END OF GAMMA TAU.
The next morning the School was startled by the announcement that
Dixon, Bronson and Whitlock were not to be found. During the night,
either separately or together, they had packed their suit-cases and
departed, leaving instructions for the forwarding of the remainder of
their goods. Murphy, the night operator, reported later that they had
been seen boarding the early morning train for Milton. Dixon, alone,
left word behind him. The note was directed to the manager of the
Queen's Baseball Association and contained his resignation as captain
of the nine.
"It was just as well he went," said Jimmy, when he heard the news,
"or there would have been the biggest scrap on that this School ever
saw. After what he did to Frank last night, he was going to get the
worst licking that a kid ever got," and Jimmy flexed his arms and
clenched his fists.
"I think I'd have taken a hand at him, myself!" said Frank.
"Me, too," said the Codfish. "If ever I'd have laid this on him,"
indicating his right fist, "he would go home in an ambulance."
"Or you would have, eh, scrappy old Codfish?" said Lewis. "I don't
know but I'd have had a shy at him, myself."
Dixon's departure cleared the atmosphere of the School at once. You
may be sure that no time was lost in carrying Bronson's confession to
Doctor Hobart, and that stern old man, quick to repair the wrong he
had done to Jimmy and Frank, called them to his office.
"Young gentlemen," he said, "I have an apology to make to you. I see
I was wrong and I am glad that I was wrong. You are reinstated in
all the privileges of the School. I hope you will pardon an old man
for leaning too strongly on circumstantial evidence, furthered by
untruthful testimony."
It was a joyful crowd that met that afternoon on the diamond. By
unanimous consent of the School nine, Frank Armstrong was elected
acting-captain to fill out the remainder of the term, and when
practice began every boy who could get there was on the bleachers
to watch. Jimmy took his place behind the bat and caught and threw
with his old-time ability. Frank pitched wonderful ball and threw the
spectators into an enthusiasm of cheering when he struck out batsman
after batsman of the Second nine as they faced him.
After the Chapel exercises next morning, Dr. Hobart announced to the
whole School there assembled, that he had visited the punishment
for the misdoings in the bell tower upon the wrong boys, and then
publicly expressed his sorrow that he had made a mistake. "The real
perpetrators, with one exception," he added, "have left School, and
that one exception has not yet been dealt with. I have further to say
that the Society of Gamma Tau, which has been responsible for this
and other disturbances, is from this day forth abolished and any boy
in the future, either offering an election to or accepting one from
this Society, should any attempt be made to carry it on in secret,
will be summarily dismissed from Queen's School."
To the surprise of every one, the abolition of Gamma Tau was not
taken seriously to heart by the School. Its domination had for some
years become irksome, and even the members of it, with the exception
of a few of its leaders, among whom was Howard Hotchkiss, admitted
that it was a good thing for the School to have it done away with.
Whether the killing of the Society by Dr. Hobart's edict had anything
to do with it or not, or whether it was the snap that Frank and Jimmy
put into the team, none could say, but it was certain that for one
cause or another the School rallied around the nine like one man.
From a disorganized body the nine was brought into playing form in
remarkably short time, and in the last of the preliminary games of
the season won over the strong Butler Academy by six runs to one.
Jimmy and Frank worked like Trojans, in these last days of the term,
to get the team into shape for the Warwick game. And the School
was back of them. By presence and by voice every one helped at the
practice. Finally, at the end of examinations, the day of the great
contest came around. Warwick, with a nine strong and experienced,
came down to Queen's confident of wiping out the stain of defeat of
the previous June. Robinson, the left tackle of the Warwick eleven,
was captain of the nine and played first base. He had heard, as had
every one in Warwick, of the resignation of Dixon as captain and the
incident helped to further their belief that Queen's would be, as he
said, "easy picking." Down with the Warwick team came a great crowd
of heelers to see the "funeral," as one of them expressed it.
The "funeral" did not come to pass in just the way that Warwick had
expected. For three innings it was nip and tuck between the two nines
without a run being scored on either side. Frank was in great form,
and, while he used few curves, he was able to put the ball exactly
where Jimmy wanted it; and between the two of them they had the
Warwick batters swinging wildly at balls which they could not hit.
In the fifth inning, through a hit and an error by the Queen's right
fielder, Warwick scored a run, and in the sixth added two more. This
was the signal for great yelling in the Warwick sections of the
stand, but Queen's came back with two earned runs in the seventh.
Jimmy's two-base hit started the trouble.
Frank's great pitching, when the bases were full with only one out,
cut Warwick out of what looked like a certain score in the eighth
inning, but the Queen's batters could do nothing against Warwick in
this inning. The game came to the ninth without further runs, and
Queen's still one behind. Warwick tried desperately to get a runner
across, and with their fastest man on third, when hits were not
forthcoming, tried to work the squeeze play. Frank and Jimmy nipped
the runner neatly at the plate. Opinions were freely expressed that
Queen's would not score, but when Taylor, the Queen's first baseman,
came up and singled, the Queen's heelers let loose a howl of joy.
Their glee was cut short when Taylor, in trying to steal second, was
thrown out.
With one gone, Frank came to the bat.
"You are due for a hit," said Jimmy, as he left the bench. "Get on
and I'll bring you in."
Frank clenched his bat and faced the Warwick pitcher with
determination in his eye. Up to the present time he had done nothing
in the way of hitting, and the Warwick pitcher held him rather
cheaply. Twice he sent the ball across the plate for strikes, and
twice the ball went wide.
"Give him a good one," howled a Warwick boy; "let him hit it if he
can. He couldn't hit a barn!"
Straight over the plate came the next ball, and Frank met it with a
short powerful swing. Away flew the ball over the third baseman's
head, struck the ground in short left field, and, with a spin on
it, rolled on and on over the close-cropped grass. The left fielder
chased it desperately, but before he got his hands on it, Frank had
turned second. The left fielder slammed it straight and hard, and
Frank dived for the last fifteen feet, beating the ball to third only
by inches. As he stood on the bag and dusted himself with his cap,
Jimmy sauntered easily to the plate.
"Come on," said Jimmy to the Warwick pitcher, when the yelling had
died down; "come on, and I'll do it again just like that," and he
grinned at the worried boy in the box. The ball flew wide.
"Don't lose your nerve," taunted Jimmy; "put it over."
Again the Warwickian tied himself up into a knot and again flew the
ball. It was to Jimmy's liking. He swung a full swing with all the
force of his sturdy young body behind it, and, in the language of
the diamond, hit it "right on the nose." Just what happened to that
ball no one knows to this day. It rose on its long flight between
third and short stop, carried over the head of the left fielder
like a golf ball cleanly hit, struck far beyond him and rolled down
among the alder bushes which fringed the river. The fielder tore
after it, disappeared from view, and, after a minute or two, came
back holding up both hands. They were empty. But it would have made
no difference whether he had had the ball at that time or not, for
Jimmy had completed the circuit of the bases, and the bat boy was
picking up the scattered bats and mitts by Queen's bench. Queen's had
won the game! It was a glorious finish to a season that had begun
in anything but glory, and then and there, before the Queen's team
left the bench, after a rousing cheer had been given for the defeated
Warwicks, Frank Armstrong was elected captain for the following year,
while the Queen's stands yelled their approval.
"It was worth all our trouble for that last inning, wasn't it?" said
Jimmy.
And Frank, grinning happily, admitted that it was.
The further doings of Frank Armstrong and his friends at Queen's
School will be told in the next volume of this series, entitled
"FRANK ARMSTRONG, CAPTAIN OF THE NINE."
THE END.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
pg. 231, "euphoneous" changed to "euphonious" (the euphonious name)
pg. 261, "preceptibly" changed to "perceptibly" (stiffened perceptibly)
End of Project Gutenberg's Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker, by Matthew M. Colton