“He can’t fool you that way!” declared the Franklin captain laughingly. “Your eye is peeled to-day, old man.”
A high ball followed, and once more Gannon refused to go after it.
“Got him in a hole!” was the cry.
Naturally Gannon would not strike at the next one, and Dick knew it, therefore he used a speedy one, sending it straight over the plate. The batter hit it, and the ball went zipping along the ground, Darrell failing to touch it by scarcely more than an inch.
Gibbs landed on third.
Nort Madison himself was the next batter.
“Well! well! well!” shouted Dickson, who was near third. “We win this game right here!”
Little Abe sat with his hands clasped, his face showing his intense anxiety and excitement.
“What’s the matter, cap’n?” he asked. “Are they really winning the game?”
“Well, if there’s not a change in things pretty quick, it looks as if they might,” confessed the sailor. “I expected to arrive here before this old game started. Had I done so, I would have warned Richard Merriwell to cut out those signals. Every batter knows just what he is going to throw. That’s why they are hitting him this way.”