Merritt did not fall; he melted to the ground and writhed while the
runners scored with more tallies than they needed to win.

What did we care! Justice had been done us, and we were unutterably
happy. Crabe Bane stood on his head; Gillinger began a war dance; old
man Hathaway hobbled out to the side lines and whooped like an Indian;
Snead rolled over and over in the grass. All of us broke out into
typical expressions of baseball frenzy, and individual ones
illustrating our particular moods.

Merritt got up and made a dive for the ball. With face positively
flaming he flung it far beyond the merry crowd, over into a swamp.
Then he limped for the bench. Which throw ended the most memorable
game ever recorded to the credit of the "rabbit."

FALSE COLORS

"Fate has decreed more bad luck for Salisbury in Saturday's game with
Bellville. It has leaked out that our rivals will come over
strengthened by a 'ringer,' no less than Yale's star pitcher, Wayne.
We saw him shut Princeton out in June, in the last game of the college
year, and we are not optimistic in our predictions as to what Salisbury
can do with him. This appears a rather unfair procedure for Bellville
to resort to. Why couldn't they come over with their regular team?
They have won a game, and so have we; both games were close and
brilliant; the deciding game has roused unusual interest. We are
inclined to resent Bellville's methods as unsportsmanlike. All our
players can do is to go into this game on Saturday and try the harder
to win."

Wayne laid down the Salisbury Gazette, with a little laugh of
amusement, yet feeling a vague, disquieting sense of something akin to
regret.

"Pretty decent of that chap not to roast me," he soliloquized.

Somewhere he had heard that Salisbury maintained an unsalaried team.
It was notorious among college athletes that the Bellville Club paid
for the services of distinguished players. And this in itself rather
inclined Wayne to sympathize with Salisbury. He knew something of the
struggles of a strictly amateur club to cope with its semi-professional
rivals.

As he was sitting there, idly tipped back in a comfortable chair,
dreaming over some of the baseball disasters he had survived before his
college career, he saw a young man enter the lobby of the hotel, speak
to the clerk, and then turn and come directly toward the window where
Wayne was sitting.

"Are yon Mr. Wayne, the Yale pitcher?" he asked eagerly