"Don't lose your nerve," taunted Jimmy; "put it over."
Again the Warwickian tied himself up into a knot and again flew the ball. It was to Jimmy's liking. He swung a full swing with all the force of his sturdy young body behind it, and, in the language of the diamond, hit it "right on the nose." Just what happened to that ball no one knows to this day. It rose on its long flight between third and short stop, carried over the head of the left fielder like a golf ball cleanly hit, struck far beyond him and rolled down among the alder bushes which fringed the river. The fielder tore after it, disappeared from view, and, after a minute or two, came back holding up both hands. They were empty. But it would have made no difference whether he had had the ball at that time or not, for Jimmy had completed the circuit of the bases, and the bat boy was picking up the scattered bats and mitts by Queen's bench. Queen's had won the game! It was a glorious finish to a season that had begun in anything but glory, and then and there, before the Queen's team left the bench, after a rousing cheer had been given for the defeated Warwicks, Frank Armstrong was elected captain for the following year, while the Queen's stands yelled their approval.
"It was worth all our trouble for that last inning, wasn't it?" said Jimmy.
And Frank, grinning happily, admitted that it was.
The further doings of Frank Armstrong and his friends at Queen's School will be told in the next volume of this series, entitled "Frank Armstrong, Captain of the Nine."
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.