Page:Barbour--Captain Chub.djvu/32

14 freshmen were hugging each other ecstatically. The head of the Crimson’s batting list was coming up, and things looked bright. The cheering became incessant. The coach shouted and bawled. But the Blue’s pitcher refused to be rattled. He settled down, held Chub close on first and, before any one quite realized what was happening, had struck out the next man.

But Chub had made up his mind to go on, and he went. He made his steal on the first ball thrown to the new batter and, although catcher threw straight and fast to second-baseman, Chub slid around the latter and reached the bag. Then, while the cheers broke forth again, he got up, patted the dust out of his clothes, and took a fresh lead. The pitcher eyed him darkly for a moment and then gave his attention to the batsman. Crack! Ball and bat met and the short-stop ran in to field a fast grounder, and as he ran Chub flashed behind him. Gathering up the ball, short-stop turned toward third, saw that he was too late, and threw to first, putting the batsman out by the narrowest of margins. “Two out!”

The Crimson captain stepped to the plate, looking determined, and hit the first delivery safely.