Herbert Hollingsworth was not there, for he had not waited to witness the finish of the race. Fearing Merriwell’s wrath, he fled from Ashport. Nor did Arthur Huntley linger. With Phil Proctor’s assurance that charges would be preferred against him, he decided it best to get out quickly—and did so. As for the two ruffians who had tried to sandbag Merriwell, they followed the example of their employer and vanished. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXVII NOT IN FORM. The next stopping place of the Merries on their eastern journey was Elkton, Ohio, a red-hot baseball town, its team being one of the four-cornered Central League. Elkton’s misfortune was its lack of first-class amateur baseball players. Although there were many players in town, it happened that the place had not produced a single star in many seasons. For this reason, according to the agreement entered into by the managers of the different teams in the Central League, Elkton was greatly handicapped. By this agreement, no team was to have on its list more than three salaried players, or professionals. In order to make the games fast and attract spectators who would not be satisfied with ordinary amateur baseball, the by-laws of the league permitted each manager to engage three professionals. For the most part the teams had secured expert pitchers and catchers. The early part of the season had proved discouraging for Elkton, as her weak local men were unable to bat effectively against the fine pitching of the clever “slab artists” of the other clubs. As a result, Elkton had fallen to the foot of the list and seemed destined to remain there. The pride of the Elkton followers of the game was aroused. The association held a meeting, at which it was made plain that one of two courses must be pursued. Either the local team must be disbanded and Elkton must retire from the league in disgrace, or, at any cost, something must be done to make the Elks as strong as the strongest of their rivals. Elkton could not bear the thought of confessing itself too weak to cope with the other towns on the diamond. After a deal of heated argument and discussion a proposition was made to secure a new team throughout—a team that could “wallop” anything in the State, barring only the big league teams of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo. It was even proposed to have an aggregation that could “trim” Toledo. It would take money to do this, and, at the height of the patriotic fever developed in the meeting, one of the directors announced that he would start a subscription paper with one hundred dollars. He backed up his talk by hastily drawing up the paper and attaching his name thereto, pledging himself to pay one hundred dollars for the support of such a team, providing one thousand dollars was raised. Within ten minutes seven hundred and fifty dollars had been subscribed.