“You know a lot, don’t you? You knew Buckhart wouldn’t be here, but there he is!”
“Yes, there he is,” muttered Poland, who had lost heart at once, “and Yale will win this game. Fellows, we’re busted, every blamed one of us.”
Jim was right, for Yale put up a great game against the clever Brown freshmen. Nevertheless, it was nobody’s game until the eighth inning, when, with the bases filled, Buckhart smashed out a home run that proved to be the undoing of Brown. Among Dick’s backers the man behind the bat was the one who really won the game.
It was true the entire Ditson crowd was unspeakably disgusted and sore. That night they quarreled among themselves, and Mel Daggett wore a black eye for some days thereafter.
Of course Dick had known for a certainty that Buckhart would be in the game, having penetrated the disguise of the young Texan shortly after he appeared as Bill Bugle. The letter was a clever forgery. Brad had succeeded in escaping through his own efforts, having broken the lock on the door of the wretched room in which he found himself confined.
Although the Texan believed there had been no intention to perpetrate serious injury upon him, he thirsted for revenge upon the fellows who had sought to carry through such a rascally piece of business. This led him to visit the costumer so often patronized by Dick, where he secured the cowboy outfit and made himself up to pass as a cattleman from the Bar Z.
“But the fact that they lost their bets doesn’t satisfy me by a whole lot,” he declared. “I’d like to have proof of the identity of those two gents who nabbed me in the cab. If I ever do get such proof, I’ll light on them all spraddled out. You hear me softly warble!”
A few days later, Dick was pitching for practice, when a number of the members of the varsity nine happened along and were at once struck with the wondrous way in which Dick manipulated the ball.
“The varsity nine is mighty weak as to pitchers,” said one of the spectators of Dick’s skill. “I wish it were possible to get Merriwell to help us.”
The others laughed at the idea of the possibility of a mere freshman giving instructions to the men of the varsity nine. Yet this chance remark made by a junior classman led on to very practical results. For not long after that Dick was called upon to give a practical demonstration of his cleverness with the ball for the edification of the varsity nine.