THE RALLY THAT CAME TOO LATE
Frank gave no sign of the excitement that thrilled his every nerve. He
realized that possibly a fortunate hit on his part right then and there
would eventually win the game.
Despite the furious racket that kept up on every hand, he faced
Coddling, and prepared to do his very best to at least advance the
runner.
As a rule pitchers are not reckoned good batters, but Frank Allen had
always been known to hit well. Coddling therefore tightened up, and
determined to put his rival out of the running by tempting him with
some of his astonishing assortment of curves and drops, for his swift
ball had already cost him dear, so that he was afraid to use it often.
Frank even allowed a strike to be called on him before he picked out
one that seemed to his liking. What he did to that ball was a caution.
It sailed away out in right, and Snodgrass had the run of his life to
chase after it.
Paul, reaching second, paused, an instant, for if the ball were caught,
he would have some difficulty getting back to first in time.
“Go on, Paul!” bellowed the coach through his hands.
The noise had broken out worse than ever, so that each player had to be
a law unto himself just then.
“He muffed it! Run! run! run!” whooped everybody who had the interest
of Columbia at heart, while the Bellport adherents looked dismal enough.
It was an excusable error, for the fielder had fallen headlong at
the instant his fingers touched the ball. He was up like a flash and
chasing after it. Paul circled the bases and easily came home, but the
coach held Frank at third, as the ball was coming in when he reached
there.
Nevertheless, it had been a three-bagger, despite the mess Snodgrass
had made of his effort to capture the fly, and a run had resulted.
Frank had reason to feel satisfied with himself as he crouched there
and panted for breath.
He knew that the chances were he would be a little off in his work
unless this inning lasted for some time. That was one reason why his
fellow players tried to delay matters as best they could within reason.
Ralph tied his shoe, and then knocked three fouls, finally going out on
one that Clay managed to get after a furious rush among the crowd to
the right, and which brought him much hand-clapping.
Then Bones Shadduck tried his hand. He wanted to bring Frank in, and
struck savagely at what he considered fair balls; but Coddling had him
guessing, and finally put him to sleep with a fadeaway that had not
even reached the plate when the batter tried to knock it out of sight,
and “fell all over himself,” as Lanky said, while doing so.
In their half of this inning the Bellport boys seemed to awaken from
the trance that had been binding them. There was a hustle and an energy
to their play that told Frank he had better take care, or a batting
rally would set in under which Bellport would speed to victory as on
former occasions.
Bardwell opened with a hit that bounded off the shins of Seymour. When
the captain and second baseman of Columbia managed to snatch up the
ball it was too late to head the runner off, though Bardwell was a
clumsy man on bases.
He pretended to limp around as though he had been spiked or something.
The trick is, of course, as old as the hills. It only happens when
a better runner is wanted on the initial bag. Seymour nodded his
head when the Bellport captain called out, and accordingly Lacy was
substituted for the elephantine Bardwell.
Clay tried to bring him in with a big hit away out in center, but
Comfort was on his job in that territory, and managed to corral the
ball after backing out, even though he could not keep Lacy from taking
second.
Then came Coddling. He was no great batter, but there are times when
baseball is full of surprises, and Frank was taking no chances.
“Fan him, Frank!” shouted an excited rooter from the grandstand.
“Let him hit it! Encourage a hard-working man a little!” called another.
Coddling tried his level best, but that did not seem good enough,
for he presently walked back to the bench, with three strikes marked
against his record.
Snodgrass waited, and got his base, though Frank considered that the
umpire was unusually severe with him in calling balls, when he cut the
plate with at least one of those that counted against him.
“Now, Hough, you know what to do!”
“Yes, Hough, lam it good and hard over old Billings’ head. He’ll never
get another like he did that first one. That was an accident!”
“You’ve got him up in the air, boys! Lead that horse into the stable!”
Dozens of like cries sounded everywhere. It is a part of the game to
try and rattle the pitcher when such an emergency arises.
Still, that faint smile remained on the face of Frank Allen, as he
prepared to take the measure of this hard-hitting Bellport player, who
had broken the reputation of at least one promising pitcher.
With two out, and men on first and third, Hough certainly had reason
to do everything in his power to make a hit. Then came the sharp shock
as the bat met one of Frank’s curves on the nose, and the ball went
shooting down toward third.
Shadduck stopped the speedy one as best he could, but it was coming
like a comet, and he could not hold it. Jumping after the ball, he
snatched it up. The chances of getting it to Paul were rather meagre,
but it was his business to try, and he shot it for home.
No doubt the very rapidity of the play unsettled him, so that he failed
to send the ball exactly where it would have cut the runner off. Paul
had to reach out after it, and then tag the sliding runner.
“Safe!” shouted the umpire, who was there on the spot to see.
Meanwhile Paul had tossed the ball back to Shadduck, for there was
danger of Snodgrass coming down from second while all this was going
on; in fact, he had to be driven back with threatening gestures.
With two men on bases and two out, the inning still had possibilities,
and loud waxed the exultant cries of the Bellport rooters as they sang
their school song and made a great demonstration.
“Got him up in a balloon! He’s ascending, all right, boys! Give him
another push, Tony!”
Banghardt stepped up full of confidence, and faced the pitcher with
determination in his eye. Just two minutes later he dropped his bat and
trotted out toward center, for the umpire had said that three balls
which sailed past him were along the strike order--and the umpire
belonged to Bellport, too, so that there could be little doubt but what
he was right.
So the eighth began with Columbia still one run to the good, and
Bellport just as positive as ever that they could not only make the
lone tally necessary to tie, but add a few more for good measure.
Comfort, Lanky Wallace and Billings tried to accomplish something while
they remained for a fleeting space of time on deck, but Coddling seemed
to have taken a new lease of life, and they were unable to connect with
a single one of his elusive benders.
Frank shut his teeth hard as he went into the box in turn. He was not
given to weakening, despite all that the envious Lef had declared; and
his arm felt just as good at that minute as in the second inning.
All Smiths looked alike to him, judging from the way he struck the two
brothers out, one after the other.
Herb Lacy managed to work him for a free pass to first, but after all
it did him little good, for the next batter, Bardwell, lifted a foul
that Paul gathered in against the grandstand, to the accompanying
cheers of the occupants.
This brought affairs down to the ninth, and all over the field there
was intense excitement.
“This is the lucky Bellport inning!” shouted one fellow, encouragingly.
“Watch them run the game out right here!”
“Will they? Maybe, maybe not!” answered Jack Eastwick.
Herman Hooker had jumped to his feet as Columbia went to bat for the
last time. Up to the present he had been content to play a minor part,
but now his time had come.
“Give it to them, boys--give them the slogan we love, good and strong.
Hi! hi! hi! ho! ho! ho! _veni! vidi! vici!_ Columbia! Siss! boom! ah!”
Amid such a pandemonium Tom Budd struck out, though he died trying to
find one of those balls which Coddling seemed to be twining around his
neck. Seymour was somewhat more fortunate. He raised a fine fly, but
unfortunately it landed in the outstretched hands of Smith, Junior, who
did not seem to stir a yard.
Paul Bird made a lucky hit that should have been an out, but the
players were so nervous by this time that Lacy actually fumbled the
ball. Frank, with all the encouragement that might accompany such
backing as could spring from the “best yeller Columbia ever had,” as he
jumped up and down, and waved his megaphone violently, sent a hot liner
straight at Hough on second that nearly took him off his feet, though
he held it.
And then Bellport came to the bat. Every man looked grimly confident.
Clay made a hit out of the first ball that came along, reaching out and
stealing what was meant to be a wide one.
How those Bellport rooters did shriek and jump! It seemed as though
they would go crazy as they begged and implored Coddling to win his own
game by advancing the runner by a little bunt.
“He just can’t do it, boys!” called one fellow, after Coddling had
twice thrust out his bat and failed to even touch the speeding ball.
“Give him a pair of smoke glasses; the sun’s in his eyes!”
“Three times and out, Coddling--take care, old hoss!”
This time Coddling, in despair, struck savagely, and perhaps to his own
surprise, tapped the ball smartly toward second.
“Double ’em up!” arose the howl like a flash, for the average baseball
rooter can see the possibilities of a play as soon as a player.
And that was just what happened. Seymour snatched the ball from
the ground with one hand, leaped over to his sack, and as his foot
touched the same he threw for Lanky on first. Coddling was caught ten
feet away, and a mighty groan attested to the strain under which the
Bellport crowd was resting.
Snodgrass again found that he just had to strike, for Frank was putting
them over on purpose now, having full confidence in the men back of
him. Smash! went the ball. Lanky fell over very much like a ten pin
that has been caught by a rapidly moving ball, but as he sat there he
held up his hand to prove that he had forked the sphere out of the air
and gripped it tight!
The game was over, and it had been a heartbreaking one all around.
Immediately the great crowd flooded the ground, and the players were
swallowed up in groups of admiring rooters. Herman Hooker led his
gallant band in another cheer, in which the defeated Bellport team came
in for a share of the shouting; after which there was a wild rush for
all means of transportation whereby the thousands could hope to reach
their homes in the neighboring towns.
When the Columbia players reached the river they found that during
their absence Abner Gould had succeeded in repairing the motor, so
that it was now in condition to take them back home. Frank could not
be sure that his suspicions were well founded, and hence he decided to
say nothing about the matter. If the man had been hired by his sporting
brother to delay the Columbia team, and annoy them so that they would
go upon the field nervous and unstrung, he had been caught in his own
trap.
Ralph West seemed anxious to speak to Frank in private. They were on
the way up the river, and most of the boys had stretched out, talking
over the various thrilling events of the great game, when Ralph dropped
down beside Frank.
“I’ve been wanting to say a few words to you ever since we left
Columbia, but couldn’t get the chance,” he said in a low tone.
Frank could see that he was unduly excited, and he did not believe that
this came wholly from his clever work in the recent game.
“All right, Ralph; what is it?” he asked encouragingly, for they had
been good friends for some time, and Frank knew all about certain
strange events connected with the past life of the freshman who had
made good on the Columbia nine.
“I went to the post-office just before we started out,” commenced Ralph.
Frank started, and looked at him eagerly.
“This is just after the first of the month, and that mysterious letter
with the money enclosed used to always come at such a time. Well, what
happened?” he asked.
“I got the letter,” replied Ralph, drawing a long breath.
“With the money in it?”
“Yes, just as before,” answered the freshman, gulping hard as something
seemed to choke him; “and not a single word. Frank, it’s all opened up
again, and I must know who is sending me this money. You promised to
help me, and I’ll never rest easy until I learn who I am!”