TOM IS "RATTLED"
"The fourth straight," said Aleck Parks. "The 'Hopes' are mowing 'em down as easily as a scythe cuts grass. How's that for playing, Luke Phelps? Wasn't yesterday's game a peach? Nine to six against Willington. Roycroft cracked out a homer, a two-base hit and a single. Oh, yes; that's going some. I saw 'Vanitas' sneaking around in the crowd looking kind of pale."
"If the Ramblers lose the next game they'll be yanked from their jobs as fast as a vacuum cleaner sucks up dust," remarked Phelps, complacently. "They go over to play the Engletons again to-morrow."
"Another bucket of white stuff for the official record," growled Parks. "Let's get away. Here comes 'Checkered-Cap.'"
"Afraid of him?" laughed Luke.
"No! It's his own safety I'm thinking about. Ever since I met him I've had a hard time to keep from handing him something that might disturb his center of gravity."
"Simply awful!" grinned Phelps. "Let's do the next worse thing—go over and see the Ramblers practicing."
An ominous calm seemed to hover over the school. The "Hopes'" string of clean-cut victories was bringing more wavering Somers adherents into the "outlaw" camp. The quiet did not lull the fears of the staunch supporters of the regulars. It seemed to possess a deeper, more significant meaning than the noisy, wild demonstrations which had taken place on the campus.
On the following afternoon the Engleton trolley did a flourishing business. Eager students and townspeople packed the cars to their fullest capacity.
Engleton was a little town about five miles distant, nestling amidst an amphitheater of hills. The baseball field was situated in the northern part, hemmed in on three sides by steep, grass-covered slopes. At the extreme end of the open section an immense pile of ashes covered what was once a treacherous gully. Several ramshackle frame dwellings, surrounded by rickety or broken fences, with here and there great piles of rubbish, indicated that "Goatville" was not the most select part of the town.
By the time the regulars arrived the ball field and grassy hills were crowded.
"I hope you'll enjoy this game, Roycroft," said "Crackers" Brown. "I can't help feeling kind of sorry for Bob Somers. He's a pretty good sort. But I guess this is the last game the Ramblers will play as the school team."
"Here, Dan Brown, you cut out calling it the Ramblers' team, or there'll be a whole lot of trouble!" cried a gruff voice so near at hand that the captain of the "Hopes" was startled.
Tom Clifton, with flushed face, was striding forward.
"Trouble?" echoed Brown.
"Yes! And more than you can handle. I know your game, Brown. You've been sneaking around, trying to put it into everybody's head that the Rambler Club is running this team. Do you get me, Dan Brown?"
"I KNOW YOUR GAME"
"I shall pretty soon," returned "Crackers," solemnly.
"Oh, you think you're mighty smart!" cried Tom. "But if your specs weren't so blurred with conceit you'd see that you're going too far."
"I suppose this is a little prelude to the show," said the coach, pleasantly. "It's a bad thing for ball players to get overheated before the umpire begins his chirp. Please oblige me: run away and cool off."
"Two forty-five P. M. A ball player advised to run away and cool off," piped Benny Wilkins, suddenly. "What's the best way, Mr. Brown—shower bath or——?"
"You're the meanest little duffer in the whole school!" cried Tom, turning upon him wrathfully. "It's a wonder you have the nerve to show your face inside the door!"
"Well, I like that!" snorted Benny. "Now what's up?"
"Oh, you thought you could keep it quiet. But I found out, just the same."
"Found out what?"
"Why, it was you who said that mean thing about Mr. Barry planting corn on his field!" fairly exploded Tom. "You ought to be ashamed to look me in the face."
Benny was aghast.
"What—what?" he stammered.
"I don't wonder you can hardly speak," went on Tom, fiercely.
"Hardly speak?" interposed "Crackers." "Why, if you're not careful, he'll let off such a blast that we'll all get blown down flat."
"Well, suppose I did say it! It was all a joke!" admitted Benny.
"A fine joke!" jeered Tom. "Didn't it make Mr. Barry so mad that he almost felt like withdrawing his offer? Oh, I know all about it!"
The look of embarrassment faded from Benny's eyes, to be replaced by an expression of blazing anger.
"I don't care if you do," he roared. "And I know something about you, too, that ought to make you chuck off that uniform and beat it back to Kingswood."
"Get out!" snapped Tom. "You don't know anything, and never could know anything. That wooden head-piece of yours wouldn't hold it."
"You haven't got anything on me, 'Vanitas!'" Benny Wilkins stalked forward, planting himself directly before the tall first baseman. "I don't, eh?" he cried. "Just listen to this: one day in the gym you called Mr. Barry an eccentric old creature—you know you did."
Tom's face flushed a deeper crimson.
"Well—well?" he demanded.
"And Mr. Barry heard about that, too! I got it from a fellow who knows. And maybe he wasn't riled!—said he wished he'd never made the confounded offer."
"I—I don't believe it," gasped Tom.
"Ask Victor Collins, then. You will try to sit on me, 'Vanitas'—you will, eh?"
"If Mr. Barry heard about it, I'll bet you told him yourself!" howled Tom, thoroughly angry. "You're small in every way, Benny Wilkins. Bob Somers and Steele caught you spying."
"You mean that I caught 'em trying to sneak into Mr. Barry's without being seen," retorted Benny. "I never said a word to Mr. Barry. But if you get too fresh with me, 'Vanitas,' he's going to learn the name of the particular chap who made such an interesting remark; that's the only thing he doesn't know. Now—will that hold you for a minute?"
The altercation was attracting considerable attention. A grinning crowd, industriously calling upon the two principals to "mix it up a bit," presently brought the realization to Tom that his thoughtless remark uttered in the gymnasium was being scattered broadcast.
"Said Mr. Barry was an eccentric old creature!" jeered Benny, "and has the nerve to try and call me down for something not a quarter as bad!"
"You've got the tall one going!" cried an Engleton boy, encouragingly. "Don't be skeered. Wade right into him."
"I'll sic a goat on him; that's what I'll do!" exclaimed Benny.
"Hello, Tom Clifton! Hello, Tom!" coming over the air was the most pleasant sound the first baseman had heard for some time. "We're ready for practice," continued the voice—Roger Steele's. "Hello, Tom! Where are you?"
"Coming!" bawled Tom. Then darting an angry, flustered look at his little tormentor, he added: "I haven't done with you yet, Benny Wilkins."
"Is that so?" sneered Benny. "If you and Blake had sense enough to get off the team maybe all this row in the school would come to an end."
"Do you think I'll stand for being pushed off? Well, I rather guess not!" cried Tom.
"Have a wooden head-piece, have I? Well, it isn't a solid block like yours. Just remember: If the school doesn't get those grounds T. 'Vanitas' Clifton will be one of the chaps who's most responsible. Everybody's saying it."
Embarrassed and confused by the staring, noisy crowd, so full of emotion that his tongue seemed almost incapable of framing the words he wished to utter, the first baseman turned away.
"Everybody saying it, eh?"
Tom Clifton's thoughts sprang back to the beginning of the season, when, full of confidence and enthusiasm, he had expected the High's team to go from one victory to another. "Vanitas!" The word rang in his ears. He recalled now that his zeal and earnest efforts in behalf of the nine had called forth remarks of a somewhat similar nature before. But his armor of confidence was so great that the shafts dropped harmlessly aside.
"I never could have believed it," he murmured. "The fellows are twisting my words and manner into something wholly undeserved. They ought to see that it was only because I'm red-hot for the school and team."
The first baseman was so deep in thought that he scarcely heeded the voices of the fans, or the sharp cracks of the bats as the balls were sent flying over the field.
"So everybody's saying it: if we don't get the field I'll be one of the chaps who's most responsible, eh? By George! I wonder if it's true! I'll find out before night."
Tom's thoughts turned to the crowd—the fickle crowd—ever ready to yell itself hoarse when things were breaking right, but which, he reflected bitterly, was often equally ready to jeer and hoot a player off the field on small provocation.
"What's the matter, Tom? Aren't you going to practice to-day?" called Roger Steele, catching sight of him from his position near home plate.
"Sure!" responded Tom, making a strong effort to change the channel of his thoughts.
"Anything wrong, son?" Steele came forward. He lowered his voice. "You look kind of down in the mouth."
"Oh, it's nothing," said Tom.
"Well, get busy. I think we can turn the trick to-day."
Tom had been losing his self-consciousness. Now, however, it returned with added force. The first baseman could not shake off a feeling that the fans, friends and foes alike, had their eyes upon him, watching every move. The vigorous shouts, the blasts from megaphones and the strains from Victor Collins' bugle seemed to possess an importance which he had never noticed before. He felt in a far greater degree than the other players how much hinged on the contest.
With his nerves at a tension Tom was, naturally, unable to do himself justice. In his over-anxiety to play the best game of his life he made several errors which called forth derisive yells of "butterfingers!" from the familiar voice of Benny Wilkins.
"Take him out!" yelled some one else.
"How'd he get on the nine?" screeched Aleck Parks.
"Who told him he could play ball?" shouted Jim Wilton.
"It's enough to make any self-respecting trolley company refuse to carry him home," growled Luke Phelps. "I wonder if he's selling out the High?"
"I suppose that kind of talk is for the good of the school?" roared a tremendous voice.
Captain Bunderley glowered savagely upon the group, the members of which, a little startled at having their words overheard by so firm a friend of the Ramblers, returned his gaze without speaking.
"You remind me of a mutinous crew who deserts the captain of a ship in the hour of peril." The skipper's tones spoke volumes of disapproval and disgust. "How do you expect that lad to play when you're doing everything you can to rattle him?"
"Good! Soak it to 'em, Uncle Ralph," cried Victor Collins. "They certainly need it."
"You may have started out honestly enough," went on the captain, relentlessly, "but your idea now seems to be to have your own way at any cost."
The group was silent and sullen.
Then the heavy broadside of the captain seemed to waft them away like the blasts of a hurricane. That part of the field knew them no more.
"He's the noisiest old chap I ever saw," cried Aleck Parks, after a distance of two hundred feet separated them from the skipper. "I'd like to give him a piece of my mind."
"Why didn't you?" asked Benny Wilkins. "Maybe your intellect suffered a complete lapse."
"You're like a two-edged sword, Benny," growled Aleck. "You've got something mean to say to everybody. Fellows, the only thing I ask is this: if you see me getting anywhere near 'Checkered-Cap' to-day grab me at the front, back and sides. I'm afraid I might accidentally let fly, and pulverize him."
"By Jingo! There's Brown talking to the old salt water pirate, now," put in Benny. "Another fifty feet for me. I wonder if we'd better run? His voice gives me the staggers."
"I'm going back," announced Parks, firmly. "Roycroft and Lawrence are with Brown. Ha, ha! I think they'll protect us from violence."
Captain Bunderley's arm, directed straight toward them, however, caused Benny Wilkins' motion of fifty feet to be immediately seconded.
"Those were the chaps," the skipper said to the imperturbable Brown.
"But, captain, the boys are all worked up over this affair; you can't expect 'em to act like a lot of little French dancing masters," protested Brown.
"All nonsense! I say emphatically you're not giving the nine a fair show. I've noticed your carryings-on."
"Sorry you feel that way, captain. We look upon things differently. When a set of fellows chosen to represent the school doesn't make good it's up to the boys to find another set who will."
"And that's what we've done," put in Owen Lawrence.
"I'm sorry all this has happened," put in Earl Roycroft. "No one wanted to see Bob Somers succeed more than I."
A tremendous volley of cheering and the sight of boys waving their caps in the air put a stop to Captain Bunderley's reply.
Looking over the scene, he saw hilarious groups racing down the grass-covered slopes and the field being invaded by a stream of humanity on its way to the break in the hills beyond.
"Ah! The game must be ended," said Captain Bunderley. "I was so busy talking I forgot to look. What is the score, young fellow?"
He addressed a boy just passing.
"Five—two, favor Engleton."
"That clinches our argument, Captain Bunderley!" exclaimed Brown. "Compare the showing the 'Hopes' made against Engleton with that of the Rambler Club's ball nine." He paused an instant then added significantly: "This is probably the last game they'll play as the recognized team of the Kingswood High."