CHAPTER XXIV.
FRANK IN THE BOX.
“That is easy,” said Charlie Creighton, hopefully. “Our boys will tie that without a struggle.”
But he was mistaken. Nat Finch, the Princeton wonder, did not do a thing but strike out three men in succession, while the great crowd roared its delight.
“That settles it!” said Pooler. “Those are three top-enders, the best batters on the team. If he can make monkeys of them like that, what will he do with the weak batters?”
The rooters were silent. They were discouraged. Not a few of them wished themselves back to New Haven.
Frank was the only one who seemed calm and unruffled. Bart Hodge was pale.
“That fellow Finch is a wizard, Merry!” he huskily exclaimed. “I don’t believe anybody else can fool Cal Jeffers like that. Why, Jeffers is a hitter!”
“That’s right,” nodded Frank, quietly. “But there is a question.”
“Eh? What sort of a question?”
“Can Finch hold this up?”
“He has a reputation.”
“I don’t care. I’ll go you something that he slumps before the game is over. He is a strike-out pitcher. He likes to do that trick, as it attracts attention to him. That is what will count against him.”
“We don’t have one show in a thousand unless you peel off and get into the game.”
“That is foolishness.”
“Not a bit of it. He has taken the wind out of the fellows.”
Frank sent Haggerty into the box again. The little fellow dreaded what was before him, but he went out resolved to do his best.
The first man up got a hit, while the next man got first on balls. Then the two tried a double steal, but Hodge shut the fellow off at third with an easy throw, and Walling came near making it a double by a snap throw to second.
Then another man got a hit, which left a man on first and third, the one on second only getting one base on the hit, as he stumbled and fell when he ran.
“A hit means a score!” roared a voice from the midst of the Princeton rooters.
“It may mean two scores,” cried another voice. “Murphy will steal second on the first ball pitched.”
Hodge called Haggerty up, and they whispered together, while the Princeton crowd guyed them.
Haggerty sent in a high ball on his next pitch, and Murphy, who was on first, shot toward second.
Hodge made a motion to line the ball down to second, and, as Stubbs was not playing in for a short throw and a return to the plate, the man on third started toward home.
Hodge did not throw to second. With a snap he wheeled toward third, and sent the ball whistling at Walling, who was hugging the bag.
The runner saw the trick, stopped short, and tried to get back to the bag.
Over his shoulder sped the ball, and he saw he was caught between the bases. He tried to dodge back and forth along the line, but Walling ran him down and pinned him.
Two men were out.
Thus far Yale had kept Princeton from scoring on the second inning, but it had not been by work in the box.
Now the men in yellow and black fell on Haggerty fiercely. They hammered him to right, to left, and to center. With two men out, they ran in three more scores in a hurry.
Before the third score was made, Frank Merriwell was out of his sweater and warming up. When the third man crossed the plate, he walked into the diamond, and Haggerty, sick at heart, came out of the box.
Frank was greeted with a cheer. The Yale men cheered him, and Princeton men clapped their hands, for he was well known and admired for his prowess.
His face was quite calm as he went into the box.
Pink Pooler sneered:
“Here is where Mr. Merriwell takes his medicine. Oh, Princeton has won the game now! Yale can’t get six scores off a fellow like Finch.”
Nobody said a word. All seemed to feel that Pooler was right.
Merry remembered how Billy Mains had paralyzed the Baltimore batter by sending in a double-shoot for the first ball, and he resolved to try it on the Princeton man. Bart signaled for a drop, but Frank gave him a signal that told his decision to use the double-shoot at the very start.
Having taken plenty of time, Merriwell sent in a “smoker.” The ball made a sharp outcurve, and then curved inward so quickly that it passed fairly over the outside corner of the plate, although it had looked like a wild one.
“One strike!” cried the umpire.
The batter dropped his stick and stared at Merriwell, while cries of astonishment came from the grand stand.
The face of Bart Hodge was calm and cold as ice, whilehis nerves were steady as a clock, although they had been badly shaken till Frank entered the box.
“Have I got ’em?” muttered the batter, as he rubbed his eyes and picked up his bat.
“What’s the matter?” sharply asked the captain of the team. “Why did you drop it?”
“You should have seen that ball!” returned the man at the plate. “It had more curves than a corkscrew! I’ll bet he can’t do it again.”
Not a word did Frank say, but again he assumed a position that told Hodge he would pitch a double-shoot.
This time he started it with an in, and it changed to an out, just as the batter leaped back to get out of the way.
Over the outside corner of the plate passed the ball.
“Two strikes!” cried the umpire.
The batter was dazed.
“I’d give a hundred dollars to know what kind of twists he is getting onto that thing!” he muttered. “Never saw anything like that before.”
After that he felt that he could not tell where the ball was coming. The next one started with an outcurve, but the batter feared it might twist in somehow, for all that such a thing seemed utterly impossible, so he fanned the empty air trying to hit it, and was out.
Frank had pitched three balls and struck the man out.
“Now, fellows,” said Frank, as his men gathered around him near the bench, “if you will keep cool and think you can hit Finch, you will hit him all right before you quit. I am going to try to hold them down hard. If we can make some scores in any possible way, we stand a fair shot at this game yet.”
“That’s rot!” said Hal Faunce. “We do not stand a ghost of a show. I can’t hit Finch, and I don’t believe the rest of you can.”
Without showing the least excitement, but speaking very coldly, Merry said:
“Faunce, go into the dressing room and get out of that suit. Browning will put it on if he can get into it.”
“What?” cried Faunce, harshly. “What do you mean?”
“I do not propose to put a man up against Finch who feels sure he can’t hit the fellow. It’s a waste of time.”
“You are going to lay me off?” growled Faunce.
“Yes,” said Frank, and turned away.
Cursing under his breath, Faunce started toward the dressing room. Frank motioned for Browning to follow, and Bruce obeyed.
It happened that Faunce was a big fellow, and the suits were loose, so that there was a chance for Browning to get into the one worn by the angry right fielder.
The game went on.
Bink Stubbs came to the bat and fanned out easily. Then Walling came up and popped an easy fly into the air, so Finch gathered it in and got an out to his credit.
Wintz was the next batter. He did not try to slaughter the ball, but he got up against it fairly, and sent it out toward short. Beverage should have picked it up, but he made a fumble, and Wintz succeeded in reaching first ahead of the ball.
“Here is where we start,” said Frank.
But Parker, the next man, batted a liner straight at Murphy, who took it easily.
Still not a hit had been obtained off Finch.
Frank went into the box, prepared to make a fight to keep Princeton from rolling up a score. He could not use his great double-shoot often, but he resolved to use it at critical times. He could control it in a marvelous manner, so it was not dangerous to use.
The first man up managed to find the ball. It was not a hit, but he got first on an error by Wintz.
Then Merry toyed with the next batter, while the anxious runner was held close to first, without daring to try a steal. At last the batter tried to bunt, but Frank apprehended the trick, and ran in the moment he pitched the ball.
Down toward third rolled the ball. Merry got it ahead of Walling, scooping it up with one hand, and turned, throwing it with the same motion that picked it from the ground.
Down to second sped the ball. It got there ahead of the runner, and Wintz snapped it to first quick as a flash.
It was a double play; both men were out.
Then the Yale rooters took heart and cheered. Once more not a few of the Princeton men were generous enough to give a hand.
Frank was not trying to make a brilliant record on strike-outs, but he was holding his opponents down on hits.
The next man up struck out, however, and then Yale once again came to the bat.
For the next three innings the score remained just the same; Princeton had made six, while Yale had not been able to score, although Merriwell, Hodge, Browning, Jeffers and Wintz obtained good hits. Finch, however, was keeping the hits scattered, and the cloud of gloom had settled thickly over the few Yale rooters huddled on the bleachers.
Merriwell was toying with Princeton’s best batters. Whenever it looked as if a good man had Merriwell in a hole, he would “put on steam,” send in one or two more of those baffling double-shoots, and strike the man out.
The rooters growled. Why hadn’t Frank gone in at the start? Then it might have been different. Now the game was lost beyond recovery.
“That shows what a fine manager he is,” sneered Pooler.
In the sixth inning Yale seemed in just as bad luck as ever. The first two men up went out, and then Hodge came to the bat. There was fire in Bart’s eye. He waited for a good one, and then smashed it out for one of the longest drives of the day, landing on third before the outfielders could get the sphere back into the diamond.
Merriwell was the next batter. He was very particular in the selection of a wagon-tongue bat, and, when he came up, he resolved to bring Bart in if possible.
Finch was shooting them over like bullets. He tried to strike Frank out, and that was where he made his mistake. Merry picked out a good one, found it, met it, and sent it humming.
In came Hodge, while Frank made two bags with ease.
The Yale rooters brightened up.
“What’s this? What’s this?” cried Charlie Creighton. “They have dropped on Finch at last! Now they will hit anything he sends over the plate.”
The Yale yell was heard, and the little bunch of rooters did their best to encourage the players.
Finch was astonished by Merriwell’s success. Suddenly he lost some of the supreme confidence that had buoyed him up all the while. Yale had scored at a time when a whitewash seemed sure. What was going to happen next?
Cal Jeffers came to the plate. He had been placed at the head of Yale’s batting list because of his qualities as a hard, sure hitter.
Hodge and Merriwell had secured hits, and Jeffers looked as if he meant to do the same.
Finch fiddled with the ball, while two Yale coachers shouted from opposite sides of the diamond. He pitched twice and had two called balls on him. Jeffers stood calmly waiting for a good one.
Finch decided to put on his greatest speed and cut theoutside corner of the plate. He did, and Cal Jeffers swung his bat.
It did not seem that Jeffers put any force into that hit, but the ball went skimming down between short and second so fast that no one could touch it, and it placed Jeffers on second, while Merriwell scored with ease.
Two for Yale!
The rooters broke loose in earnest. This was better than they had expected.
And big Bruce Browning was at the bat!
Now Bruce seemed very much awake. He had barely been able to pull on Faunce’s suit, and it looked as if he might split open the shirt or the trousers at any moment.
Finch was nervous; he showed it. His confidence had dropped in an astonishing manner.
“It’s too bad,” said Pink Pooler, who showed some symptoms of uneasiness. “Why didn’t the fellows do this before? Now it is too late.”
“It’s never too late to mend,” said Dismal Jones, solemnly. “There is a chance for you.”
Finch resolved to worry Browning, but he made a mistake with the first ball he pitched. Without intending to do so, he sent that ball over close to the ground.
Browning hit it, and rapped out a daisy-cutter that enabled him to get first, while Jeffers, by the most brilliant running, crossed third and came home on a slide, getting in the score.
“There’s half of it!” screamed Jack Diamond, from the bleachers.
His voice was drowned by the Yale cheers.
Right there Finch went entirely to pieces. He became so wild that the next two men got a base on balls, and the bags were all taken. Then Walling rapped one to Princeton’s third baseman. It should have been an easy out, but the man was so anxious to pick it up cleanly that he juggledit, tossed it into the air, caught it, threw it to first, and put it away over the head of the baseman.
Browning had scored, Costigan followed him, and Bink Stubbs made a slide for third.
The right fielder was the man who got the ball. He shot it to first, and first sent it across to third. It was another wild throw. The whole Princeton nine seemed “up in the air.”
Stubbs scrambled up, hearing the coacher yelling for him to make for home. He did so. His short legs fairly twinkled as he tore down the line, and he crossed the plate ahead of the ball.
Then the Yale rooters yelled, and shrieked, and cheered till it seemed they were crazy, for the score was tied!