CHAPTER XXI

_Temptation_

The next week was one of worry and apprehension for Larry Kirkland. He had feared, most of all, that he would arouse the enmity of some of the candidates when he reduced the size of the squad, but to his surprise he found this task easy. In the first three days more than half of the candidates voluntarily retired, discovering for themselves that they were not expert enough to hope to replace the others. Larry was compelled to issue an order that all candidates who desired to retire from the squad consult with him before quitting, for he feared losing some promising material because the players might grow discouraged, or think themselves poorer players than they really were. By the end of the first week, the squad was reduced to eighteen players, and after careful study, Larry chose his first team. The team was made up of Trumbull, cf; Winans, catcher; Katsura and Arksall, pitchers; Torney, 1b; Jacobs, 2b; Wares, ss; Allen rf; Dalmores, cf.

Larry had appealed to Krag for assistance in choosing his men and for the first time the big ex-pitcher had refused, declaring that from that time on Larry must exercise his own judgment, but warning him against “playing favorites.”

Of the team chosen, only Jacobs had elected to take a stand against Larry’s theories. He did not actively oppose the captain in anything, but constantly obeyed orders with a half-sneering smile, or a side remark directed to some other player, that told, more plainly than words, his idea that Larry’s plan of playing ball was wrong. The attitude of Jacobs, more than anything else, served to harass and annoy the young captain. He hesitated to force an open rupture, yet realized that the behavior of Jacobs was having a bad effect upon the team in general. He ignored the contemptuous looks and laughs for several days.

“I’ve got to do something about Jacobs,” he said to Clark. “He is against everything I do, and he is not getting into the spirit of the team.”

“That fraternity crowd is not back of him,” said Clark. “I’ve noticed that they seem well pleased at your selection of players. They’ve got half the squad. The old sporty crowd seems to be backing him up. If I were you, I’d read the riot act to him, and, if he don’t want to play, tie a can to him.”

The crisis came that same afternoon. Larry had been working with the pitchers at one side of the field, and the regular team was supposed to be at fielding practice on the diamond. Larry, running back to take his turn at bat, saw Jacobs loafing near the bench, in earnest conversation with Harry Baldwin.

“Oh, Jacobs, why aren’t you on the job?” he called.

“I’m talking to a friend,” replied Jacobs sneeringly and not moving to resume practice.

Larry, boiling inwardly, stood still an instant, striving to master his anger. Then he walked toward the pair.

“Baldwin,” he said quickly, “if you will not help the team please do not interrupt the practice.”

“You can’t order me off this field,” retorted Baldwin angrily. “I came here to talk business to Jacobs.”

“His business right now is playing ball,” said Larry steadily. “You have no right here unless you come in uniform as a candidate for the team. I learned that lesson myself—and I believe you were one of the teachers.”

He smiled bitterly at the recollection of the time Haxton had ordered him off the field.

“A fine chance I’d have to make the team with you captain,” sneered Baldwin.

“Just the same chance any one else would have, if you are the best player in the position,” retorted Larry. “The idea is to make a ball club—not to promote friendship.”

“I can play as well as any one here can,” retorted Harry, sullenly defiant.

“Then get out and prove it,” retorted Larry quickly. “Jake, we’ve wasted a lot of time. Get out there at second and we’ll try working that double play.”

He played abstractedly and missed several chances to make plays during the three-inning practice game with which they wound up the daily practice.

“I’ve done the right thing, I’m sure,” he muttered to himself as he dressed. “But it looks as if I had merely made more trouble for myself.”

It was his evening to call at St. Gertrude’s, and the trouble he had feared commenced to materialize more rapidly than he expected. He found Helen Baldwin nervous and excited. Her fair face was flushed and the dark rings around her pretty eyes indicated that she had been weeping.

“Oh, Larry,” she exclaimed, “I have been so upset. I wanted to see you. I’ve had such a dreadful time.”

“Haven’t they been treating you well here?” asked Larry, remembering the complaints the girl had uttered of the treatment she said was accorded her by some of the teachers.

“It isn’t Miss Hazlett this time,” she said. “It’s Cousin Harry. Oh, he is simply dreadful. Every time he comes here he scolds me just terribly because you are my friend. He was here to-day, and he told me if I allowed you to call any more he’d write Uncle Barney, and tell him, oh, dreadful tales about me.”

“That is funny,” reflected Larry. “Harry came to the grounds this afternoon and I invited him to join the team. I hoped we might at least quit quarrelling.”

“Did you do that? Oh, I’m so glad you did! Maybe he will not write Uncle Barney.”

“What did he threaten to tell? I’m sure he could not tell anything that would do any harm.”

“Oh you do not know! Harry is horrible! He threatened to write that I have been breaking bounds and going riding with you and other fellows, and he knows how Uncle Barney dislikes Mr. Lawrence, so he just wants to make trouble.”

“Why,” Larry exclaimed indignantly, “I never have seen you outside of this room—he surely wouldn’t write such a lie as that.”

The girl pretended to weep, dabbing at her eyes. She concealed the fact that she, with two of the girls had broken the rules and gone automobile riding with three of the town boys, and that Miss Hazlett had discovered the fact. She cunningly led Larry to believe that Harry Baldwin’s entire tirade of threats had been caused by her friendship for him.

“I’m so glad you and Harry are going to make up and that he can play on that old team,” she said, smiling as she dried her eyes with a bit of lace. “He seems to think that is more important than anything. Maybe he won’t tell those awful tales about me if you let him play. I wanted to ask you to deny them if he wrote Uncle Barney.”

“Of course I’ll deny them,” he answered stoutly. “It’s a muckerish trick to talk that way about a girl. As for playing on the team; he isn’t on it yet. He’ll have to win his place.”

“He said you wouldn’t give him a fair chance,” she replied. “He is just as furious with you as he is with me.”

An hour later Larry Kirkland bade her good-night. His mind was strangely excited as he walked slowly through the drives on the lawn and set forth for the long walk back to his rooms on the campus at Cascade. He was fighting a battle with himself.

He could make a place for Harry Baldwin on the team and, at one stroke he could end the constant warfare with that element of the students that had opposed him from the first. He could put an end to Harry Baldwin’s opposition to everything he did or tried to do. Better, he told himself, he could protect Helen Baldwin from the malice of her cousin and earn her closer friendship—a friendship which was coming to mean more and more to him every day.

It would not be hard. Baldwin was a fair ball player. The team needed a stronger shortstop, and Baldwin, he thought, could be trained to play that position well. No one would object, excepting perhaps little Wares—Wares was a poor batter, although clever and fast in defense. It might be a good move.

Larry was approaching the campus, still fighting the battle in his own mind. As he entered the wide avenue, bordered with eucalyptus trees, he looked far up the arcade of gentle swaying trees to the gray tower on the main building, now lighted by the rising moon. He stood a moment awed by the solemn quietness. As he gazed toward the mass of gray buildings he again felt the spirit of the college stir within him. No, if Baldwin played on the team, he would earn his place. The good of the school; the honor of Cascade in baseball had been entrusted to him, and he would not compromise it to gain—even Helen Baldwin.

Having made the decision, Larry Kirkland walked rapidly through the darkened campus, paused an instant to yell a greeting at Mike, the Professor of Lawnology, who attended to the lawns and watched for predatory students, and so to his rooms. He had won his hardest battle.