sisters just a while ago. Her name is
Mollie. Dave Branham, you will recall, is
her sweetheart. The other big sister had
to stay at home with her mother and little
Cindy, who's sick. Of course, I didn't ask
them about Mart--the Wild Dog. They
knew I knew and they wouldn't have liked
it. The Wild Dog's around, I understand,
but he won't dare show his face. Every
policeman in town is on the lookout for
him.'' I thought the Blight's face showed
a signal of relief.

``I'm going to play short-stop,'' I added.

``Oh!'' said the Blight, with a smile,
but the little sister said with some scorn:

``You!''

``I'll show you,'' I said, and I told the
Blight about base-ball at the Gap. We
had introduced base-ball into the region
and the valley boys and mountain boys,
being swift runners, throwing like a rifle
shot from constant practice with stones,
and being hard as nails, caught the game
quickly and with great ease. We beat them
all the time at first, but now they were
beginning to beat us. We had a league