“Wow! wow! wow!” came again from O’Mora. “What do you think of that? Better use your other hand, Merriwell. You can’t find the pan with your left.”
“Everybody run!” shouted Marone. “Score on the first passed ball!”
“There won’t be any,” muttered Buckhart, as he resumed his position behind the bat and gave Dick a signal.
The next ball pitched by Dick came over the plate. It looked good to the batter, but he simply popped up an easy fly that was taken by Otis Fitch.
“Don’t try to kill the ball!” shouted Marone. “Don’t try to knock the cover off! You can all hit it!”
“Sure you can hit it,” said Buckhart, in a low tone; “but hitting it safe is what counts.”
When Dick had fooled the next batter with two elusive benders, it began to look as if hitting the ball was not such an easy thing, after all. Forced into a corner, the batter finally lifted a high foul, which Buckhart got under and gathered in.
“That’s two, partner,” laughed the Texan, as he tossed the ball to Dick. “Why, they couldn’t hit you safely if you pitched with your feet.”
“Get in there, now,” urged Marone, as O’Mora trotted to the plate. “A little single is all we want. A little safety is the goods. You know where to put it, Mat.”
But suddenly Dick bored over a fast one, and O’Mora literally threw himself off his feet in the effort to get against it.