Everybody therefore was anticipating considerable real sport with the two pitchers on the mound pitted against each other, and the regular teams covering the various positions on the diamond.

It was a cloudy day, and looked as though it might rain.  Hugh noted this fact and understood just what Coach Leonard meant when he told them it would be just as well to start right in, and do some scoring.  If the game should be called after a number of innings had been played, whoever was ahead would be adjudged the victor.  A threatening day is not a time to put too much faith in a ninth-inning Garrison finish, because the game may never go beyond five or six turns, if the flood-gates above chance to open, and the field be deluged so as to make a continuance of play out of the question.

Well, that was just what did happen, as it turned out, and Scranton boys found occasion to thank Coach Leonard for his advice, since it really gave them the decision.

Patterson certainly had amazing speed when he started, and for three innings it was next to impossible to touch him; for that matter Tyree was also twirling with considerable effect, though several hits had been made, and an error allowed one run to be tallied.

Then in the fourth something happened.  Allandale was still striving with might and main to stretch that lone tally into several.  They seemed to have a batting rally, and singular to say it was the end of the string usually considered the weakest that came to the fore.

Whipple, the right fielder, knocked a terrific fly, but it was taken after a great run by Juggins.  Brown followed suit, but also died through clever work on the part of “K.K.” out in center.  It was supposed that Big Ed Patterson as the next man up would be an easy third, because he had struck out both times at the bat.

He surprised everyone, himself included, possibly, by sending out a crack that by bard base running allowed him to reach second.  Then Keeler, the Allandale backstop, not to be outdone in the matter, also met one of Tyree’s mystifying balls on the tip of his bat; and Patterson, who had not had time to even think of asking to get some one to run for him, had to keep galloping along in mad haste, the coach near third sending him home, which he reached after a slide.

Farmer, however, struck out immediately afterwards, so that one tally only resulted from the batting rally.  But the mischief had been already done.  Big Ed was wheezing badly when he took his place in the box, a fact the vigilant eye of Hugh instantly noted.

“This is going to be our one chance to do something, boys,” he told his mates as they came in to start the fifth frame.  “Big Ed is tired after that running.  Work him for a pass, Owen; you know how to do it, all right.”

Owen apparently did, for shortly afterwards he was perched safely on the initial sack, with Hugh himself at bat, and filled with a grim determination to send the runner along, as well as plant himself on the bag.