CHAPTER VIII.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 mannerto 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 Rivermouthrooter. “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 longarm 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.