“The Hon. Sam has a substitute.” No curiosity and no question.
“Who—did you say? Why, Dave Branham, a friend of the Wild Dog. Don't you remember Buck telling us about him?” No answer. “Well, I do—and, by the way, I saw Buck and one of the big sisters just a while ago. Her name is Mollie. Dave Branham, you will recall, is her sweetheart. The other big sister had to stay at home with her mother and little Cindy, who's sick. Of course, I didn't ask them about Mart—the Wild Dog. They knew I knew and they wouldn't have liked it. The Wild Dog's around, I understand, but he won't dare show his face. Every policeman in town is on the lookout for him.” I thought the Blight's face showed a signal of relief.
“I'm going to play short-stop,” I added.
“Oh!” said the Blight, with a smile, but the little sister said with some scorn:
“You!”
“I'll show you,” I said, and I told the Blight about base-ball at the Gap. We had introduced base-ball into the region and the valley boys and mountain boys, being swift runners, throwing like a rifle shot from constant practice with stones, and being hard as nails, caught the game quickly and with great ease. We beat them all the time at first, but now they were beginning to beat us. We had a league now, and this was the championship game for the pennant.
“It was right funny the first time we beat a native team. Of course, we got together and cheered 'em. They thought we were cheering ourselves, so they got red in the face, rushed together and whooped it up for themselves for about half an hour.”
The Blight almost laughed.
“We used to have to carry our guns around with us at first when we went to other places, and we came near having several fights.”
“Oh!” said the Blight excitedly. “Do you think there might be a fight this afternoon?”