In the gymnasium they continued to discuss the game while peeling off their soiled uniforms and getting into the heavy clothes which would be so necessary to their comfort on the long homeward drive; and, unable to keep still, Shultz cut in with an occasional sarcastic remark. For a time no one seemed to notice him, but suddenly Grant, unable to hold himself longer in restraint, turned on the disgruntled fellow. “Quit your beefing,” he exclaimed. “Why don’t you try to follow Osgood’s trail and make a pretense of being decent, whether you feel that way or not?” The blood which suffused Shultz’s face turned it almost purple, and he glared at the Texan as if he longed to seize the fellow by the throat and smash his head against the wall. “I’ve got a right to open my mouth,” he snarled, “and I propose to say what I please, regardless of any common, cow-punching——” They would have been at it in a twinkling had not Nelson promptly leaped between them. “Stop, Grant! Hold up!” he cried, seizing the pitcher, whose face was beginning to take on that awesome and terrible look which indicated that his fiery temper was mastering him. “Don’t start a scrap. It will be bad—bad business.” “I certainly won’t allow anybody to shoot off his mouth at me that fashion,” said Rodney, his voice vibrant with the passion he could scarcely restrain. “He’s been sneering and hollering like the sorehead he is, and it’s sure getting too much for me.” “It’s my affair, if it’s anybody’s,” asserted the captain. “I’m the one’s he’s sore on.” “And only for a lucky piece of work by Piper, you’d lost the game by putting Hooker in Osgood’s place,” said Shultz. “Just because he disagreed with you about sacrificing when he got the kind of a ball he knew he ought to hit out, you show your authority by benching him. Sacrificing in such a game, with one man down and a good hitter at bat, would be laughed at by——” “That will do for you,” Nelson cut him short. “No man on the team can talk to me this way, much less a new player like you. If you and Osgood came to Oakdale with the idea that you’re going to run the nine or ruin it, you may as well get that out of your noddles right away.” By this time Osgood had his friend by the arm.