Coach Haxton was standing talking with some of the pitchers and catchers, instructing them as to the way he wanted signals given. He turned quickly as the quartette approached.
“Well?” he asked belligerently, “I suppose you fellows want us to stop practice and let you use the field?”
“No,” said Larry, acting as spokesman. “We came down to offer ourselves for the team, if you need us or can use us.”
Haxton was taken aback by the conciliatory tone of the youth he had considered the ring-leader of the opposition.
“Oh, you’d like to get on the team, eh?” he said harshly. “I suppose you’d like to be captain—or perhaps to coach it?”
A wave of angry resentment at the tone and the words arose within Larry and he struggled to control his growing anger.
“No, sir,” he said. “I’ll try to make the team, if I’m good enough. You see, we did not come out to report last year and you ordered us off the field because we didn’t. Now we report and are ready to try with the others for positions.”
Harry Baldwin, who had been tossing a ball around, came near enough to overhear the conversation. Haxton hesitated.
“Well,” he said, “if you fellows want to take your chances and will obey”——
“We do,” replied Winans; “maybe we weren’t in the right last term. We figure that we owe it to the college to do all we can to help”——