Rival Pitchers of Oakdale | Page 9

like to see Barville win."
"If that is the case," whispered Roberts, with a secretively friendly and confidential air, "you're just about dead sure to have your desire gratified. We'll have the finest high school battery ever seen in these parts. Got a new catcher, you know."
"No. I didn't know."
"Yep. He's a corker. Knows the game from A to Z, and he's coaching Sanger. You should see them work together. By the way, he comes from a town near Boston. Part of the city, isn't it--Roxbury? He knows more baseball than any fellow in these parts."
"What's his name?" asked Rackliff, lighting a fresh cigarette.
"Copley."
"What?" exclaimed Herbert, nearly dropping his cigarette. "Not Newt Copley?"
"That's him."
"Great scott! Say, he is a catcher. He's the trickiest man who ever went behind a bat. I know, for I've seen him play. He knows me, too. Say, isn't it odd that I should have a chum pitching for Wyndham this year and an acquaintance catching for Barville?"
The face of Len Roberts wore a look of satisfaction.
"Of course, we haven't seen Cop in a real game yet, but he brought his credentials with him, and they were sufficient to satisfy everybody that he was the real thing. Glad to meet somebody who knows about him. With Sanger handing 'em up, and Cop doing the receiving, you can bet Barville is going to take a fall out of Oakdale."
"I'd like to bet on it," said Herbert, with a touch of eagerness; "but I don't suppose I could find anybody down around here with sporting blood enough to risk any real money on the game. Say, do me a favor; tell Newt Copley that Herbert Rackliff is here in this town. He'll remember the fellow they called 'the plunger,' and 'the dead-game sport.' Even if I don't play baseball, I've sometimes made a few easy dollars betting on the games."
"And you'd bet against Oakdale?"
"Sure thing, if I felt certain she would lose."
"I'm afraid," grinned Roberts, "that neither you nor Hooker is very loyal to his school."
"Loyal!" snarled Roy. "Why should we be?"
"When it comes to wagering money," observed Rackliff wisely, "the fellow who bets on sympathy or loyalty is a chump. I always back my judgment and try to use some common sense about it. I hope you don't think for a fleeting moment that I contemplate finishing my preparatory school education in this stagnant hole. Not for little Herbert. I'd get paresis here in less than a year. I'm pretty sure the governor simply chucked me down here for a term, as sort of a warning. I'll go back for good when the term's over."
"Well, now if you fellows really want to see Oakdale surprised, and enjoy the pleasure of witnessing Barville hand 'em a good trimming, perhaps you won't say anything about our new catcher."
"Not a word," promised Hooker.
"Not a whisper," assured Rackliff. "And perhaps I'll catch a sucker or two if I fish around for them. Really, the prospect is inviting, for it seems to promise a break in the deadly monotony."
"Here come some of the fellows now," said Hooker, as two or three boys were seen coming down Lake Street. "Practice is over. Let's sift along, Rack. I don't care to see them. So long, Len. Good luck to you."
"So long, fellows," said the boy from Barville, as they turned up Main Street. "You'll have a chance to be happy Saturday. Bet all you can on it, Rackliff, old fel."
CHAPTER V.
HOOKER'S MOTORCYCLE.
Thus began the friendship between Roy Hooker and Herbert Rackliff. Henceforth they were seen together a great deal. They came out to watch the nine practice, but Hooker no longer wore his baseball suit, and he sat on the bleachers with Herbert, the two talking together in guarded tones. No one paid much attention to them, for most of the boys held very decided opinions, which were far from favorable, of a chap who would show the disposition Hooker had so plainly betrayed; and Rackliff had never revealed an inclination to seek popularity among his schoolmates.
Roy was the owner of a second-hand motorcycle, which his father had given him at Christmas time, a present that had filled him with keen delight and intense satisfaction, in the knowledge that it would cause him to be envied by less fortunate lads. It was necessary, however, to tinker a great deal over the machine to keep it in running order, and the joshing flung at him by the Oakdale lads whenever he had a breakdown had been anything but balm to his irritable nature.
"Confound the thing!" he cried, after fussing with it a long time one night, while Rackliff, his creased trousers carefully pulled up to prevent bagging at the knees, sat on a box near by, in the open door of the carriage house, smoking cigarettes.