Besides, Don had something to worry about just then, something so acute that it could not be shared with another worry.  His pitching was undergoing violent assault.  He was sure he had plenty of stuff on the ball.  Nevertheless, the rival team was lacing his best efforts to all parts of the field.

The end of the game returned him a loser.

“Can’t win them all,” Ted Carter said philosophically.  “They seemed to hit everything today, Tim, didn’t they?”

“Everything,” said Tim.  He took his sweater from the bench and started for home.

Don had a notion to follow.  Instead, after a moment, he walked off with several of the players.  So long as Tim was losing his scrappiness, what was the use of fussing over him?  Probably by tomorrow, or Monday, whatever was biting him would have stopped, and he would come around to discuss the ifs of the contest, and the what-might-have-happened.  It occurred to Don, vaguely, that he had not yet heard Tim say a word about what had happened at Lonesome Woods.

Tim did not come around—­neither on Monday nor Tuesday.  Wednesday Don met him at the field for the regular mid-week practice.

“Where have you been keeping yourself, Tim?”

“No place.”

“You haven’t been around since—­”

“No,” Tim broke in bitterly, “and I’m not coming around.  Nobody can make a booby out of me twice.”

Don’s face sobered.  This wasn’t the Tim of passing moods.  This was more like the blustering Tim who had once overawed the Wolf patrol.

“Who made a boob of you?”

“You did.  Oh, don’t look so innocent; you can’t work it the second time.  Take me for a partner.  Then, if anything went wrong in the contest, everybody would say that Don Strong couldn’t have made a mistake—­oh, no.  It must have been Tim Lally because he’s always queering things.  And they did say it!”

“Who did?”

“Ritter.  ‘Too bad you made those mistakes, Tim.’  I ought to have whanged him one in the eye.  How did he know whether I made any mistakes?”

Gone was Don’s thought that Tim would be all right in a day or so.  If this firebrand scout convinced himself that he had been tricked, and if he kept thinking so—­

“You’ve got this wrong,” Don cried.  “I—­”

“Sure I’ve got it wrong,” Tim mocked.  His voice changed wrathfully.  “But I didn’t have the message wrong, and don’t you forget it.  I know my code.  I sent the message right.  Do you think I’d send an e for a v?”

“Do you think I wouldn’t know an e?” Don asked.

Tim was staggered.  He hadn’t thought of that—­that an e would be as simple to Don, receiving, as it would be to him, sending.

“Aw!” he said recklessly, “it’s a trick.  You can’t fool me again.  If you’re going to pitch, get busy, else I’ll go home.”

Don pitched.  He decided that there was no use in arguing with Tim now.  Besides, he wanted time to think.