Fast Nine Part 4

"Silence!" hissed Lil Artha, with both hands motioning at the same time.

"Mr. Garrabrant says be still, fellows!" called another.

When it was so quiet they could almost have heard a pin drop, the scout master once more addressed the fifty-odd boys around him.

"Please remember," he said, pointedly, "this is a matter that concerns only the Boy Scouts. I expect every other fellow to keep the utmost silence while we talk it over. You are being handsomely treated in being allowed the privilege of staying here and listening to what we have to say. Now, scouts, what is your pleasure about this courteous challenge?"

"I move that it be immediately accepted, and the time be set as Monday next at three in the afternoon, and the game to come off on the Basking Ridge diamond," suggested Mark.

"Second the motion!" followed Lil Artha, quickly.

"Any remarks before the motion is put?" asked Mr. Garrabrant, smiling as he looked at the eager faces by which he was surrounded.

"Are we to take it for granted that the Basking Ridge people would allow us to come over and use their diamond, sir?" asked Elmer.

"That is a point well taken," replied Mr. Garrabrant, "and I will say for the general information that I asked the messenger about that very thing. He a.s.sured me that the Fairfield people have the written consent of the owner of the ground at Basking Ridge. And the people of the town are just wild for the game to come off there. They are starved for good baseball, since their club broke up early in the season. So that point is disposed of. Any other question, boys?"

"There is only to be this one game, I understand it, suh?" queried Chatz.

"Only this one game," replied the gentleman.

"And the club that wins will be known as the champion team of the Boy Scouts league in this part of the state--is that it, suh?" the Southern boy went on.

"I so understand it," Mr. Garrabrant answered.

"There isn't anything said about umpires, suh; and we've found in the past that if we want to have a square deal the umpire should never come from either of the towns playing in the game," Chatz declared, positively.

"I took the pains to ask the messenger about that," said Mr. Garrabrant, smiling, "for I realized that half of our trouble in the past has come from having a partisan umpire. But the messenger who carried the challenge said that Home-run Joe Mallon, who belongs to the Tri-State League, is home in Basking Ridge, waiting for a broken arm to heal, and that he'd gladly do the umpiring. You know he used to be an umpire long before he got to playing ball. So that question is fixed, too. Any more?"

"Question! Question!" shouted a number of the scouts, eagerly.

When the motion, to the effect that the challenge of the Fairfield nine be unanimously accepted, was put, it met with not a single dissenting vote, and Mr. Garrabrant called it settled.

"The committee will go with me immediately following the game to-day, and after we have drafted our answer we'll get it over to Fairfield to-night, if I have to borrow somebody's car to do it," declared the scout master.

Then the cheers broke out in earnest. Every boy in all Hickory Ridge would be circulating the great news before night. Little need there would be to go to any expense in getting out posters when there was such a splendid circulating medium close at hand.

"Now let's start play!" called Chatz, impatient to see whether Elmer would put in that tantalizing slow ball such as always proved such a tempting bait to the ordinary batter, causing him to swipe the air fiercely, besides losing confidence in himself meanwhile.

In a short time the scrub game began. Johnny Kline was on the firing line for the scrub, and he certainly had some speed along with him that day, for he sent them in "scorching hot," as Lil Artha declared.

However, it seemed as though Elmer and his chums just lived on speed, for they nearly every one fattened their average of batted b.a.l.l.s that eluded the vigilant fielders.

Of course, with everything favoring the regular team, they soon began to pile up runs, while sensational fielding on their part cut the hard-working scrub team out of several tallies.

After the game had run through seven innings it was called because the hour was getting on toward six.

"And we have a meeting to-night at which the committee will report,"

said Mr. Garrabrant.

"How does the score stand now?" asked an outsider who had been away most of the time after the fourth inning, and only just returned when they came in off the field.

"Seven to one, in favor of the scouts," some one replied.

"It would have been a shut out only for Ty Collins out in center letting that swift fly pa.s.s him, that Johnny Kline made his home run on,"

replied another.

"All the same it was a hard-fought game, fellows," remarked the genial scout master, who knew the outsiders felt very sore over their inability to hit Elmer, and whose nature it was to soften hard blows for the under dog.

"If it had been any other pitcher we'd have knocked the stuffing out of him, and that's no lie," a.s.serted the captain of the scrub nine, defiantly. "My team had their batting eyes along, but that balloon ball fooled us every time. It's sure the finest ever, and I see poor old Fairfield's finish if ever she gets up against Elmer this year."

"I see you found your old mouse-colored cap again, Mark," remarked Lil Artha. "Glad you went back after it this morning. Was beginning to be afraid you might put in a claim against me for a new lid, because I was the cause of your losing that one."

Several others heard what was said, and, of course, boy-like demanded to know what Lil Artha meant; so he simply said Mark lost his cap while scuffling near the bank of the Sunflower River, while they were on their way home from fishing on the preceding evening at dusk.

Both Mark and Elmer had arranged it between them to keep on the watch and see if anyone appeared to be any ways surprised at Mark wearing the familiar gray cap. But so far as they were able to notice the matter caused only a slight pa.s.sing ripple, and was then apparently forgotten.

If the party who had found the cap, and later on deliberately left it under the prize peach trees of Colonel Hitchins, in order to get Mark in bad odor with that gentleman, were present, he had the shrewdness to avoid showing any feeling of astonishment that would naturally come to him on seeing the owner of the cap wearing it again, with the utmost indifference.

"Nothing doing, Elmer," whispered Mark to his chum, in rather a disgusted tone, when they found themselves apart from the rest of the homeward-bound players and spectators.

"If you mean with regard to finding out who had your cap, I guess you hit the nail on the head," chuckled the other. "Either the fellow wasn't there, or else he was smart enough to keep a straight face, and take no interest in your old cap."

"Then I don't wear it again, I tell you," remarked the other. "It's pretty punk anyhow, and whoever had it, started to tear the lining out.

Just see how it's torn, would you?"

Elmer took the cap and glanced at the badly used interior.

"It is, for a fact," he remarked, as a look of intelligence flashed across his face, only to vanish again. "Looks like it had been through the war. Are you sure the lining wasn't torn that way when you lost it, Mark?"

"Not one bit, I give you my word. But enough of that. The thing haunts me if I happen to wake up in the night. D'ye know I just see before me that one question: 'Who found Mark c.u.mmings's cap?' But never an answer comes, and I keep groping in the dark. Perhaps some day I may happen on the answer, Elmer, or you may, for you're always so smart at solving riddles."

"Perhaps I may, Mark, and if I do you can just bank on it I'll be telling you the first thing," laughed the other.

"Well, I should guess you would," declared Mark.

Then others joined them, and the conversation became general; of course, pretty much all of the talk being in connection with the coming battle with the strong Fairfield team that had given them so hard a tussle two years ago.

"But we're twice as strong now as then, boys," said Mark. "We didn't have our prize pitcher then, and some of us have improved a heap in that time."

"So has Matt Tubbs and several of his nine," declared Ty Collins, who played center. "They beat the Rochesters early in the season, when the regulars were practicing. Don't you believe for one minute we're going to have a walkover. The Fairfield team's a hustling lot, they tell me, and always working for runs. They're bigger than our men every way."

"They can be as tall as the housetops," chuckled Lil Artha, "and that won't help one bit to meet up against Elmer's benders, or engage that balloon ball he has learned to throw just as good as Christy Matthewson ever did."

"Oh, what rotten stuff!" mocked Elmer, though of course he could not help feeling satisfied with the confidence which his teammates seemed to repose in him.

A short time later they reached the borders of the town, where they divided up in smaller groups, according to where their homes chanced to lie.

"Remember the meeting to-night, boys!" had been the last words of Mr.