The opportunity came in the very next inning. Lakeville failed to score in the third, and the Belden team came piling in for the first of the fourth.
It began disastrously for Lakeville. There was a patter of hits and an appalling total of errors. The first batter shot a stinging liner just inside third, which eluded S. S. altogether. The next flied to short right field, and Prissler lost the ball in the sun. Then Bonfire allowed a grounder to escape between his legs. Jump bobbled an easy chance. Roundy dropped a perfect throw. Specs sailed a ball ten feet over first on an attempted put-out. Before Lakeville could settle down to the grim business of retiring the side, three runs were over the plate, and the bases were still full.
When Bunny fanned the next two batters, S. S. was elated, but not particularly surprised. He knew his captain was at his best in a pinch, and he said as much to the Belden runner on third, who happened to be Bonner, the opposing pitcher.
If this were a diplomatic effort to make friends with Bonner by starting a conversation, it failed dismally. The boy merely nodded, without saying anything at all, and immediately proceeded to edge his way off the base toward home. S. S. covered his embarrassment by slapping his bare hand into the palm of his glove.
What happened next was wholly unplanned.
There was no guile in the heart of the neatest Scout of the Black Eagle Patrol. When he saw that the Belden pitcher's shoestring was loose and dangling, he called attention to it in the most matter-of-fact, good-turn way in the world; and when Bonner glanced down, standing a few feet off third base, and Bunny suddenly snapped the ball to S. S., the latter caught it mechanically and tagged the runner before he could scramble back to safety, solely and simply because baseball instinct told him that was the thing to do.
But it was the third out. It nipped a promising rally. And it had all the earmarks of a carefully planned trick. Bonner looked at S. S. just once, with such scorn in his steel-blue eyes that S. S. wished with all his heart the earth might open up then and there and swallow him from sight.
But he did not abandon his ambition. Sooner or later, he would prove to that fellow that he could play real ball, and that he was not the kind who resorted to questionable tactics to win a point.
The last half of the fourth inning was uneventful. Only three Lakeville batters faced the pitcher—Nap, Bonfire, and Prissler; and, as S. S. confided to Bi, nobody could expect them to do anything. They justified his expectations in every way by fanning unanimously.
Belden threatened again in the fifth inning. With runners on second and first, and one out, the Lakeville infield played close, to shut off a run at home. As luck would have it, the batter lashed a stinging grounder toward S. S.