Dink did not have to move a step; in fact, the ball rose and fell straight for the massive mitt as though it had chosen his glove from all the other gloves in the field. It came slowly, endlessly, the easiest, gentlest, most perfect fly imaginable, directly for the large brown mitt that looked like a chest protector.
[Illustration: BEHIND HIM, PELL-MELL, SHRIEKING AND MURDEROUS--CAME THE VANQUISHED.]
Stover, turned to stone, saw it strike fair in the middle, and then, irresistibly, slowly, while, horribly fascinated, he stood powerless, slowly trickle over the side of the mitt and drop to the ground.
Dink did not stop for a look, for a second thought, to hesitate or to deliberate. He knew! He gave a howl and broke for the House, and behind him, pell-mell, shrieking and murderous, like a pack of hounds in full cry, came the vanquished, thirsting body of the Green.
He cleared the fence with one hand, took the road with two bounds, fled up the walk, burst through the door, jumped the stairs, broke into his room, slammed the door, locked it, backed the bed against it and seized a chair.
Then the Green House struck the door like a salvo of grapeshot.
Stover, his hair rising, seized the wooden chair convulsively, waiting for the door to burst in.
All at once the transom swung violently and the wolfish faces of Tough McCarty, the White Mountain Canary, Cheyenne and the Coffee-colored Angel crowded the opening.
"Get back or I'll kill you," said Dink in frantic fear, and, advancing, he swung the chair murderously. In a twinkling the transom was emptied.
All at once the face of Butsey White appeared at the transom.
"It's my room; you let me in to my room, do you hear?"
"Dink," said Butsey in his loudest tones, "I'm coming right over the transom. Don't you dare to touch me!"
Butsey White, supported from behind, carefully drew up one foot, and then convulsively disappeared as Stover charged with the chair.
There was a whispered consultation and then the battling face of Tough McCarty appeared with a new threat:
"You lay a hand on me and I'll rip the hide off you!"
"Put down that chair, you little varmint; do you hear me?"
"Yes, I'm coming over, and you don't dare to touch me. You don't----"