FARDALE WINS!
Never in all her baseball career had Rivermouth been more confident of
victory than she was on that gray Saturday when she came to Fardale.
Accompanied by a hundred rooters, the players marched from the station
to Fardale field.
The cadets were waiting for them, and a crowd of spectators had
assembled.
“Here they come!” was the cry, as the visiting team and its supporters
were seen marching down the hill.
As the Rivermouth boys poured through the gate, and the visitors marched
onto the diamond, Fardale received them with a welcoming cheer.
Little time was wasted. The visitors took the field for practice, and
went at it in a sharp and snapping manner, which seemed to denote what
they could do. Their supporters packed in a solid mass on the side
reserved for them, and cheered the clever plays made by the practicing
boys.
“Well, what do you think, pard?” asked Buckhart, as Dick stood watching
the enemy.
“They’re overconfident,” declared Merriwell in a low tone. “It may be
the cause of their defeat. If we get down to business at the very start
and fight hard we may take some of the assurance out of them.”
“How’s your side?”
“Oh, it’s still lame; but I find I can pitch with my left hand without
straining it. I am going to see what I can do that way.”
“Great tarantulas!” gasped Buckhart. “Why, do you know that Peterson, a
left-hander, pitched against them Monday, and they biffed him for eleven
clean hits? You know how hard it was for us to hit him. Well, they found
him pie.”
“All the same,” said Dick in the same quiet manner, “I shall begin with
my left hand, and use it as long as possible. When I am compelled to do
so, to save the game, I may use my right.”
Ted Smart left the seats and came out to Dick.
“Say! Guess!” chirped the little fellow. “Arlington feels sure you will
win, doesn’t he?”
“I dunno.”
“He must!” said Ted in his queer way. “He’s betting on Rivermouth!”
“Is that so?” muttered Buckhart.
“That’s what they say,” nodded Ted. “Of course he wants to give his
money away. It’s just like him. He loves to give his money away. That’s
why he’s betting on Rivermouth.”
“Well, we will do our best to see that he gives it away this yere day,”
asserted the Westerner.
It was a fact that Chester had bet on Rivermouth. He made no effort to
hide his belief that the visitors would win.
The game began promptly on time, with Rivermouth at the bat. The first
man started off in a manner to delight the visitors, for he drove out a
single with perfect ease.
Buckhart shook his head a little and pounded his fist into the hole in
his big mitt.
Still Merriwell continued to pitch with his left hand, and the next
batter, in an effort to sacrifice the base runner to second, rolled the
ball into Dick’s hands. Scooping it up quickly, Dick snapped it to
Gardner, who covered the bag for Tubbs. Earl whistled it up to
Singleton, and the handsome double play set the cadets into a roar.
“Dern my picter!” squeaked Obediah Tubbs. “That was too easy!”
The third batter tried hard for a hit. He simply lifted an infield fly
that was easily captured, and Rivermouth was quickly retired in this
manner without accomplishing anything, for all of her propitious start.
The visitors had a new pitcher, a long, lank, green-looking freshman,
whose movements were very awkward, but who soon revealed the fact that
he had an exasperatingly hard ball to hit safely. He was not a
“strike-out” pitcher. He was one of the kind who kept batters popping up
little flies or knocking easy grounders into the diamond.
Gardner and Black were both thrown out at first, and Flint reached the
bag only through an error by shortstop. Bradley tried hard for a single,
but popped a little fly into the lank pitcher’s hands.
The second inning was a fast one, for once more only one cadet reached
first, and there he “died.”
“They can’t do anything with you!” yelled a Rivermouth rooter. “They are
up against it to-day! You will make monkeys of them, the same as you did
the Great Northern chaps.”
Three innings passed without a score. In the fourth Rivermouth got a
runner to third; but two men were out, and, with three balls and no
strikes called against him, Dick braced wonderfully, putting two
straight ones over the plate and then fanning the batter with a drop.
This seemed to revive the confidence of the home team somewhat, and
Jolliby started off with a hit in Fardale’s half. On Singleton’s out at
first Chip reached second.
Tubbs bunted and came near beating the ball to first. Although he was
thrown out by a narrow margin, Jolliby was landed on third.
Buckhart tried his best for a hit, but drove the ball along the ground
at Armstrong. The pitcher snapped it up, whirled toward third, and held
Chip close to that bag, after which he turned and threw to first. The
throw was a trifle wide, and it bounded out of the baseman’s mitt. By
the time the ball was picked up Buckhart had crossed the bag.
“Well! well! well!” roared the cadets in great relief.
“Up!” shouted the leader of the cheering, with an upward motion of both
arms. “All up for Merriwell!”
Every boy in blue rose to his feet as Dick advanced to the plate, bat in
hand.
“’Ere’s where we win the game, don’t y’ ’now!” shrieked Billy Bradley.
“He will do the trick!”
When Dick struck wide of the first ball with an awkward swing of the bat
some were surprised. Others, however, saw the object, for Buckhart took
second on that pitch, and Merriwell’s flourish had been for the purpose
of bothering the catcher. He had not tried to touch the ball.
“A hit now will win this game!” panted Earl Gardner.
“He will get it,” said Barron Black confidently.
Armstrong was on his mettle, and did his best to deceive Merriwell. He
led the batter to swing at a deceptive in-drop, and two strikes were
called.
“Sit down! sit down!” yelled a Rivermouth fellow. “The inning is over!
He will never disturb Armstrong!”
Barely had the words been uttered when Dick met one of Armstrong’s
curves and sent the ball skimming along the ground at great speed.
The shortstop sprang to get in front of it, while Jolliby made a daring
dash for the plate. The ball took an erratic bound just before reaching
the shortstop and went over his shoulder.
Then there was a shriek from the cadets.
“’Ome! ’ome!” yelled Billy Bradley, who was on the coaching line near
third.
Buckhart dashed over the bag and swung toward the home plate.
The left-fielder had come in for the ball, and he made a beautiful throw
to the plate. Buckhart was tagged barely a second before he reached
home, and was out.
However, Fardale had scored a run, as Jolliby had reached the plate
safely.
The game continued to be of the sort to keep every one keyed to a high
pitch. Repeatedly Rivermouth seemed to be on the verge of scoring, but
in each instance the home team managed to crawl out of the hole and save
itself.
With seven complete innings played and no other run secured, it began to
seem as if one score would settle that game.
In the first half of the eighth, however, a peculiar thing happened. The
first two batters were easy outs. By this time, although they continued
to cheer their team valiantly, the hearts of the Rivermouth cheerers
were growing faint. The next hitter managed to drive out a clean one
that looked to be good for two bases. It passed over Tubbs’ head just
out of reach and went bounding away toward the fence.
Jolliby raced for it. The ball reached the fence and disappeared.
The Rivermouth runner was astonished on reaching second to find a
coacher back of third wildly shrieking and motioning for him to come on.
Wondering what had happened, he made for third, feeling certain he must
stop there. In the meantime, Jolliby and Flint had reached the fence
where the ball had disappeared, and were seen kneeling on the ground.
At that spot there was a small hole in the fence, and by a rare freak of
fortune the ball had passed through this opening. Jolliby peered through
a crack and could see the sphere outside the fence at a little distance,
lying on the ground. He thrust his long arm through the hole and found
himself barely able to touch the ball with the ends of his fingers. In
trying to get hold of it he pushed it farther away.
Thus, while Chip was vainly seeking to stretch his arm far enough to get
the ball, the Rivermouth runner came home with the tying score.
The spectators of both sides were shaking with excitement. The eighth
inning ended with a score of one to one. In the ninth Rivermouth
apparently started off with grim determination to win the game then and
there. Two hits and a bad error filled the bags, with only one man out.
Chester Arlington, who had been watching the game with intense interest,
now nodded and smiled.
“She’s over!” he declared. “The jig is up! Rivermouth wins right here!”
For the first time during the game Dick began to pitch with his right
hand. Regardless of his right side, he used speed and curves. The next
batter fanned twice in his eagerness to get a hit.
“Steady, old man!” cautioned the Rivermouth captain. “We have this thing
clinched.”
Then the batter hit the ball a savage crack, and it shot on a dead line,
so that it seemed certain to pass over Obediah Tubbs at least eight feet
from the ground and somewhat to one side of the fat boy.
Obediah made a marvelous leap into the air.
Spat!
He had the ball! It was a most astonishing catch, and a wild cheer of
delight went up from the cadets as the fat boy quickly stepped onto
second and made a double play, the runner having left the bag.
Somehow this strange blighting of their high hopes seemed to take the
snap out of Rivermouth.
The first Fardale batter drove an easy one to third base, but the
baseman fell all over himself in trying to pick it up. A comedy of
errors followed. The infielders apparently sought to outdo one another
in bungling plays, and the bags were filled.
Then Armstrong took a brace and struck out a batter. The next player
connected with the ball in time to settle the game. The ball was lifted
over the infield, the shortstop failing to get back for it, and Fardale
scored the winning run in the last half of the ninth, thus capturing one
of the hardest games ever played on that field.