Frank Merriwell at Yale; Or, Freshman Against Freshman

by Burt L. Standish

Neither could the Harvard lads thoroughly understand it, although there were some who realized that Merriwell was using his head, as well as speed and curves. And he did not use speed all the time. He had a fine change of pace, sandwiching in his slow balls at irregular intervals, but delivering them with what seemed to be exactly the same motion that he used on the speedy ones.

The fourth batter up struck out, and again Harvard was retired without a score, which caused the Yale crowd to cheer so that some of the lads got almost black in the face.

"Well! well! well!" laughed Rattleton, as Deacon Dunning passed over the money he had been holding. "This is like chicking perries—I mean picking cherries. All I have to do is to reach out and take what I want."

"If the boys will capture the game I'll be perfectly satisfied to lose," declared Harris, who did not tell the truth, however, for he was chagrined, although he showed not a sign of it.

"How can we lose? how can we lose?" chuckled Harry. "Things are coming our way, as the country editor said when he was rotten-egged by the mob."

It really seemed that Yale was out for the game at last, for they kept up their work at the bat, although Peck replaced Coulter in the box for Harvard.

Merriwell had his turn with the first batter up. One man was out, and there was a man on second. Coulter had warned Peck against giving Merriwell an outcurve. At the same time, knowing Frank had batted to right field before, the fielders played over toward right.

"So you are on to that, are you?" thought Frank. "Well, it comes full easier for me to crack 'em into left field if I am given an inshoot."

Two strikes were called on him before he found anything that suited him. Harris was on the point of betting Rattleton odds that Merriwell did not get a hit, when Frank found what he was looking for and sent it sailing into left. It was not a rainbow, so it did not give the fielder time to get under it, although he made a sharp run for it.

Then it was that Merriwell seemed to fly around the bases, while the man ahead of him came in and scored. At first the hit had looked like a two-bagger, but there seemed to be a chance of making three out of it as Frank reached second, and the coachers sent him along. He reached third ahead of the ball, and then the Yale crowd on the bleachers did their duty.