CHAPTER XXII.

THE MAN WHO LOST THE GAME.

The baseball season had fairly opened up.

Yale men were full of enthusiasm for their nine, which easily wrested victory from the Princeton Tigers in the first game of the series. But the confidence of the rooters met with a severe shock, and it was a pretty sore lot of lads that came back from Princeton after the second game with the Tigers. The first game had been won so easily that Yale counted on taking two straight without much trouble, and a great crowd of fans had accompanied the nine to “whoop ’er up” and rejoice and have a high old time.

During the game the rooters from New Haven had done their best to make as much noise as the great throng of Princeton admirers, and some of the Yale crowd quite lost their voices; but, alas! all this whooping and cheering could not save the game when the final pinch came, and Princeton lowered the blue to the dust.

During the first four innings Yale led, and it looked like a repetition of the first game, when Yale had never been headed from the start throughout the game. But in the fifth inning came a change.

The score was five to two. The “hot end” of Princeton’s batting order came up, and the first man sent a skipper past Morgan, who was playing short. It was not an error, for Dade did not touch the ball. Some thought he might have touched it if he had tried hard.

The next batter dropped one just over the infield and out of reach of the outfield. Then an error by Carson at third filled the bags.

Then came the first great catastrophe. Starbright was pitching. The next batter connected with one of his curves, driving a long fly into center field. Mason made a run for it, and it struck fairly in his hands.

But he did not hold it! It dropped down somewhere, and, while he was wildly searching for it about his feet, four men romped in over the home plate, putting Princeton one in the lead.

This was simply awful. Merriwell saw what was liable to happen, and he started in warming up at once. Frank had made no mistake in his anticipations. Starbright went up in a balloon. The next two men hit him safely, and then he gave a base on balls. The bases were filled when Merriwell went into the box.

The cheering of the Tigers was meant to encourage the home team and rattle the visitors still more. Somebody asked what was the difference between Buffalo Bill and Yale. Somebody else answered that Buffalo Bill had a show and Yale hadn’t. And the crowd laughed at this chestnut.

But the next batter found it impossible to connect with Merry’s shoots. He made two fouls, and two strikes were called on him as a penalty. Then he fanned and missed. The ball plunked into Bart Hodge’s mitt, and the striker ambled sadly back to the bench. That made the second man retired.

The next batter put a long fly into left field, but Gamp pulled it down and retired the side. Princeton, however, had the lead.

In the next inning Yale tied the score; but in the seventh Princeton again took the lead, making two. The crowd roared with joy, for it seemed that Merriwell was going to pieces. Frank, however, steadied down after his own fashion and struck out two men, which retired the Tigers.

But Princeton held the lead, and there was great rejoicing. The Yale rooters kept up their ’rah-’rah-ing. Neither side scored in the eighth, and the ninth came on with the orange and black waving triumphantly.

Merriwell was the first batter up, and he led off with a three-bagger. That seemed to wake the Yale men up, and some lively hitting followed, so that the blue tied the score, setting the rooters crazy with joy.

Princeton was savage, and the first man got a pretty single off Merry. A dropped fly in the outfield let the runner round to third and put the second batter on second.

Hodge was nervous and Frank became afraid of him, for he did not seem to hold the ball after his usual fashion. Merry tried the double-shoot and Bart came near having a passed ball, which must have let in a score.

Then, forced to be careful, Merriwell became too careful, which let Princeton fill the bags by getting the batter down to first on balls.

Not a man was out. Yale was in a hole, and the cheering of the Tigers rolled across the field, while the orange and black fluttered and flaunted joyously.

This was the kind of a game to thrill the nerves of the spectators and set their hearts pounding. The great concourse of people leaned forward on the benches and watched breathlessly for what was to follow.

There came a hush.

Whizz--crack! The ball had been hit.

“Strike--one!” cried the umpire, as the ball went foul.

“All right, Leverage,” said the captain of the Tigers encouragingly. “You’ve got his alley. You’ll line it out next time.”

Leverage was a hitter. Frank feared the fellow might smash out a long one, and so he resorted to the double-shoot without delay. Two balls were called; then another strike. But Bart was having great difficulty with the double-shoot.

Merry gave Leverage a rise, but could not pull him with it.

“Three balls,” decided the umpire.

The next ball delivered would decide the matter.

Frank used a drop. Leverage got under it, and hit it a savage crack, lifting it into the air.

“Hold your bags!” roared a coacher, as he saw Hock Mason getting under the ball. “Run the moment he catches it!”

The coacher on third was giving the runner there some advice, getting the man braced, ready to start for home. Leverage had skipped down to first. The men on first and second were ready for whatever might happen.

Mason got under the ball and waited for it. It seemed certain that he must catch it, but could he stop the runner on third from scoring?

There was a hush. The ball struck fairly in the hands of the Southerner, and----

Bounced out! He had muffed it!

“Run!” shrieked the coachers, while the great crowd of Princeton men rose up and roared.

The runner who had been on third came scudding home. The man who had been on second raced like a wild-eyed runaway colt to third, where the coacher made furious gestures for him to keep on hard for home. The man on first got to second safely, and Leverage, the batter, was comfortably on first.

Mason found the ball, his heart full of rage and dismay, picked it up and threw wildly into the diamond.

Fortunately, Frank got in front of it, and was able to hold the runners on their bases, not letting them move farther; but he could not stop the second man, who had been sent tearing home, and Princeton was two scores in the lead.

How the Tigers roared! How their colors fluttered and waved! No wonder they were delighted. Yale had her very best team on the field.

The Yale fans looked weary.

“That’s ten runs for Princeton,” said Chan Webb, who, with Cowles, Mullen, and Nash, had come down to see Lib Benson play in right field. Benson was one of their particular set. He had once been an enemy of Merriwell, but he soon found that he was making himself very unpopular, and he changed his tune. However, his friends had prophesied that he could not make the ball-team as long as Merry was captain. In this he had shown them they were mistaken, for Frank had put him into right field, though his ambition was to cover a bag.

“That’s right,” nodded Gil Cowles gloomily. “And it looks as if they might make more. Nobody’s out.”

“Ye gods!” sobbed Irving Nash. “It’s an awful thing to lose this game, and that man Mason is to blame for it all.”

“Right!” exclaimed Cowles. “Princeton has made ten scores, and Mason is responsible for exactly six of them. His first muff let in four, and this one let in two more. He’s a bird!”

“He’s not to blame at all,” asserted Mullen, to the astonishment of his companions.

“Why isn’t he?” they fiercely demanded, turning on him. “Who is to blame?”

“Merriwell,” said Mullen grimly.

“How do you make that out?”

“Merriwell put Mason on the team, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He has been told that the man was not fast enough, hasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He wouldn’t drop him, would he?”

“No.”

“Well, that fixes the responsibility. Merriwell has shown mighty poor judgment, and that’s all there is to it. I have nothing against Merriwell, but I have against the association that lets him run the team just as he likes, in defiance of anybody else. Merriwell is a wonder as a pitcher, and he’s all right as captain of the team; but he should not have supreme authority, and I’ve said so right along. Why, some of his best friends are against Mason.”

“Who?”

“They say Hodge has kicked like a steer. Notice Hodge has not been in his usual form to-day?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I understand he tried to get Merriwell to drop Mason off last night, but Merry wouldn’t hear of it. That’s what ails Hodge to-day.”

“Well, it looks bad for us now.”

Then they fell to watching the playing, for Frank was in the box, ready to resume, and Princeton was booming her cry over the field.

Frank settled down to business now. He had talked with Bart. Hodge was mad. His face was flushed and his teeth set. The shoots came over the plate in bewildering variety, but Bart froze to them all and held them.

One, two, three strikes were called on the next batter, and down he went.

The next man lifted a little fly, which Merry took himself.

“Merriwell is pitching now!” said the Yale spectators. “Just watch him!”

The ball did not look larger than a marble when it left Frank’s hand and went whistling over the corners of the plate. Princeton was still cheering, but something told every witness that the orange and black would score no more that day.

One strike!

Two strikes!

Three strikes!

“Batter is out,” announced the umpire.

Then Yale cheered, and the men came trotting in from the field.

Mason was a sorry-looking fellow. He hung his head, for it seemed that every eye in that great crowd was turned on him.

Of course, Frank did his best to cheer his men, but Yale was doomed to defeat that day.

And thus it happened that a very gloomy and very sore set of fellows returned to New Haven after the game.