CHAPTER XVIII

_Larry Gets Some Facts_

Bill Krag refused to regard Larry’s disappointment over being debarred from the Cascade College team as a professional as a serious matter. He listened to Larry’s long tale of his wrongs with a smiling face, and when the story was done he threw back his great head and roared with laughter. Larry, who had just arrived from college for the long vacation, was hurt and sought refuge in sullen silence.

“Buck up, Larry boy,” he counseled. “I know it’s tough, but ten years from now you’ll sit down and wonder why you thought it amounted to anything.”

“I expected you, at least, to sympathize with me,” pouted Larry.

“Say,” laughed Krag, “if it’s sympathy you’re looking for you’ll find it a scarce article. As a matter of fact, I’m glad it happened.”

Larry stiffened angrily and bit his lip.

“I’ll tell you why,” said Krag more seriously. “It’s what you need. You’re getting better experience at college than most boys do. The experience is better than the honors you could win playing ball. You’d forget the honors in three or four years, and you’ll never forget this experience. You’re learning in school what you’ll get up against as soon as you get out”——

“But it isn’t square,” protested Larry.

“If you’re going to kick on everything that isn’t square in this world you’ll go through life kicking,” retorted Krag, grinning. “The thing to do is to get proof that you’re not a professional, then go back and show them you are all right by taking your medicine and still remaining loyal.”

But Major Lawrence, on his return home, did not view the matter from Krag’s viewpoint. He flared into hot rage at the injustice of the attack upon his ward, and declared he would withdraw all his donations from Cascade, and teach that faculty a lesson. When he heard that Harry Baldwin was suspected of furnishing the Golden University committee, through Wallace, with the information, he grew purple in the face, and stormed around the bungalow, declaring war on the entire tribe of Baldwins. His outburst against Barney Baldwin and his son made Larry Kirkland squirm uneasily, for he had an engagement to call upon Helen Baldwin at Rogue River ranch that evening and he had hesitated to mention that fact to Major Lawrence, fearing an outburst.

Larry felt that it was his duty to speak to Major Lawrence of his intention, but the fierce denunciation of the Baldwins by the major had caused him to delay the announcement and when, after dinner, he had completed his toilet, while Krag rolled upon the bed and made facetious remarks and guesses as to the identity of his inamorata, the major had driven away to a distant part of the ranch, Larry, taking a light runabout wagon drove straight toward Rogue River ranch, secretly relieved at having escaped the ordeal.

He had expected, and rather dreaded, meeting Harry Baldwin or his father, but after the brown boy had taken charge of his horse, he was greeted by Helen Baldwin, who invited him to sit with her on the wide veranda of the rather pretentious house.

“I invited you to come this evening,” she laughed, “because Uncle Barney and Cousin Harry have gone to Portland and I feared it might be embarrassing to you to meet them.”

“That was thoughtful,” he replied, smiling. “I’m afraid I might not be considered a welcome guest.”

“I was thinking of myself, too,” she laughed. “Harry would be furious if he knew you were calling on me. He seems to think he is my guardian.”

They chatted for a time of school, of the events of commencement week, and finally the conversation turned to athletics.

“I was so disappointed at not seeing you play with Cascade,” she said brightly. “I was there with a crowd of the academy girls. I told them I had a friend on the team, and we all wore Cascade colors, excepting Sue. She knows a man who plays on Golden, so she wore his colors. We looked all over the field for you. Why didn’t you play?”

“I am off the team,” he remarked, striving to avoid the subject. “I was sitting in the stands. I saw you, but you were way across the field and there was such a jam I could not reach you to speak to you.”

“I don’t understand,” she persisted. “Harry said you would not play, but you said you would. Did you let him play because I asked you to do it?”

“No,” he said. “I intended to play, but they would not let me.”

“Harry was right then?” she exclaimed. “He said they wouldn’t”——

“When did he say that?”

“Oh, some time before the game. You know I told you he had invited a girl to see him play, and he said he had to play because she was coming.”

“Did he say how he would keep me from playing?” Larry’s tone was strained, as he strove to control his rising anger.

“No—yes—I didn’t understand, but he said something about some rule, only he was afraid Mr. Lawrence would come down and deny what he said.”

“Did you happen to tell him that Mr. Lawrence was going away?” he inquired, striving to make the question sound innocent.

“Why, yes—I believe I did tell him. Yes—I remember now. He said that was good, and that the old crank could not make any more trouble.”

Larry flushed at hearing Major Lawrence called an old crank, but concealed his indignation. He had not as yet secured all the information he wanted.

“By the way,” he remarked presently, “is Harry still friendly with Wallace, the Golden pitcher?”

“Oh, yes, they are great friends. I thought it was mean of Mr. Wallace not to let Harry hit the ball, didn’t you? I was so excited. Harry was mad at Mr. Wallace after the game, and he growled at all of us during dinner. He was mad at Mr. Haxton, too.”

“I thought he and Haxton were great friends,” remarked Larry, who was getting more information than he expected.

“They were, but Mr. Haxton was just hateful to Harry, Harry says. He loaned Mr. Haxton a lot of money—and then Mr. Haxton turned against him.”

“Thank you,” said Larry quietly. “Let’s change the subject and talk of pleasanter things.”

Half an hour later, as he drove away from the lights of the Baldwin ranch house, he was so deeply engrossed in patching together the circumstances of his expulsion from the team with the things the girl, in her ignorance of the game, had revealed, that he roused himself just in time to jerk the horse to one side of the road as a big touring car flashed past. In that flash he recognized Harry Baldwin at the wheel. He smiled bitterly.

“I just escaped in time,” he muttered to himself. “If I had met him”——

He whistled softly to himself as he hastened the gait of the horse and turned toward Shasta View.

“Hello, Larry, where have you been?” shouted Major Lawrence from the shadows of the piazza as Larry tossed the reins to the waiting Chinese boy and leaped from the runabout.

“I’ve been over to Baldwin’s ranch,” Larry replied quickly, determined to have it over with.

“I thought you would,” replied the Major, chuckling.

Larry, who had expected an outburst of wrath, was taken aback.

“Did you see the cub?” asked Major Lawrence.

“He wasn’t at home,” replied Larry. “He nearly ran me down on the road as I came home.”

“See Barney Baldwin?”

“No; he and Harry have been in Portland.”

“Then you didn’t get any satisfaction from them?”

“No, Uncle Jim. I didn’t go to see them in the first place. But I found out enough—more than enough.”

He quickly related what he had learned from Helen Baldwin, how Harry Baldwin had timed his attack and planned to strike when proof could not be obtained; how he had used Wallace in preferring the charges, and how, by loaning money to Haxton, he had placed the coach in a position where he was compelled to aid in the scheme, or at least could not oppose Baldwin.

“I’ll see about this,” stormed the Major. “I’ll clean out the whole kit and caboodle of them. That whelp Baldwin cannot run things to suit himself.”

He trailed off into a spasm of denunciation of the Baldwins. Larry realized that, in his anger, Major Lawrence had entirely overlooked the significant fact that Larry had gone to the Baldwins to call upon Helen and he felt guilty, as he had deceived his friend and benefactor.