“Unless, finally, we ride to our deaths,” laughed Tom.

“What of it?” challenged Dick.  “That wouldn’t be defeat.  The man who rides to death in the search for victory has won.  He has carried the winning spirit with him to the very finish.  Or else the history we’ve been studying at school is all a mess of lies.”

“There’s a lot in that idea,” nodded Dave thoughtfully.

“There’s more in it every time that you think of it,” Dick contended.

Thus Dick was starting, in Dick & Co., the never-give-up spirit which made them almost invincible later as High School boys.

Wednesday and Thursday were days filled with eagerness for the Central Grammar boys.  The members of the baseball squad were not by any means the only ones on tenterhooks.  Every boy in the upper grades of the school was waiting impatiently to learn who would be the winners of the championship.

Somewhat to the astonishment of the Central Grammar boys Captain Dick, on Wednesday afternoon, gave his team only a brief half hour of diamond practice.  Thursday afternoon they didn’t play at all.  Instead, the nine and its subs. went off on a tramp through the woods.

“What we want to-morrow above all,” Dick explained, as he marshaled his forces, “is steady nerves.  There’s nothing like a good walk in the cool and shady spots for tuning up a schoolboy’s nerves for an ordeal.  A walk is good whether you’re facing an exam. or a championship game.”

“May the rest of us go with you!” called one of the Central boys outside the squad.

“We can’t stop you,” Dick replied, “but we’d rather you let the ball squad go by itself.”

“All right, then,” cried three or four.  The fourteen of the squad marched away, unhampered by any followers.

Once outside the town and halted under a grove of trees, Dick turned to his teammates.

“Fellows,” he said quietly, “I believe some of you have been anxious to know what the man on the clubhouse steps said.”

“It’s coming, at last!” gasped Tom Reade.  “Well, let us hear what the man on the clubhouse steps said.  It must be one of the choice pieces of wisdom of all the ages.”

“It is,” Dick replied quietly.

“Then let us hear shouted Dave.

“Not now,” Prescott answered, shaking his head solemnly.  “But, fellows, you win to-morrow’s game and you shall all hear just what the man on the clubhouse steps said.”

“Win?” retorted Tom Reade.  “Dick Prescott, with a bribe like that before us, we’re bound to win!  We couldn’t do anything else.”

Then they went further into the woods.  Dick had brought his players here in search of peace, quiet and nerve rest.  Had he had even one prophetic glimpse of what was ahead of some of them that afternoon it would have been far better to have remained in town.

Chapter XIII

“Big Injun—–­Heap big noise”