Stover felt of his jaw and rubbed his head wonderingly.
“Who was it?” he asked. “I remember talking to that upstart who’s made arrangements to put a college team against us to-morrow. He got sassy, and I decided to take it out of him.”
“You made a slight miscalculation, Buzzsaw,” murmured Gentle Willie. “He knocked you stiff.”
“It’s a lie!” snarled Stover. “Somebody hit me from behind.”
“No,” denied Clinker, “that young fellow ducked your blow and rose with a wallop on your jaw that sent you to by-bye land.”
It was beaten in upon Buzzsaw at last that he had been knocked out in a flash by a single blow of Dick Merriwell’s fist. He struggled to his feet a bit weak, but shook off the supporting hand of Warwhoop.
“He took me by surprise,” he snarled. “I wasn’t looking for it. Wait! I’ll get him for that, and I’ll get him good and hard!”
Having disposed of Buzzsaw Stover and seen him cared for by his two friends, Dick Merriwell quietly walked away and sought Charlie Loring at the Sunset House, a small hotel at which most of the Outlaws had found accommodations.
It fortunately chanced that Loring was there, and soon Dick was explaining his business. Surprised, the manager of the Springs nine looked Merriwell over with a queer smile on his face.
“What’s this you’re giving me?” he said. “You want to engage the ball park to-morrow? You’ve made arrangements to play Harrison’s Outlaws? Why, my boy, where’s your ball team?”
“I’ll have one to-morrow,” laughingly declared Dick.
“But I don’t understand where you’ll get it.”
“Leave it to me, Loring. If I can secure the field I’ll put a team against Harrison’s bunch.”
“Well, I think perhaps we can fix it about the park. When I entered into negotiations with Harrison, I had no idea the backers of my team would object, but in a way they’re a lot of old women, and they got cold feet. You see, they have an idea that these Outlaws would make us look like fourth raters, and they’ve figured it out that there wouldn’t be much of any profit in the game anyway if we got only one-third of the gate money and stood for all the expenses.
“Furthermore, it’s a fact that my players are pretty badly smashed up. We’ve had rotten hard luck this season. I really couldn’t blame Harrison for making a howl, though he barked it into me so hard that I had to get away in order to keep from punching him. You understand when the financial backers of my team got out from under me I had to find a loophole for myself. Never did such a thing before, and I hope I’ll never be forced into it again.”