But the game was not won.  Amid the most intense excitement the next man fouled out.

Then Peck seemed to gather himself to save the game for Harvard.  He got some queer quirks into his delivery, and, almost before the Yale crowd could realize it, two strikes were called on the batter.

The Yale rooters tried to rattle Peck, but they succeeded in rattling the batter instead, and, to their unutterable dismay and horror, he fanned at a third one, missed it, and—­

“Batter is out!” cried the umpire.

Then a great roar for Harvard went up, and the dazed freshmen from New Haven realized they were defeated after all.

CHAPTER XXX.

Rattleton is excited.

“It wasn’t Merriwell’s fault that the freshies didn’t win,” said Bob Collingwood to Paul Pierson as they were riding back to New Haven on the train that night.

“Not a bit of it,” agreed Pierson.  “I was expecting a great deal of Merriwell, but I believe he is a better man than I thought he could be.”

“Then you have arrived at the conclusion that he is fast enough for the regular team?”

“I rather think he is.”

“Will you give him a trial?”

“We may.  It is a bad thing for any freshman to get an exalted opinion of himself and his abilities, for it is likely to spoil him.  I don’t want to spoil Merriwell—­”

“Look here,” interrupted Collingwood, impulsively.  “I am inclined to doubt if it is an easy thing to spoil that fellow.  He hasn’t put on airs since coming to Yale, has he?”

“No.”

“Instead of that, he has lived rather simply—­far more so than most fellows would if they could afford anything better.  He has made friends with everybody who appeared to be white, no matter whether their parents possessed boodle or were poor.”

“That is one secret of Merriwell’s popularity.  He hasn’t shown signs of thinking himself too good to be living.”

“Yet I have it straight that he has a fortune in his own right, and he may live as swell as he likes while he is here.  What do you think of that?”

“It may be true,” admitted Pierson.  “He is an original sort of chap—­”

“But they say there isn’t anything small or mean about him,” put in Collingwood, swiftly.  “He isn’t living cheap for economy’s sake.  You know he doesn’t drink.”

“Yes.  I have made inquiries about his habits.”

“Still they say he opens wine for his friends now and then, drinking ginger ale, or something of that sort, while they are surrounding fizz, for which he settles.  And he is liberal in other ways.”

“He is an enigma in some ways.”

“I have heard a wild sort of story about him, but I don’t take much stock in it.  It is the invention of some fertile brain.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, a lot of trash about his having traveled all over the world, been captured by pirates and cannibals, fought gorillas and tigers, shot elephants and so forth.  Of course that’s all rot.”