THE END OF THE GAME.
Now the New Haven crowd took their turn, and took it in earnest.
Rattleton stood upon the shoulders of a friend, and fell off upon the
heads of the crowd as he was cheering. He didn't mind that, for he kept
right on cheering.
"Merriwell, I believe you have broken the streak!" cried Old Put, with
inexpressible satisfaction.
"Well, I sincerely hope so," returned Frank. "I rather think we are all
right now, but we've got a hard pull ahead of us. Harvard is still five
in the lead, you know."
"If you can hold them down--"
"I am going to do my best."
"If you save this game the boys won't do a thing when we get back to New
Haven--not a thing!"
The next batter flied out to shortstop, and Griswold remained on second.
Now there was suspense, for Yale had two men out. A sudden hush fell on
the field, broken only by the voices of the two coachers.
Coulter had not recovered his nerve, and the next batter got a safe hit
into right field, while Danny Griswold's short legs fairly twinkled as
he scudded down to third and then tore up the dust in a mighty effort to
get home on a single.
Every Yale man was on his feet cheering again, and Danny certainly
covered ground in a remarkable manner. Head first he went for the plate.
The right fielder secured the ball and tried to stop Danny at the plate
by a long throw. The throw was all right, but Griswold was making too
much speed to be caught.
The instant Old Put, who had returned to the coach line, saw that the
fielder meant to throw home, he howled for the batter to keep right on
for second.
Griswold scored safely, and the catcher lost little time in throwing to
second.
"Slide!" howled a hundred voices.
The runner obeyed, and he got in under the baseman, who had been forced
to take a high throw.
It is impossible to describe what followed. The most of the Yale
spectators acted as if they had gone crazy, and those in sympathy with
Harvard showed positive alarm.
Two or three men got around the captain of the Harvard team and asked
him to take out Coulter.
"Put in Peck!" they urged. "They've got Coulter going, and he will lose
the game right here if you do not change."
At this the captain got angry and told them to get out. When he got
ready to change he would do it without anybody's advice.
Coulter continued to pitch, and the next batter got first on an error by
the shortstop.
"The whole team is going to pieces!" laughed Paul Pierson. "I wouldn't
be surprised to see Old Put's boys pull the game out in this inning, for
all that two men are out."
"If they do so, Merriwell is the man who will deserve the credit," said
Collingwood. "That is dead right."
"Yes, it is right, for he restored confidence and started the work of
rattling Coulter."
"Paul," said the great man of the 'Varsity crew, "that fellow is fast
enough for the regular team."
"You said so before."
"And I say so again."
Now it became evident to everybody that Coulter was in a pitiful state,
for he could not find the plate at all, and the next man went down on
four balls, filling the bases.
But that was not the end of it. The next batter got four balls, and a
score was forced in.
Then it was seen that Peck, Harvard's change pitcher, was warming up,
and it became evident that the captain had decided to put him into the
box.
If the next Yale man had not been altogether too eager to get a hit,
there is no telling when the inning would have stopped. He sent a
high-fly foul straight into the air, and the catcher succeeded in
gathering it in.
The inning closed with quite a change in the score, Harvard having a
lead of but three, where it had been seven in the lead at the end of the
sixth.
"I am afraid they will get on to Merriwell this time," said Sport
Harris, with a shake of his head.
"Hey!" squealed Rattleton, who was quivering all over. "I'll give you a
chance to even up with me. I'll bet you twenty that Harvard doesn't
score."
"Oh, well, I'll have to stand you, just for fun," murmured Harris as he
extracted a twenty-dollar bill from the roll it was said he always
carried and handed it to Deacon Dunning. "Shove up your dough, Rattle."
Harry covered the money promptly, and then he laughed.
"This cakes the take--I mean takes the cake! I never struck such an easy
way of making money! I say, fellows, we'll open something after the
game, and I'll pay for it with what I win off Harris."
"That will be nice," smiled Harris; "but you may not be loaded with my
money after the game."
The very first batter up, got first on an error by the second baseman
who let an easy one go through him.
"The money is beginning to look my way as soon as this," said Harris.
"It is looking your way to bid you good-by," chuckled Harry, not in the
least disturbed or anxious.
Merriwell had a way of snapping his left foot out of the box for a throw
to first, and it kept the runner hugging the bag all the time.
Frank also had another trick of holding the ball in his hand and
appearing to give his trousers a hitch, upon which he would deliver the
ball when neither runner nor batter was expecting him to do so, and yet
his delivery was perfectly proper.
He struck the next man out, and the batter to follow hit a weak one to
third, who stopped the runner at second.
Two men were out, and still there was a man on first. Now it looked dark
for Harvard that inning, and not a safe hit had been made off Merriwell
thus far.
The Harvard crowd was getting anxious. Was it possible that Merriwell
would hold them down so they could not score, and Yale would yet pull
out by good work at the bat?
The captain said a few words to the next batter before the man went up
to the plate, and Frank felt sure the fellow had been advised to take
his time.
Having made up his mind to this, Frank sent a swift straight one
directly over, and, as he had expected, the batter let it pass, which
caused the umpire to call a strike.
Still keeping the runner hugging first, Frank seemed to start another
ball in exactly the same manner. It was not a straight one, but it was a
very slow drop, as the batter discovered after he had commenced to
swing. Finding he could not recover, the fellow went after the ball with
a scooping movement, and then did not come within several inches of it,
greatly to the delight of the Yale crowd.
"Oh, Merry has every blooming one of them on a string!" cried Rattleton.
"He thon't do a wing to 'em--I mean he won't do a thing to 'em."
The Yale men were singing songs of victory already, and the Harvard
crowd was doing its best to keep up the courage of its team by rooting
hard.
It was a most exciting game.
"The hottest game I ever saw played by freshmen," commented Collingwood.
"It is a corker," confessed Pierson. "We weren't looking for anything of
the sort a short time ago."
"I should say not. Up to the time Merriwell went in it looked as if
Harvard had a walkover."
"Gordon feels bad enough about it, that is plain. He is trying to
appear cheerful on the bench, but--"
"He can't stand it any longer; he's leaving."
That was right. Gordon had left the players' bench and was walking away.
He tried to look pleased at the way things were going, but the attempt
was a failure.
"Merriwell is the luckiest fellow alive," he thought. "If I had stayed
in another inning the game might have changed. He is pitching good ball,
but I'm hanged if I can understand why they do not hit him. It looks
easy."
Neither could the Harvard lads thoroughly understand it, although there
were some who realized that Merriwell was using his head, as well as
speed and curves. And he did not use speed all the time. He had a fine
change of pace, sandwiching in his slow balls at irregular intervals,
but delivering them with what seemed to be exactly the same motion that
he used on the speedy ones.
The fourth batter up struck out, and again Harvard was retired without a
score, which caused the Yale crowd to cheer so that some of the lads got
almost black in the face.
"Well! well! well!" laughed Rattleton, as Deacon Dunning passed over the
money he had been holding. "This is like chicking perries--I mean
picking cherries. All I have to do is to reach out and take what I
want."
"If the boys will capture the game I'll be perfectly satisfied to lose,"
declared Harris, who did not tell the truth, however, for he was
chagrined, although he showed not a sign of it.
"How can we lose? how can we lose?" chuckled Harry. "Things are coming
our way, as the country editor said when he was rotten-egged by the
mob."
It really seemed that Yale was out for the game at last, for they kept
up their work at the bat, although Peck replaced Coulter in the box for
Harvard.
Merriwell had his turn with the first batter up. One man was out, and
there was a man on second. Coulter had warned Peck against giving
Merriwell an outcurve. At the same time, knowing Frank had batted to
right field before, the fielders played over toward right.
"So you are on to that, are you?" thought Frank. "Well, it comes full
easier for me to crack 'em into left field if I am given an inshoot."
Two strikes were called on him before he found anything that suited him.
Harris was on the point of betting Rattleton odds that Merriwell did not
get a hit, when Frank found what he was looking for and sent it sailing
into left. It was not a rainbow, so it did not give the fielder time to
get under it, although he made a sharp run for it.
Then it was that Merriwell seemed to fly around the bases, while the man
ahead of him came in and scored. At first the hit had looked like a
two-bagger, but there seemed to be a chance of making three out of it as
Frank reached second, and the coachers sent him along. He reached third
ahead of the ball, and then the Yale crowd on the bleachers did their
duty.
"How do you Harvard chaps like Merriwell's style?" yelled a Yale
enthusiast as the cheering subsided.
Then there was more cheering, and the freshmen of 'Umpty-eight were
entirely happy.
The man who followed Frank promptly flied out to first, which quenched
the enthusiasm of the Yale gang somewhat and gave Harvard's admirers an
opportunity to make a noise.
Frank longed to get in his score, which would leave Harvard with a lead
of but one. He felt that he must get home some way.
Danny Griswold came to the bat.
"Get me home some way, Danny," urged Frank.
The little shortstop said not a word, but there was determination in his
eyes. He grasped his stick firmly and prayed for one of his favorite
high balls.
But Peck kept them low on Danny, who took a strike, and then was pulled
on a bad one.
With two strikes on him and only one ball, the case looked desperate
for Danny. Still he did not lose his nerve. He did not think he could
not hit the ball, but he made himself believe that he was bound to hit
it. To himself he kept saying:
"I'll meet it next time--I'll meet it sure."
He knew the folly of trying to kill the ball in such a case, and so when
he did swing, his only attempt was to meet it squarely. In this he
succeeded, and he sent it over the second baseman's head, but it fell
short of the fielder.
Merriwell came home while Griswold was going down to first.
And now it needed but one score for Yale to tie Harvard.
The man who followed Griswold dashed all their hopes by hitting a weak
one to short and forcing Danny out at second.
Harvard cheered their men as they came in from the field.
"We must make some scores this time, boys," said the Harvard captain. "A
margin of one will never do, with those fellows hitting anything and
everything."
"That's exactly what they are doing," said Peck. "They are getting hits
off balls they have no business to strike at."
"Oh, you are having your troubles," grinned a friend.
"Any one is bound to have when batters are picking them off the clouds
or out of the dirt. It doesn't make much difference where they are."
"This man Merriwell can't hold us down as he has done," asserted
Dickson, Harvard's first baseman.
"I don't know; he is pretty cagey," admitted Nort Gibson.
"I believe he is the best pitcher we'll strike this season," said
another.
"Here, here, you fellows!" broke in the captain. "You are getting
down-hearted, and that won't do. We've got this game and we are going to
hold it; but we want to go in to clinch it right here."
They didn't do much clinching, for although the first man up hit the
ball, he got to first on an error by the third baseman, who fumbled in
trying to pick it up.
Blossom was the third baseman, and he was confused by his awkwardness,
expecting to get a call down.
"Steady, Blos, old boy!" said Frank, gently. "You are all right. The
best of us do those things occasionally. It is nothing at all."
These words relieved Blossom's feelings and made him vow that he would
not let another ball play chase around his feet.
Frank struck the next man out, and held the runner on first while he was
doing it. The third man sent an easy pop-fly to Blossom, who got hold of
it and clung to it for dear life.
Then the runner got second on a passed ball, but he advanced no farther,
for the following batter rolled a weak one down to Frank, who gathered
it in and threw the man out at first.
In three innings not a safe hit had been made off Merriwell, and he had
struck out five men. No wonder his admirers cheered him wildly as he
went to the bench.
Yale started in to make some scores. The very first man up got a hit and
stole second. The next man went to the bat with the determination to
slug the ball, but Old Put signaled for a sacrifice, as the man was a
good bunt hitter.
The sacrifice was tried, and it worked, for the man on second got third,
although the batter was thrown out at first.
"Now we need a hit!" cried Put. "It takes one to tie and two to win. A
hit ties the game."
Rattleton offered to bet Harris two to one that Yale would win, but
Sport declined the offer.
"It's our game fast enough," he said. "You are welcome to what you have
won off me. I am satisfied."
But the game was not won. Amid the most intense excitement the next man
fouled out.
Then Peck seemed to gather himself to save the game for Harvard. He got
some queer quirks into his delivery, and, almost before the Yale crowd
could realize it, two strikes were called on the batter.
The Yale rooters tried to rattle Peck, but they succeeded in rattling
the batter instead, and, to their unutterable dismay and horror, he
fanned at a third one, missed it, and--
"Batter is out!" cried the umpire.
Then a great roar for Harvard went up, and the dazed freshmen from New
Haven realized they were defeated after all.