Rackliff had succeeded in doubling Springer's hatred for Rodney Grant. So the fellow Phil had befriended and taught to pitch was sneering about him behind his back! And everybody was saying that Grant was already a better pitcher than his instructor ever could hope to become! Springer wondered how it was possible that, even for a moment, he had ever taken a fancy to such a chap. "He'd better not say too much about me," Phil growled to himself. "I know he is a fighter. I know he has a fearful temper. But he'll find out I'm not afraid of him." That very night Lela Barker, coming to the post office to mail some letters, was followed and annoyed by Rackliff when she started to return home. Herbert persisted in forcing his unwelcome company upon her until, catching sight of a familiar figure passing on the opposite side of the street, she called for assistance. Rodney Grant came running across, giving Rackliff a look, cap in hand, as he inquired the cause of the girl's alarm. "Oh, Rod," she said, "I do wish you would walk home with me. This--this fellow has persisted in following me and forcing his company upon me." "The onery, conceited, unmannerly cad!" exploded the Texan, evidently itching to put hands on Herbert, who bluffed the situation through with insolent effrontery, laughing as he lighted a cigarette. "What he needs is a good thrashing, and, if he wasn't a sickly, insignificant creature, it would give me a right good heap of satisfaction to hand him one." "Bah!" said Herbert. "You're a big blowhard, that's all. It betrays lamentably poor taste on Miss Barker's part to prefer the company of a lout like you to that of a gentleman." It was lucky for Rackliff that Lela was there and her hand fell on the arm of the boy from Texas, for otherwise Rodney might have forgotten himself. Fearing his lack of self-restraint, the girl urged him away, and they left Herbert leaning against a tree and still laughing, his cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Half an hour later Grant, having returned, was talking baseball with several fellows who had gathered in a group near Stickney's store, when Rackliff sauntered up. "Just a word with you, Mr. Cowpuncher," said Herbert in a loud voice. "You applied several objectionable adjectives to me a while ago, and now I want to tell you just what I think about you. You're nothing but a common, low-bred, swaggering bluffer, as the blind dubs around here are due to find out. You think you're a baseball pitcher. Excuse me while I laugh in my sleeve. You're the biggest case of egotistical jackassism it has ever been my luck to encounter. Next Saturday, when you get up against a real pitcher who can pitch, you'll look cheaper than thirty cents." Grant surveyed the speaker with mingled amusement and disdain.