Brady heard him out, grinned, and then said: “All right. It’s a big chance, sure enough, but we’ll try it.”
Jim, before he walked to the box, took off his cap, wiped his forehead, and then threw his cap to a point a few feet behind Brady.
And, on the next ball, he deliberately pitched wild. The crowd yelled, for it seemed to make Harvard’s victory certain. But Brady, to the amazement of every one, had run back as Jim pitched. He dashed to the place where Jim’s cap lay on the ground, and Jim, rushing to the plate, took the catcher’s throw. The ball had stopped right by the cap, for it was a carefully planned wild pitch that Jim had made, and one involving the most perfect control. Farquar, dashing for the plate, was easily tagged out, and Renshaw, thinking it easy to reach third, was put out by Carter. Jim had outguessed the Harvard team by taking a desperate chance, and Yale had won the first game.
Dick now cautioned the Yale players to keep themselves in the best condition for the final game or games, for the universal coach felt that the Harvard men would fight hard to win the second game, thus making necessary a third game.
CHAPTER XIII
A DANGEROUS ALLIANCE.
There was a good deal of excitement at Yale over the sudden withdrawal of Wesley Parker, who had seemed likely to be the next football captain, from the list of candidates. Parker gave no explanation of his withdrawal, but simply announced that he would be unable to accept, should he be elected, and, as a result, Jackson, the second baseman of the baseball team, was chosen.
Parker, a junior, had been extremely popular in a certain circle in Yale. Many of his friends, who had expected great things from his captaincy, were bitterly disappointed by his withdrawal. They had looked for free tickets to the game, and one or two of them had expected him to help them to win positions on the team and thus gain the coveted Yale “Y,” which, unaided by some influence, they could not hope for.
It was one of these disappointed ones, a member of Parker’s own class, named Foote, who was the first to venture to speak to the big guard on the subject.
“I say, Wesley,” he said, “why aren’t you going to take the captaincy? You had a cinch to beat Jackson. That delay was only a game of Merriwell’s. They couldn’t have stopped you. Danby might have voted for Jackson, if he could have come on for the election, because he thinks this chap Merriwell is all right, but you would have had votes enough, and the chances are Danby couldn’t get here.”