Never before had the Barville baseball team brought such a crowd of supporters into Oakdale. They came, boys and girls, wearing their school colors, bearing banners, and bringing tin horns and cowbells. The manner in which they swept into Oakdale and hurried, eager and laughing, toward the athletic field, plainly betokened their high confidence in the outcome of the contest. Even a few older persons came over from Barville on one pretext or another, and found it convenient to spend a portion of the afternoon watching the baseball game. "Jinks!" chuckled Chipper Cooper, as he watched the visitors pour in and fill up the generous section of bleachers reserved for them. "They certainly act as if they thought they were going to have a snap to-day. Barville must be depopulated. Never fancied so many people lived over there." "Beyond question," said Roger Eliot quietly, "they believe their team has at least an even chance for the game; otherwise, not half so many would have made the journey to watch it." "It must be on account of their new ketcher," muttered Sile Crane. "I cal'late they think he's the whole cheese; but mebbe they'll find aout he ain't only a small slice of the rind. What's he look like, anyhaow?" "There he is," said Roger, as the visiting team came trotting onto the field, led by Lee Sanger, its pitcher and captain, "that stocky, red-headed chap. See him?" "My!" grinned Cooper. "He's a bird. Looks like he could eat hardware without getting indigestion." The Barville crowd gave their players a rousing cheer, although they did not yet venture to blow the horns or jangle the cowbells. Those noise-producing implements were held in reserve, with apparent perfect assurance that an especially effective occasion for their use must arise during the game. Captain Eliot shook hands cordially with Sanger, and suggested that he should at once take the field for practice. "Hello, Roger!" called Bob Larkins, the Barville first baseman. "Great day for the game. We're going to make you fellows go some. You won't have the same sort of a cinch you had last year." "I hope not," answered Eliot pleasantly. "There's a big crowd out to-day, and I'd like to see you fellows make the game interesting." "Oh, don't you worry, it will be interesting enough," prophesied Larkins, getting his mitt and turning to jog down toward first. At Eliot's elbow Phil Springer remarked, with a short laugh, in which there seemed to be a trace of nervousness: "They certainly have got their pucker up. They're boiling over with confidence." "And it's a mistake to boil over with anything--confidence, doubt or fear," said Roger. "When the kettle boils aver, the soup gets scorched. Come, Phil, shake the kinks out of your arm with me, while they're taking their turn on the field." His calm, unruffled manner seemed instantly to dissipate the nervousness which Phil had felt a touch of.