CHAPTER XV.
IN THE GAME.
The regulars had been so dazed by Gamp’s marvelous catch that not a man had moved toward the plate, so the umpire was forced to call:
“Batter up!”
Hal Faunce was the next man on the list. He left the bench and picked out a bat.
“I’m going to do the same trick Jeffers did, just to see if that farmer out there in left garden can repeat his trick,” declared Faunce. “Look out for me, Merriwell.”
“That’s right,” cried a voice from the crowd of spectators; “line her out, Fauncie. Jeffers showed how easy Merriwell is to-day. Anybody can hit him.”
Frank continued to smile, but, mentally, he exclaimed:
“Think so, my fine fellow, if you like! I’ll have to see what I can do. I know Hal Faunce’s weakness, and I’m going to lay for him.”
He sent in a “coaxer” to start with, but Faunce did not try to repeat Jeffers’ trick by lining out the first one pitched, and the umpire called a ball.
The next one was high, and the umpire called another ball.
“Merry doesn’t dare to let him hit it,” shouted somebody.
Frank smiled, motioning for Hodge to come under the bat.
Bart walked down and put on a mask. He had not smiled during all the excitement. His face was unmoved, and he made a strong contrast to Frank Merriwell, who looked as pleasant as if he were witnessing a free show.
Taking his place close under the bat, Bart signaled for an out drop.
Merry shook his head, immediately assuming a position which Hodge understood to mean that he would deliver a high inshoot.
In order to make the others believe he was doing all the signaling, Bart made a fake signal, which did not mean anything at all.
With his greatest speed Frank sent a ball whistling through the air. To Faunce it looked like a high straight one, and he could “feast on that kind.”
He struck with all his strength, but the only resistance met by his bat was that of the air, and it was such a surprise that Faunce was thrown off his feet.
Plunk!—the ball was held in Bart Hodge’s glove.
“One strike,” called the umpire.
“Here! here! here!” laughed Frank. “Don’t be trying to throw yourself at the ball, Fauncie. That won’t do. Hit it with the bat.”
Faunce picked himself up, looking red and disgusted.
“Oh, I’ll hit it next time!” he savagely declared. “I’ll knock the peeling off it!”
“That’s right,” nodded Frank. “Knock the stitches out of it—if you can. I don’t believe you can.”
Some one in the crowd groaned derisively.
“Hello!” said Merry, with perfect good nature. “Your friends are groaning for you now, Hal. They know you have no show to get a hit. Take my advice and wait for two more balls. Perhaps I can’t get ’em over, and you will get a life on four.”
“Oh, you go to—Chicago!” flung back Faunce, nettled. “I’m going to hit her next time, and you want to get off the earth if it comes your way.”
“All right, let her go.”
Bart was ready, and Merry sent another ball flying overthe plate. It was another high inshoot, and Faunce swung again, missing it as cleanly as before, and nearly throwing himself down a second time.
“Two strikes,” called the umpire.
Frank laughed heartily, but Hodge was as mirthless and stern as before.
“What is he doing with you, Faunce?” cried Danny Griswold, from the seats. “He seems to be making a monkey of you.”
“I’d make a monkey of you if I had you by the neck, you little runt!” muttered the batter, under his breath.
Frank saw that Faunce was so angry that he trembled, and he felt that it would be easy to strike the fellow out.
He was right, for he sent in a third high inshoot, and the batter went after it just as hotly as he had gone after the others, missed it, and was out.
“Sorry for you, old man,” said Frank, quietly. “Don’t believe I can work that on you again.”
“I know you can’t!” snapped Faunce, as he walked to the bench.
“Costigan, come up and take your medicine,” laughed the scorer.
Joe Costigan, the left fielder, who had played third the season before, advanced to the plate. He was a stocky fellow, a reliable man, and a good hitter. It was said that he had no weak points at the bat.
Merry gave him a high swift one, and Costigan let it pass for a ball. Then Frank made the same motion, but sent in a slop drop. Costigan tried to get under it, struck too quick, and missed it.
“One and one,” called Capt. Hardy. “Merry is easy fruit for you, Joe.”
“I am not so sure of that,” muttered Costigan. “I have seen him fool too many good men to think him easy.”
Frank feared Costigan more than he had Faunce, althoughthe latter was the more brilliant hitter. Costigan was not puffed up with too much confidence and he was as steady as a mill.
“I’d give something to strike him out,” thought Merriwell.
He tried to “tease” the batter, but Costigan would not bite, and two more balls were called.
“Now you have him in a hole, old man,” cried Phil Hardy. “He’s forced to put it over.”
Frank thought swiftly just then. Which had he better do, put it over or try a “fooler?” That was a question of some moment just then. He knew well enough that Costigan was the kind of fellow who would take four, instead of breaking his back for a hit, and laugh as he trotted down to first.
But there was something else to be considered. Costigan had seen considerable of Merriwell’s pitching, and he knew Frank was at his best when forced to send them over. Merry had great control, and no one was better aware of it than Joe Costigan. Frank decided that Costigan would think that the next one was sure to be straight over and swift.
“He will try to line it out if it looks good,” decided Frank.
Then he made a delivery that seemed to put all the speed possible into the ball, which started as if to go straight over the plate.
Frank had made no mistake in his reasoning. Costigan bit, but, as it was an outcurve, he did not touch the ball.
“Two strikes!”
Bart tossed the ball back to Frank.
Costigan looked disgusted, and Capt. Hardy cried:
“It would have been a ball if you had waited.”
No one knew that better than Costigan himself.
Without delay Frank sent in another. This time it wasan outcurve, but it was started straight at the batter. Costigan was a trifle mixed and he started back. Too late he saw what kind of a ball it was, and weakly swung his bat at it.
He missed.
“Three strikes—man is out,” called the umpire.
Hodge flung down his mask and sent the ball rolling down toward the pitcher’s box, while Merriwell and his “scrub” team came in from the field.
“Who said they would bat me out of the box?” laughed Merry.
“Wait,” grinned Bink Stubbs, trying to appear pleasant and jovial. “The game has just begun.”
“That was crafty work, Merriwell,” complimented Capt. Hardy. “I will give you the credit of that.”
“Thank you,” said Frank, pleasantly. “Jeffers gave me a shock, and that made me brace up.”
“That farmer out there on the left lawn gave all of us a shock,” said Hardy. “How did he catch that ball?”
“With his hands,” smiled Frank.
“I didn’t think he caught it with his feet, but there was a time that it seemed as if he had just as good show to catch it with his feet as with his hands. How did you know he could play ball?”
“Oh, I’ve talked with him considerable, and I discovered that he knew all the fine points of the game. Then he told me that he used to play on a strong country team up in New Hampshire—sort of a league team.”
“Huah!” grunted Hardy. “That would bar him from playing with Yale, even if he should prove fast enough. Without doubt he has taken pay for playing.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“It would make him a professional, if he had. Say, how about that Fort Worth business? I understand you andHodge played with the team down there. Were you paid for it?”
“Not a cent.”
Hardy looked relieved.
“I was afraid you had taken pay,” he said. “If you had been that foolish, we would be in a scrape, for you might be barred as an amateur, you know.”
“And that would give some of my very particular friends great satisfaction,” smiled Frank. “But you need not let that worry you at all. We played with Fort Worth for the sport of it, and did not receive a cent for doing so.”
By this time the regulars were in the field. Ned Noon was behind the home plate, with little Haggerty, the Williams man, in the box.
Jones was the first batter up for Merriwell’s side. He looked sad and heartless as he advanced to the plate.
Haggerty flung his cap on the ground by his side. He stood with his little legs spread, chewing gum rapidly and grinning. He was a pleasant little fellow.
Ned Noon came up under the bat at the very start. It was plain he was going to show what he could do.
Haggerty sent in a pretty one, and Jones stared in surprise when the umpire called a strike.
“Too bad!” he sadly muttered, with a shake of his head. “Didn’t know it was going over.”
Some of the spectators laughed at him.
“Look at the ball, Dismal,” cried one, “and you will make it weep.”
Haggerty grinned and poised himself again. He made a round arm flourish, and sent in an outcurve.
Jones struck, but he could not reach the ball by a foot.
“Two strikes!”
The spectators began to laugh.
“Wait,” smiled Frank. “He may hit it all right.”
But Dismal was a trifle rattled, and he missed the third one, striking out.
“Oh, say, Merry!” exclaimed Capt. Hardy, who was sitting on the bench at Frank’s side; “this is going to be too much of a farce.”
“Oh, I don’t know!” was Frank’s careless retort. “You can’t tell about that yet. You fellows may hold us fairly good play, so that there will be some interest in the game. Don’t get discouraged as soon as this.”
“Come off! You know what I mean. That gang of yours hasn’t a show against us.”
“Really! And you did not score the first time at bat! Your crust surprises me, old man.”
“We didn’t score because that jay from New Hampshire caught a ball by accident, and you struck out the next two men. You can’t keep that up.”
“I don’t know about that, either.”
“Say, you make me tired!” came warmly from the captain’s lips, for he was aroused. “If you keep on, I’ll go in and take a hand myself.”
“Do it! It will be jolly sport to strike you out, captain.”
“Don’t get the swelled head, Merriwell! Don’t think you can strike everybody out! That is what spoils a good pitcher.”
“You are right, Hardy,” nodded Frank, seriously. “The pitcher who is forever trying to strike out every batter who faces him soon kills himself. It is the man who holds them down to small hits who makes the success.”
Hardy nodded, cooling down somewhat.
“That is sensible talk,” he said. “I was afraid you had a bug in your nut. A fellow with a bug is N. G.”
Tom Thornton followed Jones. One strike was called on him, and then he cracked out a hot one, which the shortstop fumbled long enough to let the batter reach first.
Then, to the surprise of all, Joe Gamp took his place on the coaching line near first.
“I swear if he isn’t going to coach!” cried a voice. “Well, this will be a riot!”
“A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!” roared Gamp, slapping his thigh. “If this ain’t the gug-gug-gug-greatest pup-pup-pup-pup-pup-picnic I ever struck! Why, this is more fun than chasin’ a yallar cuc-cuc-caow all over a forty-acre pasture lot! A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!”
That laugh was infectious, others caught it, and the crowd roared.
“Fun!” shouted Harry Rattleton, from a position on the coach line over by third. “It’s more fun than bodging dullets—I mean dodging bullets.”
Hodge was the third man to come to the bat.
Noon believed he knew Bart’s weakness, and he motioned for a slow drop.
Haggerty faced the batter.
“Nun-nun-nun-now you’re off!” shouted Gamp to the runner. “Pup-pup-pup-play away off. He can’t cuc-cuc-catch you in a year! Oh, what a good time! A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!”
Haggerty snapped the ball over to first, but Thornton got back all right, and Joe Gamp roared again.
“It is a farce, isn’t it?” smiled Frank, speaking in Capt. Hardy’s ear. “My team seems to be having fun with yours, old man.”
“Oh, wait some,” advised Hardy. “You will laugh out of the other side of your mouth in a minute.”
“Just keep that little cuss tut-tut-tut-throwing, Tom,” said Gamp. “Pup-pup-pretty soon he’ll get excited and tut-tut-tut-throw it a mile.”
But Haggerty did not make another attempt to catch the runner. He suddenly sent in a straight one for Bart, making it high.
Bart struck at it—and missed.
Frank was surprised, for Hodge, as a rule, could hit high ones.
“Oh, he is easy,” cried Ned Noon, derisively. “We’ll have him going after sky-scrapers in a minute.”
“So that is the man you have been recommending, Merriwell,” said Capt. Hardy. “And he wastes his strength on a ball like that. Any boy would have known that was a rod too high.”
“Wait a little yet,” advised Frank. “He may be a trifle anxious just now, for he knows everybody is watching him. I’ll wager my life that he shows up all right directly.”
“He hasn’t done anything in the game yet.”
“He hasn’t been given a chance, has he?”
“Well, not much of a chance,” Hardy was forced to confess.
Down by first Joe Gamp was stammering and haw-hawing, and it was plain that his talk was getting Haggerty a little nervous. The grin had vanished from the face of the pitcher, and his jaws were working convulsively over the chew of gum. He tried Hodge on a low drop, but Bart let it pass. Then he sent in a rise, and Hodge went for it.
To the surprise of both Haggerty and Noon, Hodge hit the ball. It was a frightful crack, and away flew the sphere toward left field.
“Run!” roared the coachers, and Hodge raced down to first, while Thornton went flying toward second.