CHAPTER XXV.
MERRIWELL’S POWER.
So it happened that Hock Mason appeared on the field for practise the following day. His appearance was generally unexpected. It was thought that, having discovered the universal sentiment, Merriwell could not help dropping the South Carolinian from the team.
Hock walked into the field with his head up and his lips pressed together. He knew he was being eyed in a curious, scornful manner, and the fact gave him an air of defiance.
“Look at the nerve of him!” muttered Dick Starbright, who could not get over the fact that Hock had dropped that first fly in the Princeton game.
Dick had hoped to pitch that game through to a successful finish, but the dropping of that fly had rattled him so that Merriwell was compelled to take his place. Starbright did not pause to consider that before the long fly came the bases were filled. Nor did it occur to him that, under ordinary circumstances, it would have been a most fortunate thing for him had the long fly been driven straight into the hands of the center-fielder instead of going far to one side and out of reach.
He only knew that the center-fielder had dropped the ball, lost it in the short grass near his feet, and four scores had come chasing in for Princeton.
Mason could not help feeling the air of cool scorn, but he had nerved himself to meet this sort of thing, and he made a pretense that he did not mind it at all.