"You!" sneered John. "Why, you lost the game with Room Six's team 'cause you couldn't stop an easy grounder. Let it roll between your legs, you did." "Don't care," was the stubborn reply. "I'm going to be captain. Whose league ball did the team use last year?" "Yours," admitted Silvey, reluctantly. "And the two bats, the second baseman's glove, and two fielders' mitts were mine, too, weren't they? Didn't my dad buy 'em for me? Well, go ahead and have Johnny for your old captain if you want. But if I can't run the team, the team can't use my things!" There was an astounded silence. Those astute politicians, John and Bill, had never dreamed of such a barefaced threat. They sat looking blankly at him, while Red Brown laughed disagreeably. "And you're the kid who went home crying 'cause you were hit on the shin with a baseball. Fine captain, you'll make." "Captain and the gloves, or you play without 'em," came the arrogant ultimatum. "Which do you want?" He could see by the thoughtful faces around him that his words were not without effect. Last year, the team had owned a reputation for being blessed with proper equipment, and to go back to the cheap, undersized balls, and scantily padded private mitts would be no small privation. John sighed wearily. "Guess you can be captain if you want to," he said, finally. A reluctantly assenting chorus sanctioned his consent. Bill broached the subject of the baseball park improvements, and Sid shook his head emphatically. The idea was his rival's and therefore to be fought. "The park diamonds are lots better," he argued. "Take us all year to fix the lot up." "But it'd be our own," Red broke in enthusiastically. "Think of playing the 'Jeffersons' on the 'Tigers' Home Grounds.' 'Tain't every team could say that, could it?" Which was the truth, for the vacant lots of the neighborhood were being rapidly supplanted by flat buildings and room for boyish playgrounds was becoming more and more scarce. Sid considered the matter a moment. Certainly it would add to the team's, and his, prestige. "Well, maybe," he said, with seeming reluctance that his change of front might not seem too obvious. "Let's go over and see what the place is like." "First across the tracks," shouted Red, as he sprang to his feet. In a moment, the whole tribe was up and after him, climbing the wire railroad fence with a vigor which threatened destruction to the meshes. They scampered across the expanse of cinders and rails, broken here and there by a struggling bit of plant life, and scrambled out on the untidy field.