wall. Doran scored, and still the bases were filled.

The laboring pitcher began to get rattled; he could not find his usual
speed; he knew it, but evidently could not account for it.

When I came to bat, indications were not wanting that the Canadian team
would soon be up in the air. The long pitcher delivered the "rabbit,"
and got it low down by my knees, which was an unfortunate thing for
him. I swung on that one, and trotted round the bases behind the
runners while the center and left fielders chased the ball.

Gillinger weighed nearly two hundred pounds, and he got all his weight
under the "rabbit." It went so high that we could scarcely see it.
All the infielders rushed in, and after staggering around, with heads
bent back, one of them, the shortstop, managed to get under it. The
"rabbit" bounded forty feet out of his hands!

When Snead's grounder nearly tore the third baseman's leg off; when
Bane's hit proved as elusive as a flitting shadow; when Lake's liner
knocked the pitcher flat, and Doran's fly leaped high out of the center
fielder's glove--then those earnest, simple, country ballplayers
realized something was wrong. But they imagined it was in themselves,
and after a short spell of rattles, they steadied up and tried harder
than ever. The motions they went through trying to stop that jumping
jackrabbit of a ball were ludicrous in the extreme.

Finally, through a foul, a short fly, and a scratch hit to first, they
retired the side and we went into the field with the score 14 to 2 in
our favor.

But Merritt had not found it possible to get the "rabbit" out of play!

We spent a fatefully anxious few moments squabbling with the umpire and
captain over the "rabbit." At the idea of letting those herculean
railsplitters have a chance to hit the rubber ball we felt our blood
run cold.

"But this ball has a rip in it," blustered Gillinger. He lied
atrociously. A microscope could not have discovered as much as a
scratch in that smooth leather.

"Sure it has," supplemented Merritt, in the suave tones of a stage
villain. "We're used to playing with good balls."

"Why did you ring this one in on us?" asked the captain. "We never
threw out this ball. We want a chance to hit it."

That was just the one thing we did not want them to have. But fate
played against us.

"Get up on your toes, now an' dust," said Merritt. "Take your
medicine, you lazy sit-in-front-of-the-hotel stiffs! Think of pay