The Rival Pitchers Part 24

"Fact!" a.s.serted Sid. "We're five miles out of our way, on the wrong road, and the game starts in less than an hour. They'll call it a forfeit on us and never stop twitting us about this."

"Ah, you must be wrong," declared Holly Cross. "Don't you s'pose the motorman knows the way? It isn't as if this was an auto."

Sid pulled open the front door. The tramp, who had been talking to the motorman, had gone.

"I say," began the first baseman, "is this the road to Dodville? Aren't you on the wrong line?"

"Why, sir, I don't rightly know," replied the motorman somewhat timidly.

"You don't know?" repeated Sid incredulously.

"No. I--I hope this is the right road."

"You hope so!" cried Langridge. "Well, I should say yes. Why don't you know?"

"Well, you see, I'm new on this section of the line. To-day is my first run. I took the turn back there where the gentleman told me to."

"What gentleman?"

"The one who was out here on the platform with me. He said he was your manager."

"Manager!" fairly yelled Langridge. "Why, I'm the manager of this team."

"Can't help it. That's what the gentleman said. He said he knew the road to Dodville, and when I got to the switch he told me to come this way."

"What was his name?" demanded Langridge, who was beginning to "scent a rodent," as Holly Cross said.

"He gave me his card," went on the motorman, who had halted his car in the midst of a lonely stretch of woods.

"Let's see!" cried Sid.

The trolley man fumbled in his pocket for it. Tom looked back, but could not see the other special car. That had probably been some distance behind the first one and had doubtless gone the right road, the motorman not suspecting that his predecessor was not ahead of him.

Sid took the bit of pasteboard which the man held out to him. He looked at it and then uttered an exclamation.

"It's a trick!" he cried, "a soph trick! Listen to this, fellows. This is Fenmore's card, and he's written on it this message: 'This is only part of what we sophs owe you freshies for the pavilion game. There is more coming. Hope you have a nice picnic in the woods.' That fellow on the platform was Fenmore," went on Sid. "No wonder he kept his hat down."

"And here we are--part of the team--out here in the wilderness, five miles from the game, which starts in half an hour!" cried Langridge in disgust. "Say, those sophs got back at us all right. We're in a nice pickle!"

CHAPTER XVI

TOM MAKES A DISCOVERY

There was consternation among the freshmen and their supporters. With a divided team, part of it being so far away from the grounds that it was practically impossible to arrive on time, and on a wrong road at that, the situation was enough to discourage any nine.

"What made you let that fellow tell you where to go?" demanded Sid of the motorman.

"Well, he said he was your manager, and I believed him."

"Manager!" cried Holly Cross. "Yes, we need a manager. We need a nurse and a governess, that's what we need. To think that twenty of the brightest freshmen at Randall have been duped by one soph! Wow! I must have blood!" and he began to dance and howl like a stage Indian.

"Well," said Langridge disgustedly after a few minutes' thought, which period was occupied on the part of the others by the use of language more strong and rugged than polite, "the only thing to do is to go back. Make the best time you can and see what we can do. Shift the car, motorman."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I got orders not to start back until half-past four. You see, this is a single-track road, and I might run into a car coming in the opposite direction. We've got to stay here until four-thirty."

This was worse than ever, and a howl went up. But suddenly Sid, who had been narrowly looking at the motorman, took a step toward him. He reached up, grabbed his beard and pulled it off.

"Hayden!" he exclaimed as there was revealed to view the features of one of the liveliest of the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s. "By all the G.o.ds that on Olympus dwell, it's Hayden!"

"At your service, gentlemen," exclaimed Hayden with a mocking bow. "This is a little pleasure trip that Fenmore and I arranged for you. I hope you enjoy it," and with another mocking bow he slipped off the controller handle and leaped over the dashboard of the car.

"We hired the regular motorman to let us take his place," he went on. "I guess you don't play ball to-day," and he disappeared in the woods with a tantalizing laugh.

"Let's catch him!" cried Holly Cross.

"Sure! Let's scalp him and tie him to a tree," proposed Dutch Housenlager.

"What's the use?" asked Sid. "He knows this part of the country like a book, for he's been hunting in it. Better let him go. He'll only laugh the more at us."

"But what are we to do?" demanded Langridge. "We don't want to lose the game." He was very vexed, for he knew it would reflect on him as manager.

"The only thing I see to do is to walk back until we meet another car and then send on word of this abandoned one," said Sid. "It's a long walk, but----"

"Hark!" cried Tom Parsons suddenly. "An auto is coming along the road."

"Maybe some of us can get a ride," proposed Phil Clinton. "We can go to town and hire a rig for the rest of you."

Along the road rumbled some big vehicle. There came in sight a big auto truck, ponderous and heavy. It was one of several used by a milk concern to transport cans to the railroad depot.

"That's the stuff!" cried Tom. "Maybe he'll take us to Dodville if we pay him."

The man was hailed and the situation explained to him. He looked dubious and shook his head.

"Why can't you take us?" asked Phil. "You say you have no load on your truck, and it isn't much out of your way. We'll pay you well."

"Maybe you would," admitted the man, "but I've heard of you students.

If some of you ran off with a trolley car, there's no tellin' but what you'd take this truck away from me at some lonely spot and go cruisin'

off like Captain Kidd."

"No, no," promised the lads eagerly. "We won't cut up a bit."