Bases filled and only one out! Two balls and no strikes on the batsman! A hit meant two runs across! All this Guy Murtha explained in quick, troubled words to Dud. And Dud, tired of face but eager-eyed, nodded quite as though Guy had explained that it was a fine day and that the weather prediction was for a continuation of present conditions!
Then Guy went back to his place and the Grafton sympathizers stopped cheering and Dud sped his five balls to Brooks, each one just where he meant it to go.
Once more the batsman took his place and Dud pitched.
“Str-r-ike!” bawled the umpire, and waved an arm aloft. The batter thumped the rubber with his bat. Again Dud launched the ball forward. Again it sped straight and true across the platter and knee-high.
“Str-r-ike two!”
The batsman grew wary. He no longer fidgeted but put his whole mind on the next delivery. Dud fumbled his cap, took his half wind-up and shot his arm to the right and around in a swing. The ball flashed to the plate and the umpire hurled his hand aloft with a mighty gesture.
“He’s out!”
Strident protest from the retreating batsman and from the Mount Morris bench! Cheers wild and triumphant from the Grafton seats and from the field! And another green-stockinged player faced his fate. A ball, a strike, another ball. Then a drop that was swung at and never touched. Two-and-two, and Mount Morris watching her opportunity slip from her grasp. Then, while Dud swung his arm up, came a quick cry from behind him:
“He’s off!”
The man at third was streaking to the plate! But so was the ball, and although the batsman swung at it, it lodged safely in Brooks’ mitt and Brooks, dropping to his knees, blocked the ambitious runner a foot from the plate!