A HEART-BREAKING FINISH.
But Kates’ troubles were not over. Yale did nothing with the Tufts
twirler in the eighth, and Tufts opened the ninth with another two-sack
bingle that made the Yale crowd feel sick.
Some one yelled for Merriwell. Kates again cast a questioning glance
toward Dick.
“If we pull him out,” Dick thought, “he’ll have no further backbone for
pitching.”
Jones started in from the field. Divining the intention of Blessed, Dick
hurriedly waved him back.
Buckhart looked disgusted, and shook his head.
“Reckon my pard wants to throw this game away,” he muttered to himself.
“We’ll lose it if we let Kates stay on the rubber.”
But Kates stayed. Aware that Dick still had confidence in him, Sam
forced the following Tufts man to put up an easy infield fly, which was
captured by Tucker.
“All we want is a clean hit, Stroud!” cried a Tufts coacher. “You’re the
boy to do it!”
Stroud was a dangerous man with the stick, and the spectators hung
poised on a point of painful suspense.
Four times Stroud fouled. Then Sam twisted one round his neck, and he
missed cleanly.
“That’s the way! that’s the way!” laughed Dick. “Now it’s all right!
That lively lad will pass away on second.”
With two strikes and only one ball called by the umpire, it began to
seem as if Kates would mow down the last Tufts batter. But the fellow
picked out a corner-cutter and raised it far into left field.
“All over!” shouted some one. “Jonesy has it.”
Jonesy thought he had it, but as the ball settled it took one of those
exasperating curves which are troublesome to handle, and Blessed merely
touched it with the fingers of one upthrust hand.
Before the dismayed Yale captain could get the ball back into the
diamond the score was tied, and Tufts had another runner on third.
“We’ve got this game—we’ve got it!” barked a coacher. “They’ll never get
away from us now!”
“Everybody knew what would happen,” cried a voice. “The game was lost
when they changed pitchers.”
Strangely enough, Kates was no longer downcast and lacking in
confidence. He told himself that any person with good baseball judgment
must know he was not responsible for what had happened. He did not cast
any further questioning looks toward first, but placed himself on the
rubber, ready to pitch at his best as long as they would let him remain
there.
His best proved good enough to fan the next Tufts man, and Yale came to
bat in the last of the ninth with the tally tied.
“We’ll do ’em up in the next inning,” announced the Tufts captain, who
seemed confident that there would be an extra inning.
It quickly began to look as if there would be such an inning, for the
first two Yale batters went out, one on a fly and the other on an easy
grounder into the diamond.
Then came a bad error for Tufts. Spratt, who batted ahead of Kates,
bumped a bounder toward third, and reached first on an infielder’s
fumble.
For an instant Kates seemed benumbed as he realized he was the next
person to hit. A strange silence had settled over the field, and Sam
fancied he could feel the eyes of every spectator fixed upon him as he
stepped out, bat in hand.
As if from a great distance he seemed to hear some one say:
“Perhaps he’ll win his own game.”
“If he only could!” said another; but there was only doubt in the words
and the voice.
Kates glanced toward Spratt, and a signal told him that the desperate
fellow on first would try to steal. To assist Jack, Sam swung wildly at
the first ball pitched, although he was careful not to hit it.
Spratt’s thin legs carried him down the line to second with deceptive
speed, and a beautiful slide landed him safely on the sack a second
before he was tagged.
“Safe!” shouted the umpire.
Spratt leaped up, dusting his clothes and grinning.
“You’re dud-dud-dreadfully slow,” he observed mockingly to the second
baseman.
“Oh, never mind,” was the retort. “You won’t go any farther.”
“Th-think so?” said Jack.
“Know so.”
“Bub-bub-bet you on it. Kates is gug-going to biff it.”
Sam heard those words. Here, at least, seemed to be one person besides
Merriwell who had confidence in him.
“I will biff it!” he decided.
He made good in a way that brought the Yale men up standing. Bat and
ball cracked together, and the ball was laced into the field halfway
between right and center.
Tucker, on the coaching line near third, waved his arms frantically and
shrieked until he was purple in the face as Spratt came straddling on.
Jack’s teeth were gleaming, his hands clenched, and his eyes bulging out
of his head. As he crossed third the breath whistled from his nostrils
with a sound that reminded one of a racehorse coming under the wire.
A fielder had the ball. He whipped it to the second baseman. The second
baseman turned and lined it to the catcher.
“Slide!” shrieked Tucker and many others.
Spratt flung himself headlong, as if making a dive. Along the ground he
scooted in a manner that seemed to proclaim the dry soil greased at that
particular point.
Plunk!—the ball landed in the catcher’s mitt. Down he ducked and planted
it between Spratt’s shoulders.
But Jack had both hands on the plate, and the umpire yelled: “Safe!”
To Dick Merriwell’s unspeakable satisfaction, Sam Kates had really won
his own game.