The train bearing Larry Kirkland back to Shasta View ranch for the long summer vacation carried a heavy-hearted, discouraged youth, for whom even the pleasure of home-coming was dimmed. His college year had been a series of disappointments and rebuffs. He had gone to Cascade College filled with high hopes and dreams of winning a place among the men of the institution. The year had been one of rebukes, and loneliness, except for the friendship of a few. He, who had always been a leader and popular, found himself looked upon with suspicion, and rated as undesirable by many. His attempts, which were few, to add to his circle of friends, had been met with coldness. Every effort had been a failure, and some of them, he realized, had been serious mistakes, chiefly because they were misunderstood.

For all his woes he blamed Harry Baldwin who had exerted his influence against his boyhood rival in every direction. Larry realized that he had been beaten by Baldwin, and felt, bitterly, that he could not fight his neighbor with the same weapon. Instead of choosing his own circle of friends, ignoring Baldwin and living in a different set and circle, Larry, rebuffed, had withdrawn more and more, to himself, and avoided introductions, even to those who were with him in classes. Katsura, the diminutive Japanese boy, had remained his staunch and loyal supporter, and at times, a valuable advisor who had prevented him from making even more serious mistakes in his dealings with the other boys. He had Winans, the hearty, good-natured youth who had caught for the Freshman team, and Lattiser occasionally favored him by stopping to talk with him on the campus, always with a quiet word of advice. Larry did not understand, until during the final month of the spring term, that his friendship for Katsura was an additional cause for his unpopularity, or that, among a certain element of the student body, there existed a hatred for the Japanese. That discovery aroused his resentment.

It was with relief that he finished his examinations and caught the train for Shasta View. The train was panting out of the wide valley into a narrow gorge in the mountains and commencing its twisting, tortuous climb over the Cascades when he awoke. His first glimpse of Mount Shasta, towering high overhead, revived his spirits, which rose with the altitude as the train labored upward through the twisting canon, past the gushing, geyser like springs of Shasta, over the Black summit, and went racing downward through the fir forests into the valley garden of the Rogue River.

He was standing in the vestibule, grip in hand, when the train stopped at Pearton, and, almost before the porter could throw open the doors he sprang to the platform. The depot wagon from the ranch was waiting and, recognizing the wagon and ponies, Larry ran toward it, expecting to see Major Lawrence. He saw the driver jump down, and glance along the long line of cars. There was something familiar to him in the slope of the huge shoulders and the easy grace of movement. Before Larry could recall where he had seen that form, the driver turned toward him. Larry dropped his suitcase and sprang forward.

“You—you, Mr. Krag? Where did you come from?” he cried.

Krag, the former pitcher of the Giants, one of the great players of baseball history, stretched out his huge hands and seized Larry.

“Hello, Jimmy boy,” he bellowed cheerfully. “I never would have known you. I was watching for a kid the size of the one I put on the train at Portland—and I find a man. Gee, boy, how you’ve grown!”

“I’d have known you anywhere,” exclaimed Larry eagerly shaking hands. “Tell me, how did you come to be waiting for me? Where did you drop from? I haven’t heard a word from you for more than a year—and find you here.”

“I’m working for Major Lawrence,” Krag responded. “I asked him to let me come down to meet you. I wanted to give you a surprise. You don’t know how lucky you are to have him your friend, boy,” he added seriously. “He’s the squarest, best fellow in the world.”

“I know that,” replied Larry, growing serious, “but how did you come to be here, and when did you come?”

“Nearly two months ago,” Krag said laughing. “I’m getting to be an old residenter on the ranch. You’d better behave yourself during vacation. I’m general overseer, and if you don’t behave, I’ll take you in hand.”

“Where did Uncle Jim find you?” asked Larry, still puzzled. “He never mentioned you in his letters.”

“I suppose he wanted to surprise you when you came home,” replied Krag. “He always thinks of things that might please some one.”

“Where have you been?” demanded Larry. “I wrote as soon as I heard the Giants had let you go. The manager wrote that you had dropped out without telling any of the fellows your plans, and had gone West. I wrote twice more, and asked to have the letters forwarded, but never heard from you, excepting one paper said you were coaching a team. I wrote there, and it was not true.”

“I know,” said Krag earnestly. “I received one letter, and I was proud to know you still thought of me. Most of the others forgot me as soon as my arm went back on me. I’m beginning to think now that the luckiest day in my life was the one on which I found a lonely little boy on a railroad train and amused myself entertaining him.”

“I never can forget your kindness,” said Larry, “but how did you happen to quit the Giants?”

“It was my own fault,” said the big pitcher quietly. “Jump into the wagon, I’ll toss the trunk up behind and tell you while we are driving out to the ranch.”

A few moments later the wagon was rattling rapidly through the main street of Pearton, and Krag did not speak until he pulled the ponies to a more sedate gait ascending the hill.

“I was drawing a big salary,” he said, “one of the best; $8,000 a season and a lot besides, easy money, forced upon me by admirers. I thought it would last forever. I never had known anything about business. Jumping from nothing a year to $8,000 spoiled me. Money ran away from me, and I never saved anything. I seldom had a month’s pay saved up and usually had to draw advance money before the winter was over, to tide me through. I drew big pay for eight seasons, and made a good fellow of myself.

“My arm felt as good as ever, and I was pitching just as well, so I never worried about it, or tried to save. It seemed good for a dozen more years. I was pitching against a weak club, working easily and winning, I wasn’t even trying hard, but suddenly, as I tossed up a slow twister, a ligament in the arm snapped. They nursed me along the rest of the season, hoping the arm would come back. I knew it wouldn’t. It was done, and I couldn’t even go to the minors.

“The Giants offered me a contract the next spring. There wasn’t a chance for me to pitch and I couldn’t go take money under false pretenses. I might have had a job as first baseman on account of my batting.”

He waited for Larry to laugh, but Larry was so sympathetic, he had forgotten that Krag was joking at his own expense on account of his weak hitting.

“I was done as a ball player—with the best part of my life gone and only a few hundred dollars. That’s the trouble with this baseball business. A young fellow makes good money at first, but after six or eight or ten years, he is through, and the years he might have used in getting a good start in some trade or profession are gone. I looked around for a job. The fellows who had been my closest associates commenced dodging for fear I’d ask them for something, so I decided to come West and go to work. I landed in Portland, almost broke and got a job working on the docks. I didn’t want any of my old friends to find me, but one did. He was a reporter. He wrote that I was in Portland and might locate there if I found the proper opening. Major Lawrence saw the note, wrote, offered me a job, and here I am.”

“That’s like him,” said Larry tenderly. “He never forgets. The day I came, I told him of your kindness to me, and he said he would like to meet you. He probably has been watching for mention of you ever since.”

“He certainly is good,” said Krag feelingly. “He must have sized me up as too strong or too lazy to do real work, and put me in charge of the packing houses. Then, when Arnett, his general overseer, quit a month ago, the Major gave me his position—in spite of the fact that I’m just starting to learn the ranch business.”

“Gee, that’s great!” exclaimed Larry enthusiastically. “You must live at the bungalow?”

“Yes, the Major insisted that I take a room there. He said he was so lonely with you gone that he couldn’t find any one even to have a satisfactory quarrel with. He gets mad at me because I won’t get mad at him, and we have some magnificent quarrels.”

“He likes to have any one contradict him, so that he can pretend to get mad,” laughed Larry. “The only thing that makes him really angry is for someone to agree with him all the time. He’s the grandest, finest man in the world, and I never can repay him for his kindness to me.”

“Nor I,” said Krag seriously. “He saved me from becoming a day-laborer—or worse—and I thank you for your part in it.”

“My part? I hadn’t any part. Besides I think Uncle Jim guessed pretty shrewdly that you’d make the best kind of a man to run the ranch for him. All I’m afraid of is that you’ll be too busy to teach me any baseball.”

“By the way,” said Krag quickly. “I’ve been so busy gossiping about myself, I forgot to ask if you made the team?”

The wagon, rolling along at a rapid gait, was nearing the crest of the last billow of ground, and ahead, over the tops of the orchards, they could see the gables of Shasta View. Towering high in the background rose the mountains, and at that moment the fog wreath was wind-torn from the brow of Shasta, revealing the cone in its steely whiteness.

“It seems home now,” said Larry, pointing away across the valley. “I never shall forget how it seemed the first morning I came, walking, homesick, scared and tired, carrying the uniform you gave me and wondering what kind of a reception I would get.”

“Stick to the subject,” said Krag quickly, observing that Larry was striving to turn the conversation into other channels. “Did you make the team?”

“I didn’t play any baseball,” said Larry reluctantly, “I didn’t even try for the team.”

“Why?” asked Krag in quick surprise.

“Please don’t ask now,” said Larry quietly. “I’ll tell you later. It is not pleasant, and just now I want to forget it.”

They were descending the last hill rapidly, and in a few minutes Krag touched the ponies with the whip and they whirled into the long avenue with a fine burst of speed. Before the ponies stopped at the front of the bungalow, Larry Kirkland had leaped from the wagon, sprang up the steps and threw both arms around Major Lawrence. The Major, puffing, scolding, growling, while tears of joy dimmed his eyes, patted his hand, and to hide his emotion, scolded Krag for loitering, declaring it had taken him an hour to drive from Pearton to the ranch.

Major Lawrence arose from his seat by the fire, stretching himself, scolded.

“Pair of young wastrels,” he declared accusingly. “Wasting my time, making me sit here and listen to your yarns. You ought to be made to work overtime for it. Here the ranch accounts are a week behind; and Krag loafing and telling yarns, leaving it for an old man like me to do.”

“Sit down, Major,” said Krag easily. “I’ll finish them up after you and Larry go to bed.”

“You shan’t do it,” stormed the Major. “Sit up all night, then be too sleepy to get up and do your work. I’ll do them myself.”

He stormed away to his private office, sniffing angrily, and Larry Kirkland and Bill Krag laughed.

“He’d never be happy unless he scolded someone,” said Krag. “I think he is half mad because I didn’t do the accounts, so he could quarrel with me over them.”

“I had a notion to tell him he was too old to be working late,” laughed Larry. “He always calls himself old and gets mad when any one else does it.”

They were sitting before the big open fire in the living room, for the day had closed with a misty rain. Larry was expanding under the home influence and the Major’s kindness and love, thinly concealed under his pretense of anger. Chun, the Chinese youth who had succeeded to the entire charge of the household, had served a late supper at the fireside, and Krag had told stories. His tales of exciting games on many major league ball fields, of the old friends and foes, of desperate struggles, of narrow escapes and hard-luck defeats. The big pitcher suddenly broke off in his recital of events and lapsed into a thoughtful silence, while Larry took up the story of his own exploits on the Shasta View team and in the preparatory school. Major Lawrence occasionally chuckled over some tale of boyish outbreaks, but Krag maintained a silence, punctuated by the sucking of his pipe.

After Major Lawrence’s choleric exit from the scene, Krag smoked silently for some time. Then he roused himself suddenly and asked:

“Larry, why didn’t you play ball at Cascade?”

“I—I—well, the truth is they didn’t want me.”

He launched into a long explanation of his trials and troubles at Cascade College, of his feud with Harry Baldwin and of Baldwin’s influence over the coach and those in charge of the athletic teams at Cascade. As he talked the recollection of his wrongs stirred him to eloquence, and more and more he forgot Krag and voiced his inner injuries.

“So you quit—quit cold, showed the yellow?” inquired Krag quietly, as he removed his pipe from between his teeth and sat forward waiting for a reply.

Larry’s mouth opened as in surprise. He started to make a reply, broke off shortly and sat staring thoughtfully into the fire. Krag, smoking glanced toward him from the corner of his eye. He saw the boy hurt, and angry, and puffed away in silence waiting for the youth to speak, to defend himself or give some explanation.

“I’ve been afraid of it for a month,” said Krag quietly. “When I picked up the papers in town and did not see your name in the lists, I thought you had the sulks and were not trying for the team. I believed if you tried you could have made it.”

“What could a fellow do, under the circumstances?” asked Larry sulkily. “I couldn’t beg them to let me play.”

“I said to myself,” Krag continued, unheeding the remark, “I said, ‘he has the swelled head.’ I hoped it wasn’t true.”

“It wasn’t true,” said Larry flashing into anger. “You know I’m not that kind. I wasn’t trying to run the team, or anything of that sort.”

“No,” replied Krag, still unmoved. “You didn’t ask them to make you captain, you just walked out and condescended to show them a few things about the game. You didn’t put on a uniform and get out and work; you loafed around waiting for them to beg you to help out the team.”

“It isn’t true. You know it isn’t true,” stormed Larry, although he stirred uncomfortably, realizing that Krag was hitting nearer the truth than was comfortable.

“I know you don’t think it is true, Larry,” said the big pitcher kindly. “You don’t know. I believe you dislike that kind of a fellow almost as much as I do—and I’ve been with them for years. I ought to know the symptoms. I hoped you’d escape it, that’s what made me so anxious to see your name in the paper.” Larry maintained a sulky, aggrieved silence.

“The trouble with you, Larry,” said Krag after a long pause, during which he lighted his pipe afresh, “is plain, untrimmed, swelled head.”

“Yes it is,” he said sharply when Larry started to expostulate—“plain, unvarnished, swelled head. I’ve seen too many kids ruined by that disease not to know it—and too many to permit me to keep quiet and let you go wrong from it.

“You went to college thinking you were the big recruit to the baseball ranks. It was natural. You had been the whole thing here on the ranch, boss of everything and used to being obeyed. You were the best player in that little prep school, and bossed the whole works and showed them how the game should be played. Then when you went down to Cascade your feelings were hurt because you weren’t asked to run the team.”

Larry maintained an angry, sullen silence. He was boiling with resentment, outraged, scandalized and shocked at the brutal accusations hurled at him and heaped upon him by the man he had made an idol for years.

“You did feel a little hurt because no one paid much attention to you, didn’t you?”

No answer.

“You did want to play? You would have played in spite of studies, if they had shown the proper respect for your ability, wouldn’t you?”

No reply.

“You didn’t organize that Freshman team out of love for the Freshman team, but with an idea of beating a fellow you didn’t like. Isn’t that true?”

No response, except that Larry shoved his hands more deeply into his pockets and slid lower into his chair.

Krag smoked in silence for a time. Then he arose, knocked the dottle from his pipe, stretched himself and coming nearer, dropped a big hand onto the boy’s shoulder.

“If I didn’t like you so much I wouldn’t tell you these things, Larry,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t know just how you felt, if I hadn’t felt that way myself when I started playing baseball. I don’t want you to make the mistakes I made, or suffer from them the way I did. You know that, don’t you?”

A long silence.

“If—if—if what you say is true,” said Larry hesitatingly, “what ought I do?”

“It is true, isn’t it?”

“There’s a lot of truth in it.”

“Then all you’ve got to do,” said Krag cheerily, “is to treat yourself the way you’d treat one of your players—Benny, the fellow you had the trouble with, for instance. Just go out there, work, and keep your mouth shut. Obey orders, and let others decide whether they are right or wrong.”

“But if Baldwin, and the coach?” Larry hesitated.

“Rot,” said Krag. “Larry—if you’re right, no wrong person can make you wrong. In a college it is the students that decide who is wrong and who is right, just as in a government it is the people. The bosses can run either a ball team or a government for a time—but not with the public watching them—and they watch baseball closer than they do governments in this country.”

Larry Kirkland, filled with new resolutions and abounding with life and spirits after a vacation of work and play, was returning to college determined to recover his lost standing and to win his way.

He and “Gatling” Krag were waiting for the Shasta Flyer to roll down from the North and bear him over the mountains to Cascade College. They had talked of the summer, of the ball games at the ranch, the annual camping trip to Crater Lake Park, and of the hopes and plans for Larry’s success at college.

“Don’t come back without your C, Larry, boy,” said the big ex-pitcher. “Remember, it is more the victory over yourself that counts than the mere making of the team.”

“I’m going to try Bill,” said the boy. “I want to thank you for showing me my mistakes. I guess I was a pretty swelled-headed kid.”

“Was?” asked Krag, laughingly. “It’s all right if it is in the past tense. A fellow has a right to think well of himself if he does not let it blind him.”

At that moment an automobile dashed up to the station platform in a cloud of dust, and turning, they recognized the car as the new one from the Rogue River ranch. They had seen Harry Baldwin driving it at a reckless rate of speed over the roads at intervals during the summer, but Harry Baldwin was not among those who alighted. Two servants were busy removing luggage and checking it, while a slender, graceful girl, pouting and evidently in a bad humor, was standing by the machine, petulently replacing the wind-blown locks of fair hair that had escaped from beneath her motoring cap. The girl was obviously annoyed, and she tapped her foot impatiently upon the platform and gazed up and down as if expecting someone. Larry Kirkland gazed at her in frank admiration. He recognized in her the fair-haired, pretty child who had accompanied Barney Baldwin to Shasta View ranch three years before, to witness the game between the teams of Shasta View and Rogue River ranches. Larry recalled with a sense of hurt that she had applauded the Rogues.

“Chance to start a flirtation on the train, Larry,” said Krag teasingly. “I guess our pretty little friend is going on the train with you. She seems in distress. Why don’t you rush to the rescue and make yourself solid with the fair maiden?”

“Oh, shut up,” said Larry, reddening under the teasing. “I guess I wouldn’t be very welcome as a champion. She is related to the Baldwins, cousin or something of Harry’s, and she probably would snub me.”

“I’ve noticed,” laughed Krag, “that the female of the species is less hateful than the male in these family feuds. Maybe she could influence Harry to let you alone.”

A few moments later the Flyer roared down the valley and Krag gripped the hand of his young friend.

“Good-bye, Larry,” he said. “Don’t quit. Fight it out—you’ll win.”

“Thanks,” said Larry, “I’ll win—if only over myself. Good-bye.”

In spite of his plan, not to pay any attention to the pretty girl, he scarcely had placed his grip in his berth when the opportunity to meet her was forced upon him. She was struggling with several pieces of baggage, and the overloaded porter was helpless. The girl seemed ready to weep from annoyance, as she strove to pass down the aisle to her section.

“May I assist?” asked Larry, quickly observing her plight.

“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed gratefully, as he seized upon her hand baggage and carried it for her. He arranged the baggage, saw her seated, and lifted his cap.

“Thank you, again,” she said, smiling. “It was so annoying. Cousin Harry promised to go with me on this train, and he went away with some friends and failed to appear. I was left to make the trip alone.”

“He is not appreciative of his opportunities,” said Harry, struggling with his first compliment.

“Oh,” she laughed, “Harry still regards me as a child. He never appreciated me—or anyone else, excepting himself.”

“Are you going far?” inquired Larry, after an embarrassing pause.

“To St. Gertrude’s. It is a girl’s school near Cascade. I am to go there because Harry is in Cascade and he is supposed to watch over and protect me.”

“Won’t that be fine?” ejaculated Larry enthusiastically. “I’m in Cascade—perhaps we may see each other occasionally.”

“You a Cascade man?” she asked. “Harry never mentioned any of the Pearton boys”——

“I beg pardon,” said Larry flushing quickly. “I forgot to tell you who I am—— Your cousin and I are—well, we are not friends. I am Larry Kirkland.”

“Larry Kirkland?” she said. “I never heard the name”——

“I’m Major Lawrence’s ward”——

“Oh!” the girl exclaimed.

The tone was a commingling of surprise, consternation and half disappointment.

Larry reddened, and an embarrassing pause ensued.

“I see you have heard of me,” he remarked lamely. “I saw you several years ago.”

“Yes-s,” the girl said hesitatingly. “I have heard Harry speak of you. I remember seeing you—at a baseball game, but you have grown so I did not recognize you.”

“Your cousin and I have not been—well, friends,” he remarked. “So I suppose you have not heard much good concerning me.”

“Oh, as for that,” she said smiling, “Harry and I are not friends either. He is a bear and he treats me as if I were still a child.”

“I do not see why we should be enemies, just because our families are,” remarked Larry, feeling as if he had turned traitor to Major Lawrence when he said it. “It is not our quarrel.”

“No,” she said doubtfully. “You do not seem a bit as Harry said you were. I expect he just told those horrid stories about you because he does not like you.”

“I’m sorry he chooses me as an enemy,” said Larry, remembering Krag’s advice and striving not to permit his temper to be ruffled.

“Harry says he will not let you play on the teams at Cascade,” she replied quickly. “He says the fellows do not like you and will not play if you do.”

“I wasn’t very popular last year,” said Larry, laughing to conceal his embarrassment. “You see I didn’t know them and thought they did not treat me well. I hope it will be better this year.”

In a few moments their embarrassment passed, and the boy and girl chattered away merrily. Larry told of his boy life back in the East, of the death of his parents and Major Lawrence’s kindness in taking him as his own son; of his trip West, and of his meeting with the Giants and Krag the pitcher. Helen Baldwin was sympathetic.

“I can understand,” she said. “My father and mother are poor and we are a large family, so it was hard for papa to give us all he would have liked to. Uncle Barney offered to take me and educate me, so I am much in the same situation that you are—only when Uncle Barney goes East, he takes me, and I visit with my parents, and next summer he is going to bring Bertha, my younger sister, to the ranch as company for me, as Harry and Bob and I do not play well together.”

By bedtime they were fast friends. The feud of the Lawrence and Baldwin families seemed buried so far as they were concerned. And the following morning, when they arrived, Larry Kirkland carried the girl’s baggage to the wagonette that was to take her to St. Gertrude’s and promised that he would call on Thursdays when the girls were allowed visitors.

As the wagonette turned up the avenue he seized his own neglected baggage and springing into a carriage, started for Cascade campus, filled with a new determination to win his C.

Cascade College baseball team was out for the fall practice. Only a few recruits, fellows who had been barred by their studies or by conditions during the regular season, were out with the veterans who, proudly wearing their C’s were tossing balls around the long vacant field. The team had been a failure in its important games, and Coach Haxton, chafing under criticism of the upper classmen and the dearth of interest throughout the college, had decreed that the team must work during the fall until the football men occupied the stage, and he had threatened angrily to replace several of the veterans of the team with youngsters. Yet there had not been a call for recruits to strengthen the team.

It was not customary at Cascade to call baseball volunteers in the fall term, but to issue calls late in the winter term and at the opening of the spring. The games played in the fall were not of importance from a college standpoint. The “big” games against Golden University and St. Mary’s—those that counted in the standing of the rival schools—were playing in the spring. But during the fall and early winter—when the genial climate permitted playing, games were scheduled against the strong teams of the nearby cities, games which tested the ability of the players even more than did those of the championship season; as their opponents usually were the best of the independent amateurs.

It was onto this scene of half-hearted activity that Larry Kirkland came on the crisp, perfect afternoon, followed by Katsura, Winans and Big Trumbull, the heavy-hitting giant who had sided with Larry during his troubles of the preceding spring. The arrival of the quartette on the playing field created something of a sensation among the veterans, who stopped their listless practice and watched them wonderingly. Those close together exchanged puzzled questions as to the meaning of the sudden descent of the leaders of the opposition of the preceding term. Behind the quartette sauntered “Paw” Lattiser, an open book in one hand, a straw hat absent-mindedly held in his mouth. He was bareheaded as usual, and appeared to pay no attention either to the new recruits or to the regulars, who were practicing.

Coach Haxton was standing talking with some of the pitchers and catchers, instructing them as to the way he wanted signals given. He turned quickly as the quartette approached.

“Well?” he asked belligerently, “I suppose you fellows want us to stop practice and let you use the field?”

“No,” said Larry, acting as spokesman. “We came down to offer ourselves for the team, if you need us or can use us.”

Haxton was taken aback by the conciliatory tone of the youth he had considered the ring-leader of the opposition.

“Oh, you’d like to get on the team, eh?” he said harshly. “I suppose you’d like to be captain—or perhaps to coach it?”

A wave of angry resentment at the tone and the words arose within Larry and he struggled to control his growing anger.

“No, sir,” he said. “I’ll try to make the team, if I’m good enough. You see, we did not come out to report last year and you ordered us off the field because we didn’t. Now we report and are ready to try with the others for positions.”

Harry Baldwin, who had been tossing a ball around, came near enough to overhear the conversation. Haxton hesitated.

“Well,” he said, “if you fellows want to take your chances and will obey”——

“We do,” replied Winans; “maybe we weren’t in the right last term. We figure that we owe it to the college to do all we can to help”——

“I guess the college can run without your help,” said Baldwin. “You didn’t appear very anxious to help it last spring.”

“We have just admitted that we believe we were wrong, Baldwin,” said Larry. “It seems to me we are offering whatever we have—and Mr. Haxton is judge of what is best for the team and the school.”

“You seem to think you can win a place on this team as easily as you can one with those niggers and Japs at the ranch,” sneered Baldwin. “You’ll find the decent fellows here will not stand for it—or for you.”

“Hold on, Baldwin, hold on,” remarked Paw Lattiser mildly. “Seems to me, from what I’ve heard, someone else is trying to run things.”

“What have you to do with this, Lattiser?” snapped Haxton, who resented the patronizing calmness of the veteran. “I’m running this team.”

“Well,” replied Lattiser quaintly, “I admit that—although from the last two years’ showing you have little enough to boast about. The point is this: I gave these youngsters some advice last fall; told them they were here to work for the honor of the school and not for their own reputations. I overheard them planning to come and offer their services, so I thought I’d stroll down and see if they were right when they claimed, last year, that they were not wanted.”

“We want players who can play—and are willing to do right,” said Haxton. “We’ve had enough swelled-headed players who think they can run the team.”

“You’re the judge of their ability,” remarked Lattiser. “But it seems to me you’re judging the ability of these four youngsters in rather an off-hand manner, since you’ve never even seen them play. There is a feeling among the students now that the teams are not being chosen with a view to the best results—and if this idea spreads it will not help Cascade as an athletic school—or any other way.”

“Any student is at liberty to try for the team,” assented Haxton sulkily.

“You’re not going to let them”—— Baldwin stopped in the midst of his angry question. He, as well as Haxton, recognized the power of Paw Lattiser over the students, and he checked himself through fear of arousing the placid veteran to action.

“They are at liberty to TRY,” responded Haxton, emphatically. “Come on, you fellows, get to work. We’ve been wasting a lot of time arguing over nothing. You new men get out there in the outfield and chase flies. We’ll soon discover whether or not you can play ball.”

Lattiser stood with a twisted grin on his face. Larry, who had flushed with a rebellious start at the order to chase flies saw the veteran watching him, smiled his thanks and turning raced to catch Katsura, who already was sprinting for the outfield. Lattiser stood for an instant, then strolled away, opening his neglected book.

“The Cascade team is looking up,” he remarked whimsically to himself. “I thought that youngster was going to refuse to go. He is all right—he and that little brown boy.”

“We’re in just as bad a fix as ever, Katty,” remarked Larry as they trotted back, perspiring after pursuing a long hit to the center field fence. “Haxton will not give us a fair chance—but we must keep at it, and keep trying.”

“One of our philosophers says,” replied the little Nipponese, “that he who is in power never is in power long who rules unfairly.”

“Gee,” laughed Larry, “maybe our philosophers say the same thing; but it is hard for me to swallow.”

That evening he wrote a long letter to Krag, detailing the events of the day. He awaited anxiously for four days for the answer, wondering how the big ex-pitcher would look upon his moves and his submission to what he considered unjust treatment.

“You’ve scored in the first inning,” read Krag’s letter. “Just keep plugging away and they can’t keep you down. Don’t criticise any of the other fellows, or offer advice unless it is asked. You are lucky to have three fellows with you. Work with them and let Haxton go his own gait. The guy who isn’t square as a boss soon cooks his own goose.”

“You see,” remarked Katsura laughing as Larry read to him what Krag had written, “you have your philosophers. Mr. Krag says the same thing—in a different way.”

The fall and winter brought little change in the situation, and when the holiday time came, Larry Kirkland found himself barred as completely from the Cascade team as he had been during his Freshman rebellion.

Day after day during the fall, while the team was playing and in training, he reported at the field, toiled at chasing the balls batted to outfielders by the regulars, and during the breathing spells worked with Katsura, Trumbull and Winans. At the first he secretly hoped that coach Haxton would see the injustice of the stand he had taken and permit them to participate in the practice, at least sufficiently to ascertain whether or not they were good enough to play the game. But after the first day, Haxton paid little or no attention to them, save to issue brief orders for them to go to the outfield and catch flies. If one of them dared advance to the infield and occupy a place temporarily vacant, he was sent back with a sharp rebuff. In the hours outside of practice, the ostracised quartette gathered on the lot near their “barracks” and indulged in real practice.

After three weeks of that kind of treatment, Larry found himself in a mood to rebel openly, to tell Haxton and Baldwin what he thought of them and to quit. Only the weekly letter from Krag, praising him for his pluck in sticking to it under trying circumstances, kept him from the move that would have been fatal. He managed to maintain a cheerful demeanor while practicing with the regulars, but occasionally, while with his own chums, he broke out in protests.

“Confound it, fellows,” he remarked one evening, as they rested after an hour of catching and fielding practice on their improvised field, “I don’t want them to think I’m a quitter, or that they can run over us this way. It is getting on Haxton’s nerves to have us come out and pretend that we like being errand boys. He knows we see the weaknesses of his team, and he knows that he is making a big mistake in treating us this way.”

“One of our philosophers says,” remarked Katsura, “that the more evil one does to a foe, the more one hates him.”

“But that isn’t the worst of it,” continued Larry, “I have a guilty feeling all the time that I am doing Cascade a lot of harm myself; that I ought to quit.”

“How do you figure that out?” inquired Winans.

“Haxton and Baldwin do not dislike any of you. They hate me and I have dragged all of you into it because you are my friends. If I’d quit going to the field, he’d soon give you fellows a chance”——

“It’s the principle of the thing, Larry,” said Trumbull. “Now, as for myself, I don’t care a bit whether I play on the team or not. In fact, I’d rather just be lazy and loaf around than get out there and hustle for a place on the team. But I can’t do it. I want to see Cascade get the right system in athletics. If we stick together we’ll soon have the sentiment of the better bunch of fellows with us and with the sentiment of the students behind us”——

“That is the big danger,” interrupted Winans. “If we win by taking control ourselves, we antagonize all the other crowd. There are some decent fellows with them; because they do not understand what the situation is, and they have their friends. Even if the secret societies did get them onto the team, they’re good players. It will not do athletics any good if we merely drive out one faction and put another in control.”

At that juncture Paw Lattiser came around the building, stopped, gazed at them solemnly over the rims of his heavy glasses and remarked:

“Hello, youngsters, plotting again?”

“We were just talking over the athletic situation,” replied Winans, “especially the baseball team.”

“I thought it was about time for me to look up you kids,” said the veteran, seating himself. “I haven’t had time to watch you. What is it, more trouble?”

“Same old trouble,” replied Trumbull ruefully. “We’re all trying for the team, and all we get to do is to chase flies in the outfield.”

“Have you been doing that faithfully?” asked Lattiser earnestly.

“Every afternoon,” replied Winans. “Haxton scolds if we pitch or catch, and I’ve forgotten how a bat feels in my hands. He shoos us out if we get too near the infield”——

“It looks as if he didn’t want you,” remarked Lattiser, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “I thought maybe he would be more of a man. The thing for him to do was either to work you hard, then say you would not do for the team, or else to play fair. He does not seem to have the nerve to do one, or the moral courage to do the other.”

“Yes, but what are we to do about it?” asked Larry quickly.

“My boy, keep on working hard, don’t talk back, don’t give him any opportunity to order you off the field. Meantime, you four are learning just as much baseball and a lot more discipline than you would learn if you were on the team. Leave the rest to Pop. I’ll figure out some way to straighten things out.”

“He’s a queer bird,” laughed Trumbull as Lattiser strolled on, feeling his way with his feet, his eyes fastened upon the pages of his book.

“He is older—and therefore wiser,” said Katsura. “His eyes twinkled when he spoke of finding a way. I think he already has a plan.”

But in spite of Lattiser’s promise to find a way the fall and winter passed without a change in the situation, and the Christmas holidays drew nearer and nearer. Baseball practice had given way to the football squads, and the interest of the students turned to the other games. Practice was abandoned, and training suspended until after the holidays. In spite of this suspended animation on the part of the team, Katsura, Winans and Trumbull worked faithfully at their practice. Only a few days during the winter were severe enough to prevent playing, and they found their work improving steadily. Winans had become a remarkably effective catcher, and when working with Katsura, he seemed to increase the effectiveness of the little brown boy’s pitching. Larry discovered to his surprise that Katsura could prevent him from hitting the ball hard and that he had discovered his “weakness,” which was a sharp curve ball, which “broke” quickly at the front of the plate. Winans, who, in a quiet way, was a tease, delighted in signaling for this ball whenever Katsura pitched two strikes to Larry, and he roared with laughter when it “fooled” the batter. Katsura had mastered the “javelin curve,” and the motion, peculiar as it was, made the ball the more deceptive.

“What’s the use of working so hard?” panted Trumbull one evening. “We haven’t a real chance—and none of the regulars is in training at all.”

“That’s just the idea,” replied Winans. “I’m not bubbling over with delight at the idea of working hard an hour a day—but we are fighting for a chance to make good, and we’d be nice lobsters if we fell down when we got the chance.”

So the practice work continued steadily through the winter term. Twice a month, on evenings when callers were permitted, Larry Kirkland rode to St. Gertrude’s and called upon Helen Baldwin. The girl seemed delighted to receive him, and chattered bewitchingly during the hour he was permitted to remain with her in the parlors. By silent consent they had banished the topic of the enmity between the families. Several times Helen asked him what Harry was doing, and complained that he seldom came to see her, and that she was lonely.

Both were planning their Christmas vacations, and Larry was disappointed when she received word that her uncle would stop for her and take her East for the holidays. Krag had written, planning a deer-hunting trip into the mountains, and at the prospect of the hunt, Larry rushed through the remaining weeks of the term, and with a much lighter heart boarded the train for Shasta View. He felt that he had conquered himself and gained a great victory, even though he had failed to make the team.