d the crack of the ball as it hit Graves's glove.
Then with swift scrape on hands and breast he was sliding in the dust.
He stopped suddenly as if blocked by a stone wall. Something hard struck
him on the head. A blinding light within his brain seemed to explode
into glittering slivers. A piercing pain shot through him. Then from
darkness and a great distance sounded a voice:

"Ward, I said I'd get you!"

VII

ANNIHILATION

That incident put Ken out of the practice for three days. He had a
bruise over his ear as large as a small apple. Ken did not mind the
pain nor the players' remarks that he had a swelled head anyway, but
he remembered with slow-gathering wrath Graves's words: "I said I'd
get you!"

He remembered also Graves's reply to a question put by the coach.
"I was only tagging him. I didn't mean to hurt him." That rankled
inside Ken. He kept his counsel, however, even evading a sharp
query put by Arthurs, and as much as it was possible he avoided
the third-baseman.

Hard practice was the order of every day, and most of it was batting.
The coach kept at the candidates everlastingly, and always his cry was:
"Toe the plate, left foot a little forward, step into the ball and
swing!" At the bat Ken made favorable progress because the coach was
always there behind him with encouraging words; in the field, however,
he made a mess of it, and grew steadily worse.

The directors of the Athletic Association had called upon the old
varsity to go out and coach the new aspirants for college fame.
The varsity had refused. Even the players of preceding years, what
few were in or near the city, had declined to help develop Wayne's
stripling team. But some of the older graduates, among them several
of the athletic directors, appeared on the field. When Arthurs saw
them he threw up his hands in rage and despair. That afternoon Ken
had three well-meaning but old-fashioned ball-players coach him in
the outfield. He had them one at a time, which was all that saved
him from utter distraction. One told him to judge a fly by the sound
when the ball was hit. Another told him to play in close, and when the
ball was batted to turn and run with it. The third said he must play
deep and sprint in for the fly. Then each had different ideas as to
how batters should be judged, about throwing to bases, about backing
up the other fielders. Ken's bewilderment grew greater and greater.
He had never heard of things they advocated,