_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.