CHAPTER XXV.
VICTORY!
Another pitcher was set to warming up right away, although it was as much the fault of the infield players as of Finch that Yale had tied the score. Finch saw the man getting ready to go in, and that helped take the sand out of the fellow. He gave the next batter a base on balls, and then Parker got a hit that brought Walling home and gave Yale the lead.
It was a happy crowd of rooters who wore the blue just then. A few minutes before it had seemed that Yale did not have a show in the game. At the beginning of the inning Yale had not scored, and Princeton apparently had a snap. Now Yale was one score in the lead.
The students from New Haven acted like maniacs. They howled like so many savages, they sung, they thumped each other, they laughed and shrieked.
There was one who did not shout. It was Pooler. He looked very ill.
“Too bad!” he grated. “Is it possible Merriwell and Hodge are going to be the cause of beating me again! Oh, Merriwell is poison to me! His man, Hodge, started the ball rolling, and he followed it up. Then those Princeton puppies acted like a lot of children! It’s awful!”
He wiped the cold sweat from his face.
“Here’s to good old Yale, drink it down!” sang the rooters.
Finch dallied for time. He wanted to get out of the box, for something told him Yale would keep right on piling up scores while he remained in.
The Princeton captain sent out a new pitcher, and Finch dropped the ball willingly.
The new man pitched a very slow ball. It was a great change from the speed of Finch, and the batter popped up an easy fly to the infield, which retired Yale at last.
But the rooters were jubilant, and the players were hopeful.
“Now, fellows,” said Frank, as the men went out into the field, “we must be steady and hold them down. If we can do it, this game belongs to us.”
But it did not take him long to discover that the men were too anxious. Walling let an easy hit go through him, and the batter reached first. Stubbs dropped a hot bounder, and two men were on bases. Wintz made a wild throw to third, and the bases were filled without Princeton having made a hit.
The Princeton rooters were warming up.
They were doing their best to rattle Merriwell.
Frank did not believe in working for strike-outs, but he began to realize that the time had come when strike-outs counted. He trimmed the next batter’s whiskers with an in, he pulled him with an out, and he paralyzed him with a double-shoot.
“Three strikes—batter out,” decided the umpire.
“Got to do it twice more,” thought Merry, while Hodge nodded at him encouragingly.
He did. With astonishing ease, apparently, he made the next two men fan, and Princeton had not scored.
Yale held the lead.
As Frank came in to the bench, Hodge met him and said:
“It was beautiful work, Merry! It was grand! Keep it up. You must win this game in the box. The team can’t be trusted.”
“I will do my best,” said Frank, quietly.
He did. Although Yale was unable to make another score, Frank held Princeton down so she could not recover her lead, although she filled the bases in the ninth, and made a desperate bid for a score. For the last time in the game, Merry used the double-shoot, and the last Princeton man fanned gracefully.
It was all over but the shouting. Yale had won, and the little crowd of loyal rooters were weak from their vocal efforts, but happy—so happy!
Without doubt, the most wretched man in New Jersey that day was Pink Pooler. He hated Frank Merriwell, he hated himself, he hated everybody and everything. The victorious shouts of the Yale men made him sick at heart, and he slunk away by himself.
The news was sent to New Haven by wire. The score had been sent out by innings, and at the end of the fifth inning, with the score six to nothing in Princeton’s favor, a deep cloud of gloom hung over the Yale campus. The only hope of the most hopeful was that Yale would manage to get in one run and save a shutout.
When the result of the next inning came in everyone seemed paralyzed with astonishment. They could not believe the defenders of the blue had made seven runs in a single inning. It seemed utterly ridiculous. They thought it was a hoax. Some bets were made that it was not right.
And, when the game continued and ended, and they knew for a certainty that Yale had won, there was a wild scene on the Yale campus. To snatch victory from defeat in such a manner was enough to set the Yale men wild.
“Where is Finch?” was the cry. “Oh, he had his troubles in the sixth! Our boys didn’t do a thing to him!”
It was a remarkable game; the score board told that. A hundred fellows said they would have given anything had they seen it. They were regretful when they thoughthow they had remained away because they thought Yale did not have a chance to win.
Everybody talked baseball, and Frank Merriwell’s name was on everybody’s tongue. It was generally believed that he was responsible for the marvelous manner in which Yale had won.
“You may bet your life he did most of the pitching,” chuckled Paul Pierson. “Princeton did not score after the second inning. I’ll bet something Merriwell pitched the last seven innings of that game.”
It was a happy crowd of players and rooters who took the train for New York that night. Some Princeton men came down and saw them off.
“It’s all right, fellows,” called the Tigers. “You won by a fluke. Next time Finch will paralyze you. He is a dandy!”
“What’s the matter with Merriwell?” cried Charlie Creighton. “You did not make a score off him. How do you like that delirium tremens curve of his?”
“It’s a bird!” was the answer; “but we’ll eat it next time.”
“Oh, I don’t know! Finch is a dandy, but what’s the matter with Merriwell?”
“He’s all right!” shouted the jolly lads on the railway station.
“You bet he is!” flung back the Yale men on the train. “Three cheers for Merriwell!”
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”
Then the train drew out of the station.
It was one of those glorious hours that comes to every college lad who admires the manly game of baseball. And it seems remarkable that any live American boy with warm blood in his body can fail to love the game with all his soul.