“I presume you’re surprised to see me here at this early hour,” said the man. “Oh, I’m alone! There’s no trickery about it. You need not be alarmed.” “You quite mistake my feelings,” assured Merry. “I have a proposition to make to you.” “Have you?” “I fancy you think it nervy of me, but I’m willing to explain and apologize. You may have learned of the baseball mix-up in Cartersville.” “I have heard something about it.” “Well, perhaps you know that I am manager of the new Cartersville baseball team. Gaddis and his bunch of stiffs have been put out of business. He has taken to the woods. Two of his best men have signed with me. The others are in retirement.” Merriwell wondered what the man was driving at. “My team will be complete to-day and every man on hand ready for business. I had arranged to open the season to-morrow with Bloomfield. Received a message late last evening that Bloomfield would not appear. The duffers! They are afraid to come.” “If what I have heard about past methods of conducting baseball here is true,” said Merry, “I don’t wonder that Bloomfield canceled.” “Oh, somebody has been giving you a lot of hot air. You can’t believe all you hear. It is possible the rooters have been rather rough on visiting teams in the past, but I’m going to cut that out.” “Are you?” “Sure thing.” “It’s a good idea,” said Hodge sarcastically. “There’ll be no need of winning games in future by intimidating visitors,” said Cameron. “When you learn the line-up of my team you’ll agree that I have the players. Among them I have Johnson, the great colored player, formerly of the Chicago Giants. Then there is Moran, from Springfield; Hickey, of Indianapolis; Tonando, with the Kansas City team last season; and Weaver, the great Indian fielder. The others are just as good. I have a team that can defeat anything on the turf in the middle West, and when we get into trim we’ll be able to make some of the big leaguers hustle. I’m going to give Cartersville and southern Iowa such baseball as was never before seen in these parts.” “How does this interest me?” inquired Frank. “I’m coming to that. I presume you’re rather hot over your treatment in this town.” “You presume correctly.” “Well, I don’t blame you; but you see Gaddis was given fair notice to quit, and he persisted in holding on. He had no business to make a contract with you. At that time he had been told to get out and warned that he would not be able to play after a certain date. He had an idea that the law would support him, and he attempted to fight me and the majority of baseball people in town. We had to make it good and hot for him. We began by driving visiting teams out of the place without giving them a chance to play. We thought Gaddis would throw up the sponge when he found he couldn’t get teams here. At last we were compelled to get after Gaddis himself, and yesterday he tumbled and skipped.” “All this explaining does not justify you in the least.”