with bated breath and clenched fists, it seemed as if the ball would never drop. Two of the fielders were running swiftly backward, but there wasn't a chance in a hundred of their catching it. Bat flung aside and toe-clips digging into the ground, Blake was speeding toward first. Before the ball hit the turf he had rounded the sack. By the time Pete Oliver had recovered it and lined it in, the runner was panting on second.

"Got him going! Got him going!" shrieked Conners, delightedly. "Get after it, Peanut. Smash it on the nose and bring in Blakie!"

His team-mates added their jubilations to his, and a bedlam of shrill advice, mingled with fresh joshing, ensued. Ranny's eyes flashed with ill-concealed anger, and he gripped his under lip tight between his teeth. His first ball was good, but the batter fell on the second with all his might. _Crack!_ A gasp went up from the watchers on the bench. _Smack!_ The gasp merged into a yell of delight as the ball landed squarely in Frank Sanson's mitt and stuck there. The force of the impact nearly upset the short-stop, but he recovered swiftly and lined the horsehide straight into the outstretched hands of Court Parker, astride of third. There was a flashing downward motion of those hands, and the sliding runner was tagged, his fingers not six inches from the sack.

To the shout of delight that went up, Dale Tompkins contributed rather more than his share. Leaping and capering in front of the bench, it seemed as if he couldn't express his overwhelming relief at the unexpected ending of the inning and their escape from a dangerous situation. He thumped Sanson on the back and poked Court in the ribs joyously. But when the first excited enthusiasm had pa.s.sed he began to think of the inning yet to be played and to wonder how Ranny would get through it. Surely there was time to pull himself together, the boy thought. He hadn't really lost control of himself except for a moment.

With the opening of the ninth it looked as if Tompkins was right. Troop Five had failed to score further, but Ranny entered the box apparently as cool and self-contained as he had been at the beginning of the game.

Quietly and efficiently he took the first batter in hand, and in spite of the joshing that at once began on the other side, he lured the boy into popping up a little infield fly that was easily smothered by the second baseman.

The next fellow up, however, sent out a long fly to right-field which Blair unaccountably m.u.f.fed. Instantly the shrill, nagging voice of "Red"

Conners pierced the din.

"Up in a balloon!" he yelled. "Little Lambie's ready for the stable.

He's done. I knew he couldn't stand up before a regular team once we got his number."

Irritating as a mosquito's buzz, the strident voice rasped Dale Tompkins's spirit like a file, and a rush of sympathy for the pitcher swept over him. He knew how annoying it is to be blamed for another's fault, and the error was distinctly Blair's for m.u.f.fing that fly. If only Phelps wouldn't pay any attention to the nagging! He had only to put out two more men and win the game. Surely he must realize that the fellows didn't mean anything they said; that they were only trying--

He caught his breath with a swift, anxious intake as the ball left Ranny's fingers and an instant later went sailing over the infield. It was a clean hit and brought forth a roar of delight from Troop One's adherents, who at once redoubled their efforts to tease the angry pitcher. It wasn't baseball, in its better sense, nor did it show the real scout spirit, but it was human nature. Seeing the game slipping from them, they took the only way they had been able to discover to turn the tables. Ranny, plainly furious, pitched hastily to the next batter and hit him in the arm. The bases were filled, with only one out.

"They've rattled him, all right," said the regretful voice of Paul Trexler at Tompkins's elbow. "Great Scott! He can't be going to stick it out!"