Read Ebook: Rival Pitchers of Oakdale by Scott Morgan Colborne Elizabeth Illustrator

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Ebook has 1388 lines and 53094 words, and 28 pages

"Good control, Rod, old man," he praised. "That's one of the most essential qualities a pitcher can have."

"Bah!" muttered the envious lad on the bleachers. "What's that amount to, if a fellow hasn't the curves at his command?"

Presently, with Barker stepping out to hit, Eliot called Grant, met him ten feet in front of the plate, and they exchanged a few words in low tones, after which Roger returned to his position and gave the regular finger signals that he would use in a game.

Barker slashed at a high one close across his shoulders and missed. He let two wide ones pass, and fouled when a bender cut a corner.

"Two strikes!" cried Sage, who was still umpiring. "Look out or he'll strike you out, Berlin."

With a faint smile, the batter shrugged his shoulders, and then he did his best to meet the next pitched ball, which seemed to be the kind he especially relished. To his surprise, he missed it widely, for the ball took a sharp drop at the proper moment to deceive him.

"You're out," laughed Sage. "He did get you."

"He did for a fact," agreed Berlin. "That was a dandy drop, Grant. I wasn't looking for it."

Rodney put the next one straight over, and Berlin hit to Cooper at short.

Jack Nelson followed, and he was likewise surprised to be struck out, Grant using his drop twice in the performance.

"Hi there, you!" shouted Nelson. "What did you put on the old ball, anyhow? Pitch? Well, I wouldn't be surprised if you could, some."

"You bet he will," called Phil Springer delightedly. "I'll have him delivering the goods before the season is half over."

"Bah!" again muttered Hooker. "You're a fool, Springer."

Later he saw Eliot and Barker talking together not far from the bench, and near them stood Herbert Rackliff, a city boy who had entered Oakdale Academy at the opening of the spring term.

Rackliff was a chap whose clothes were the envy of almost every lad in town, being tailor-made, of the latest cut and the finest fabric. His ties and his socks, a generous portion of the latter displayed by the up-rolled bottoms of his trousers, were always of a vivid hue and usually of silk. His highly-polished russet shoes were scarcely browner than the tips of two fingers of his right hand, which outside of school hours were constantly dallying with a cigarette. He had rings and scarf pins, and a gold watch with a handsome seal fob. His face was pale and a trifle hollow-cheeked, his chest flat, and his muscles, lacking exercise, sadly undeveloped. For Rackliff took no part in outdoor sports of any sort, protesting that too much exertion gave him palpitation of the heart.

Hooker was still sitting hunched on the bleachers, when Rackliff, having lighted a fresh cigarette, came sauntering languidly toward him.

"Hello, Roy, old sport," saluted the city youth. "You look lonesome."

"I'm not," retorted Hooker shortly.

"Well, you're not practicing, and you must be tired of watching the animals perform. I came over to kill a little time, but it's grown monotonous for me, and I'm going to beat it."

"I think I'll get out myself," said Hooker, descending from the bleachers.

Rackliff accompanied him to the gymnasium, where Roy hastened to strip off his baseball togs and get into his regular clothes.

"What made you quit pitching so soon?" questioned the city lad, lingering near. "You don't mind being hit a little in batting practice, do you?"

"That wasn't it," fibbed Hooker. "Didn't you hear those chumps cackle with glee? That's what made me sore. Then what's the use for me to try to pitch if Eliot isn't going to give me any sort of a show?"

"No use at all," said Rackliff cheerfully. "I've noticed that on all these athletic teams there's more or less partiality shown."

"That's it," cried Roy savagely. "It's partiality. Eliot doesn't like me, and he isn't going to let me do any pitching. Wants to bury me out in right garden, the rottenest position on the team. A fellow never has much of any chance out there."

"Oh, probably he knew you wouldn't accept the position, anyhow," said Herbert. "He had to make a bluff at giving you something."

"I'll show him he can't impose on me."

"I heard Barker confidentially admitting to Eliot," pursued Rackliff serenely, "that he was greatly surprised in the showing Grant had made and was not at all sure but the fellow would eventually become a better pitcher than Springer."

"Say, that would make Springer feel good, the blooming chump!" cried Roy, rising to his feet. "He's coaching Grant, so the cowboy can act as second pitcher and help him out; but, if he realized he might be training a fellow to push him out of his place as the star twirler of the team, I guess he'd quit in a hurry."

"Very likely he might," nodded Herbert. "No chap with real sense is going to be dunce enough to teach some one to rise above him."

"That will make trouble between them yet, see if it doesn't," prophesied Hooker in sudden satisfaction. "They're mighty thick now, but there'll be an end to that if Phil Springer ever realizes what may happen."

"Somebody might carelessly drop a hint to him," smiled Rackliff.

Suddenly Roy's small, keen eyes were fixed inquiringly on his companion.

"I don't see why you take so much interest," he wondered. "You must have a reason."

Herbert shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps so," he admitted. "Are you ready? Let's get a move on before the bunch comes over."

They left the gymnasium, and walked down the street together. Hooker had conceived a sudden, singular interest in Rackliff.

"I always wondered how you happened to come to school here at Oakdale," he confessed.

"Have a cigarette," invited Herbert, extending an open, gold-mounted morocco case.

"Don't like 'em, thank you," declined Roy.

The other boy lighted a fresh one from the stub of the last.

"So you've been speculating as to the cause of my choosing this serene, rural seat of knowledge, have you? Well, I'll own up that it wasn't my choice. I'm not very eager about burying myself alive, and if ever there was a cemetery, it's the town of Oakdale. My pater was the guilty party."

"Oh, your father sent you here?"

"Correct. I would have chosen Wyndham, but Newbert's old man sent him down there, and my governor thought we should be kept apart in future."

"Newbert? Who's Newbert?"

"Your what?"

"My chum. We hit it off together pretty well for the last year or so; for Dade--that's his name--is a corker. Never mind the details, and the facts concerning the precise nature of our little difficulty wouldn't interest you; but we got into a high old scrape, and were both expelled from school. When I found Dade's old man was going to send him to Wyndham, I put it up to my sire to let me go there also, but he got wise and chose this corner of the map for mine. You know, he came from here originally."

"I didn't know it."

"Yes, moved out of this tomb nearly thirty years ago. But he knew what it was like, and I presume he fancied I'd be good and safe down here, where there's absolutely nothing doing. Hence, here I am. Pity my woes."

"What good would that do me, with your dearly-beloved friend, Roger Eliot, choosing his favorites for the team? Besides, I don't think I'd care to play if I could with a bunch that had a cow-puncher for a slab artist."

"You've got a grudge against Grant. You don't like him."

"Great discernment," laughed Rackliff, with a hollow cough that sent little puffs of smoke belching from his lips. "Confidentially, I'll own up that I'm not stuck on him."

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