“Great horn spoon!” cried Buckhart. “Just look at that! Maplewood lifted Rockford’s scalp to-day! Nine to two! That was doing it some!” “The standing is what interests me now,” laughed Dick. “There it is, boys. Talk about teams being bunched! What do you think of that? Seaslope and Rockford are tied, having won twenty each and lost nineteen. Fairhaven and Maplewood are tied, having won nineteen each and lost twenty. That’s the sort of baseball to make your hair curl. It keeps everybody guessing.” “Well, I’m bub-bub-bub-blamed glad Maplewood did beat Rockford to-day,” chuckled Chip Jolliby. “I ain’t gug-gug-gug-got no love for Maplewood, but it kinder makes things a little more even.” The boys left the car at the Corndike Hotel, where Garrett registered for them and secured rooms for the night. By this time the various members of the Fairhaven team were well known in Rockford, and a number of persons lingering about the hotel office hailed them one after another by name. Whitney, the clerk, shook hands with Dick. “Too bad you dropped that game to-day, Merriwell,” he said. “If you had won you would have been tied with us for first place. I keep a bulletin up, following the progress of the games. It was plain enough before the game at Maplewood was half finished that Rockford was going to lose, but you kept us guessing what the result would be at Seaslope. Seaslope’s recent success led some of the boys to offer odds that she would take the game to-day. I dropped a five on it myself. I took the short end, and you fellows had me dancing after the ninth inning was finished and the report came in that the score was tied. Then came the whitewash in the tenth, and another in the eleventh. We heard that you finished your half of the twelfth without scoring, and I offered up a humble supplication for you to shut Seaslope out in her half. How did they get their run?” “Nobody to blame,” said Dick. “They earned it. Happened to have their best batters up and made a clean-earned run.” “No fault of the umpiring?” “If anything,” confessed Dick, “we got the best end of that.” “Well, that’s good sporting talk!” exclaimed Whitney. “I am sick of hearing all the blame put on the umpiring. When a team loses, it generally blames the umpire. There’ll be a hot time in Rockford to-morrow. We can’t afford to let you have that game. We’re obliged to hold first position, you know.” “Of course, you feel that way,” retorted Dick. “We have ambitions, Mr. Whitney.” A Rockford man who had been standing near now stepped forward. “You can find all the even money you want offered on Rockford,” he said. “I’d like to bet ten dollars myself. Where are the sports that back your team? You’re captain of it, and I suppose you’ll bet something yourself, eh?” “I don’t make a practice of betting,” said Dick. The man laughed in an annoying manner.