Chapter IX A Challenge
They chose a pretty cove, half way along the northern shore of the island, where there was a little beach but where the water deepened quickly so that the Spoondrift could be moored inshore. With her centerboard raised, her draught was small.
“We should have a tender, King, just as I said,” Red Phillips declared. “What’s the good of a fellow getting wet to his waist every time he wants to ’board ship?”
“Hold your horses, you scarlet pimpernel,” requested Rex. “Maybe this isn’t the only water vehicle we’ll have. The summer’s young yet.”
“And you’re fresh,” growled Red. “Pimpernel, indeed! I’m a healthy looking roadside flower.”
“We might have kept one of those canoes,” suggested Peewee, with one of his impish grins.
“I don’t want anything to do with them or their canoes,” Midkiff announced. “I’ve a mighty poor opinion of that gang.”
“Here, too,” said Red. “I’ve a notion they’re not going to be good neighbors.”
“They promised,” Hicks observed seriously.
“What’s a promise to fellows like them?” growled he of the auburn hair.
“What do you know about them, Reddy?” Kingdon asked. “Jumping at conclusions, aren’t you?”
“If a dog shows his teeth I take it for granted he can bite,” was the prompt reply. “I don’t have to go up to him and put my hand in his mouth to make sure.”
“True, true, Carrots. And quite philosophical. You are improving.”
Suddenly, Cloudman appeared from the wood that covered the heights of the island behind the camping place. He came scrambling down toward the tent that had already been set up and secured.
“Here comes the P.L.,” said Phillips, squinting up at the lank Western youth.
“What’s that?” asked Midkiff. “‘P.L.’—pretty lucky? He’s missed most of the work.”
“Principal Loafer,” explained Red. “And my hands are sore tugging at those guy-ropes.”
“You said something,” agreed Hicks. “Cloudman’s a regular pet, isn’t he? He’s too strong for work.”
“He’s got a bad wing, and you know it,” Kingdon put in admonishingly. “Don’t want him to make it worse. He’s had a lame arm ever since that chap from Winchester—the one that nicked Henderson’s brother for his roll—hit Cloud with a club. I told him to go easy.”
“How about me?” growled Midkiff. “That same fellow took a twist at my arm, too. If he’d been trying to break up our nine so Winchester could win the pennant, that scoundrel couldn’t have done better.”
“But you showed ’em, Middy, in the last game—didn’t he, fellows?” cried Peewee. “You put the starch into those last few innings, believe me!”
“And near ruined your arm,” said Kingdon, eyeing his roommate with lazy pride. “I’ve got a couple of cripples on my hands. That’s why I was particularly anxious for you and Applejack to come on this cruise, Midkiff.”
“How’s that?” asked the Colorado lad, landing suddenly with a crash beside them.
“Want you both to get into A-1 shape by fall. We’ll have a series to play off in September and October, and you two fellows must be able to do your very best on the mound.”
“How ’bout Henderson?”
“Hen’s promised to keep in trim, too. Walcott is mighty weak in its pitching staff. We’ve got three—three, mind you! And we ought to have half a dozen good twirlers.”
“Don’t you suppose any of those fellows Stanley Downs was nursing along on the scrub nines will develop, Rex?” Red Phillips asked anxiously.
His place was fixed in the infield, but Red was thoroughly loyal to old Walcott. Indeed, it had been his scouting for athletic material that had brought Rex Kingdon to the school.
“About as much chance of the coach developing a comer out of that bunch as you have of developing a love for mathematics, Sunset,” responded Rex.
“There isn’t a natural born pitcher among ’em, and if there’s no natural talent, what can we expect of the coach? It isn’t his fault.”
“I’m going right to work with John and Applejack, here. If there’s a level spot on this whole island——”
“I’ve found it,” interposed Cloudman.
“Eh?”
“Found just the place. Right on the top of this hill. Big enough for a three-ring circus.”
“Fine!” Kingdon exclaimed. “Let’s have dinner and a nap, and then go up and look it over. If we could get those chaps over there into it, we could have a half decent ball game—all positions filled and somebody to rap out a few.”
“Oh, prunes!” grunted Red. “They don’t look as though they could play beanbag.”
“Don’t you get attached to that idea so that you can’t be pried loose, old man,” Kingdon advised. “That tall fellow looks good to me.”
They had drawn lots and it had fallen to Rex to get dinner, with Phillips to assist. Hunger urged them to prepare a “bounteous repast,” but neither of the cooks would ever win a medal from the Association of Chefs, and Peewee so declared.
“If it wasn’t for the canned beans, this layout would be a frost,” croaked that diminutive critic. “Who couldn’t warm over beans? Is that dish going to be about all we get our teeth clamped on this week?”
“I’ll try some flapjacks for supper,” promised Phillips.
Cloudman grinned. “Ever make any?” he asked.
“No. But we’ve got a cook at home that makes ’em fine.”
“What are you going to make ’em out of?”
“There’s a package of flapjack flour. All you got to do is to mix ’em up and fry ’em, I s’pose.”
“The directions say, ‘Mix with buttermilk,’” chuckled Applejack.
“Huh!”
“Oh, my!” chortled Peewee. “Where you going to get buttermilk, Red?”
“We got canned milk and butter. Can’t we combine ’em and make buttermilk? Nothing to it!”
“Listen to that!” cried Midkiff. “This red-headed lunatic will poison us before he gets through.”
“Wish we’d hired an Injun to cook for us, same as that other crowd have,” Cloudman said.
“Not a bad idea,” Peewee agreed patronizingly. “You’re pretty near as wild as any Indian, Cloud. I move you be made permanent cook.”
“Like fun!” said the Colorado youth. “I cooked all the way over in that boat. No more.”
“What do you know about this, Red?” Rex said. “Mutiny, hey?”
“And the worst kind,” agreed Phillips. “It’s a great deal worse to mutiny against the cook than against the skipper and other officers.”
“Here we have both forms of the iniquity. What, ho! call the guard! Sentinels to their places! Let the pork and cabbage fall—I mean the portcullis! I sentence the entire mutinous gang to sharp practice at three o’clock. Let the dishes alone, Red, till later. I hanker for forty winks. Talk as you please, fellows, canned beans are filling.”
The island, which had been steaming all the morning after the rain, was beginning to cool off by three o’clock. The five Walcott Hall lads climbed the stiff hill to the hidden lawn, and were delighted with it. It was not long before they discovered that others had been ahead of them.
“Those interlopers, I suppose,” Midkiff said, sniffing.
“Here’s where they laid out their diamond,” said Hicks. “Home plate, first base, third. Yonder’s second. Looks like the real thing.”
“And the box,” Cloudman said, stepping into place, vigorously swinging his arm the while. “Somebody’s pitched ball from here, Kingdon, that’s sure.”
“And now you’re going to pitch some,” Rex told him, adjusting his mitt. “See if you can put something on it, Wild-and-Woolly.”
Cloudman’s performance pleased him. Midkiff was taking his turn on the mound when there was a sudden sound of voices in the wood behind the catcher’s station. The Walcott lads turned to see the crowd from the other camp appear.
“Oh, see who’s here!” murmured Hicks.
The four approached the spot where Midkiff was shooting them over. Kirby swung his catcher’s mask and mitt while Pence juggled a couple of balls. Pudge trudged behind the scowling Ben Comas, bearing the bats.
“Hoh!” grunted Ben. “What did I tell you? These prep. school fellows have grabbed our place. You might have known it.”
Rex put up his hand to stop Midkiff in the middle of his wind-up, and looked over his shoulder.
“Why don’t you keep a dog and let him do the growling for you?” he asked Comas. “Any crime in our tossing a few here? ’Bout the only level spot on the island—what?”
“It’s our place,” said Ben, weakly.
“I don’t suppose you mean to camp here all day?” Pence said lazily. Then to Ben: “There’s time enough. Let ’em go ahead with their practice,” he added, patronizingly. “Let’s see what they can do.”
Phillips, who had got up from his seat in the shade, sat down again, with a grunt. Pence threw himself beside the red-haired youth. Midkiff scowled, but took the signal from Kingdon.
“Sure,” the latter flung at Pence with a laugh. “There’s nothing secret about this warming up. Now, old man, put something on it.”
Midkiff whipped in a fast one, but it was wide.
“Very bad,” said Horace Pence, pleasantly.
“Rather,” agreed Kirby.
“They didn’t like that one, Jawn,” Rex Kingdon said sadly. “Didn’t think so much of it myself. Try again.”
In a regular game John Midkiff could stand the chaffing of the enemy pretty well, but the remarks of these strangers, looking on at practice, seemed to fret him. He tried to curve his ball, and made a mess of it. Kirby laughed. Pence drawled:
“Strike one—not!”
Even Pudge MacComber giggled at the next one, it was so wild. Midkiff turned to glare at the group.
“Look out, Horrors!” Kirby said to Pence. “He’s going to bean you.”
“If he did,” said Red Phillips, “old Kid Horrors would certainly have something in his bean beside atmospheric pressure. He’d have a dent in it.”
“Never mind the remarks from the side lines, Jawn,” Rex found it necessary to say. “Keep your mind on that spherical object in your lily white hand. Let’s do something with it. Now——”
He signaled again, and squatted to get the drop he had called for. Midkiff, steadied as he usually was by the captain’s voice, sent in one that fairly grooved the pan.
“Bravo!” acclaimed Pence. “Quite pretty. But no speed.”
Kingdon would not let his roommate use all his speed. Midkiff had not been using his arm much for a fortnight, and there was a reason for petting it a little. After a few more passes, Harry Kirby said impatiently:
“You fellers make me ill. Stop throwing kisses at each other, and let a real man pitch.”
“I’d like to catch for a real swift ball tosser,” Rex said meekly.
“Believe me, you’d think you were doing it if you tried to hold Horrors.”
“Is he good as all that?” queried Kingdon, picking a rather wild one of Midkiff’s out of the air.
“He is,” declared Kirby.
“Maybe I couldn’t hold him,” Rex said gently.
“You’d know you’d been catching something when you got through,” the other laughed sneeringly.
Kingdon looked quizzically over at the silent Pence.
“You’ve got a good booster,” he said. “Wish you’d show me a few.”
“Oh, I can wait my turn,” Pence drawled.
“No time like the present. Come on in, Mid. Our friend here is going to show us something fancy.”
“Think you can hold me, do you?” asked Pence.
“I can try,” Rex rejoined modestly.
“I’ve heard you think yourself the real thing,” said Pence, rising languidly as the scowling Midkiff came in.
“Put ’em anywhere within reach and I’ll grab at ’em,” Rex promised.