“No, but something’s up; I’m dead sure of that. Gus goes around grinning like a catfish all the time and Tyler smirks every time he looks at me. I wonder what sort of a caper they’re up to this time. Last year,” he went on for Jack’s benefit, “they got a chap named Riley from somewhere and palmed him off as a Towner. At least, that’s what they tried to do, but, of course, we got onto the dodge in a minute.”
“Yes,” said Dolph dryly, “we got onto it after he’d knocked out a three-bagger in the first inning and scored two runs!”
“I never even looked at him until he got to third,” said Sammy ruefully, “and I guess you didn’t, Dolph.”
“Well, he puzzled me when he went to bat,” answered Dolph. “I thought I knew all the fellows in school, but that chap was a total stranger. So, as there were two men on bases, I signaled you to try him with a high one, thinking he’d fan. Instead of that he reached up and got it and sent it over left fielder’s head.”
“And pretty near won the game, too,” added Ted.
“What did you do to him?” asked Jack interestedly.
“Ran him off the field,” replied Dolph grimly. “The umpire called time and we had a ten minute riot. The last we saw of Riley, though, he was streaking it for town.”
“One year,” said Sam, “before any of us fellows got here, they moved the first and second bags about four feet nearer each other than they should have been, and the Boarders wondered why almost every Towner that reached first got to second ahead of the throw!”
“It must be a funny sort of a game,” laughed Jack.
“It is,” Ted grinned reminiscently. “Remember last year, Sammy, when they had men on second and third and needed two runs to tie the score? And Wicks stood alongside Dolph and every time you pitched a ball he yelled ‘Drop it’?”