Barry--ah, there was a player! A perfect terror on hard hit balls, a fielder of bunts that he had never seen excelled, even among professional players. He remembered the screeching liner that he had leaped into the air and pulled down with one hand, shooting it down to first for a double play in the last game of the season. It had broken up a batting rally and saved the game when it seemed lost beyond redemption. Well, there were as good fish in the sea as ever were caught, and no man was so good but what another just as good could be found to take his place. But where to find him? There was the rub. That cub trying out now at third--what was his name?--he consulted the list in his hand--oh, yes, Henderson--he rather fancied his style. He certainly handled himself like a ball player. But there--you never could tell. He might simply be another "false alarm." At this moment the batter sent a scorching grounder toward third, but a little to the left of the base. Tom flung himself toward it, knocked it down with his left hand, picked it up with the right and scarcely waiting to get "set" shot it like a flash to first. The coach gasped at the scintillating play, and White called out: "Classy stuff, kid, classy stuff. That one certainly had whiskers on it." "Hey, there, Henderson," yelled the coach, "go easy there. Float them down. Do you want to kill your arm with that kind of throwing?" But to himself he said: "By George, what a 'whip' that fellow's got. That ball didn't rise three inches on the way to first. And it went into Drake knee high. That youngster will certainly bear watching." And watch him he did with the eye of a hawk, not only that afternoon, but for several weeks thereafter until the hope became a certainty that he had found a worthy successor to the redoubtable Barry, and his infield would be as much of a "stonewall" that season as the year before. With Hodge in right, Flynn in center and Drake in left, his outfield left nothing to be desired, either from a fielding or batting point of view, and he could now devote himself entirely to the development of his batteries. Under his masterly coaching, Bert advanced with great rapidity. He had never imagined that there was so much in the game. He learned from this past-master in the art how to keep the batter "hugging first"; the surest way of handling bunts; the quick return of the ball for the third strike before the unsuspecting batter can get "set," and a dozen other features of "inside stuff" that in a close game might easily turn the scale. Ainslee himself often toed the plate and told Bert to send in the best he had. His arm had attained its full strength, under systematic training, and he was allowed to use his curves, his drop, his rise ball and the swift, straight one that, as Flynn once said, "looked as big as a balloon when it left his hand, but the size of a pea when it crossed the plate."