ON AN ERROR.
Frost and Necker were disturbed when the Merries secured their run in
the second inning.
“What do you think of that, Hobe?” asked Frost. “It begins to look bad
to me.”
“Oh, don’t worry!” returned Manton, although he was a trifle disturbed
himself. “This is just the beginning of the game. Merriwell can’t
keep up the pace he has set. Those fellows will get onto his style
of pitching after a while, and then you’ll see something happen to
him. Those chaps behind him would go to pieces if the Outcasts began
hitting.”
“I hope they’ll begin,” said Necker, a trifle dolefully; “but I’m
afraid they won’t.”
“Merriwell’s men must be good batters,” said Frost. “They’ve made three
handsome hits off O’Neill. Nobody seemed to think they could do much
with him.”
“O’Neill hasn’t settled down,” declared Manton. “After he does he’ll
keep them from hitting.”
“Here goes Merriwell into the box for the second time,” said Necker.
“Now watch. I hope they find him.”
Captain Hurley was the first batter to face Frank in the second inning.
He was resolved to set an example for his men to follow. Being a new
hitter, he felt confident that Merry would find trouble in fooling him.
Frank knew Hurley’s reputation, and he took no chances. The first ball
pitched was the new curve, and it swept over the inside corner of the
plate.
Hurley fouled it lightly, but the ball landed in Hodge’s mitt and
remained there.
Then Frank pitched two that seemed very wild. Hurley wondered if he
had lost control. He was wondering when another of those queer corner
cutters came over the outside edge and he struck at it.
“Two strikes!” cried the umpire, as the ball spanked into Bart’s big
mitt.
“Ye gods and little fishhooks!” moaned Cap’n Wiley, resting his head on
his hands. “Is our noble leader going the way of dew before the morning
sunshine? Will he likewise evaporate and fade away? Such a calamity
would be too excruciating to endure.”
Hurley was puzzled. He could not understand why he had missed the ball,
but he realized that he had not fathomed the curve Frank was using.
“I’ll get the next one!” he vowed.
Frank tried the inside corner, and for the third time Hurley missed.
“You’re out!” declared the umpire.
The captain of the Outcasts looked very much chagrined as he retired to
the bench.
“What’s the matter?” asked Crackson Swatt. “Is the whole bunch
hypnotized?”
“Something is the matter for a fact,” admitted Hurley. “Try to bunt it,
Swatt. We’ve got to find a way to get our bats against the ball.”
The entire team had great confidence in Swatt. At the beginning of
their career the Outcasts had batted with Swatt in the eighth position,
like most professional teams; but his stick work had been so good that
it was found advisable to move him up directly behind Hurley.
“Do project the ball somewhere, Swattsie!” implored Cap’n Wiley. “This
continued agitation of the atmosphere without visible results is a
weariness to the flesh. It will retire me to the bughouse before long.”
Although four of his companions, all good batters, had failed to get a
hit off Frank, Swatt was confident.
“He can’t fool me,” he told himself. “I’ll hit it somewhere.”
The first ball pitched by Merry passed behind Crackson’s back, which
caused him to laugh.
“Keep spitting on it,” he said, “and you’ll throw it over the grand
stand before the game is ended. You can’t control it. Better stop
wetting it and pitch your usual way.”
“Thank you for the advice,” smiled Merry. “If I throw it over the grand
stand I may decide to follow your kind suggestion.”
But he kept on wetting the ball.
Crackson went after the second one pitched, but he was deceived like
the others, missing it cleanly.
“Come! come!” cried a man on the bleachers. “I thought you fellows
could hit a little. You don’t seem to amount to shucks when you get up
against a real pitcher.”
Hurley was frowning and watching Merriwell’s movements. He also tried
to follow the course of the ball after it left Frank’s hand.
Merry made another wild pitch, and the ball got past Hodge. This did
no damage, however, as there was no one on the bases.
Among the spectators Hobe Manton brightened up a little.
“It will come in time,” he said. “Merriwell can’t keep it up. He’s
losing control now. What if the Outcasts had happened to have a man on
third then? Why, he would have cantered home easily.”
“But if they don’t do better they’ll never get a man on first,” said
Frost, with an icy sneer.
“They’ll get one there pretty soon,” nodded Manton.
“They can’t hit Merriwell.”
“They won’t have to if he keeps on growing wild. They’ll all walk.”
But the next ball pitched looked good to Swatt, and again he swung at
it.
He missed.
“Well, wouldn’t that bump you violently!” cried Wiley, an expression
of pain on his swarthy face. “Wait till I trip out there and put the
marble over the fence. Then the gaping multitude will rise up and call
me blessed.”
Swatt had a puzzled look on his heavy face. Like those who had batted
before him, he could not understand why he had failed so completely,
although he realized that the ball had taken some kind of a freakish
shoot.
“Make connections there!” yelled Wiley. “What ails you? Have you been
smoking dope? Hit it anywhere and pray as you run. Don’t be trying any
fancy stunts at placing the ball. I know that old tar in the box, and
he can throw everything from a high ball to a fish ball. You won’t make
a record trying to place your hits.”
Swatt gave Wiley a look. Then he gripped his bat and waited.
Again the ball delivered by Frank looked good to him, and again he
struck at it.
Again he missed.
“Boys,” said Hurley, rising to his feet, “that man Merriwell has
invented a new curve, and we’ll have to wake up and hustle if we get
any safe hits off him to-day.”
“And all my labor in teaching this bunch to hit the double-shoot was
wasted!” moaned the sailor. “When I think of that it makes my arm
wearied and weak. I am fain to confess that Merriwell is too astute for
a mortal of common clay.”
Crackson Swatt sat down gloomily.
“I’ve batted against spit-ball pitchers before; but I’ve never seen one
with that kink in his delivery,” he admitted.
“You didn’t bunt,” said Hurley.
“I tried it once and missed. When I can’t get my bat against a ball
that curves fair over the plate the pitcher is a wizard or I have lost
my batting eye.”
Roden was next, and he attempted a bunt. He was the first to make
anything like a success at hitting the ball, but his bunt went into the
hands of Ready, who came rushing in for it.
Jack had plenty of time to throw Roden out, but he made a bad throw to
Browning. The ball went over Bruce’s head and into the crowd.
Wiley yelled like a maniac.
“Twinkle your Trilbies!” he howled, his eyes bulging. “Dust along the
chalk mark! Scurry through the atmosphere! Take second.”
Bruce got the ball and snapped it to Merry.
Roden had reached second in safety, and the crowd awoke, for at last it
seemed that the Outcasts had done something.
Yet these two bags had been made on Ready’s error, no hit having been
secured off Frank.
On the bleachers Bob Gowan woke up and wheezed forth a cheer.
“Here is where we start!” he gurgled. “I knew it was sure to happen!”
“Oh, rot!” said Mike Grafter. “It was a great accident, and you know
it, Gowan. They haven’t touched Merriwell for a hit, and they may not.”
“They’ll touch him up now,” asserted Gowan. “He’ll go to pieces as soon
as there is a runner on a base. These youngsters go to pieces easily.”
“Bet you even money the next man don’t reach first,” proposed Grafter.
“Go you for a hundred!” promptly said Gowan.
Wiley was on the coaching line.
“Divorce yourself from that sack, Roden!” he whooped. “Dig your toes
into the turf and be ready to burglarize that third cushion. Get off!
Don’t anchor there! Watch the swing of his propeller and move up on it
every time. He won’t throw down there. He thinks he’ll strike Grimley
out. Ha! ha! and ho! ho! I’d drop dead if he ever struck Cal Grimley
out! Send the ball on a voyage, Grim, old salt! Let her clear for a
foreign port!”
Grimley hit viciously at the first ball, but, like all the others, save
Roden, he missed.
“Open your eyes when you strike!” shrieked the sailor. “How could you
miss it? That’s criminal! Do your sleeping nights! It’s too easy to hit
that sort of a ball. Put it over the fence! Drop it out of the lot! Get
away, Roden! You’re hugging that sack as if you thought it a pretty
girl. Forget your affection for it and break away!”
Grimley checked his desire to hit the ball hard. Steadying his nerves,
he tried to meet it squarely and secure a safe hit.
He fouled it the next time he struck.
“Too bad!” howled Wiley. “Came near doing it then, Grim. Just a trifle
more to the starboard. Steady now. You’ll do it. You can’t help it. Be
ready to put on full steam ahead, Roden. You’ll tie the score right
here!”
But Grimley proved just as easy as the others for Frank, and Wiley
groaned as the batter struck the third time and missed.
“It’s a shame!” he muttered, as he cantered out to his position. “We
can’t keep on throwing away these chances. My reputation will be ruined
if we lose this game.”
Mat O’Neill used his head in the third inning. He mixed ’em up, using
a change of pace that was very bothersome. Although two of the Merries
hit the ball, not one of the first three reached the initial sack.
It was now Wiley’s turn to strike.
“Do you think you’ll hit it?” shouted a man on the bleachers.
“Think?” cried Wiley, in his peculiar manner. “How can I miss it? Watch
the fence and see me drop it over with the utmost ease.”
“Oh, yah!” cried Dunnerwurst derisively. “You vill drop der fence ofer
der pall with Vrankie bitching—I don’d think!”
“Stop talking so carelessly,” advised Wiley. “You get your tongue all
tangled up so it falls over itself.”
Twirling his bat as if it was a light cane, the sailor advanced to the
plate.
“I am sorry for you, Merry,” he said jauntily. “I have to do it. I
believe in setting a good example, and I’ll have to show these dopey
dubs how to hit the ball. Once on a time I made a seven-base hit.
I galloped round the diamond and came home while the fielders were
chasing the merry sphere as it went dancing elusively away. As I
reached the plate I heard one of the opposing players inform the umpire
that I had failed to touch second sack with my dainty tootsie. I knew
it was true. I likewise knew the umpire loved me now and would gladly
claim he had seen me cut the cushion. Therefore I started round the
diamond again and reached third before the ball was thrown in, thus
making seven bases on the hit. I’ll be satisfied with four off you,
Frank. It will be a great sufficiency.”
No one save Wiley would have ventured to spend the time to relate such
an incident before striking; but the sailor did most things after his
own particular fashion, and no one seemed inclined to object.
“I’m glad you think you’ll feel satisfied with a four-base hit, cap’n,”
said Frank. “Go ahead and get it.”
Surely the Marine Marvel tried hard enough when he swung at the first
ball delivered to him. The bat flew from his hands and went whizzing
through the air.
“Duck!” he yelled.
Ready “ducked” just in time to let the bat go over him.
“I pray thee be cautious,” said Jack, as he straightened up. “What hast
thou against me?”
“You’re too handsome,” answered Wiley. “I hate to behold a man who is
handsomer than I.”
The bat was returned to him, and he again took his place in the
batter’s box.
“Is that the way you hit it?” derisively called a spectator. “I don’t
think you’ll drive it very far.”
“Think again, Willie,” advised the sailor. “You have one more coming,
but you don’t look to me as if you could stand it. Your thinking
apparatus must be strained to its full capacity to grind out one whole
thought a day.”
Then he turned to Frank.
“We’re old college chumps, aren’t we, Merry?” he inquired.
“Sure,” nodded Frank.
“Then give me a straight one right over the plate. I don’t like that
new kink you’re pitching. It’s like a foreign language to me. I’ll make
it all right with you if you give me one I can hit.”
He smiled in his bland manner and seemed to think Merry would comply.
“Here it is,” laughed Frank.
It seemed like a straight one, and the sailor swung hard a second time.
He struck under it several inches, for the ball swerved upward and
outward in the same remarkable manner that had bothered every batter to
face Merry.
“Two strikes!” declared the umpire.
“That’s criminal, Merry—criminal!” exclaimed Wiley reproachfully. “How
could you deceive your bosom friend like that? I thought guile and
deception was not to be found in your heart, but now, alas! I realize
that you are like other mortals of common clay.”
Wiley now became the butt of ridicule for the crowd, but he did not
mind it in the least. In fact, the more they tried to josh and guy him
the more he seemed to like it.
He declined to swing at two coaxers.
“Nay, nay, Merry!” cried the sailor. “I am onto your tricks now. You
would betray your bosom comrade. You’ll have to put it over before I
wiggle my wand again.”
“I see you are onto me,” said Merry. “It is useless for me to try to
fool you, so I’ll give you one straight over. Here it is.”
Merry threw his peculiar “dope ball.” Even though Wiley himself was a
pitcher, and he often used a slow ball, he was fooled this time. It
seemed to come up as large as a balloon, and he struck at it.
He hit it, too.
But he simply popped a tiny little fly into the air, and Merry sprang
forward and caught it.
The spectators roared and shouted, asking the sailor if that was his
wonderful four-base hit.
Wiley shook his head sadly.
“Never again as long as I tread this terrestrial sphere shall I trust
human nature,” he declared, ambling toward the bench. “I have been
basely betrayed. But wait—my revenge is yet to come, and it shall be
deep and terrible.”
O’Neill longed to make a safe hit, but he was another of the batters
that Merry fanned easily.
Then came Creel, and he bunted.
Again Ready got the ball in time to throw the man out, but once more he
made a poor throw.
Browning was dragged off the base, and Creel reached it in safety.
Instantly Wiley appeared on the coaching line and opened up merrily.
He gave Creel the signal to try to steal second.
“May as well take chances,” he muttered. “We’ll never get a score any
other way.”
So the runner attempted a steal on the first ball Frank pitched to
Marcey.
The ball came whistling into the hands of Hodge. Bart seemed to pause
a moment and watch Creel on his way to second. Then he made a throw
that sent the ball down on a dead line and straight into the hands of
Rattleton, who was waiting.
Creel slid, but Harry nailed him, and the third inning was over.