Page:Lefty o' the Bush.djvu/88

 CHAPTER XIV

AFTER THE GAME

The indescribable uproar which greeted the strike-out that settled the game prevented Hoover's words from reaching Locke's ears, but the glare in his eyes, the expression of his face, and the movement of his lips told well enough what he said. The triumphant pitcher barely avoided the whistling bat by an agile side spring. In another instant, his face went white; he was coming at Hoover with a rush.

Tense with excitement, Janet Harting saw it all; she saw the steady, youthful, almost boyish, Kingsbridge pitcher fool the Caliban-faced Bully for the final fruitless slash which settled the game, two to nothing, in the home team's favor; saw Hoover, snarling, hurl the bat; and then beheld a swirling rush of shouting, wrathy human beings, who smashed the restraining rails in front of the bleachers, and poured upon the field like a spring flood from a bursted reservoir.

"I think," said Benton King, gathering the