"Oh, you're baseball material; no doubt of that," answered Kingdon carelessly. "I figure Stanley Downs would place you about on the Number Three scrub."
"In-deed?" exploded Horace.
"Yes. We're weak in our pitching staff, too. I could use a southpaw like you, even if you came in as a freshman, with the school nine this fall."
Kingdon said it in such a matter-of-fact way that the other stared at him for a full minute before demanding: "What's this you're driving at? What's the big idea?"
"I might use a fellow like you on the pitching staff of the Walcott Hall nine, if he was amenable to discipline and I could work with him this summer."
"You go fish!" jeered Pence, rising suddenly to cast himself into the sea and swam away.
"Now, let that idea rattle about in that dome of yours, Horrors," chuckled Rex, also rising. "We'll see what comes of it."
That evening, while supper was cooking, Rex strolled up the hill over-looking the camp. He glanced at the bowlder, and again found the stick that had been cut and hidden at the edge of the wood. Apparently no one had been there since he made his previous examination.
The next day the Walcott Hall boys saw Joe Bootleg and Harry Kirby paddle away from the island in one of the canoes, and knew the pair were going for provisions. When Kingdon and his chums went up to the ball field, the former was not surprised to see Horace Pence there, alone.
Pence lay languidly in the shade, chewing a grassblade, and watched the workout of Midkiff and Cloudman, without comment. On this occasion Kingdon was intentionally sharp with both his moundsmen. He criticized them so severely that Midkiff became a boiling volcano of wrath, and Applejack was as wild as a tiger. But neither of them answered back.