CHAPTER IV

THE RALLY THAT CAME TOO LATE

Frank gave no sign of the excitement that thrilled his every nerve. He realized that possibly a fortunate hit on his part right then and there would eventually win the game.

Despite the furious racket that kept up on every hand, he faced Coddling, and prepared to do his very best to at least advance the runner.

As a rule pitchers are not reckoned good batters, but Frank Allen had always been known to hit well. Coddling therefore tightened up, and determined to put his rival out of the running by tempting him with some of his astonishing assortment of curves and drops, for his swift ball had already cost him dear, so that he was afraid to use it often.

Frank even allowed a strike to be called on him before he picked out one that seemed to his liking. What he did to that ball was a caution. It sailed away out in right, and Snodgrass had the run of his life to chase after it.

Paul, reaching second, paused, an instant, for if the ball were caught, he would have some difficulty getting back to first in time.

“Go on, Paul!” bellowed the coach through his hands.

The noise had broken out worse than ever, so that each player had to be a law unto himself just then.

“He muffed it! Run! run! run!” whooped everybody who had the interest of Columbia at heart, while the Bellport adherents looked dismal enough.

It was an excusable error, for the fielder had fallen headlong at the instant his fingers touched the ball. He was up like a flash and chasing after it. Paul circled the bases and easily came home, but the coach held Frank at third, as the ball was coming in when he reached there.

Nevertheless, it had been a three-bagger, despite the mess Snodgrass had made of his effort to capture the fly, and a run had resulted. Frank had reason to feel satisfied with himself as he crouched there and panted for breath.

He knew that the chances were he would be a little off in his work unless this inning lasted for some time. That was one reason why his fellow players tried to delay matters as best they could within reason. Ralph tied his shoe, and then knocked three fouls, finally going out on one that Clay managed to get after a furious rush among the crowd to the right, and which brought him much hand-clapping.

Then Bones Shadduck tried his hand. He wanted to bring Frank in, and struck savagely at what he considered fair balls; but Coddling had him guessing, and finally put him to sleep with a fadeaway that had not even reached the plate when the batter tried to knock it out of sight, and “fell all over himself,” as Lanky said, while doing so.

In their half of this inning the Bellport boys seemed to awaken from the trance that had been binding them. There was a hustle and an energy to their play that told Frank he had better take care, or a batting rally would set in under which Bellport would speed to victory as on former occasions.

Bardwell opened with a hit that bounded off the shins of Seymour. When the captain and second baseman of Columbia managed to snatch up the ball it was too late to head the runner off, though Bardwell was a clumsy man on bases.

He pretended to limp around as though he had been spiked or something. The trick is, of course, as old as the hills. It only happens when a better runner is wanted on the initial bag. Seymour nodded his head when the Bellport captain called out, and accordingly Lacy was substituted for the elephantine Bardwell.

Clay tried to bring him in with a big hit away out in center, but Comfort was on his job in that territory, and managed to corral the ball after backing out, even though he could not keep Lacy from taking second.

Then came Coddling. He was no great batter, but there are times when baseball is full of surprises, and Frank was taking no chances.

“Fan him, Frank!” shouted an excited rooter from the grandstand.

“Let him hit it! Encourage a hard-working man a little!” called another.

Coddling tried his level best, but that did not seem good enough, for he presently walked back to the bench, with three strikes marked against his record.

Snodgrass waited, and got his base, though Frank considered that the umpire was unusually severe with him in calling balls, when he cut the plate with at least one of those that counted against him.

“Now, Hough, you know what to do!”

“Yes, Hough, lam it good and hard over old Billings’ head. He’ll never get another like he did that first one. That was an accident!”

“You’ve got him up in the air, boys! Lead that horse into the stable!”

Dozens of like cries sounded everywhere. It is a part of the game to try and rattle the pitcher when such an emergency arises.

Still, that faint smile remained on the face of Frank Allen, as he prepared to take the measure of this hard-hitting Bellport player, who had broken the reputation of at least one promising pitcher.

With two out, and men on first and third, Hough certainly had reason to do everything in his power to make a hit. Then came the sharp shock as the bat met one of Frank’s curves on the nose, and the ball went shooting down toward third.

Shadduck stopped the speedy one as best he could, but it was coming like a comet, and he could not hold it. Jumping after the ball, he snatched it up. The chances of getting it to Paul were rather meagre, but it was his business to try, and he shot it for home.

No doubt the very rapidity of the play unsettled him, so that he failed to send the ball exactly where it would have cut the runner off. Paul had to reach out after it, and then tag the sliding runner.

“Safe!” shouted the umpire, who was there on the spot to see.

Meanwhile Paul had tossed the ball back to Shadduck, for there was danger of Snodgrass coming down from second while all this was going on; in fact, he had to be driven back with threatening gestures.

With two men on bases and two out, the inning still had possibilities, and loud waxed the exultant cries of the Bellport rooters as they sang their school song and made a great demonstration.

“Got him up in a balloon! He’s ascending, all right, boys! Give him another push, Tony!”

Banghardt stepped up full of confidence, and faced the pitcher with determination in his eye. Just two minutes later he dropped his bat and trotted out toward center, for the umpire had said that three balls which sailed past him were along the strike order--and the umpire belonged to Bellport, too, so that there could be little doubt but what he was right.

So the eighth began with Columbia still one run to the good, and Bellport just as positive as ever that they could not only make the lone tally necessary to tie, but add a few more for good measure.

Comfort, Lanky Wallace and Billings tried to accomplish something while they remained for a fleeting space of time on deck, but Coddling seemed to have taken a new lease of life, and they were unable to connect with a single one of his elusive benders.

Frank shut his teeth hard as he went into the box in turn. He was not given to weakening, despite all that the envious Lef had declared; and his arm felt just as good at that minute as in the second inning.

All Smiths looked alike to him, judging from the way he struck the two brothers out, one after the other.

Herb Lacy managed to work him for a free pass to first, but after all it did him little good, for the next batter, Bardwell, lifted a foul that Paul gathered in against the grandstand, to the accompanying cheers of the occupants.

This brought affairs down to the ninth, and all over the field there was intense excitement.

“This is the lucky Bellport inning!” shouted one fellow, encouragingly.

“Watch them run the game out right here!”

“Will they? Maybe, maybe not!” answered Jack Eastwick.

Herman Hooker had jumped to his feet as Columbia went to bat for the last time. Up to the present he had been content to play a minor part, but now his time had come.

“Give it to them, boys--give them the slogan we love, good and strong. Hi! hi! hi! ho! ho! ho! _veni! vidi! vici!_ Columbia! Siss! boom! ah!”

Amid such a pandemonium Tom Budd struck out, though he died trying to find one of those balls which Coddling seemed to be twining around his neck. Seymour was somewhat more fortunate. He raised a fine fly, but unfortunately it landed in the outstretched hands of Smith, Junior, who did not seem to stir a yard.

Paul Bird made a lucky hit that should have been an out, but the players were so nervous by this time that Lacy actually fumbled the ball. Frank, with all the encouragement that might accompany such backing as could spring from the “best yeller Columbia ever had,” as he jumped up and down, and waved his megaphone violently, sent a hot liner straight at Hough on second that nearly took him off his feet, though he held it.

And then Bellport came to the bat. Every man looked grimly confident. Clay made a hit out of the first ball that came along, reaching out and stealing what was meant to be a wide one.

How those Bellport rooters did shriek and jump! It seemed as though they would go crazy as they begged and implored Coddling to win his own game by advancing the runner by a little bunt.

“He just can’t do it, boys!” called one fellow, after Coddling had twice thrust out his bat and failed to even touch the speeding ball.

“Give him a pair of smoke glasses; the sun’s in his eyes!”

“Three times and out, Coddling--take care, old hoss!”

This time Coddling, in despair, struck savagely, and perhaps to his own surprise, tapped the ball smartly toward second.

“Double ’em up!” arose the howl like a flash, for the average baseball rooter can see the possibilities of a play as soon as a player.

And that was just what happened. Seymour snatched the ball from the ground with one hand, leaped over to his sack, and as his foot touched the same he threw for Lanky on first. Coddling was caught ten feet away, and a mighty groan attested to the strain under which the Bellport crowd was resting.

Snodgrass again found that he just had to strike, for Frank was putting them over on purpose now, having full confidence in the men back of him. Smash! went the ball. Lanky fell over very much like a ten pin that has been caught by a rapidly moving ball, but as he sat there he held up his hand to prove that he had forked the sphere out of the air and gripped it tight!

The game was over, and it had been a heartbreaking one all around. Immediately the great crowd flooded the ground, and the players were swallowed up in groups of admiring rooters. Herman Hooker led his gallant band in another cheer, in which the defeated Bellport team came in for a share of the shouting; after which there was a wild rush for all means of transportation whereby the thousands could hope to reach their homes in the neighboring towns.

When the Columbia players reached the river they found that during their absence Abner Gould had succeeded in repairing the motor, so that it was now in condition to take them back home. Frank could not be sure that his suspicions were well founded, and hence he decided to say nothing about the matter. If the man had been hired by his sporting brother to delay the Columbia team, and annoy them so that they would go upon the field nervous and unstrung, he had been caught in his own trap.

Ralph West seemed anxious to speak to Frank in private. They were on the way up the river, and most of the boys had stretched out, talking over the various thrilling events of the great game, when Ralph dropped down beside Frank.

“I’ve been wanting to say a few words to you ever since we left Columbia, but couldn’t get the chance,” he said in a low tone.

Frank could see that he was unduly excited, and he did not believe that this came wholly from his clever work in the recent game.

“All right, Ralph; what is it?” he asked encouragingly, for they had been good friends for some time, and Frank knew all about certain strange events connected with the past life of the freshman who had made good on the Columbia nine.

“I went to the post-office just before we started out,” commenced Ralph.

Frank started, and looked at him eagerly.

“This is just after the first of the month, and that mysterious letter with the money enclosed used to always come at such a time. Well, what happened?” he asked.

“I got the letter,” replied Ralph, drawing a long breath.

“With the money in it?”

“Yes, just as before,” answered the freshman, gulping hard as something seemed to choke him; “and not a single word. Frank, it’s all opened up again, and I must know who is sending me this money. You promised to help me, and I’ll never rest easy until I learn who I am!”