“He’s stalling, Lefty! Go to him! Don’t let him get his wind back!”
Locke had no intention of permitting his antagonist to rest, and now he took the aggressive, and kept at it with persistence that wore on Hoover.
Up to this point, Mike Riley had entertained no doubt as to what the end must be, but now uncertainty seized him, followed by alarm as he beheld tokens which seemed to denote that Hoover was becoming a bit groggy.
The Bancroft manager had no wish to see his puissant slabman whipped, for that would leave him no longer the terror he had been to opposing batsmen; and much of his success as a pitcher had doubtless come through the awe which he had inspired.
“Hey!” croaked Riley suddenly. “I guess this here’s gone ’bout fur enough.”
But, with his first movement to interfere, he was seized by more than one pair of hands, jerked back, and held.
“Guess again!” cried Larry Stark. “Hoover forced it on the boy, and now he’ll have to take his medicine.”
“That’s right! That’s right!” shouted half a hundred voices.
“You bet it’s right!” roared a big millman in the crowd. “If this Bancroft bunch tries to meddle now in a square fight, they’ll have the whole o’ Kingsbridge on top of ’em.”
Possibly a free-for-all fight might have broken out at this point, but suddenly Tom Locke’s fist fell on Hoover’s jaw with a crack like a pistol report, and the Bancroft pitcher’s legs seemed to melt beneath him.