ball shot plateward, rising a
little so that Graves hit vainly under it. The ball surprised Dean,
knocked his hands apart as if they had been paper, and resounded from
his breast-protector. Ken pitched the second ball in the same place with
a like result, except that Dean held on to it. Graves had lost his smile
and wore an expression of sickly surprise. The third ball travelled by
him and cracked in Dean's mitt, and Arthurs called it a strike.

"Easy there--that'll do!" yelled the coach. "Come in here, Peg. Out on
the field now, boys."

Homans stopped Ken as they were passing each other, and Ken felt himself
under the scrutiny of clear gray eyes.

"Youngster, you look good to me," said Homans.

Ken also felt himself regarded with astonishment by many of the candidates;
and Ray ran a keen, intuitive glance over him from head to foot. But it was
the coach's manner that struck Ken most forcibly. Worry was utterly unlike
himself.

"Why didn't you tell me about this before--you--you--" he yelled, red as
a beet in the face. He grasped Ken with both hands, then he let him go,
and picking up a ball and a mitt he grasped him again. Without a word he
led Ken across the field and to a secluded corner behind the bleachers.
Ken felt for all the world as if he was being led to execution.

Worry took off his coat and vest and collar. He arranged a block of wood
for a plate and stepped off so many paces and placed another piece of
wood to mark the pitcher's box. Then he donned the mitt.

"Peg, somethin's comin' off. I know it. I never make mistakes in sizin'
up pitchers. But I've had such hard luck this season that I can't believe
my own eyes. We've got to prove it. Now you go out there and pitch to me.
Just natural like at first."

Ken pitched a dozen balls or more, some in-curves, some out-curves. Then
he threw what he called his drop, which he executed by a straight overhand
swing.

"Oh--a beauty!" yelled Worry. "Where, Peg, where did you learn that?
Another, lower now."

Worry fell over trying to stop the glancing drop.

"Try straight ones now, Peg, right over the middle. See how many you
can pitch."

One after another, with free, easy motion, Ken shot balls squarely over
the plate. Worry counted them, and suddenly, after the fourteenth pitch,
he stood up and glared at Ken.

"Are you goin' to keep puttin' 'em over this pan all day that way?"

"Mr. Arthurs, I couldn't miss that plate if I pitched a week,"
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