The Harvard crowd was getting anxious.  Was it possible that Merriwell would hold them down so they could not score, and Yale would yet pull out by good work at the bat?

The captain said a few words to the next batter before the man went up to the plate, and Frank felt sure the fellow had been advised to take his time.

Having made up his mind to this, Frank sent a swift straight one directly over, and, as he had expected, the batter let it pass, which caused the umpire to call a strike.

Still keeping the runner hugging first, Frank seemed to start another ball in exactly the same manner.  It was not a straight one, but it was a very slow drop, as the batter discovered after he had commenced to swing.  Finding he could not recover, the fellow went after the ball with a scooping movement, and then did not come within several inches of it, greatly to the delight of the Yale crowd.

“Oh, Merry has every blooming one of them on a string!” cried Rattleton.  “He thon’t do a wing to ’em—­I mean he won’t do a thing to ’em.”

The Yale men were singing songs of victory already, and the Harvard crowd was doing its best to keep up the courage of its team by rooting hard.

It was a most exciting game.

“The hottest game I ever saw played by freshmen,” commented Collingwood.

“It is a corker,” confessed Pierson.  “We weren’t looking for anything of the sort a short time ago.”

“I should say not.  Up to the time Merriwell went in it looked as if Harvard had a walkover.”

“Gordon feels bad enough about it, that is plain.  He is trying to appear cheerful on the bench, but—­”

“He can’t stand it any longer; he’s leaving.”

That was right.  Gordon had left the players’ bench and was walking away.  He tried to look pleased at the way things were going, but the attempt was a failure.

“Merriwell is the luckiest fellow alive,” he thought.  “If I had stayed in another inning the game might have changed.  He is pitching good ball, but I’m hanged if I can understand why they do not hit him.  It looks easy.”

Neither could the Harvard lads thoroughly understand it, although there were some who realized that Merriwell was using his head, as well as speed and curves.  And he did not use speed all the time.  He had a fine change of pace, sandwiching in his slow balls at irregular intervals, but delivering them with what seemed to be exactly the same motion that he used on the speedy ones.

The fourth batter up struck out, and again Harvard was retired without a score, which caused the Yale crowd to cheer so that some of the lads got almost black in the face.

“Well! well! well!” laughed Rattleton, as Deacon Dunning passed over the money he had been holding.  “This is like chicking perries—­I mean picking cherries.  All I have to do is to reach out and take what I want.”

“If the boys will capture the game I’ll be perfectly satisfied to lose,” declared Harris, who did not tell the truth, however, for he was chagrined, although he showed not a sign of it.