The Zane Grey Megapack. Zane Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ was soon manifest to Chase that Cas worked differently from any pitcher he had ever seen. Instead of trying to strike out any batters, Cas made them hit the ball. He never threw the same kind of a ball twice. He seemed to have a hundred different ways for the ball to go. But always he vented his scorn on his opponents in the low sarcasm which may have been heard by the umpire, but was inaudible to the audience.

      * * * *

      At the commencement of the third inning, neither side had yet scored. It was Chase’s first time up, and as he bent over the bats trying to pick out a suitable one, Cas said to him:

      “Say, Kid, this guy’ll be easy for you. Wait him out now. Let his curve ball go.

      Chase felt perfectly cool when he went up. The crowd gave him a great hand, which surprised but did not disconcert him. He stood square up to the plate, his left foot a little in advance. He watched the Kenton pitcher with keen eyes; he watched the motion, and he watched the ball as it sped towards him rather high and close to his face. He watched another, a wide curve, go by. The next was a strike, the next a ball, and then following, another strike. Chase had not moved a muscle.

      The bleachers yelled: “Good eye, old man! Hit her out now!”

      With three and two Chase lay back and hit the next one squarely. It rang off the bat, a beautiful liner that struck the right-field fence a few feet from the top. Chase reached third base, overran it, to be flung back by Cas.

      The crowd roared. Winters, the captain, came running out and sent Cas to the bench. Then he began to coach.

      “Look out, Chase! Hold your base on an infield hit! Play it safe! Play it safe! Here’s where we make a run, here’s where we make a run! Here’s where we make a run! Hey, there, pitcher, you’re up in the air already! Oh! What we won’t do to you! Steady, Chase, now you’re off. Hit it out, old man! That’s the eye! Make it good! Mugg’s Landing! Irish stew! Lace curtains! Ras-pa-tas! Oh my—” Bawling at the top of his voice, spitting tobacco juice everywhere, with wild eyes and sweaty face, Winters hopped up and down the coaching line. When Benny put up a little fly back of second, Winters started Chase for the plate and ran with him. The ball dropped safe and the run scored easily.

      When Chase went panting to the bench, Mac screwed up his stubby cigar and gazed at his new find with enraptured eyes. “I guess maybe thet hit didn’t bust our losin’ streak!”

      Whatever Chase’s triple had to do with it, the fact was that the Findlay players suddenly recovered their batting form. For two weeks they had been hitting atrociously, as Mac said, and now every player seemed to find hits in his bat. Thatcher tore off three singles; Cas got two and a double; and the others hit in proportion.

      Chase rapped another against the rightfield fence, hitting a painted advertisement that gave a pair of shoes to every player performing the feat; and to the delirious joy of the bleachers and stands, at his last time up, he put the ball over the fence for a home run.

      It was a happy custom of the oil-men of Findlay, who devoted themselves to the game, to throw silver dollars out of the stand at the player making a home run. A bright shower of this kind completely bewildered Chase. He picked up ten, and Cas handed him seven more that had rolled in the dust.

      “A suit of clothes goes with that hit, me boy,” sang out Cas.

      It was plainly a day for Chase and Cas. The Kenton players were at the mercy of the growling pitcher. When they did connect with the ball, sharp fielding prevented safe hits. Chase had eleven chances, some difficult, one particularly being a hard bounder over second base, all of which he fielded perfectly. But on two occasions fast, tricky base-runners deceived him, bewildered him, so that instead of throwing the ball he held it. These plays gave Kenton the two lonely runs chalked up to their credit against seventeen for Findlay.

      “Well, we’ll give you those tallies,” said Cas, swaggering off the field. He had more than kept his threat, for Kenton made but one safe hit.

      “Wheeling tomorrow, boys,” he yelled in the dressing-room. “We’ll take three straight. Say! Did any of you cheapskates see my friend Chase hit today? Did you see him? Oh! I guess he didn’t put the wood on a few! I guess not! Over the fence and far away! That one is going yet!”

      Chase was dumfounded to hear every player speak to him in glowing terms. He thought they had bitterly resented his arrival, and they had; yet here was each one warmly praising his work. And in the next breath they were fighting among themselves. Truly these young men were puzzles to Chase. He gave up trying to understand them.

      A loud uproar caused him to turn. The players were holding their sides with laughter, and Cas was doing a Highland fling in the middle of the floor. Mac looked rather white and sick. This struck Chase as remarkable after the decisive victory, and he asked the nearest player what was wrong.

      “Oh! Nuthin’ much! Mac only swallowed his cigar stub!”

      It was true, as could be plainly seen from Mac’s expression. When the noise subsided he said:

      “Sure, I did. Was it any wonder? Seein’ this dead bunch come back to life was enough to make me swallow my umbrella. Boys,” here a smile lighted up his smug face, “now we’ve got thet hole plugged at short, the pennant is ours. We’ve got ’em skinned to a frazzle!”

      CHAPTER VII

      MITTIE-MARU

      “Chase, you hung bells on ’em yestiddy.”

      Among the many greetings Chase received from the youngsters swarming out to the grounds to see their heroes whip Wheeling, this one struck him as most original and amusing. It was given him by Mittie-Maru, the diminutive hunchback who had constituted himself mascot of the team. Chase had heard of the boy and had seen him on the day before, but not to take any particular notice.

      “Let me carry yer bat.”

      Chase looked down upon a sad and strange little figure. Mittie-Maru did not much exceed a yard in height; he was all misshapen and twisted, with a large head, which was set deep into the hump on his shoulders. He was only a boy, yet he had an almost useless body and the face of an old man.

      Chase hurriedly lifted his gaze, thinking with a pang of self-reproach how trifling was his crooked eye compared to the hideous deformity of this lad.

      “Three straight from Wheelin’ is all we want,” went on Mittie-Maru. “We’ll skin the coal diggers all right, all right. An’ we’ll be out in front trailin’ a merry ‘Ha! Ha!’ fer Columbus. They’re leadin’ now, an’ of all the swelled bunches I ever seen! Put it to us fer three straight when they was here last. But we got a bad start. There I got sick an’ couldn’t report, an’ somehow the team can’t win without me. Yestiddy was my first day fer—I don’t know how long—since Columbus trimmed us.”

      “What was the matter with you?” asked Chase.

      “Aw! Nuthin’. Jest didn’t feel good,” replied the boy. “But I got out yestiddy, an’ see what you done to Kenton! Say, Chase, you takes mighty long steps. It ain’t much wonder you can cover ground.”

      Chase modified his pace to suit that of his companion, and he wanted to take the bat, but Mittie-Maru carried it with such pride and conscious superiority over the envious small boys who trooped along with them that Chase could not bring himself to ask for it. As they entered the grounds and approached the door of the clubhouse, Mac came out. СКАЧАТЬ