nge
hands," he said with a grin, and he exposed a handful of peanuts. He
had refused to drop the peanuts to make the catch with two hands. That
explained the mystery. It was funny, yet nobody laughed. There was
that run chalked up against the Stars, and this game had to be won.

"Red, I--I want to take the team home in the lead," said Delaney, and
it was plain that he suppressed strong feeling. "You didn't play the
game, you know."

Red appeared mightily ashamed.

"Del, I'll git that run back," he said.

Then he strode to the plate, swinging his wagon-tongue bat. For all
his awkward position in the box he looked what he was--a formidable
hitter. He seemed to tower over the pitcher--Red was six feet one--and
he scowled and shook his bat at Wehying and called, "Put one over--you
wienerwurst!" Wehying was anything but red-headed, and he wasted so
many balls on Red that it looked as if he might pass him. He would
have passed him, too, if Red had not stepped over on the fourth ball
and swung on it. White at second base leaped high for the stinging
hit, and failed to reach it. The ball struck and bounded for the
fence. When Babcock fielded it in, Red was standing on third base,
and the bleachers groaned.

Whereupon Chesty Reddy Clammer proceeded to draw attention to himself,
and incidentally delay the game, by assorting the bats as if the
audience and the game might gladly wait years to see him make a choice.

"Git in the game!" yelled Delaney.

"Aw, take my bat, Duke of the Abrubsky!" sarcastically said Dump Kane.
When the grouchy Kane offered to lend his bat matters were critical in
the Star camp.

Other retorts followed, which Reddy Clammer deigned not to notice. At
last he got a bat that suited him--and then, importantly, dramatically,
with his cap jauntily riding his red locks, he marched to the plate.

Some wag in the bleachers yelled into the silence, "Oh, Maggie, your
lover has come!"

Not improbably Clammer was thinking first of his presence before the
multitude, secondly of his batting average and thirdly of the run to be
scored. In this instance he waited and feinted at balls and fouled
strikes at length to work his base. When he got to first base suddenly
he bolted for second, and in the surprise of the unlooked-for play he
made it by a spread-eagle slide. It was a circus steal.

Delaney snorted. Then the look of profound disgust vanished in a flash
of light. His huge face beamed.