Cascade was winning. After the defeat at the hands of the strong team from St. Mary’s, the re-arranged club settled to its task and, improving with every game, it became one of the strong contenders for honors in the college circuit. In the second encounter, St. Mary’s had been overthrown and Larry Kirkland, who was playing brilliantly at third base, was the deciding factor in the victory.
For a week after the scene on the bench during the game with St. Mary’s, Harry Baldwin had failed to make any move, beyond striving to conciliate Coach Haxton and regain his standing with the other players. He reported for practice the day after the game, and although not received warmly by either the coach or the other players, he had worked faithfully, avoiding any reference to the trouble; and he had privately apologized to Haxton for his loss of temper and breach of discipline.
Not a hint had been dropped as to the means by which the pig had been recovered. Baldwin at first seemed to avoid the quartette who had forced him to confess, but by degrees he returned to his attitude of scornful superiority toward them and truckling with Haxton.
Larry Kirkland, who was watching in silence, commenced to hope that the disciplining had taught Harry Baldwin a valuable lesson and several times, during practice, he purposely had called to Baldwin to practice at third and had voluntarily gone to hit “fungoes” to the fielders, permitting his rival to practice in the position. His generous behavior toward Baldwin had won him much sympathy from the veterans, and it seemed that Baldwin himself had decided to bury the hatchet and work in harmony with his foe.
Larry was happy and was working harder than ever for the interests of the team. Although Haxton had not seen fit to give Katsura an opportunity to pitch, he had allowed him to pitch to the regular players during practice and it was evident that he was watching with much interest the effective use of the slow curve by the little brown youth who appeared to have so little speed and yet continued to puzzle the best batters on the team.
Larry, Katsura, Winans and Trumbull had continued their practice work after dinner each evening, and frequently, while resting from their exertions, they discussed plays and how they should be made. Larry explained to them some of Krag’s theories of baseball, and they found much pleasure in debating over plays made by the professional teams reading the accounts of games in the newspapers and arguing as to how the plays should have been made. Dalmores, the quiet, thoughtful, big fellow, who had played two years on the team, joined them and became one of the evening practice class.
They were sitting on the grass one Thursday evening, after a lively practice session, discussing the chances of victory in the game with Golden University, which was the most important game of the year.
“We’ve got to make a lot of improvement in the next ten days,” said Dalmores. “They hit Arksall hard last year, when he seemed to be pitching just as well as ever. They have five of last year’s men on the team—and they say the new men are better than the ones they lost.”
“We have a chance if Arksall is good,” said Winans. “For me, I’d rather have Katty here pitching against them. Arksall has a habit of weakening when they get a few hits, and that is just the time Katty begins to pitch.”
“Hey—what are you running away for?”