"Play ball!" fairly howled the umpire, and the game was on.

"Ping!" That was the sound of the bat colliding with the ball, the first ball that Langridge threw. Describing a graceful curve, the white sphere sailed up into the air. Ed Kerr, hoping it might be a foul, had thrown off his mask and was wildly looking for it, but it was winging its way toward Jerry Jackson in right field. A yell went up from the two hundred college supporters of Boxer Hall, but it was changed to a groan when one of the Jersey twins neatly gathered in the fly and put the runner out.

Langridge breathed a sigh of relief and struck out the next two men.

Not a man got to first on the Randall team in the initial inning. Kerr knocked a pop fly, but it was caught by the pitcher, who repeated Langridge's trick and sent the next two men to the bench in short order.

The next three innings saw goose eggs in the squares of both teams, the only hitting that was done being foul tips.

"It's a pitchers' battle," began to be whispered from seat to seat, and so it seemed. In the sixth inning Randall succeeded in getting a man to first on b.a.l.l.s, and then began an attempt on the part of the onlooking students of that college to get the pitcher's "goat," which, being interpreted, meant to "rattle" him. That he had a "gla.s.s arm" was the mildest epithet hurled at him, but Dave Ogden, who was doing the twirling for Boxer Hall, only smiled in a confident sort of way and struck out the next man.

He was not so successful with Kindlings Woodhouse, and the captain hammered out a pretty fly that was good for two bases and sent Bricktop Molloy to third. The Randall boys were rejoicing now, for they saw a chance to score the first run. And the run itself was brought in by the blue-eyed and red-haired Molloy a moment later, when Phil Clinton knocked a hot liner right between the Boxer Hall shortstop and the third baseman. But that ended the fun, though the score was 1 to 0 in favor of the home team.

This may have been an incentive to the visitors, for straightway they began pounding Langridge, and when the seventh inning ended the score was 4 to 2 in favor of Boxer Hall.

"Boys, we've got to down 'em!" said Woodhouse fiercely. "Don't let them put the game on ice this way. Don't do it. Take a brace."

In the eighth inning it looked as if there was going to be a slump in Randall stock. Langridge seemed to go to pieces and issued walking pa.s.ses to two men, while he was batted for a two-bagger and a three-base hit. But with a gritting of their teeth the others rallied to his support, and though the visitors tucked away two more runs, making the score 6 to 2, at which their cohorts went into a fine frenzy, that was all they could do.

"Fellows, we're going to win!" cried Captain Paul, or "Pinky" Davenport, of the Boxers.

"Wait a bit, son," advised Kindlings dryly.

In the ending of the eighth there was a look of "do or die" about the Randall players. Tom Parsons felt himself gripping the sides of the seat until the board hurt his hands.

"Oh, if I could only get down there and play!" he whispered to himself.

"Why can't I? why can't I?" But he couldn't and he knew it.

Rather to their own surprise the Randall lads began finding the ball with surprising regularity. They batted it out "for keeps," as Molloy said, and they managed to tie the score. Then came the ever nerve-thrilling ninth inning in a close game. By great good luck, after he had given one man his base on b.a.l.l.s, Langridge retired a trio in one-two-three order, and the score still stood a tie.

"Now, fellows, slam it into them. Wallop the hide off 'em--sting 'em--souse 'em--put 'em in brine for next year!" implored Holly Cross.

"I'm first up, and I'm going to give you a correct imitation of a man making a home run."

But he didn't. Holly struck out miserably and he went away into a far corner and thought gloomy thoughts. Not for long, however. A resounding crack of the bat told him some one had knocked a fly. It was Phil Clinton, and he started for first like a deer with the hounds after it.

"My, but he can run!" exclaimed Tom in admiration. "Wouldn't he be fine covering the gridiron with the ball tucked under his arm? Go on! go on!

That's the stuff, Phil! Pretty! pretty! That's a beaut! that's a beaut!"

Tom was on his feet yelling at the top of his voice. So were hundreds of other lads and girls also. But the Boxer third baseman was right near the ball. He gathered it in and hurled it to first. It would have been all over with Phil, in spite of his magnificent run, except that the first baseman missed it, and Phil, amid a riot of cheers, kept on to second.

That sealed the fate of the Boxers. They "slumped" and went to pieces badly. The Randall lads garnered a run and so they won the game--the first of the season--by a score of 7 to 6.

And then what cheering there was!

CHAPTER X

A COIL OF WIRE

"Bonfires to-night, fellows--bonfires multiplied by seven and one more!"

cried Captain Woodhouse as he gathered the victorious nine about him and tried to hug each member. "Well played, my hearties! Yo ho! and a heave, yo ho! You shall dine sumptuously this day, an it please ye!"

"Hold hard there!" came the laughing but calming voice of the coach. "No breaking of training just because you've won the first game. Not much!

You've got to buckle down harder than ever from now until school closes."

"Not even a cigarette?" asked Holly Cross, with a wink at his chums.

"Or an ice cream soda?" added Bricktop, his blue eyes twinkling.

"Go on," answered the coach with another laugh, not taking the trouble to return an answer to so obvious a question. "They are going to cheer you. Get ready to give them a yell in return."

The defeated team had gathered together. There was an air of sullenness about the members at losing the game, but this mood quickly pa.s.sed under the entreaties of Pinky Davenport, who was a sportsman and "a good loser," as he besought his men to "perk up and wallop 'em next time." He called for three cheers for the victors, and they were followed by the Boxer Hall yell.

Back came three ringing acclamations and a "tiger" from Woodhouse and his mates, and their yell, as weird a combination of words and syllables as could well be devised, brought the whole concourse of spectators standing up in acknowledgment. Then came more cheering, and the nines disappeared into the dressing-rooms beneath the grandstand, while the crowds filed away.

"Well," remarked Sid as he walked along with Tom a little later, "it was a glorious victory, as the poem says. I don't exactly remember what it was all about nor how we did it, but "twas a glorious victory.'"

"Now you're talking," was Phil Clinton's opinion. "Eh, Tommy, my lad?"

Tom was rather silent. He had cheered the nine until his throat ached, but somehow there was to him a hollowness in the winning.

"Too bad you couldn't play, old man," commented Sid. "I was almost hoping Langridge would strain his arm, and then----"

"Don't!" exclaimed Tom quickly. "That's bad luck, and, what's worse, Sid, it's treason."

"Then give me liberty or buy me a seltzer lemonade, Patrick Henry!"

declaimed Phil. "Honest now, Tom, weren't you just aching to get out and play?"

"I was," replied Tom so earnestly that the others looked curiously at him. "I never wanted so much in my life to get into a game. Why, I'd even been glad to act as backstop. But it's all right," he added quickly. "It was a great game, and maybe I'll have a chance to play next year if I live that long," and he laughed, but there was no mirth in it.

"Mighty pretty lot of girls at the game," observed Sid, as if to change the subject.

"That's what," agreed Tom, glad to get on a more congenial topic.

"Oh, wait until we play Fairview Inst.i.tute," said Phil.

"Why?" from Tom.

"Why, that's co-ed, you know--girl students as well as boys. And, say, maybe there aren't some stunners among 'em! They take in all the games at home and some that aren't, and they have flags and a yell of their own. They know how to yell, too. I was over to a ball game there last year, before I thought of coming to Randall, and say, it was immense.

There was one----"

"Cut it out, if it's about a girl," advised Sid. "When you get on the dame question, you don't know where to stop. Sufficient to say that there are some."

"Yes, and then some more," added Phil. "Wait until we go there or they come here. Then you'll see something worth seeing."

"May the day come soon," spoke Tom with a laugh. "I sat next to a mighty pretty girl to-day all right. She had a flag of Randall colors, and when we won she waved it so hard she nearly put my eye out."