y be
the larger on the home grounds.

"We'll have a warm time this forenoon!" Frank observed to Jack Ready.

"Torrid as the equator!" Ready answered.

"How is your nerve, old man?"

Ready dropped a finger to his pulse and seemed to be counting.

"Steady as a clock, Merry!"

"Keep it that way. There is Badger coming over for a talk with you.
We'll begin as soon as we get a little warming up."

He looked at his watch and began to talk with Browning, while Ready and
Badger drew aside to confer. Merriwell could see that Badger was a bit
nervous when the game was called. There was a flush in his face and a
glitter in his eyes that told of excitement, but this seemed to
disappear as he took the clean new Spalding ball in his hands and
entered the box.

In the grand stand Frank saw Inza, Elsie, and Winnie, and he lifted his
hat to them again, though he had enjoyed a long talk with them not many
minutes before. Winnie was smilingly happy. She waved her handkerchief
to Badger, and the Kansan's white teeth showed in a grim smile of
determination.

"If only you and Bodge were the hattery--I mean if only you and Hodge
were the battery!" Rattleton groaned in Frank's ear.

"Don't worry, Rattles! Just do your duty on third!" Merry answered. "We
are all right!"

Thus encouraged, Harry went away happy and confident. Browning was on
first, with Diamond on second. Danny Griswold was short-stop; while
Dismal had the right field, Bink Stubbs center, and Joe Gamp the left.
The game opened with Merriwell's men in the field.

The Westerner surveyed the ground and his surroundings carefully. Then
planted his toe on the rubber plate and shot in a "twister." It curved
inward as it neared the batter, and cut the heart of the plate. The
batter had been fooled and did not swing at it.

"One strike!" called the umpire.

The batter, who was looking out for an out curve next, swung at it, and
fanned the air. The Yale men, and especially the sophomores, began to
shout.

Badger thought it time to change to an out curve, and sent one in hot as
a Mauser bullet. But the batter was looking for out curves. He reached
for it. Crack!--away it sailed into the right field.

"Go, long legs!" was screamed at Dismal Jones, who sprinted for it with
all his might.

The next man of the Hartfords at the bat was the pitcher, Pink Wilson, a
fellow almost as tall and lank as Dismal Jones, with a hatchet face and
a corkscrew nose. His admirers said he