He found himself wondering that he was happy instead of bitter over the loss of Helen Baldwin. He knew now he never had loved her. With a thrill of gladness came the thought of Betty Tabor. His jaw set, the fighting look came into his blue eyes and he saw his way clearly. He was not free. His duty was to the Bears.
CHAPTER VIII
In the Deeper Waters
Two defeats at the hands of the Maroons sent the Bears into the final game of the series desperately determined to win. Their pitching staff was exhausted from the effort to stop the team which they had expected to beat easily.
The game was a brilliant exhibition of defensive playing on the part of the Bears, who were driven back by the hard hitting of the Maroons. In spite of the fierce batting of the Maroons the magnificent defensive work of the Bears held their rivals to two runs, while by their brilliant and resourceful attack and skilful inside work they had scored three runs on five scattered hits, and at the start of the eighth inning were holding grimly to their lead of one run.
McCarthy, spurred by determination to redeem himself for the errors of the preceding games, was giving a wonderful exhibition of third-base play. The knowledge that Helen Baldwin, her uncle and a group of friends were sitting in one of the field boxes directly behind him urged him to greater efforts. It was his long hit in the sixth inning, followed by a clever steal of third, that had enabled the Bears to gain the lead which they were holding by their fast work on the infield.
The Bears failed to score in their half of the eighth, and the Maroons opened with a fierce assault upon Klinker that threatened to break down the Bears' inner wall of defense. Swanson's brilliant stop and throw of a vicious drive checked the bombardment, but a safe drive and a two-base hit went whizzing through beyond the finger tips of the diving infielders, and there were runners on second and third bases, one out and a hit needed to turn the tide in favor of the Maroons again.
The infield was drawn close in the hope of cutting off the runner from the home plate. It was desperate baseball, and, as the infielders advanced to the edge of the grass, each man knew that a line smash, a hard-driven bounder between them, or even a fumble, probably meant the destruction of their pennant hopes.
The ball was hit with terrific force straight at McCarthy, who threw up his hands and blocked desperately. The ball tore through his hands, struck his knee with numbing force and rolled a few feet away. He pounced upon it and like a flash hurled it to Kennedy at the plate, so far ahead of the runner who was trying to score that he turned back toward third, with Kennedy in pursuit. Swanson had come up to cover third, and the runner from second base stood at the third bag watching the play, ready to dash back if the runner, trapped between third and the plate, managed to elude the pursuers and regain third base. Kennedy passed the ball to Swanson, and as the runner turned back, Swanson threw to McCarthy, who had fallen in behind Kennedy, leaving the pitcher to cover the plate if the runner broke through in that direction. The runner started to dodge, but McCarthy, without an instant's hesitation, leaped after him and drove him hard back toward third base, so hard that the runner went on over the bag and ten feet beyond before he could stop. Like a flash McCarthy leaped sideways, touched the other runner who was starting back to second base, and, with a fierce dive, he threw his body between the base and the runner who had overslid it and tagged him.