The next batter followed with a hit. Then an error filled the bases.
“Virginia does it right here!” said Ditson. “A good hit now means two or three more scores, which will clinch the game.”
What was that commotion amid the crowd? Men were standing and gazing down the road. A murmur arose; it swelled louder and louder.
“What is it? Who is it?” the crowd cried.
Two horses were coming at a mad gallop along the road, their hoofs ringing clear, a cloud of dust rising behind them.
The riders were urging their horses to the highest rate of speed, racing along side by side.
One was a man, a handsome, determined, beardless youth, who, though the horse he bestrode was without a saddle, rode like a centaur.
The other was a boy, and he clung like a monkey to the back of his horse, his eyes gleaming with excitement, every freckle on his face seeming to sparkle with excitement. On his upper lip was a strange black smooch.
Then Dick Starbright uttered a little sigh of relief. But the batter sprang to his place, crying:
“Make him deliver the ball, Mr. Umpire, according to the rules. Don’t let him delay the game!”
Dick saw—Dick knew. Down to the ground he dropped, writhing in apparent pain, seemingly seized with cramps, while nearer and nearer came the hoofbeats of the galloping horses.
“Call a ball on him, Mr. Umpire!” cried the batter.
“You can’t make a sick man pitch,” said the umpire, with a strange grin. “Mr. Hodge, where is your next pitcher?”
Into the enclosure by the open gate dashed the horses and their riders.
“He is here!” rang out the clear voice of Hodge, as Frank Merriwell flung himself from the back of one of those horses and advanced.
“Yee-ee-ee!” screamed King Jimmy, the Conqueror, as he waved his tattered hat over his head. “Here he is, fellers!”
Then King Jimmy’s loyal subjects danced and capered and yelled and stood on their heads and turned cart-wheels.
Oh, it was a great and thrilling moment! Proud? Why, Jimmy hardly deigned to breathe just plain ordinary every-day air! It was not good enough for him!
The Yale men were wild with delight, and the crowd was thrilled with the intensity of it all.
“He’s arrived too late,” Ditson declared. “The game is lost already, and he cannot save it.”