h he had struck out the next time he
had hit a foul and knew the jubilant feeling that came with the crack
of the bat.

"Give me a week and I'll soak 'em out," he said, moving restlessly,
and he added to himself: "Strike 'em out, Cheyenne, old man! They're
easy."

But the Cleves suddenly woke up and began to fight. One man beat out a
grounder, and one struck out; another error of the temperamental White
Mountain Canary put a man on third and one on second. Then Cheyenne,
pulling himself together, made his second strike-out.

"Two out, play for the batter," came Cheyenne Baxter's warning hallo.

"Two out," said Dink to his fellow-fielders. "One more and we spink
'em. Come on, now!"

Both sides settled for the final play, the man on second leading well
up toward third.

"Steady!" said Cheyenne.

Stover drew in his breath and rose to his toes, as he had done thirty
times already.

Suddenly there was a sharp crack, and the ball meeting the bat,
floated fair and free, out toward centerfield.

Dink did not have to move a step; in fact, the ball rose and fell
straight for the massive mitt as though it had chosen his glove from
all the other gloves in the field. It came slowly, endlessly, the
easiest, gentlest, most perfect fly imaginable, directly for the large
brown mitt that looked like a chest protector.

[Illustration: BEHIND HIM, PELL-MELL, SHRIEKING AND MURDEROUS--CAME
THE VANQUISHED.]

Stover, turned to stone, saw it strike fair in the middle, and then,
irresistibly, slowly, while, horribly fascinated, he stood powerless,
slowly trickle over the side of the mitt and drop to the ground.

Dink did not stop for a look, for a second thought, to hesitate or to
deliberate. He knew! He gave a howl and broke for the House, and
behind him, pell-mell, shrieking and murderous, like a pack of hounds
in full cry, came the vanquished, thirsting body of the Green.

He cleared the fence with one hand, took the road with two bounds,
fled up the walk, burst through the door, jumped the stairs, broke
into his room, slammed the door, locked it, backed the bed against it
and seized a chair.

Then the Green House struck the door like a salvo of grapeshot.

"Open up, you robber!"

"Open the door, you traitor!"

"You Benedict Arnold!"

"Open up, you white-livered pup!"

"You quitter!"

"You chickenheart!"

"You coward!"

Stover, his hair rising, seized the wooden chair convulsively, waiting
for the door to burst