! I honor such sentiments, and believe me, the boys
of Chester will never forget such a friendly spirit as your team shows.
We, too, would refuse to play in a game where we had the slightest
reason to believe crooked work was going on, that would be to the
disadvantage of our adversaries."

The little shortstop's eyes glistened as he wrung Jack's hand.

"Glad to see you take it in the right spirit, old fellow," he hastened
to say. "We were horribly worked up when we got wind of this business
through sheer accident. Only a mean skunk like a tricky sport from the
city could dream of doing such a thing. But now it's come out, you'll
find that all Harmony will be on edge looking for signs of treachery
toward you fellows."

"How about telling the other boys?" inquired Jack.

"You're at perfect liberty to do that," the shortstop assured him. "In
fact, we expected you would. The sooner the news is carried through
Chester the better chance that nothing so low-down will be attempted;
and no matter how the game turns out, it will be clean. Much as we want
to win we all agree that we'd rather be badly licked by Chester than
have it ever said there was a shadow of fraud on our victory."

So Jack beckoned to the rest.

"Only the members of the team, subs. as well as regulars, are wanted
here!" he called aloud; and accordingly, they came forward, most of the
boys exchanging looks of natural curiosity, and doubtless fearing that
some hitch had occurred in the programme for the ensuing Saturday.

Judge of their amazement when Jack read aloud the letter from Captain
Martin. It seemed almost unbelievable to some of the boys. Others who
always made it a practice to glean all the baseball news in the city
papers that came to certain Chester homes, may have known that such evil
practices had been attempted occasionally, especially where unprincipled
men began to wager money on the result of championship games.

All of them seemed unanimously of the opinion that Harmony had evinced a
most laudable and sportsmanlike spirit in sending this strange warning.
It made them feel that in struggling for the mastery on the diamond with
such manly fellows, they were up against the right kind of foe-men.
Indeed, even a defeat at the hands of Harmony would not seem so dreadful
a disaster, now that they knew Martin and his crowd to be such good
fellows.

Bailey did not wait to listen to many of the remarks that followed the
reading of the letter