It had been told all abroad that the new nine was to make its first sally on that train, and the jaded and dusty passengers from the North looked from the windows with languid interest as the lusty young fellows made a final rush for the cars, followed by the irregular cheers of the bystanders and accompanied by a goodly number of their old associates who were "going to see fair play." The conductor, with an affectation of indifference that he did not feel, disdained to look at the surging and animated crowd, but turned his face toward the engine, waved his hand, and shouted "all aboard!" just as if he did not carry Catalpa and its fortunes with him. The train rolled away, innumerable handkerchiefs and caps waving from its windows, and hearty and long resounding cheers flying after it. A cloud of yellow dust, a hollow rumble of the train on the culvert beyond, a tall column of blackness floating from the engine over the woods, and the Catalpa Nine were gone. "I never felt so wrought up in all my life," said Alice Howell, confidentially, to her friend Ida Boardman, as they descended the hill toward the town. "It seems, sometimes, as if I was sure that our Nine would win, and then, again, I am almost certain that they will be beaten by the Black Hawks. I saw the Black Hawks play the Springfields, last summer, and they were glorious players; such fielding! Oh, I am almost sure they will out-field our boys." "If our nine were all like that Larry Boyne; why, isn't he just splendid? If they were all like him, I should have no fears for Catalpa. And then there's Hiram Porter, how beautifully he does handle the bat! Don't you think Larry Boyne is the handsomest young fellow in the Nine, Alice?" Alice colored, she knew not why, as she made answer: "I don't see what good looks have to do with playing. You are so illogical, Ida. What do you think of Ben Burton, for example. Don't you think he is handsome enough to make a good player?" "Ben Burton! why he is perfectly horrid, and so disagreeable and high and mighty in his ways. I detest him, and if anybody loses the game, to-morrow, I hope it will be he. No, I take that back, for I cannot bear to think that anybody will lose the game for our Nine. Do you, Ally?" Alice agreed most heartily with her friend that it would be a strange and lamentable catastrophe if the game at Sandy Key should be lost by the Catalpas. "But I am afraid, I am afraid," the girl repeated as the twain slowly paced down the plank walk leading to the town. Her words were re-echoed, that day, many times by the people of Catalpa who would have given a great deal if "the boys" could have been thereby assured of success on the morrow.