Spr-rr-rr-rr—crash! “Hooray! A strike!” “That does it!” It was a rainy afternoon, and the members of the team were putting in the usual hour for the baseball practice in the gymnasium. Darrell, Jolliby, Tubbs, and Merriwell were just finishing a bowling match on the new alleys, Dick and Obediah being matched against Hal and Chip. Up to the last frame it had seemed as if Darrell and Jolliby were the winners. It looked like a forlorn hope when Merriwell took his place to bowl for the last time, as he needed eighteen pins to tie and nineteen to win. Nothing but a spare or a strike could save him. With a spare, his chance of getting nine pins on the last bowl would be very slim. This being the situation, there was great excitement when Dick sent his first ball curving into the pins, striking number one quarteringly, and raking down the whole bunch. “Dern my picter!” palpitated Obediah Tubbs, his eyes bulging. “Wouldn’t that sus-sus-sus-sus-scald you!” chattered Jolliby. “How sorry I am!” shouted Ted Smart, who was setting up the pins. “Talk about luck!” sneered Arlington, who was one of the spectators. “What do you think of that? That was a case of horseshoes, all right!” “Luck! Waugh!” snorted Buckhart. “Didn’t he hit ’em right?” “I have seen them hit a hundred times in that way without making a strike,” retorted Chet. “But he has to get nine pins with his next ball in order to tie. He can’t do it.” Up to this point Dick had been bowling for sport and for the fine exercise it provided. It must not be understood that he was not trying to do his best, for he always did at anything. But now Arlington’s words aroused him, and he was seized with a sudden powerful desire to win. “Bet you a horse he gets them!” exclaimed the Texan. “If he does,” declared Chet, “it will be more of his slobby luck. When it comes to bowling he is a mark. I can bowl a little myself. I’d like to get at him once at this. But he doesn’t dare to give me a show on these new alleys.” “Hi suppose you’re a wonderful bowler?” put in Billy Bradley. “I suppose you ’ave an hastonishing record?” “I have bowled one hundred and thirty-eight in a single string of candlepins,” asserted Chet. “And then you woke up!” observed Buckhart. “You’re pretty clever—let you tell it.” Chester was not a whit abashed. He continued to boastingly assert that he knew he was able at any time. barring accident, to defeat Merriwell or any other boy in the school at candlepins. “Dern his picter!” muttered Obediah Tubbs, nudging Dick, who was apparently unconscious of Arlington’s presence. “Don’t you hear what he is saying? By Jim, he needs a good lesson!” Merriwell, however, felt it was an impossibility to teach Arlington a lesson he would remember, for even his experience on the yacht had had no lasting effect. “Ken you git nine pins?” anxiously whispered the fat boy.