Garland shook his head in despair.
“I don’t know, Glen,” he said, with a sickly grin. “It was awful. I ought to be kicked off the nine. I expect I’ve lost the game.”
“Nonsense!” Merriwell said quickly, before the Forest Hills’ captain could reply. “Don’t say a game is lost before the third man is out in the last inning. Don’t even think it, for just as sure as you do, you begin to lose heart and, whether you realize it or not, you slump. You don’t make the effort—it doesn’t seem worth while. A game was never lost for a certainty in the second inning, boys. What if they have a lead of two runs? That’s nothing. Two runs are easily made up—and more. Make up your minds that we’re going to win this game. We must win it, and we shall.”
There was something magnetic in the Yale man’s manner—something inspiring in his quiet, calm assurance, which seemed to put heart into the discouraged fellows, causing their eyes to brighten and their shoulders to square instinctively. The usually deliberate Stan Garrick snatched up a bat and advanced to the plate with the determination to start off with a hit.
“I must hit it!” he whispered to himself. “I must, and I will.”
He was altogether too anxious to hit, and somehow, McDonough seemed to divine this, for the miner pulled him with the first two balls handed up, neither of which Stan touched.
“You’ve got him, Bill,” chirped Orren Fairchilds, who stood a little to one side of the plate. “Keep it up.”
“Look out for those wide ones, Stan,” cautioned Gardiner.
Garrick knew he had been fooled into striking at what must have been balls, and he resolved to use better judgment. It seemed likely that, having deceived him in such a manner, McDonough would still seek to lure him into biting at the bad ones, and he resolved not to repeat the error.
The burly Mispah pitcher took his time. Dick was standing beside the mine owner, for it was his turn next at the bat, and suddenly he caught the flash of McDonough’s eye as it was turned in his direction.