“Get ready, Newton,” ordered Graydon.
The substitute Varsity twirler was not a wonder, and he knew it, but he started off well, and there was some hope, until he began to go to pieces after issuing passes to two men. Then it seemed all up with him, though only one run went to Tuckerton’s credit that inning.
Cap shook his head dubiously when he took off his mask at the beginning of the second half of the fifth inning. His apprehensive feeling was shared by his teammates, by the coach, the manager and by thousands of the Westfield supporters, who sat in gloomy silence while the cohorts of Tuckerton yelled, shouted and sang themselves hoarse.
“I’m going to do something desperate,” declared the coach, to the captain, when two runs had come in to sweeten the tally for Westfield, thereby causing wild hope among her friends.
“What are you going to do?” asked Graydon.
“I know we can beat these fellows, even now, if we could only hold them down to no more runs,” went on Windam. “And to shut them out for the rest of the game we need a good pitcher. Mersfeld can’t do it, Newton doesn’t count, Bill is out of it, and I’m going to put in Morgan.”
“What! The Freshman sub?”
“It’s a last hope, I know,” admitted the coach, “but we’ve got to do something. Morgan is good, and if he can last he’ll be all right.”
Rather listlessly, and almost hopelessly the captain consented to it. He was crossing to tell Morgan of the decision arrived at, when he noticed that Cap and Bill were having a little warm-up practice off to one side, for it would not be Cap’s turn to bat in some time.
As Bill stung in a ball his brother uttered a cry of surprise.