Page:Baseball Joe on the School Nine.djvu/216

202 only the beginning of the battle. He got two strikes on Lee and that player began to get worried. Then, after one ball, Lee hit the next one for a pop fly that Joe hardly had to step out of his box to get.

"Two down, play for all you're worth, Joe," called Ward; but Joe needed no such urging. However, something went wrong. Either Joe did not have as good control, speed or curving ability as when he had started in, or the next players found him. At any rate Carlburg knocked a dandy two bagger, and Ted Clay, who followed, duplicated the trick. Carlburg came in with the first run of the game, amid a riot of noise, and when Wallace Douglass hit safely to first. Clay got to third, coming in with the second run a little later, when Captain Dalton also singled.

"We've got 'em going! We've got 'em going!" yelled the delighted Morningside crowd, and it did seem so. Joe felt that he must tighten up, and strike out the next man, or all would be lost.

He glanced at the bench, where the jubilant Morningside players were sitting, all regarding him sharply. It was a supreme test. Then Joe caught the eyes of some one else on him. The eyes of Sam Morton, his old enemy.