"Take him out!" Some one in the Oakdale crowd uttered the cry, and immediately a dozen others took it up. "Take him out! Take him out!" they adjured. These appeals were unnecessary, for already Eliot had decided that Phil could not continue, and was beckoning for Grant to come in, a signal which Rodney did not at first seem to comprehend. Presently the Texan started slowly in from the field, and Springer, at the umpire's call of "time," turned, his head drooping, toward the bench. "Hadn't you better take right, Phil?" suggested Eliot. The heartsick fellow shook his head. "I wouldn't be any good out there--now," he muttered. So Tuttle was sent into right, while Grant limbered up his arm a bit by throwing a few to Sile Crane. "Here's something still easier, fellows," called Newt Copley. "Perhaps he can throw a lasso, but he can't pitch baseball. Keep it up. Don't stop." "Play!" ordered the umpire. Rod Grant toed the pitcher's slab for the first time in a real game of baseball, wondering a bit if he was destined to receive a continuation of the unkind treatment that had put "the blanket" on his predecessor. In the meantime, Herbert Rackliff had been collared by Bunk Lander, a big, husky village boy, whose face was ablaze with wrath and whose manner betrayed an almost irresistible yearning to punch the city youth. "You keep your trap closed," rasped Lander, "or I'll knock your block off! If you utter another peep during this game, I'll button up both your blinkers so tight it'll take a doctor to pry 'em open. Get that?" "Take your hands off me!" cried Herbert indignantly. "How dare you!" "How dast I!" snarled Lander. "I'll show you how I dast if you wag your jaw any more." "I've got a right to talk; everybody else does." "You double-faced, sneaking son of a sea-cook!" blazed Lander. "You bet against your own school team, did ye? If you belonged in Barville you might howl your head off; but as long's you camp around these diggin's you won't do no rooting for them fellers. I'm going to keep right on your co't-tail the rest of the time, and the first yip you make I'll hand ye a bunch of fives straight from the shoulder. Now, don't make no further gab to me unless you're thirsting to wear a mark of my esteem for the next few days." Even as Lander uttered these words Grant pitched the first ball, and Whiting hit it--hit it humming straight into the hands of Chipper Cooper, who snapped it to third for a double play, before Berry could get back to the sack. What a howl of joyous relief went up from the Oakdale crowd! They cheered Chipper madly, and the little fellow, crimson-faced and happy, grinned as he gave a tug at his cap visor. But now came the great Copley, the most formidable Barvilleite, and there were still two runners waiting impatiently on the sacks, ready to make the best of any kind of a hit. "Don't worry about this chap, Grant," called Eliot quietly. "He's just as easy as anybody. You'll get him."