"It"s true."
"What"s wrong with you, Billie?"
"Oh, I"ve struck a bad streak--can"t hit or throw."
"Are you a quitter?"
"No, I"m not," he answered quickly, flushing a dark red.
"You started off this spring with a rush. You played brilliantly and for a while led the team in batting. Uncle George thought so well of you. Then came this spell of bad form. But, Billie, it"s only a slump; you can brace."
"I don"t know," he replied, despondently. "Awhile back I got my mind off the game. Then--people who don"t like me have taken advantage of my slump to----"
"To knock," interrupted Miss Ellston.
"I"m not saying that," he said, looking away from her.
"But I"m saying it. See here, Billie Sheldon, my uncle owns this team and Pat Donahue is manager. I think they both like me a little. Now I don"t want to see you lose your place. Perhaps----"
"Madge, that"s fine of you--but I think--I guess it"d be best for me to leave Kansas City."
"Why?"
"You know," he said huskily. "I"ve lost my head--I"m in love--I can"t think of baseball--I"m crazy about you."
Miss Ellston"s sweet face grew rosy, clear to the tips of her ears.
"Billie Sheldon," she replied, spiritedly. "You"re talking nonsense.
Even if you were were that way, it"d be no reason to play poor ball.
Don"t throw the game, as Pat would say. Make a brace! Get up on your toes! Tear things! Rip the boards off the fence! Don"t quit!"
She exhausted her vocabulary of baseball language if not her enthusiasm, and paused in blushing confusion.
"Madge!"
"Will you brace up?"
"Will I--will I!" he exclaimed, breathlessly.
Madge murmured a hurried good-bye and, turning away, went up the stairs. Her uncle"s private box was upon the top of the grand stand and she reached it in a somewhat bewildered state of mind. She had a confused sense of having appeared to encourage Billie, and did not know whether she felt happy or guilty. The flame in his eyes had warmed all her blood. Then, as she glanced over the railing to see the powerful Burns Carroll, there rose in her breast a panic at strange variance with her other feelings.
Many times had Madge Ellston viewed the field and stands and the outlying country from this high vantage point; but never with the same mingling emotions, nor had the sunshine ever been so golden, the woods and meadows so green, the diamond so smooth and velvety, the whole scene so gaily bright.
Denver had always been a good drawing card, and having won the first game of the present series, bade fair to draw a record attendance. The long lines of bleachers, already packed with the familiar mottled crowd, sent forth a merry, rattling hum. Soon a steady stream of well-dressed men and women poured in the gates and up the grand-stand stairs. The soft murmur of many voices in light conversation and laughter filled the air. The peanut venders and score-card sellers kept up their insistent shrill cries. The baseball park was alive now and restless; the atmosphere seemed charged with freedom and pleasure.
The players romped like skittish colts, the fans shrieked their witticisms--all sound and movements suggested play.
Madge Ellston was somehow relieved to see her uncle sitting in one of the lower boxes. During this game she wanted to be alone, and she believed she would be, for the President of the League and directors of the Kansas City team were with her uncle. When the bell rang to call the Denver team in from practice the stands could hold no more, and the roped-off side lines were filling up with noisy men and boys. From her seat Madge could see right down upon the players" bench, and when she caught both Sheldon and Carroll gazing upward she drew back with sharply contrasted thrills.
Then the bell rang again, the bleachers rolled out their welcoming acclaim, and play was called with Kansas City at the bat.
Right off the reel Hunt hit a short fly safely over second. The ten thousand spectators burst into a roar. A good start liberated applause and marked the feeling for the day.
Madge was surprised and glad to see Billie Sheldon start next for the plate. All season, until lately, he had been the second batter.
During his slump he had been relegated to the last place on the batting list. Perhaps he had asked Pat to try him once more at the top. The bleachers voiced their unstinted appreciation of this return, showing that Billie still had a strong hold on their hearts.
As for Madge, her breast heaved and she had difficulty in breathing.
This was going to be a hard game for her. The intensity of her desire to see Billie brace up to his old form amazed her. And Carroll"s rude words beat thick in her ears. Never before had Billie appeared so instinct with life, so intent and strung as when he faced Keene, the Denver pitcher. That worthy tied himself up in a knot, and then, unlimbering a long arm, delivered the brand new ball.
Billie seemed to leap forward and throw his bat at it. There was a sharp ringing crack--and the ball was like a white string marvelously stretching out over the players, over the green field beyond, and then, sailing, soaring, over the right-field fence. For a moment the stands, even the bleachers, were stone quiet. No player had ever hit a ball over that fence. It had been deemed impossible, as was attested to by the many painted "ads" offering prizes for such a feat. Suddenly the far end of the bleachers exploded and the swelling roar rolled up to engulf the grand stand in thunder. Billie ran round the bases to applause never before vented on that field. But he gave no sign that it affected him; he did not even doff his cap. White-faced and stern, he hurried to the bench, where Pat fell all over him and many of the players grasped his hands.
Up in her box Madge was crushing her score-card and whispering: "Oh!
Billie, I could hug you for that!"
Two runs on two pitched b.a.l.l.s! That was an opening to stir an exacting audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. The Denver manager peremptorily called Keene off the diamond and sent in Steele, a south-paw, who had always bothered Pat"s left-handed hitters. That move showed his astute judgment, for Steele struck out McReady and retired Curtis and Mahew on easy chances.
It was Dalgren"s turn to pitch and though he had shown promise in several games he had not yet been tried out on a team of Denver"s strength. The bleachers gave him a good cheering as he walked into the box, but for all that they whistled their wonder at Pat"s a.s.surance in putting him against the Cowboys in an important game.
The lad was visibly nervous and the hard-hitting and loud-coaching Denver players went after him as if they meant to drive him out of the game. Crane stung one to left center for a base, Moody was out on a liner to short, almost doubling up Crane; the fleet-footed Bluett bunted and beat the throw to first; Langly drove to left for what seemed a three-bagger, but Curtis, after a hard run, caught the ball almost off the left-field bleachers. Crane and Bluett advanced a base on the throw-in. Then Kane batted up a high foul-fly. Burns Carroll, the Kansas City catcher, had the reputation of being a fiend for chasing foul flies, and he dashed at this one with a speed that threatened a hard fall over the players" bench or a collision with the fence. Carroll caught the ball and crashed against the grand stand, but leaped back with an agility that showed that if there was any harm done it had not been to him.
Thus the sharp inning ended with a magnificent play. It electrified the spectators into a fierce energy of applause. With one accord, by baseball instinct, the stands and bleachers and roped-in-sidelines realized it was to be a game of games and they answered to the stimulus with a savage enthusiasm that inspired ballplayers to great plays.
In the first half of the second inning, Steele"s will to do and his arm to execute were very like his name. Kansas City could not score. In their half the Denver team made one run by clean hitting.
Then the closely fought advantage see-sawed from one team to the other.
It was not a pitchers" battle, though both men worked to the limit of skill and endurance. They were hit hard. Dazzling plays kept the score down and the innings short. Over the fields hung the portent of something to come, every player, every spectator felt the subtle baseball chance; each inning seemed to lead closer and more thrillingly up to the climax. But at the end of the seventh, with the score tied six and six, with daring steals, hard hits and splendid plays, enough to have made memorable several games, it seemed that the great portentous moment was still in abeyance.
The head of the batting list for Kansas City was up. Hunt caught the first pitched ball squarely on the end of his bat. It was a mighty drive and as the ball soared and soared over the center-field Hunt raced down the base line, and the winged-footed Crane sped outward, the bleachers split their throats. The hit looked good for a home run, but Crane leaped up and caught the ball in his gloved hand. The sudden silence and then the long groan which racked the bleachers was greater tribute to Crane"s play than any applause.
Billie Sheldon then faced Steele. The fans roared hoa.r.s.ely, for Billie had hit safely three times out of four. Steele used his curve ball, but he could not get the batter to go after it. When he had wasted three b.a.l.l.s, the never-despairing bleachers howled: "Now, Billie, in your groove! Sting the next one!" But Billie waited. One strike! Two strikes! Steele cut the plate. That was a test which proved Sheldon"s caliber.
With seven innings of exciting play pa.s.sed, with both teams on edge, with the bleachers wild and the grand stands keyed up to the breaking point, with everything making deliberation almost impossible, Billie Sheldon had remorselessly waited for three b.a.l.l.s and two strikes.
"Now! ... Now! ... Now!" shrieked the bleachers.
Steele had not tired nor lost his cunning. With hands before him he grimly studied Billie, then whirling hard to get more weight into his motion, he threw the ball.
Billie swung perfectly and cut a curving liner between the first baseman and the base. Like a shot it skipped over the gra.s.s out along the foul-line into right field. Amid tremendous uproar Billie stretched the hit into a triple, and when he got up out of the dust after his slide into third the noise seemed to be the crashing down of the bleachers. It died out with the choking gurgling yell of the most leather-lunged fan.
"O-o-o-o-you-Billie-e!"
McReady marched up and promptly hit a long fly to the redoubtable Crane. Billie crouched in a sprinter"s position with his eye on the graceful fielder, waiting confidently for the ball to drop. As if there had not already been sufficient heart-rending moments, the chance that governed baseball meted out this play; one of the keenest, most trying known to the game. Players waited, spectators waited, and the instant of that dropping ball was interminably long. Everybody knew Crane would catch it; everybody thought of the wonderful throwing arm that had made him famous. Was it possible for Billie Sheldon to beat the throw to the plate?
Crane made the catch and got the ball away at the same instant Sheldon leaped from the base and dashed for home. Then all eyes were on the ball. It seemed incredible that a ball thrown by human strength could speed plateward so low, so straight, so swift. But it lost its force and slanted down to bound into the catcher"s hands just as Billie slid over the plate.
By the time the bleachers had stopped stamping and bawling, Curtis ended the inning with a difficult grounder to the infield.
Once more the Kansas City players took the field and Burns Carroll sang out in his l.u.s.ty voice: "Keep lively, boys! Play hard! Dig "em up an"
get "em!" Indeed the big catcher was the main-stay of the home team.