"Gosh all hemlock!" this was Mike's extreme of profanity, "if Ben Burton hasn't gone and sold the game!" The lad, who was shrewd beyond his years, carefully put the pieces of paper inside of his jacket, buttoned it up tightly, and, after ascertaining that no message was coming over the wires, and that he might decamp without fear, bolted out of the office, threw himself downstairs, and darted into Dr. Selby's shop like a shot. [Illustration: "MIKE SMOOTHED OUT THE TORN DESPATCH."--Page 178.] "Here! here! Tom," he gasped, almost beside himself with anxiety and alarm. "Ben Burton's goin' to sell the game! Leastways, here's somethin' crooked! Look at it!" Thomas, who was keeping shop while his father was absent for a moment, took the paper, with a puzzled look at Mike, then spreading it out on the counter, scrutinized it carefully, and, as he felt a cold chill running down his back at the revelation of an unsuspected rascality, he smote the walnut plank of the counter and cried, "By ginger!" This was Tom's extreme of profanity. "Where did you get this?" he demanded of the excited Mike. "In the office, under the bench there by the stove, where Hank throwed it. I seen him readin' it, and then lookin' into a little book--one of them books that has the meanin' of words into 'em." "Dictionary?" suggested Tom. "Yes, dictionary, that's what it is. And he'd get a word outen that, then put it down. I had to get out on a message to 'Squire Dewey, and when I got back he was gone; but I got the message. Don't you think it's crooked?" "Of course I do; and be sure you don't let on to a living soul what you have seen. We'll circumvent him yet." Mike rushed back to his post, sober with a sense of the important secret that he carried under his ragged jacket. As soon as Dr. Selby returned, Tom laid the matter before him. The old gentleman was astounded and grieved. No time was to be lost. Tom must hasten to the telegraph office and send a warning message to Captain Hiram Porter. The lad hurried away, stopping on the sidewalk below the office long enough to note Hank Jackson offering "two to one," as he phrased it, against the Catalpas. The despatch was sent and Tom sauntered back, half-tempted to take up one of the offers of the presumptuous and boastful Hank; but he refrained. He knew that the game of the conspirators had been circumvented. It would be his day's delight to stand by and see the dishonest scheme recoil upon the heads of its promoters. But as the day wore on and despatches from the ball ground (at first favorable and conclusive proof to the Selbys that they had nipped the conspiracy in the bud) grew more and more discouraging, Tom became desperate; he longed for wings that he might fly to Chicago and reveal the depth of infamy into which one of the club had fallen. Later in the day, when defeat seemed certain, yielding to the boy's importunities, Dr. Selby sent a message to Albert Heaton, in care of Judge Morris.