“Why didn’t you dodge it?” cried a spectator.
“I didn’t have time,” confessed the Marine Marvel, as he designated himself.
Mike Grafter had his face screwed up in a dozen hard knots.
“They got one hit, but it didn’t amount to anything,” he said. “I’ll wager something the Outcasts do better than Merriwell, son?”
“If I had any money left, I’d go you, dad,” said Wallace. “I thought you had good sporting blood. You seem to have a bad case of frosty feet.”
“Can you blame him?” wheezed Gowan.
“Oh, they didn’t do so bad after the first man,” declared Wallace. “The others hit the ball.”
“Only one of them hit it anywhere, and that was an accident.”
“It was more of an accident than anything else that Merriwell didn’t get a safe one. He nearly took the hands off that rattle-tongued chap at short.”
Merriwell entered the box, and Creel, the centre fielder, smiling and confident, walked out to bat.