Wayne thought it over and decided that perhaps June had really found the trouble. At all events, the advice sounded good and he determined to try to profit by it. The result wasn’t very encouraging the next day, but on Friday he had the satisfaction of getting two hard singles, and after that his return to form was speedy. Neither Chase, the Chenangos’ best twirler, nor Jordan, who was capable of pitching very decent ball when at his best, had any further terror for him. He lambasted them both impartially, much to June’s delight. “What did I done tell you, Mas’ Wayne?” he demanded as Wayne returned to the bench after turning his second hit into a run with the aid of Gas Hoffman’s single and a stolen base. “Ain’ nobody else got them two hits today yet, sir. Reckon you’s done come into your own again, Mas’ Wayne!” They went up against the Athletics, the team that Arthur Pattern had referred to as “a silk-stocking lot,” the next afternoon and scored a victory when, with the bases full in the seventh, Larry Colton banged a two-bagger down the alley into right. The three resulting runs put the Chenangos two tallies to the good and there they stayed in spite of the Athletics’ desperate efforts to score in the eighth and ninth. It was Wayne who cut off a run in the first of those two innings when he reached far above his head and brought down what was labelled “two bases” when it left the bat. A perfect peg to second caught the runner flat-footed and retired the side. That play, together with two singles and a base on balls in four times at bat, settled Wayne’s right to a position on the team. In fact, he was already spoken of as the best player in the infield, although to Wayne it seemed that no amateur could handle himself and the ball as Victor Despaigne did at shortstop. But Despaigne, while he fielded almost miraculously, was a more uncertain thrower, and only Jim Wheelock’s reach--and, possibly, those extra joints of which he had told--saved him from many errors. The regular second baseman was a chap named Tad Stearns. Tad played his position steadily if not spectacularly, and Captain Taylor was perfectly satisfied with him. It was Tad who almost invariably took Hoffman’s throws to the second bag and who was always a stumbling-block in the way of second-nine fellows seeking to win renown as base-stealers. When, some three weeks after Wayne’s connection with the team, Tad fell down an elevator shaft in the carpet factory where he was employed as shipping clerk and broke his left arm and otherwise incapacitated himself for either work or play for some two months to follow, Taylor was left in a quandary. Tad Stearns’ understudy, Herrick, was not good enough, and when the news reached the field one afternoon that Tad was out of the game for the rest of the summer there was a consultation that included everyone on hand. As frequently occurred, it was Jim Wheelock who offered the most promising solution.