Out at Erskine Field great things were happening. The purple-lettered youngsters were more than holding their own against the far-heralded team of Robinson. It was the sixth inning, and the score stood 9 to 5 in Erskine’s favor. Hal had played a magnificent game at second and already had a double-play to his credit, and had, besides, succeeded beyond all of his team-mates at hitting the redoubtable brown-stockinged pitcher. Side by side on the warm turf back of third-base, Tommy and Pete were sitting cross-legged, having passed the ropes by virtue of Tommy’s ever-present note-book, with its staring inscription, “Erskine Purple,” on the cover. The last man of the Erskine side went out, the teams changed places, the seventh inning began with Robinson’s tail-enders coming to the plate, and Pete resumed his narrative, which had been interrupted by Hal’s hard drive to left-field. “He didn’t have any idea what I had come for,” Pete said, “and was going to be very nice and polite; he can be when he likes, you know. But I wasn’t there to pass compliments or swap stories, so I got right down out of the saddle and talked business. ‘Rindgely, I know that you ran in the St. Thomas Club meet in Brooklyn the night after Christmas, under the name of A. Ware, and won fifteen dollars,’ I said, ‘and you’ve got to come out in the open and say so.’ Of course, it was a rank bluff; I was pretty certain about it after I’d talked with you, but I didn’t know absolutely, and couldn’t prove anything. If he had kept his nerve and told me to go to thunder, it would have been all off on the spot, and I’d had to crawl off with my tail between my legs. But it took him so sudden that he just gasped and got pale around the gills. Then I knew I had him roped. So I just waded in and gave it to him hot and heavy. Told him he was a horse-thief and an all-round galoot; that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and a lot more. When I got through he was a pretty sick steer. I had him hog-tied and branded. Then he began to play fair.--Ginger! look at that hit! Good work! That’s two out, ain’t it? Only one? Well, it ought to be two.” “And then what?” asked Tommy, making strange marks in the score-book on his knee.