“Home run! Home run! Home run!” yelled the wild lads.
The ball Jerry knocked went deep into centre field, and the frantic fieldsman raced back after it. On and on ran Jerry. Ahead of him sped Bob. And as Bob crossed home plate with his run, Jerry was not far behind him. Nor was the ball a great way off, for it thumped into the hands of Ford Tatum, the catcher, with a vicious thump. But the umpire cried “Safe!” and Boxwood Hall had two more runs.
The score was thirteen to eleven, and only one man was out. But that was the best Boxwood Hall could do. “Sock” disposed of his next two rivals in short order.
“And now if we can hold ’em down--hold ’em down!” murmured Jerry as they went to the field, and Kenwell came up for its last raps.
It looked like another break when Ned gave two men their base on balls, but then his nerve asserted itself. Amid a riot of calls, designed to disconcert him, he stood his ground, and he and Frank put up a game that made a new record for efficiency. For not a man got a hit in the last half of the tenth, and a goose egg went up in that frame for Kenwell, while the score stood
Boxwood Hall had won the second game of the important series in the tenth inning. It was game and game--a third one would be necessary to decide the championship. And as the rooters of the victorious side realized this, and as they thought of what snap and ginger Ned, Bob and Jerry had put into the team at the crucial moment, there came glad shouts and cries.
The winning team had cheered its losing rivals, and in turn, to show their sporting spirit, the military lads had responded. Then out on the diamond swarmed the Boxwood Hall rooters.
“Three cheers for Ned Slade, our peerless pitcher!” called one enthusiast.
The cheers were given with a will, and the boys thronged around our three heroes, patting them on the back, hugging them, trying to shake hands with them and lead them about in a wild snake dance.
Ted Newton saw a dark and scowling look on Frank Watson’s face. He did some quick thinking.
“Three cheers for our captain!” he called. “The pluckiest baseball captain Boxwood Hall ever had.”
And the cheer that followed brought a smile even to Frank’s dour face. Ted had guessed rightly--that Frank was getting jealous of the popularity of the three chums, and Ted did not desire this, for he wanted to see all enmity wiped out.