"Take him out!" Some one in the Oakdale crowd uttered the cry, and immediately a dozen others took it up. "Take him out! Take him out!" they adjured.
These appeals were unnecessary, for already Eliot had decided that Phil could not continue, and was beckoning for Grant to come in, a signal which Rodney did not at first seem to comprehend. Presently the Texan started slowly in from the field, and Springer, at the umpire's call of "time," turned, his head drooping, toward the bench.
"Hadn't you better take right, Phil?" suggested Eliot.
The heartsick fellow shook his head. "I wouldn't be any good out there—now," he muttered.
So Tuttle was sent into right, while Grant limbered up his arm a bit by throwing a few to Sile Crane.
"Here's something still easier, fellows," called Newt Copley. "Perhaps he can throw a lasso, but he can't pitch baseball. Keep it up. Don't stop."
"Play!" ordered the umpire.
Rod Grant toed the pitcher's slab for the first time in a real game of baseball, wondering a bit if he was destined to receive a continuation of the unkind treatment that had put "the blanket" on his predecessor.
In the meantime, Herbert Rackliff had been collared by Bunk Lander, a big, husky village boy, whose face was ablaze with wrath and whose manner betrayed an almost irresistible yearning to punch the city youth.
"You keep your trap closed," rasped Lander, "or I'll knock your block off! If you utter another peep during this game, I'll button up both your blinkers so tight it'll take a doctor to pry 'em open. Get that?"