CHAPTER XXXIX
BARROWS LAYS THE MINE.
Dick Merriwell, at this time, was full of plans. He was interested in a lumbering enterprise in the Maine woods, which he had always loved, and he had talked much to Jim Phillips and Brady, among others, of this business. One of his associates in this business was Chester Arlington, the engineer who had won such a brilliant success in Valdivia, to whose sister, June, Dick was devoted.
“There has been a terrible waste of our woods,” said Dick. “Out West, thousands of square miles of forest land has been completely ruined, long before it was needed for agriculture. One result is that there have been terrible floods in the spring, and the damage done in that way is simply irreparable. Then they have cut the wood so unwisely that fire traps have been made, and millions of dollars and hundreds of lives have been needlessly lost, as a result. There’s one Yale man who has done a lot toward teaching people how to use the forests properly—that’s Gifford Pinchot. And it’s still possible to make money out of the forests without wasting them and ruining them completely.”
“That’s mighty interesting work,” said Jim Phillips. “I’d like to get a closer look at it some time.”
“I’ll give you the chance,” said Dick, with a laugh. “I’m going up there as soon as we get back from Sweden, and I shouldn’t wonder if you’d come in pretty handy. There are some people up there who don’t like me or my system of using forest lands, and they may try to make trouble. So, if you want to come along, I’ll be glad to have you, and Brady, too. You’ll be in fine condition for football after you get through, too, I can promise you. There’ll be lots of work, and just enough play to keep you feeling good.”
“Always talking about work,” said Brady sadly. “Which reminds me, Jim, that you seem to have lost all idea of how to keep that cross fire of yours within reach of any catcher whose arms are less than six feet long. If you’ll get a ball and come out with me, we’ll have a little lesson in that.”
And Bill, who was always calling himself lazy, and bemoaning the necessity of practice before games, wondered at the laugh that went up. As a matter of fact, he never neglected a chance to perfect a play, no matter how much practice it required, and he was the first to help Dick Merriwell in keeping every man on a team up to the mark.
“You practice better than you preach, Bill,” said Dick Merriwell, much amused. “I guess you’ll find that Jim will be all right on that ball when he has to use it in the game. His arm is just a little bit stiff, that’s all. I wouldn’t do any more work to-day. Just take it easy, and pitch a little each day until the game. All you fellows are in good condition, and you just want to stay that way. No use getting stale and overtrained.
“That Boston team is coming down here primed to give us the licking of our lives, and we went to be all ready for them. They’ve been going around ever since the first game, I understand, telling every one in Boston and Cambridge that would listen to them that it was just an accident. Bowen told me that. He didn’t have any part in it, and he tried to make all his friends understand that it was a fair, stand-up game, and that the best team won. But he’s had trouble doing it, from what he tells me. So if they lose this time, too, they can’t make any excuses; while, if they win, it will look as if they had been right about the first game.”