“Well, what have I done, that you haven’t done?” demanded George.
“You’ve bitten off more than you can chew,” answered Sam, with a series of cautious nods, being wary of the bandages across his injured nose. “That’s what you’ve done.”
“I have,” agreed George. “So have you, so have all the fellows. We are all in it up to our chins. What have you in the back of your head besides what you’ve just said?”
“That we ought to have a crack player to teach those girls.”
“Sam,” said Baker gravely, and with great impressiveness, “the champion player of the world couldn’t put any ginger or skill into the playing of those young women, all of which isn’t saying a word against them, for I admire them more than any lot of girls I ever knew, and so do we all. Besides, there isn’t any champion on tap, so we must grub along with Captain George Baker. Hello, there comes Fred Avery.”
The latter put down his bundles, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, then, walking over, tossed the morning paper to George. Baker, hot and perspiring, sat down with his back against a granite boulder and glanced idly through the pages of the newspaper. All at once he sprang to his feet and, waving the newspaper frantically above his head, began to dance about and yell as if he had suddenly gone crazy.
“Catch him! Catch him!” howled Sam. “Somebody catch him! He has hydrophobia!”
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” yelled George. “I’ve got it! Saved, saved! Whoop! Yeow! Oh, I was never so glad in my life. Yell, you Indians, yell!”
CHAPTER X
A JOY AND A DISAPPOINTMENT
“I don’t know what it’s all about, but I’ll yell,” shouted Dill Dodd. He did. His companions set up a perfect bedlam of yells and howls.