ring that auspicious opening to a fruitless and discouraging
close.

Meanwhile Wyndham got a run in the first, and in the third she pushed
two more happy fellows over the rubber, aided by errors; for Grant was
pitching in excellent form, and not a tally of the three was really
earned.

The sight of Roy Hooker, wearing Springer's own suit and sitting on the
bench as a spare pitcher, did not serve in any way to make Phil more
comfortable. He knew that by every bond of loyalty and decency he
should be there himself when he was not working on the slab. Like some
other fellows, in the past he had occasionally laughed and joked about
Roy's aspirations to become a pitcher; but now, at last having gotten
his eyes open to some of his faults, and having succeeded in
restraining his jealousy of others who were in some respects his
superiors, Hooker was pursuing a course that had already led him to be
accepted in place of the deserter.

Phil held himself aloof from the crowd of sympathizers with the team
who had come over from Oakdale to root for the crimson; he did not even
wear the school colors. When he saw them waving their bright banners
and heard them cheering he thought, with a heavy heart and no feeling
of satisfaction, that they little knew how utterly useless their
enthusiasm was. The game was fixed; the cards were stacked, and there
was no chance for Oakdale to win.

He bit his lip as he saw Grant working steadily and coolly on the slab,
doing splendidly, little dreaming that, as the situation stood, he
might "wallop his wing off" with scarcely a ghost of a prospect that
Oakdale could overcome the lead the locals had already obtained.

"I'm glad--as far as _he_ is concerned," Springer whispered to himself;
"but I'm sus-sorry for the rest of the fellows. It's a rotten piece of
business, and Rackliff ought to be ashamed of himself."

Where was Rackliff? He knew Herbert had come to Wyndham after changing
his clothes for dry ones, following his rescue from the river by Grant,
but Phil had not put eyes on the fellow since his arrival on the scene
of the game. It seemed very strange that Rackliff should not be
somewhere on hand to watch the progress of the contest.

"One thing is sure," was the promise the unhappy youth made himself,
"I'll tell him just what I think of him when I get a good chance, and I
won't mum-mince my words. Oh, I wish I'd never let him have that money
to bet on Wyndham! If I hadn't done