“Well, what do you know about that!” ejaculated Fudge awedly. He and Lanny were approaching the athletic field at a little after two on Saturday. Ahead of them, as they turned the corner, was a group of some fifty or sixty persons, mostly boys and young men, and they were quite evidently waiting for the gate to open.

“And it isn’t half-past two yet,” said Lanny. “Looks as if we were going to have an audience, after all, Fudge.”

“Bet you they don’t know they have to pay a quarter,” responded the other pessimistically.

“Then they’re blind, because there’s a notice right beside the gate there.”

“Someone ought to find Tim and get him here,” said Fudge anxiously. “They might change their minds and go away again!”

“What time is he supposed to get here?”

“I don’t know. Half-past, I suppose.” They passed through a smaller gate which led to the dressing-room and found Dick and Gordon already on hand. Fudge told his fears to Dick, and Dick reassured him by agreeing to take the gate himself until young Mr. Turner appeared. Five minutes later the first two or three rows of the grandstand were occupied, and spectators were still dribbling through the gate and depositing quarters in Dick’s hand. Tim Turner arrived breathless soon after and relieved Dick. Some thirty Rutter’s Point residents accompanied their team and still further swelled the audience, and by three o’clock Dick estimated that fully a hundred and sixty persons had paid admission. That was much better than anyone had dared hope, and Lanny, making a lightning calculation, confided to Gordon that there’d be thirty dollars coming to the club after Rutter’s Point had received the twenty-five per cent. agreed on.

“If we can do that often enough,” said Lanny delightedly, “we’ll have more than enough for——”

“S-sh!” cautioned Gordon.

“He’s over there talking to Billings. Who is the kid with him?”

“That’s young Townsend, the fellow he’s coaching. It’s about time to start, isn’t it? There come three more, Lanny.”

“Every little quarter helps,” replied Lanny. “I hope Tim Turner doesn’t abscond with the cash! Someone ought to stand over him with a bat! Oh, Fudge!”

“What’s wanted?” asked Fudge, joining them.

“We wanted to tell you that if Tim runs off with the money you will have to make good.”

Fudge grinned. “He’s awfully excited,” he said. “He’s got both pockets full of silver, and sounds like a treasury when he moves. He’s terribly worried because he gave one fellow too much change. He says he knows him, though, and is going to get it back!”

“Come on,” said Gordon. “On the run, fellows. You’re in right field, Shores. Throw out another ball, Jack, will you? Here you are, Harry!”

A minute later Captain Billings faced Tom Haley, and the game began.

The batting list of the visiting team had been changed in two instances, Jensen replacing Morris Brent in left field, and Mason pitching instead of Porter. Melville, or “Mel,” Mason was a big youth of eighteen at least, with a quiet, self-constrained manner that impressed Dick and filled him with forebodings of defeat. Clearfield was minus the services of Jack Tappen, Mr. Daniel Shores making his first appearance in a purple uniform and holding down Jack’s place in right field. The umpire was Mr. Cochran, physical director at the Young Men’s Christian Association, and a great favorite among the boys.

Rutter’s Point failed to do anything in the first inning. Tom Haley allowed only one player to reach first, and he got no farther. When Clearfield came to the bat, with Harry Bryan up, the audience proved its loyalty to the home team by loud and prolonged cheering. It was very soon evidenced that “Mel” Mason was in a different class from Bede Porter as a pitcher. Who he was or where he came from neither Dick nor Gordon had learned; but, to use Fudge’s admiring and slightly resentful expression, he was “some pitchist!” He had plenty of speed when he cared to use it, but his favorite offering was a slow ball that was probably patterned on the “floater” of a famous league pitcher. The Clearfield batters hit under it or over it with discouraging regularity, and Harry, Will, and Gordon went out in order in the last of the first inning, only Will managing to hit into fair territory. Harry and Gordon fanned.

For three innings the contest was a pitchers’ battle. Tom was in excellent shape, and, although he secured fewer strike-outs than his rival, managed to hold his own with the assistance of sharp fielding by his team-mates. If there were those among the spectators who had come to scoff at the kind of ball they were to see they must have been surprised, for both teams played a practically errorless game until the beginning of the fourth. And even after that, if there were frequent miscues, there was enough excitement and suspense to make up for them.

It was Jensen, the chap who had taken Morris’ place, who started things going in the fourth. Loring Townsend had flied out to Pete Robey, making the first out. With two strikes and one ball on him, Jensen reached for an out-shoot, found it on the end of his bat, and deposited it neatly behind Gordon and close to the foul-line. Chase, the Point shortstop, tried twice to bunt, and then hit sharply past Pete, and Jensen went to third. House was over-anxious and went out on strikes, and Chase got to second. Then Leary waited and got his base. With the bags all occupied and two men down, it was up to “Pink” Northrop to come to the rescue with a hit. The Point coachers were jumping and shouting like mad, and Tom might have been excused for some unsteadiness at that juncture. But Tom settled down, followed Lanny’s signals closely, and at last, after working two strikes over on Northrop, caused that youth to hit weakly to third. Will Scott almost overthrew the base in his eagerness, but Gordon pulled the ball down in time and the crisis was over.

Gordon went out, shortstop to first; Way lifted a high one to second baseman, and Pete Robey faced Mason with little expectation of faring any better. But Mason let up for a minute, probably arguing that with two gone he could afford to take things easy, and Pete shot a hot liner at third baseman. Caspar Billings got his hands on it, but it trickled past him, and Pete was safe. That doubtful error—Dick charitably scored it as a hit—seemed the signal for the Point to go up in the air. Mason whipped a quick throw to first which would have caught Pete flat-footed off the bag had Loring Townsend been ready for it. He wasn’t, however, and the ball went past him to the fence, and Pete, finding his feet quickly, shot to second and then on to third, beating out the throw by a fraction of an inch and causing dissatisfaction among the Pointers over Mr. Cochran’s decision. Lanny, impatiently waiting at the plate, swung twice in his eagerness to score the runner, and then waited while Mason teased him with wide ones. With two strikes and two balls against him, Lanny out-guessed the pitcher, and swung against the next one. Shortstop knocked it down but couldn’t find it again in time to throw either to the plate or to first, and Clearfield, amidst the excited whooping of the audience, scored her first tally.

Lanny went down to second on the first pitch, and, although Houghton threw quickly and well to that bag, Lanny beat him by a yard. Danny Shores, who was at bat, had swung and was one strike to the bad when Mason grimly turned his attention to him again. Quite a few of Danny’s friends from the factory were on hand to see him perform, and when, after the third delivery, he caught the ball squarely on the nose and sent it streaking just over second baseman’s head, they shouted themselves hoarse in Danny’s honor. On the bench, Jack Tappen looked a bit glum. He had visions of being displaced by Mr. Shores. Lanny came in without hurrying much, and Danny reposed on first. Fudge tried to do his share of a hit-and-run play, but he swung far wide of the deceptive drop, and Danny was caught at second and the inning was over, with Clearfield two runs to the good.

Enthusiasm reigned among the spectators on the stand, and they “rooted” valiantly for Clearfield throughout the rest of the game. In the fifth the Point got two men on bases, and was in good position to score, there being but one out, when Pete Robey pulled down a liner that had been distinctly labeled “two bases,” raced to second ahead of the runner, and then completed the double by making a fine throw to Gordon. Mason struck out Tom easily in the last of the fifth, passed Harry Bryan, fanned Will Scott, and then, with Gordon at bat, caught Harry off first.

Every play was loudly applauded, and the audience was by this time perched on the edges of the seats. Again in their half of the sixth Rutter’s Point found Tom for two hits, and again sharp fielding kept her from crossing the plate. It was evident, though, that Tom was less of a puzzle now than in the earlier innings, and it seemed only a matter of time when the Pointers would bunch their hits and Dick would have to credit them with a run or two. You are not to suppose that Dick was doing nothing but keeping the score. He was managing that game from the bench as scientifically as if he had played the game all his short life. Every batsman got his orders from Dick before he stepped to the plate, and every coacher was instructed before he went to the box. And, besides that, Dick was teaching Harold Townsend how to score a ball game. In spite of his indifference two days before, Harold had appeared with a brand-new, black-covered score-book and a fountain pen. Dick had told him to put the pen in his pocket, and had supplied him with a pencil instead. Harold seated himself by Dick and watched and learned. He made more mistakes than enough, and his score when finished was a veritable hodge-podge of misinformation, but he seemed to get a lot of excitement and fun out of it, and he really did learn a good deal for a boy who had theretofore scored an out by placing a huge X opposite the batsman and a run by marking up an equally enormous I. When he began to memorize the symbols for struck out, base on balls, hit by pitched ball, and so on, he discovered that scoring was not the simple task he had thought it. About the sixth inning he gave up trying to keep a detailed score, and contented himself with disposing of the batsmen with his X’s and I’s. But by that time the excitement had grown so intense that it would have required a person with a much cooler head than Harold’s to keep his mind on scoring.

Clearfield went to bat in the sixth with the grim determination to add another brace of runs to her score and place the game safely away. Dick realized that Tom was weakening, and that before long the visitors would find him for some real hits, and before that occurred he wanted Clearfield to have a sufficient lead to place her out of danger. Gordon had his instructions to reach first at any cost. Then Way, who was a clever bunter, was to sacrifice him to second. Either Pete or Lanny was to supply the hit to score Gordon. But plans don’t always carry through. Dick’s didn’t on this occasion. Gordon hit squarely into Mason’s hands, and the pitcher tossed the ball nonchalantly to first for the out. Way bunted down the first-base line, and managed to beat out the throw. Pete flied to center field, and Way was held on first. With two down the inning should have been as good as over, but Fate took a hand and prolonged it until the bases were filled, and Dick, watching intently from the bench, dared to hope that Fudge might for once do the impossible. Mason had passed Lanny on purpose, forcing Way to second. Then Danny Shores had come through with a mild wallop down third-base line. Caspar had only to touch the base to retire the side, but his wits must have been wool-gathering, for, after gathering in the ball on the bound five feet away from the bag, he paid no attention to Way, dashing past him hardly out of arm’s length, but hurled the ball across to first. Perhaps Loring Townsend was too surprised to realize what was required of him. At all events, the ball dropped out of his glove, and Mr. Cochran, who had already motioned Danny out, had to reverse his decision.

And so the stage was set when Fudge seized his favorite bat and manfully stalked to the plate, resolved to do or die. Fudge was right in the midst of a baseball romance at that time, and only the night before, writing with his foolscap propped up on his knees in bed, he had described how his hero, despised and ridiculed by his school-mates, had gone to the bat in the last of the ninth and, even while the crowds turned disappointedly away from the field, had out-guessed the marvelous pitcher of the rival school and with one mighty stroke of his faithful bat had turned defeat into victory by driving out a home-run and scoring the men on bases. Fudge recalled that as he gripped his bat and faced Mason, trying hard to appear nonchalant and undismayed. He wondered whether things ever happened in real life as they did in stories. Somehow that brilliant deed of his hero seemed horribly improbable to-day. Fudge determined to tone it down a little that evening. A two-bagger would answer the purpose just as well, and would certainly sound more plausible.

Dick’s voice from the bench reached him as Mason, after glancing over the bases, wound up. “Make him pitch to you, Fudge! It only takes one!” Back and forth from behind first and third the cries of Harry Bryan and Gordon rattled. Fudge gripped his bat tighter yet and glued his eyes to the upraised hands of Mel Mason. Then the ball, a particularly dirty one, streaked toward him; Fudge’s heart beat loudly and he stepped nimbly out of the way, only to hear the fell verdict: “Strike!”

Fudge looked reproachfully at Mr. Cochran, sighed, and again faced the pitcher. That ball had come well across the inner corner of the plate, and Fudge determined that Mason shouldn’t fool him a second time with that particular kind of a delivery. So when the next ball shot forward apparently coming the same way Fudge held his ground scornfully and prepared to swing his bat. But the next instant he had forgotten all about swinging and was sitting on the ground with both hands clasped to his ribs and an expression of pained surprise on his face. When he had regained his breath and the use of his legs, Fudge thought that the joy of his team-mates was very ill-considered. It seemed nothing to them that he had narrowly escaped death at the hands of an infuriated baseball; they only shouted and jumped about because a run had been forced in!

Fudge walked painfully to first, reflecting how differently his hero would have performed. There was something distinctly humiliating to Fudge in gaining his base in such a manner, and so deeply did he feel the humiliation that he quite forgot to heed the warnings of Gordon, coaching behind the base, and was surprised to have Loring Townsend, without any provocation, punch him forcibly in exactly the spot that Mason’s in-shoot had collided with. That was too much for Fudge. The pain brought tears to his eyes and wrath to his heart. He sprang upon the first baseman with clenched fists, and only Gordon’s prompt interference prevented trouble. Gordon haled Fudge away, patiently explaining that Loring had tagged him with the ball while he had been apparently fast asleep a yard off the base. The explanation, however, was not entirely satisfactory to Fudge.

“What of it? He didn’t have to punch me in the ribs as hard as he knew how, did he?” demanded Fudge angrily. “What kind of a way is that to play ball?”

“Shut up, Fudge!” said Gordon exasperatedly. “Why the dickens weren’t you watching the pitcher? What’s the good of getting hit if you get put out the next minute?”

“Good of it!” exclaimed Fudge. “Good of it! There isn’t any good of it! I just wish he’d lammed you in the ribs the way he did me! Good of it!” And Fudge, still muttering, wandered disgustedly out to center field, one hand pressed to his side.

The seventh inning passed uneventfully. Tom had small difficulty with the last three men on the Point batting-list, and Mason disposed of Tom Haley and Harry Bryan with five balls apiece, and caused Will Scott to pop up a foul to first baseman. So the eighth inning started and Dick began to breathe easier, and the Clearfield sympathizers were jubilant. After all, three runs was a good lead, and even if the Point got to batting Tom in the next two innings, surely Clearfield could stop them short of three tallies. Thus argued Dick, and said as much to Harold, who, to-day, at least, was divided in his sympathies. Harold, having predicted great things of Mason, was a bit disgruntled with that youth, and expressed the wish once that Clearfield would wallop him out of the box. But when Dick voiced his belief that the game was pretty safe Harold took exception.

“You wait,” he said darkly. “Here comes Loring up. He hasn’t done anything yet, and he’s just bound to. And if he gets on Gil Chase will send him home. You wait!”

Loring Townsend let two balls go by, failed to size up the third delivery as a strike, and swung unsuccessfully at the next. With the score two and two, Tom sped a straight one over and Loring met it with his bat and set out for first. He didn’t run very fast, though, for the hit was a weak one and was bounding straight at Will Scott at third. But Will made a mess of that play. He got the ball, dropped it, found it again and threw hurriedly across the diamond. Gordon leaped into the air, just managed to tip the ball with his fingers, and then dashed off on a chase for it as it rolled toward the fence. When the shouting had died away, Loring was on second, Al Jensen was swinging his bat eagerly and impatiently, and Harold had dropped his score-book between his feet and didn’t know it!

That was a disastrous inning for Clearfield. Tom managed to strike out Jensen after that player had knocked six fouls into various parts of the field, and managed, too, to hold Loring on second. But when Gil Chase got the signal from first and trickled the ball into the pitcher’s box while Loring sped to third, Tom, with plenty of time to make the out at first, tossed the ball six feet over Gordon’s head and Loring slid home with the first run for the Point, while Chase got to second.

Then Tom had his troubles. His misplay had taken his nerve, and for a while he went thoroughly to pieces. Eight batsmen faced him in that inning, and four hits, for a total of six bases, and five runs were made off him before he finally managed to strike out Mason. When that inning was over the game had a different complexion. Instead of being three runs ahead, with the prospect of winning a shut-out, Clearfield was two tallies behind, and defeat stared her in the face.

The home team returned determinedly to the fray, but Mason was impregnable. In the last of the eighth not a man saw first and only four players faced him. In the first of the ninth, Rutter’s Point again started things with a whoop when Caspar Billings, first up, singled into left field, took second on Townsend’s sacrifice, and was advanced to third when Jensen hit past Will Scott. Then Jensen was caught off first and House flied out to Shores.

I would like to tell how Clearfield went to bat in the last half of that final inning and pounded Mason for enough hits to win the game. But as this isn’t one of Fudge’s romances I can’t do anything of the sort. As a matter of regrettable fact, Clearfield stood up to the plate and watched Mason’s “floaters” waft past them and listened to the fateful voice of the umpire calling strikes. Mason ended the day in a blaze of glory, striking out three men in order and sending his team off the field victors by the score of 5 to 3.

Harold Townsend, slapping his score-book shut, grinned at Dick as the last man went out. “What did I tell you?” he asked gleefully. “Say, you fellows can’t play ball for shucks, Lovering!”

Dick smiled imperturbably. He had the ability to smile in the face of disaster, had Dick.

“We’ll try you again some day,” he answered. “Good-bye, Harold. See you Monday.”

“I may not be home,” replied Harold airily.

But when Dick was accompanying his team-mates toward the dressing-room a minute or two later, he felt a hand on his arm and looked around to find that Harold had followed him.

“Say, Lovering, I—I’m sorry your team got beaten. And thanks for showing me about scoring, you know.”