“How can we lose? how can we lose?” chuckled Harry.  “Things are coming our way, as the country editor said when he was rotten-egged by the mob.”

It really seemed that Yale was out for the game at last, for they kept up their work at the bat, although Peck replaced Coulter in the box for Harvard.

Merriwell had his turn with the first batter up.  One man was out, and there was a man on second.  Coulter had warned Peck against giving Merriwell an outcurve.  At the same time, knowing Frank had batted to right field before, the fielders played over toward right.

“So you are on to that, are you?” thought Frank.  “Well, it comes full easier for me to crack ’em into left field if I am given an inshoot.”

Two strikes were called on him before he found anything that suited him.  Harris was on the point of betting Rattleton odds that Merriwell did not get a hit, when Frank found what he was looking for and sent it sailing into left.  It was not a rainbow, so it did not give the fielder time to get under it, although he made a sharp run for it.

Then it was that Merriwell seemed to fly around the bases, while the man ahead of him came in and scored.  At first the hit had looked like a two-bagger, but there seemed to be a chance of making three out of it as Frank reached second, and the coachers sent him along.  He reached third ahead of the ball, and then the Yale crowd on the bleachers did their duty.

“How do you Harvard chaps like Merriwell’s style?” yelled a Yale enthusiast as the cheering subsided.

Then there was more cheering, and the freshmen of ’Umpty-eight were entirely happy.

The man who followed Frank promptly flied out to first, which quenched the enthusiasm of the Yale gang somewhat and gave Harvard’s admirers an opportunity to make a noise.

Frank longed to get in his score, which would leave Harvard with a lead of but one.  He felt that he must get home some way.

Danny Griswold came to the bat.

“Get me home some way, Danny,” urged Frank.

The little shortstop said not a word, but there was determination in his eyes.  He grasped his stick firmly and prayed for one of his favorite high balls.

But Peck kept them low on Danny, who took a strike, and then was pulled on a bad one.

With two strikes on him and only one ball, the case looked desperate for Danny.  Still he did not lose his nerve.  He did not think he could not hit the ball, but he made himself believe that he was bound to hit it.  To himself he kept saying: 

“I’ll meet it next time—­I’ll meet it sure.”

He knew the folly of trying to kill the ball in such a case, and so when he did swing, his only attempt was to meet it squarely.  In this he succeeded, and he sent it over the second baseman’s head, but it fell short of the fielder.

Merriwell came home while Griswold was going down to first.