Rival Pitchers of Oakdale Part 29

"Of course!" whispered Phil savagely. "It's another feather in his cap! He'll help the chap out of the drink, and everybody in town will say it was a nervy and daring piece of heroism. Oh, I'm slow! I lost my chance!"

At that moment his bitterness toward Grant was so intense that he felt he could unhesitatingly go to any extreme to injure him. His lips curled back from his teeth in a semblance of a snarl; he watched the Texan reach the spot where Rackliff's head had an instant before disappeared from view, saw him likewise plunge beneath the surface, and beheld him rise, farther down the stream, with the still weakly struggling fellow secured by a grip upon his coat collar at the back of the neck. Deftly the rescuer swung Herbert round, face upward, upon his back, and, holding him thus, with mouth and nose above the water, began swimming toward the nearest sh.o.r.e.

The rapidly increasing crowd of spectators on the bridge cheered still more vociferously.

"It's getting to be a regular sus-stunt of his, this rescuing people from drowning," muttered Springer. "Hear them yell! Bah! What fools people are! Why didn't I think quick enough to get ahead of him!"

A short distance below the bridge Foxhall was wading out of the water, disdaining a.s.sistance. Snead, however, did not spurn the hands extended to him when he came floundering and gurgling toward dry ground.

A dozen persons were running down toward the point for which Rodney Grant was heading, all eager to take some part in the exciting rescue.

Of the boys who had rushed to the scene, Springer was the only one who remained on the bridge. He waited until he beheld Grant stand on his feet in shallow water and wade toward the bank, bearing Rackliff in his arms.

"I don't propose to hang around and see them s...o...b..r over him," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely; "so I think I'll beat it, get a move on, dig."

As he turned away his eyes fell on a folded sheet of paper lying at his feet, and within three feet of the paper he discovered a pocket notebook. He picked up the paper and the notebook.

"Some one of that bunch dropped these," he decided. "Oh, but they were lucky to come out of this sc.r.a.pe alive! I think this will cuc-cure that idiot Foxhall of doing fancy stunts with his old man's gas cart."

Mechanically he unfolded the paper. There was writing upon it, and Phil was suddenly chained in his tracks as his senses took in the meaning of those several short sentences, each of which was written on a separate line:

"Bat held in right hand means. .h.i.t and run.

"In left hand, try the steal.

"In both hands, perpendicular, play safe.

"In both hands, horizontal, will sacrifice.

"In right hand, handle down, squeeze play."

This was as far as Phil read, but the list covered the entire page, being condensed, with the lines very close together, at the bottom, evidently in order to get everything on that side of the sheet.

Springer's eyes threatened to pop out of his head and his under jaw sagged.

"Great snakes!" he gasped. "These are our playing signals!"

For a short time he stood there dazed, unconscious of the excitement near at hand, deaf to the cheering of the crowd. He had thought at first that the paper, like the notebook, must be the property of one of those boys who had occupied the automobile, but, with the discovery of what was written on that paper, he slowly arrived at the conclusion that his original conviction was erroneous. The writing looked familiar, too, although at that time he could not seem to recall the person whose chirography it resembled.

"The notebook," he finally decided; "that may tell who it belongs to, for doubtless the same chap dropped both."

On the fly leaf of the notebook he found the name of Dade Newbert. He had refolded the paper, and was still staring at the name written in the notebook when Newbert himself, greatly excited, rushed toward him, crying:

"I say, that's mine! Dropped it out of my coat pocket when I pulled the coat off. Give it to me."

He was still carrying his coat in his hand.

"Then you're Nun-Newbert, are you?" questioned Springer, who until this day had never set eyes on the chap.

"Yes, yes. Gimme that! The paper, too. Have you----"

"Just picked them up," said Springer coolly, as he surrendered the folded paper. "Lul-looked in the book to see who it belonged to, that's all."

Newbert seemed to take a breath of relief. "I didn't know but you had been---- Oh, fudge! I dropped them only a minute ago. Say, we've kicked up a rumpus around here, haven't we? That fellow who pulled Rack out of the drink saved me from getting a soaking, as I was just going overboard after Herb. Rack thought he wouldn't take a bath this morning, but he did, just the same. Ho! ho! ho!" The cause for the laugh seemed to be nervousness and excitement rather than mirth.

"Rackliff!" muttered Springer, struck by sudden conviction.

"Old chum of mine. Don't suppose this little experience will do his cold any good, I got Orv Foxhall to come over here for Herb this morning with old man Foxy's bubble that's down there at the bottom of the ca.n.a.l, where it's liable to stay for some time. I reckon we'll all travel back to Wyndham by steam cars." He turned and ran toward the crowd that was coming up from the scene of the rescue.

"Rackliff!" muttered Springer once more.

He knew now who had written those signals on that sheet of paper.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A REBELLIOUS CONSCIENCE.

The game between Oakdale and Wyndham was in progress, and, wretchedly miserable, Phil Springer sat watching from the bleachers. Never before in all his life had he felt so much like a contemptible criminal, a dastardly traitor to his team, against which, through the agency of Herbert Rackliff, he had wagered money. It was not, however, the fact that he had made such a wager that troubled him most, although at this moment, deep down in his heart, he was sincerely ashamed of that.

The princ.i.p.al cause of his misery, the reason why he kept telling himself over and over that he was a cowardly sneak, was his knowledge that the playing signals of the visitors had been betrayed to the home team, and that, taking advantage of the knowledge thus obtained, Wyndham was prepared to block Oakdale's every play, and was doing this in a manner which appeared to the average spectator like almost uncanny foresight and cleverness at the game.

In the very first inning, with only one out and a runner on third, the Oakdale batter, taking his instructions from Captain Eliot, had walked out to the plate with the bat held in his right hand, handle downward, which was the signal for the squeeze play. But Wyndham had known what was coming quite as well as Oakdale, and Newbert, pitching the ball beyond the batsman's reach, gave the catcher every chance to get the runner as he came lunging hopelessly toward the pan.

The second inning, also, had opened promisingly for Oakdale, but the enemy's knowledge of the meaning of those signals had made it a simple matter to bring that auspicious opening to a fruitless and discouraging close.

Meanwhile Wyndham got a run in the first, and in the third she pushed two more happy fellows over the rubber, aided by errors; for Grant was pitching in excellent form, and not a tally of the three was really earned.

The sight of Roy Hooker, wearing Springer's own suit and sitting on the bench as a spare pitcher, did not serve in any way to make Phil more comfortable. He knew that by every bond of loyalty and decency he should be there himself when he was not working on the slab. Like some other fellows, in the past he had occasionally laughed and joked about Roy's aspirations to become a pitcher; but now, at last having gotten his eyes open to some of his faults, and having succeeded in restraining his jealousy of others who were in some respects his superiors, Hooker was pursuing a course that had already led him to be accepted in place of the deserter.

Phil held himself aloof from the crowd of sympathizers with the team who had come over from Oakdale to root for the crimson; he did not even wear the school colors. When he saw them waving their bright banners and heard them cheering he thought, with a heavy heart and no feeling of satisfaction, that they little knew how utterly useless their enthusiasm was. The game was fixed; the cards were stacked, and there was no chance for Oakdale to win.

He bit his lip as he saw Grant working steadily and coolly on the slab, doing splendidly, little dreaming that, as the situation stood, he might "wallop his wing off" with scarcely a ghost of a prospect that Oakdale could overcome the lead the locals had already obtained.

"I'm glad--as far as _he_ is concerned," Springer whispered to himself; "but I'm sus-sorry for the rest of the fellows. It's a rotten piece of business, and Rackliff ought to be ashamed of himself."

Where was Rackliff? He knew Herbert had come to Wyndham after changing his clothes for dry ones, following his rescue from the river by Grant, but Phil had not put eyes on the fellow since his arrival on the scene of the game. It seemed very strange that Rackliff should not be somewhere on hand to watch the progress of the contest.

"One thing is sure," was the promise the unhappy youth made himself, "I'll tell him just what I think of him when I get a good chance, and I won't mum-mince my words. Oh, I wish I'd never let him have that money to bet on Wyndham! If I hadn't done that----"

He stopped short, thinking that, even though he had not wagered his money, his hatred for Rod Grant and his desire to see the fellow pitch a losing game would be sufficient to keep him silent concerning the betrayal of the signals. He sought to convince himself that, as he was not concerned in that wretched piece of work, he was in no way responsible. His rebellious conscience, however, kept prodding him with the knowledge that he was "an accessory to the crime."

Again and again he longed to rise and shout a warning to Eliot--yearned to tell him loudly, that all might hear, that Wyndham knew Oakdale's signals. If he were to do such a thing as that--do it dramatically before that great crowd--would it not serve to restore him to sudden popularity with the fellows who now held him in contempt because of the petty, peevish, jealous course he had pursued?

"I wish they'd ha-hammer Grant out," he muttered. "If they'd only do that, I'd warn Eliot. Of course I wouldn't give it away that I knew abub-bout the crookedness all the time, for that would queer me worse than ever. I've got to kuk-keep that a dark secret, sure enough."