acon up. A scratch hit to third followed by
slow fielding took him safely to first. Thurlow flied out to pitcher,
Pryor sacrificed and Bacon reached second. Kirby got four balls and took
his base. Patten struck out miserably.

Again, in the fifth, Hammond scored and an error went down in Thurlow's
column. Ferry Hill had begun to have listless moments which boded ill
for success. Errors were becoming too frequent to be merely accidents;
it was a case of discouragement. Post, however, in spite of the gradual
weakening of the most of the nine, held up his end nobly. And Chub never
for a moment eased his pace. But the rest of the team, if we except
Cole, who was catching Post steadily and well, were plainly suffering
from a fit of stage-fright. Whether the attack was to be temporary or
permanent remained to be seen. Ferry Hill's supporters were getting
uneasy; three runs to nothing seemed a pretty long lead with the game
more than half over!

Cole got his round of applause when he stepped to bat in the last of the
fifth and it seemed to hearten him. Rollins was still pitching the best
of ball, but Cole was a weak batter and the Hammond twirler proposed to
rest his muscles when the chance afforded. So he started out to dispose
of Cole with as little effort as possible. The first two deliveries
went by and were called balls. Then came a strike; then another ball. It
was time for Rollins to get down to work. Cole let the next one pass
him, hoping that it would give him his base, but the umpire announced
strike two. Cole gripped his bat a little farther toward the end and got
ready. Smith, the Hammond catcher, read this to mean that he was
resolved to strike at the next ball no matter what it looked like and
signalled for a drop. It came. The umpire glanced at his tally and waved
toward first.

"Four balls!" he called.

Roy and the other cheer leaders leaped to their feet as Cole trotted
down the line.

"Start it going now!" cried Roy. "Regular cheer and make it good!"

They made it good. Then they made it better. Chub, back of first, was
begging Cole to take a longer lead and assuring him that Rollins
wouldn't throw. Sid selected his bat and stepped up to the plate. There
was one excellent thing about Sid; he didn't know what it was to get
really nervous. He had his instructions to sacrifice and proceeded to do
so by hitting the first ball thrown and trickling it slowly toward
third. Third baseman and pitcher both made