He hoped Cope would not yield. Perhaps the damage was done already, but he would try to redeem himself if they did not bench him.
Hutchinson was saying:
“What’s the use to keep him in, man alive? He’s lost the game already.”
“If he’s lost the game,” returned the obstinate grocer, “what’s the use to take him out? I don’t see no sense in that. Let him pitch some more. He braced up t’other time; mebbe he will ag’in.”
Speechless with exasperation, Hutchinson turned back and reseated himself on the bench. Seeing this, and understanding that Locke would continue yet a while on the firing line, Stark ran to him, grasped him with both hands, and spoke in swift, yet steady, tones:
“Pull yourself together, Lefty; you’ve got to do it, and you can. Bangs is easy, and that man Murtel can’t hit a balloon. Put the ball over, and take chances with them; we’re behind you. Don’t hurry, and keep your head.”
Tom gave the disturbed captain a reassuring smile.
“I know I ought to be sent to the stable,” he said; “but I’ll do my level best now. Watch me.”
Bingo Bangs was not much of a hitter, and the crowd saw Lefty whip the ball through a single groove three times in succession, and three times the Bullies’ catcher hammered the air. After the third strike, the ball having been returned by Oulds, Locke caught a quick signal from the backstop, and wheeled, to flash the sphere like a shot into the hands of Labelle, who had dodged past the runner.
Labelle nailed Lisotte, and the two Canadians exchanged courtesies in choice patois. This second swift putout awoke some of the saddened Kingsbridgers, their sudden yells of satisfaction mingling with the groans of the Bancrofters.
“Now we’re all right!” cried Larry Stark. “Take a fall out of old Pinwheel, Lefty. We’ll make a game of this yet.”
Locke’s nerves were growing steadier. He had forced himself to dismiss every thought of the girl who had treated him so shabbily, and the man, her companion, who had flung him an insult and escaped a thrashing. Until the last inning was over he would concentrate his energies upon the work in hand.
As before, the Bancroft pitcher’s efforts to connect with Locke’s slants were laughable; he could not touch the ball, even to foul it.
“Hold them down now, Craddock,” begged Fancy Dyke from the bleachers. “They shut us out last time we was here; let’s return the compliment to-day.”
Murtel grinned; thus far he had seen nothing that would lead him to doubt his ability to hold the Kinks runless. Nor was he ruffled when Anastace got a scratch hit from him in the last of the fifth; for the three following batters were like putty in his hands.
On the part of Kingsbridge there was uncertainty and anxiety as Locke returned to the slab, for now the head of Bancroft’s list, the best hitters of the team, were coming up to face him, and they were full of confidence. There were times, it seemed, when Lefty was sadly erratic, and were he to slump again in this game the faith of his admirers would be much impaired.
Never had Tom Locke put more brains into his pitching. He had a speed ball that smoked, and his curves broke as sharply keen as a razor’s edge; furthermore, he “mixed them up” cleverly, his change of pace proving most baffling, and his slow ball always seeming to come loafing over just when the hitter was looking for a whistler.
Harney snarled his annoyance after fanning; Trollop almost broke his back bumping one of the slow ones into the clutches of Labelle; Grady lifted a miserable foul back of first for Hinkey to gobble.
Hutchinson had temporarily deserted the bench, and the Kinks came trotting in. Observing this, Locke grabbed Stark, and whispered something in his ear, Larry listening and nodding.
“It won’t hurt to try it,” said the captain. “Here, Oulds.”
It was the catcher’s turn to lead off. He listened to Stark’s repetition of Locke’s suggestion; then he stepped out to the plate, slipped his hands up on the bat a bit as Murtel pitched, and bunted the first ball.
The Bullies were taken by surprise. The ball rolled slowly down just inside the third-base line, and Oulds, leaping away like a streak, actually turned that bunt into a safe base hit, to the complaints of the Bancroft spectators and the whooping merriment of the Kingsbridgers.
Locke was promptly in position, and he followed with a bunt toward first. Even as the bunt was made the bat seemed to fall from his hands, and he was off like a shot toward the initial sack, leaping over the rolling ball as he went. Only by the liveliest kind of hustling did Murtel get the sphere up and snap it humming past the runner in time to get an assist on Harney’s put-out.
Oulds was on second. Labelle, grinning, hopped into the batter’s box, and astonished the spectators of the game, and the Bancroft players, as well, by contributing the third bunt, which was so wholly unexpected that he reached first by a narrow margin. And now the Kingsbridge crowd was making all the noise, the Bancrofters seeming stricken dumb with apprehension.
Murtel was angry, a fact he could not hide. For the first time he seemed, with deliberate intent, to keep the first ball pitched beyond the reach of the batter. Oulds, of course, had anchored temporarily at third, and Labelle, taking a chance, tried to steal on that pitch.
Bangs made a line throw, but Lisotte, seeing Oulds dash off third, cut it down, only to discover that the tricky Kingsbridge catcher had bluffed. The Frenchman failed in an attempt to pin the runner before he could dive back to the sack.
Locke had taken Crandall’s place on the coaching line back of third, giving Reddy a chance to get his bat, as he was the hitter who followed Stark; and it was the play to keep the ball rolling as fast as possible. Tom was laughing and full of ginger, his words of instruction to the runners sometimes sounding clear above the uproar of the excited crowd.
“Keep it up! Keep it up!” he called. “Get off those cushions! Take a lead, and score! Look out!” Murtel had made an attempt to catch Labelle by a quick throw, but the little Canadian slid under McGovern’s arm.