had only got started, for then his long sprinter's stride lengthened
and quickened. At second he was flying; beyond second he seemed to
merge into a gray flitting shadow.

I gripped my seat strangling the uproar within me. Where was the
applause? The fans were silent, choked as I was, but from a different
cause. Cless crossed the plate with the score that defeated New York;
still the tension never laxed until Burt beat the ball home in as
beautiful a run as ever thrilled an audience.

In the bleak dead pause of amazed disappointment Old Well-Well lifted
his hulking figure and loomed, towered over the bleachers. His wide
shoulders spread, his broad chest expanded, his breath whistled as he
drew it in. One fleeting instant his transfigured face shone with a
glorious light. Then, as he threw back his head and opened his lips,
his face turned purple, the muscles of his cheeks and jaw rippled and
strung, the veins on his forehead swelled into bulging ridges. Even
the back of his neck grew red.

"Well!--Well!--Well!!!"

Ear-splitting stentorian blast! For a moment I was deafened. But I
heard the echo ringing from the cliff, a pealing clarion call,
beautiful and wonderful, winding away in hollow reverberation, then
breaking out anew from building to building in clear concatenation.

A sea of faces whirled in the direction of that long unheard yell.
Burt had stopped statue-like as if stricken in his tracks; then he came
running, darting among the spectators who had leaped the fence.

Old Well-Well stood a moment with slow glance lingering on the tumult
of emptying bleachers, on the moving mingling colors in the grand
stand, across the green field to the gray-clad players. He staggered
forward and fell.

Before I could move, a noisy crowd swarmed about him, some solicitous,
many facetious. Young Burt leaped the fence and forced his way into the
circle. Then they were carrying the old man down to the field and
toward the clubhouse. I waited until the bleachers and field were
empty. When I finally went out there was a crowd at the gate
surrounding an ambulance. I caught a glimpse of Old Well-Well. He lay
white and still, but his eyes were open, smiling intently. Young Burt
hung over him with a pale and agitated face. Then a bell clanged and
the ambulance clattered away.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Redheaded Outfield and Other
Baseball Stories, by Zane Grey

*** END OF THIS P