The crowd numbered several hundreds, and they were as ready to applaud any clever work on the part of the scrub players as Lil Artha's team. And with such a host of pretty high-school girls present every fellow strove to do his best in order to merit the hand clapping that followed every bit of fine play.
For five innings the score stood at nothing to nothing. Elmer was equal to each and every crisis, and somehow the boys back of him did not seem able to solve the puzzling delivery of Johnny Kline any better than the scrub team did that of the scout pitcher.
In the sixth there came a break. Lil Artha led off with a rousing two bagger, and the next man up, who happened to be Chatz Maxfield, sent him to third with a clever sacrifice, for which he was noted.
Then along came Red, who was equal to the emergency, and whipped out a tremendous fly which the fielder caught handsomely, but tumbled all over himself in so doing; and of course the long-legged first baseman had no difficulty in getting home before the ball could be returned to the diamond. Indeed, Lil Artha was such a remarkable runner that once he got his base his club counted on a tally three times out of four.
That broke the ice, and in the innings that followed the boys took sweet revenge on Johnny's benders, smashing them to all parts of the field until the spectators were roaring with laughter and a halt had to be called to let the overworked fellow in center come in to get a reviving drink of water.
The result of the game was a score of eleven to two, and neither of these runs for the scrub were earned, but presented to them on errors in the field.
"It looks good to me," remarked Red Huggins, as he and several others of the scouts plodded homeward after the conclusion of the game. "If we can do as clever work on Monday as we did this afternoon, those Fairfield giants won't have a show for their money."
"And that's what we're going to do, just you make your mind up to it," declared Lil Artha. "And to think what a great catch our Toby made when he had to run and jump into the air for that liner. Shows he's all to the good, no matter if he did get such a bounce this morning. We'd miss him if he took a notion to fly away between now and Monday p.m.," and the speaker cast a side glance toward the right fielder, who was limping along, talking over the game with Ty Collins.
"Oh, there are several good fellows just waiting for a chance to break in!" declared Red; "Larry Billings, for instance, who can hit 'em some; Jack Armitage, who is nearly as swift as Lil Artha on the bases; and George Robbins, who knows how to rattle a pitcher to beat the band. I guess we don't need to worry, since we've got plenty of good material handy in case of accidents."
"But Toby isn't going to fail us," asserted Elmer. "He's too good a scout not to know his duty in this crisis. For we've just got to beat that Fairfield crowd this time, or we'll never hear the end of it."