"I'll get him the next time!" thought the lank pitcher of the Hartfords. "He fooled me that time, but he can't do it again!"
But Badger did it again. Again the sophomores began to yell. Jack Ready tossed the ball back.
Badger began to look and to feel confident, a thing that Merriwell, who was closely watching him, did not like. This time the Westerner, after almost bending himself double, gave his arm an eccentric movement and shot in another curve. Wilson struck at it desperately, and fanned out.
"He can't keep it up!" yelled a Hartford man, who had been wildly hunting for bets a short time before, and who felt the need of whistling to keep his courage up.
Barrows, the center-fielder, came to the bat next. He went after the very first one, and got it Crack! and away the ball flew again into the right field, while the Hartford lads opened up with great vigor.
It was a hit, for everybody saw that Dismal, even though he was doing his best, could not possibly get it. Barrows raced to first, while Tillinghast, the base-runner, took second, without trouble, but stumbled and fell, so that it was impossible for him to make another bag on the hit.
Badger next tried his highest speed, and the batter fanned, but Ready dropped and fumbled the ball, being unable to hold it, and came very near letting both runners advance, although he did get the sphere down to third in time to drive them back.
Watching closely, Frank had discovered that something about Badger's delivery bothered Ready. Badger himself saw this, and he tried a change of pace, but the batter caught it on the handle of his "wagon-tongue," and drove out a "scratch hit" that filled the bases.
Oleson, a Swede, almost as large as Browning, came up to the plate.
"And there were giants in those days," droned Jones, from his position in the field.