McDonough set his teeth with a snarl; his eyes gleamed fiercely.
He was ready with every nerve tense, hoping and desiring to meet Merriwell’s speed fairly. But now, at this critical point, Dick, after using a delivery which seemed to prophesy a swift one, handed up the slowest sort of a slow ball. It came with such exasperating slowness from the Yale man’s hand, that something actually seemed holding it back. In spite of everything he could do, McDonough struck too soon.
A snarl broke from his lips in a sound which was the height of rage expressed without words. His face turned purple and he gripped the handle of his bat with all the strength in his great hands. As he glared ferociously at the cool, half smiling face before him, something like a haze seemed to gather before his eyes. Before it had passed, Merriwell whistled over a high, swift ball which cut the plate in halves.
McDonough seemed to see something flit past, but it was the spank of the ball into Buckhart’s glove that told him that Dick had pitched.
“Out!” cried the umpire.
With a roar like thunder, the crowd poured down onto the field in a human cataract from the stand, and, before he could escape, Merriwell was seized and lifted up on some one’s shoulders. For a moment he struggled to get away; then, seeing it would be useless, he resigned himself to the inevitable and waited calmly until their enthusiasm should cool.
After marching about the field for a few minutes, they came back to the clubhouse and allowed him to slip to the ground. As he did so, Orren Fairchilds hurried up.
“Wonderful work, my boy,” he exclaimed—“wonderful! By Jove! I never saw anything like it. It was a fair, square beat; and every bit of it was due to you—you and that catcher of yours. How did the arm hold out?”
Dick made a wry face.
“It’s not as comfortable as it might be,” he confessed.