"Why play the ninth?" yelled one of the visitor fans. "Let's go and drink tea. Gridley boys are nice little fellows, but——-"
"How's that wrist?" asked Captain Purcell, anxiously, as the players changed places to begin the ninth. Coach Luce had stepped close, too, and looked anxious.
"Just a bit lame, of course," Dick admitted. "But I'm going to pull through."
"You're sure about it?" Purcell asked.
"Sure enough!"
The first Gardiner man to bat went out on the third ball sent past him. Then a second. Now came Prendergast to the bat, blood in his eye. He glared grimly at young Prescott, as though to say:
"Now, I'll take it out of you for making a comedian of me the first time I held the stick!"
Dick felt, somehow, that Prendergast would make good.
The first ball that Prescott put over the plate was a called strike.
At the second serve—-
Crack! and Prendergast was running.