CHAPTER XXVIII

IN THE TENTH

“Play ball!”

“Go on with the game!”

“We can’t stay here all day!”

These and other calls were coming not only from the mere spectators of the game, but from the students of the military academy who had come to root for their side. Some of the Boxwood Hall boys, especially those who liked Jerry and his chums, and who did not have much use for the high-handed methods of Frank Watson, added their voices to the din.

“Better put ’em in,” suggested Bart, nodding toward our heroes, who, in their uniforms, sat on the scrub bench, not a little embarrassed by the attention they were attracting.

“You mind your own----” began Frank angrily, when Oscar Durand, the captain of the Kenwell team, stepped forward.

“Say,” he remarked in his slow, good-natured drawl, “go on and put in all the new men you want to. We don’t care. We’ll play a whole new team if you say so. Only do something, and don’t delay the game.”

Frank still hesitated. It was clear that he hated to give in to the boys whom he so disliked, but still he was enough of a ball player to realize that unless something were done Boxwood Hall would go down to defeat.

“Play ball!” came the insistent cries from the stands.

Ted Newton, the football hero of the school, hastened out to the sullen baseball captain.

“Put the three in, Frank,” he said. “It’s your only chance.”

Ted was chairman of the athletic advisory board, and he had much influence. Frank felt that his position was a shaky one.

“All right,” he said, sullenly. “I’ll let ’em play. Come on, Hopkins--Slade--Baker!” he called. “Get in the game.”

“Am I to pitch?” asked Ned.

“I suppose so.”

“And I hope you do better than I did,” remarked Jim Blake good-naturedly. He was enough of a real sport to put the team ahead of himself.

“I ought to have a little warm-up practice before I go in,” Ned suggested.

“Get over there and practice,” said Frank. “We’re at bat now, and Jake Porter can catch for you. No, I’d better do it myself, as I’m going to be behind the plate.”

Frank was a good catcher, and it must be admitted that he had not been at fault so far in the contest. It was the other players. And once he had made up his mind to play our three heroes, he did not do it half-heartedly.

He did not act in a friendly manner toward Ned, but in practice he put forth his best efforts, and urged the new pitcher to do his best to “sting them in,” which Ned did.

“Now, boys, we’re out to win!” exclaimed Frank, when Charlie Moore went up to bat to open the fifth inning, Kenwell having won the toss, and, as usual, chosen to go up last.

The mere fact that Ned, Bob and Jerry had been put in the game seemed to have inspired confidence at once, for Charlie, who was a notoriously poor hitter, singled for the first time in a long while, and went to first amid cheers. And when Jerry knocked a three bagger, bringing Charlie in, and adding to the slender score of Boxwood Hall, there was a riot of cheers on the stands opposite those occupied by the military lads. Then another single by Sid Lenton brought in Jerry, and made the score eight to three, in favor of Kenwell.

“Oh, I guess we’ll pull up all right,” said Jim Blake, from his position in retirement.

“There’s a lot to do yet,” Ted Newton reminded him. “The game is a good way from being in the ice-box, as far as Boxwood Hall is concerned. But those three fellows are going to help a lot.”

Two runs that inning was all the rivals of the academy could bring in, the succeeding batters being pitched out by “Sock.” But when Boxwood took the field for the last half of the fifth there was a different atmosphere. Boxwood Hall’s team had “tightened up,” and the same might be said of the military academy players, for they realized they had to meet some snappy players.

“Hold ’em down, Ned,” begged Bob, as he went to his position at shortstop.

“I will,” promised Ned.

“And don’t you make any wild throws, Chunky,” cautioned the tall lad on first.

“You watch me,” Bob remarked.

However, for all his promise, he nearly brought disaster in the next few minutes of play. For a bounding ball came his way, and though he scooped it up in a clever catch that earned him applause, he threw it so high to Jerry that the tall lad had to leap in the air, and spear it down with one hand.

That he got it was due not only to luck, but to efficient playing, and as he came down on the bag with one foot just in time to catch the runner out, a yell of approval arose from the crowd.

Everything did not go as well as that, though, for one of the fielders missed an easy fly, thereby being indirectly responsible for letting in a run, making Kenwell nine. But that was all they got that inning--Ned pitching some wonderful ball, and retiring two men in succession without letting them even foul.

“Well, at that rate, we won’t beat ’em,” said Bob, gloomily, as his side came in to bat. “We’ve got four more innings to play, and if we get two runs each inning that will make eight for us, or a total of eleven. They’ve got nine now, and one run in each of the four left will make them thirteen----”

“Which is unlucky,” broke in Jerry.

“I’d like to be unlucky that way,” said Ned. “Well, we’ll hope for the best.”

It did look a little more hopeful when, instead of two, Boxwood Hall got three runs that inning, making their tally six, as against nine.

“We’ve got a chance!” exclaimed Frank, and he seemed to smile at Jerry and his chums. But he did not offer them a friendly word.

There was much excitement now. Both teams were “playing their heads off,” and the rooters, the cheerers and the coherents on either side were sending out song after song, and yell after yell. If Boxwood Hall could win the game it meant that she would have an even chance for the local championship, for a third game with Kenwell would have to be played.

It was in the ninth inning that Boxwood Hall tied the score. For by dint of wonderful playing on the part of the whole team, and by a thrilling exhibition of pitching on the part of Ned, Kenwell had been allowed only two more runs, making their score eleven, and now, in their half of the ninth, Jerry and his chums had tied it.

“If we can hold ’em down the remainder of this inning, it will mean another chance,” cried Bob. “We’ll have to play ten innings.”

And a ten inning game it proved to be. For not a Kenwell lad got farther than second base.

Up to the plate in the tenth inning came Bob. He was not a sure hitter, but he got his base on balls, and the crowd started gibing the academy pitcher. But he tightened up and struck out the next man. Then came Jerry.

“Another three bagger!” begged the Boxwood lads. Jerry smiled confidently and let the first ball go by.

“Strike!” snapped out the umpire.

“Oh you robber!” howled the crowd.

The next was a ball, and the next--well, they talk about it yet at Boxwood Hall. For Jerry with all his might and main smote the horsehide spheroid squarely on the “nose” and then he ran. And Bob spun around the bases too.

“Home run! Home run! Home run!” yelled the wild lads.

The ball Jerry knocked went deep into centre field, and the frantic fieldsman raced back after it. On and on ran Jerry. Ahead of him sped Bob. And as Bob crossed home plate with his run, Jerry was not far behind him. Nor was the ball a great way off, for it thumped into the hands of Ford Tatum, the catcher, with a vicious thump. But the umpire cried “Safe!” and Boxwood Hall had two more runs.

The score was thirteen to eleven, and only one man was out. But that was the best Boxwood Hall could do. “Sock” disposed of his next two rivals in short order.

“And now if we can hold ’em down--hold ’em down!” murmured Jerry as they went to the field, and Kenwell came up for its last raps.

It looked like another break when Ned gave two men their base on balls, but then his nerve asserted itself. Amid a riot of calls, designed to disconcert him, he stood his ground, and he and Frank put up a game that made a new record for efficiency. For not a man got a hit in the last half of the tenth, and a goose egg went up in that frame for Kenwell, while the score stood

Boxwood Hall, 13. Kenwell, 11.