CHAPTER III

A GAME WORTH SEEING

“See the ice wagon move!”

“It’s got an engine attached to it somewhere, fellows!”

“Will he get it--maybe, maybe not!” whooped Jack Eastwick.

“It’s a balloon, that’s what it is!” howled one Bellport enthusiast.

They saw Buster glancing over his shoulder once or twice as he ran. It was a perfect wonder that he did not stumble and fall flat, for on more than one former occasion that was what had happened to the apparently clumsy fielder.

But Frank had high hopes. He knew that Buster could rise to an emergency, and really accomplish the impossible--for such stockily built fellows of his class. He held his breath as the fielder turned squarely around and threw up one of his hands. Hough was already shooting down toward second in wild haste. If Buster made a mess of it the hit was likely to count a home run, for it had enough steam behind it to carry far afield.

“He did it, Buster did it!” cried dozens of voices, as though the speakers had considerable difficulty in believing their own eyes.

Then a fierce wave of sound went surging over the field. It was a fine play that appealed to the sportsmanlike spirit of an American crowd, so that even the warmest adherents of Bellport High joined in the tremendous cheer that awoke the echoes in the hills near by.

And Hough walked in from second, shaking his head, and looking back toward the plump fielder as though he felt that he had been robbed.

Two out! It was a splendid beginning, and nerved Frank to keep up the good work. If the balance of the boys only did their duty as Buster had shown how, the game would turn out to be a one-sided affair at best.

But Frank knew the vagaries that attach to baseball, which serve to give it its greatest charm. No game is won until the last man is put out. A rally can cause a winning team to go all to pieces, so that their opponents fairly “shoot holes through their ranks.”

“Banghardt next!”

“He’s the boy who can do it, else why his name?”

“Watch him knock the cover off the ball! See the fielders move out. Oh! Allen knows this chap. He’s the swift bunch, all right!”

After all this boasting it must have been a bit humiliating to the Bellport boosters to see their idol strike out; but that was what the mighty Banghardt did. Three separate times did he send that wagon-tongue bat of his whistling through the air, each occasion being marked with a distinct grunt as it met only vacant space, for the ball was not where he believed it to be.

“Better luck next time, Tony! Taking his measure are you?” yelled a Columbia boy, derisively, as the fielder threw his bat savagely away, and started out to attend to his territory, for the inning was over.

Coddling took a brace after that first unfortunate affair, and the next three visitors who faced him were mowed down in regular order. His curves were most exasperating, his speed terrific, and he could mix a few fadeaway balls with the others in a fashion that kept the batter guessing all the time.

So once more Frank went into the box to face the hard-hitting Bellport men.

“Promises to be a warm game,” remarked a man who happened to be sitting beside Lef Seller on the bleachers.

“Oh! I don’t know,” replied the disgruntled Columbia student, a pitcher of no mean merit himself, and who, but for his own misconduct, might have been serving on the team as a substitute. “That Coddling is a marvel sure, and they say he gets better right along, finishing strong. It’s different, with Frank. You see he starts well, but any little thing is apt to rattle him badly, so that he goes to pieces.”

This was not so, as Lef well knew, but he could never resist the temptation to give the boy he hated a sly and underhand dig.

The gentleman looked at his hat-band curiously.

“You’re from Columbia, too, I believe, judging from the purple and gold ribbon you wear?” he remarked, with a slight sneer.

“Oh! yes, I used to pitch for them last year, but the faculty jumped on me for some foolish little thing I did, and refused to let me take part this season. Frank does his best, we all know, but he isn’t just as steady as he might be,” continued Lef, brazenly.

“That’s queer. I had an idea Frank was about as cool a player as I had ever seen in my old days at Princeton. If that’s the reputation he has then I’ve made the poorest play of my life, and I used to be considered a judge. Buster gave me to understand differently.”

“Then you know Buster Billings?” asked Lef, quickly and uneasily.

“Why, I’m stopping at his house just now,” came the reply.

“Oh! then I can understand how it comes you think so highly of Frank, because he has a few chums always ready to sneeze when he takes snuff. There are some others in Columbia, and I own that I’m one of the gang, who believe Frank Allen to be a greatly overrated athlete. There! did you see him pass that man. He never pitched near the plate. I told you he could be easily rattled!”

“Wait, my boy. Many a pitcher, as you know, does that, when he feels it in his bones that the batter is able to hit the ball. Besides, perhaps he knows that the next man is an easy mark for him,” remarked the gentleman, who seemed to be quite at home with regard to the fine points of the game.

“That Smith, Jr., is the left fielder, and I have seen him send the ball out of sight. But his brother is no pie either, and if Frank thinks he’s going to mow him down he has another guess coming,” muttered Lef, eagerly watching, and ready to howl should the batter connect.

“One strike!” announced the umpire, though the man had not swung at all.

With the next ball he did strike viciously, but the merry plunk as the horsehide sphere settled comfortably in the big mitt of Paul Bird told that he had failed to properly gauge the line of its rifleball flight.

After that came a foul and two balls. Frank believed he had his measure taken, and it was with the utmost confidence that he sent in one of his tantalizing out-curves.

“You’re out!” shouted the umpire.

The man on first had not dared run down, for he knew Frank’s battery mate was a remarkably accurate thrower to second; and that only on rare occasions had any opposing player purloined that sack while Paul Bird stood behind the plate.

“Only one down!” shouted the coach near first, dancing about in an effort to divert the pitcher’s attention from his business; but Frank was up to all such stale tricks, and paid no attention to Snodgrass, his eye being on Lacy at the bat, and Smith, Jr., on the initial sack.

Lacy was reckoned the dude of Bellport High. He always seemed as though “walking on eggs,” as some of the Columbia fellows said, and his manner of dressing in the very latest style had gained him the name of being a dandy. But when it came to covering that short field he had few peers among the school teams in that part of the country.

He could also lace them out on occasion, too, having that very desirable quality in a successful player, called a “batting eye.”

Frank knew him of old, and played him cautiously. In spite of his care, however, Herb reached out and tapped one of his outshoots. The ball went plunging in the direction of short, and the crowd gasped to see how that acrobatic Tom Budd did his part of the business.

He threw himself headlong at the passing ball, as though his legs were unable to carry him fast enough. They saw him turn a complete somersault and land on his feet like an acrobat in the circus.

“Wow!” howled the amazed Bellport players, as Tom whirled and sent the ball to Seymour on second, who instantly relayed it to Lanky just in time to cut off the leaping Lacy while he was yet in the air.

“A double! What do you think of that for playing?” shrieked the Columbia crowd, standing on their feet, and waving the colors of their school as if frenzied.

“What sort of a human hinge have you got out there in short?” asked the gentleman alongside Lef; “I’ve seen some clever plays in my time, but that certainly beat them all out. Can that chap play baseball standing on his head?”

“Oh! that’s Tom Budd, and he’s always doing stunts. Sometimes he succeeds, but more often makes a muss of it,” grunted Lef, who had felt disgusted to see Bellport mowed down so easily when things looked bright for a run.

“I’m glad I happened to see him when he succeeded, then. That was worth ten times the price of the admission. I came to see a baseball match, but this is as good as a circus,” laughed the other.

Lef moved away. Somehow or other he felt that he would be in more congenial atmosphere among some of the Bellport rooters, and listening to derogatory remarks concerning the fellow he detested.

It was Ralph at the bat again, and this time he went out on a fly that Snodgrass captured after a hard run. Shadduck fanned after knocking about seven fouls that gave Clay a number of hard runs without any success at corraling one. And while Jack Comfort managed to lift one that landed him on first, he perished on the way to second, owing to Clay’s straight shoot to the bag.

In their half of the third, Bellport managed to put one run over. Shaddock fumbled a hot liner that came his way, allowing the stout Bardwell to gallop to first. Then Clay lifted a fly that, while caught, gave the other a chance to land on second.

“Play the game, fellows!” shouted the eager watchers, as the pitcher took his place to bat.

Coddling bunted, and while out at first the chance was given Bardwell to settle himself comfortably on third.

This compelled Snodgrass to hit, something he seldom did, preferring to get his base on balls. With a lucky little pop fly that neither Lanky nor Buster could reach before it fell, he brought his man in.

Hough went out on a long fly to Comfort, so that the score was now two to one in favor of Columbia.

Frank, when coming in, glanced up toward the grandstand. He knew very well just where his sister and Minnie Cuthbert were seated, and nodded his head with a smile in answer to the furious waving of the little purple and gold banners both girls carried. It was an inspiration to him to know that they were watching his work.

Then he looked up at the beautiful pennant that floated over the field, offered by the same Mr. Garabrant who had towed their disabled launch, to the club winning the greater number of games in this tri-school league series of battles on the diamond.

“You’ll get it, Frank, never fear!” shouted some one from the bleachers, seeing that look he gave.

“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” jeered a Bellport rooter.

“It’s a bully good fight, all right,” admitted a Clifford man, “and we’re only sorry to be out of it up our way. But most of our people want Columbia to win.”

Three more innings saw no change in the score. Several hits were made off each pitcher, but good fielding, and a tightening up all around, prevented any damage resulting from such isolated cases.

So the seventh commenced, with the strain greater than ever.

“Hold them down, Frank! You’ve got it, if you do!”

“But do some little batting yourselves, boys. Get at him! Coddling’s easy when you just know how!” jeered the other side.

When Paul Bird stepped up to the plate to take his turn at the beginning of the seventh some one started to sing, “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.” A score of voices instantly joined in, followed by hundreds of others, until there was so much noise that the decisions of the umpire could not be heard above it, and he had to depend on gestures entirely.

And while the uproar was at its height Paul was sent to first on balls!

“Coddling is getting rattled, boys! Keep it up!” shrieked a dozen frantic Columbia fellows, waving their ribbon bedecked hats wildly.

“Watch Frank bring him in with a three-bagger! He can do it, all right!” sang the crowd, as the pitcher stepped quietly up to the plate.