But the Cleves suddenly woke up and began to fight. One man beat out a grounder, and one struck out; another error of the temperamental White Mountain Canary put a man on third and one on second. Then Cheyenne, pulling himself together, made his second strike-out. "Two out, play for the batter," came Cheyenne Baxter's warning hallo. "Two out," said Dink to his fellow-fielders. "One more and we spink 'em. Come on, now!" Both sides settled for the final play, the man on second leading well up toward third. "Steady!" said Cheyenne. Stover drew in his breath and rose to his toes, as he had done thirty times already. Suddenly there was a sharp crack, and the ball meeting the bat, floated fair and free, out toward centerfield. Dink did not have to move a step; in fact, the ball rose and fell straight for the massive mitt as though it had chosen his glove from all the other gloves in the field. It came slowly, endlessly, the easiest, gentlest, most perfect fly imaginable, directly for the large brown mitt that looked like a chest protector. [Illustration: BEHIND HIM, PELL-MELL, SHRIEKING AND MURDEROUS--CAME THE VANQUISHED.] Stover, turned to stone, saw it strike fair in the middle, and then, irresistibly, slowly, while, horribly fascinated, he stood powerless, slowly trickle over the side of the mitt and drop to the ground. Dink did not stop for a look, for a second thought, to hesitate or to deliberate. He knew! He gave a howl and broke for the House, and behind him, pell-mell, shrieking and murderous, like a pack of hounds in full cry, came the vanquished, thirsting body of the Green. He cleared the fence with one hand, took the road with two bounds, fled up the walk, burst through the door, jumped the stairs, broke into his room, slammed the door, locked it, backed the bed against it and seized a chair. Then the Green House struck the door like a salvo of grapeshot. "Open up, you robber!" "Open the door, you traitor!" "You Benedict Arnold!" "Open up, you white-livered pup!" "You quitter!" "You chickenheart!" "You coward!" Stover, his hair rising, seized the wooden chair convulsively, waiting for the door to burst in. All at once the transom swung violently and the wolfish faces of Tough McCarty, the White Mountain Canary, Cheyenne and the Coffee-colored Angel crowded the opening. "Get back or I'll kill you," said Dink in frantic fear, and, advancing, he swung the chair murderously. In a twinkling the transom was emptied. The storm of voices rose again. "The freshest yet!" "The nerve of him!" "Let's break in the door!" "Come out!" "Come out, Freshman!" "He did it on purpose!" "He chucked the game!" "Wait till I get my hands on him!" "I'll skin him!" All at once the face of Butsey White appeared at the transom. "Dink, you let me right in, you hear?" No answer. "You let me in right off!" Still no answer. "It's my room; you let me in to my room, do you hear?" Stover continued silent.