“Four balls hits for a go—­I mean goes for a hit in this case.”

Harris laughed.

“Now I have you sure,” he chuckled.

“In your mind, Sport, old boy.”

Merriwell seemed to be examining the pitcher’s plate, then he looked up like a flash, his eyes seeming to sparkle, and with wonderful quickness delivered the ball.

“It’s an outcurve,” was the thought which flashed through Gibson’s mind as he saw the sphere had been started almost directly at him.

If it was an outcurve it seemed certain to pass over the center of the plate, and it would not do to let it pass.  It was speedy, and the batter was forced to make up his mind in a fraction of a second.

He struck at it—­and missed!

“Three strikes—­batter out!” called the umpire, sharply.

Gibson dropped his stick in a dazed way, muttering: 

“Great Scott! it was a straight ball and close to my fingers!”

He might have shouted the words and not been heard, for the Yale rooters were getting in their work for fair.  They gave one great roar of delight, and then came the college yell, followed by the freshman cheer.  At last they were given an opportunity to use their lungs, after having been comparatively silent for several innings.

“Whoop ’er up for ’Umpty-eight!” howled a fellow with a heavy voice.  “What’s the matter with ’Umpty-eight?”

“She’s all right!” went up the hoarse roar.

“What’s the matter with Merriwell?”

“He’s all right!” again came that roar.

When the shouting had subsided, Rattleton touched Harris on the shoulder and laughingly asked: 

“Do I win?”

“Not yet.  There are two more coming.”

“But I win just as hard, my boy.”

“Hope you do.”

The next Harvard batter came up, determined to do something, although he was a trifle uncertain.  He let the first one pass and heard a strike called, which did not please him much.  The second one was a coaxer, and he let that ball go by.  The umpire called a ball.  The third was a high one, but it looked good, and he tried for it.  It proved to be a rise, and he struck under it at least a foot.

Bob Collingwood was growing enthusiastic.

“That Merriwell is full of tricks,” he declared.  “Think how he secretly coached the freshman crew up on the Oxford stroke last fall and won the race at Saltonstall.  If it hadn’t been for a traitor nobody would have known what he was doing with the crew, for he wouldn’t let them practice at the machines.”

“I have had my eye on him ever since he entered Yale,” confessed Pierson.  “I have seen that he is destined to come to the front.”

The batter seemed angry because he had been deceived so easily, and this gave Frank satisfaction, for an angry man can be deceived much easier than one who keeps cool.

Merriwell held them close in on the batter, who made four fouls in succession, getting angrier each moment.  By this time an outdrop was the thing to fool him, and it worked nicely.