"Yes, I guess so. Why?"

"I'm going to have Joe Matson pitch on the scrub. It will be a good time to get a line on him, and I'll see if he shapes up as well as the day he did when I watched him practice."

"All right; maybe it will be a good idea."

Joe hardly knew what to say when Darrell, as calmly as if he had done it several times before, asked him to go in the box for the scrub and pitch against the Silver Stars.

"And do your best," added Darrell. "I don't care how many of our fellows you strike out. Every one, if you can."

Joe's heart gave a bound of delight. It might be the beginning of the very chance he had been waiting for so long. He calmed himself with an effort for he did not want to get "rattled."

"All right," he answered as though he had been used to such sudden emergency calls all season. "I'll see what I can do. I'd like a chance to warm up, though."

"Sure. You and Jake Bender go over there and practice for five minutes.

Then we'll play a five-inning game."

The Stars were to bat first, and there was a mocking smile on the face of Sam Morton as he watched his rival go to the box.

"Don't strike us all out," called Sam. "We've had hard luck enough lately."

The game began, and it was for "blood" from the very start. Joe was a trifle nervous, especially when he had two b.a.l.l.s called on his first two efforts. Then he braced himself, and, not trying for speed, sent in a slow, easy ball that completely fooled the batter, who eventually struck out.

"Pretty good for a starter," complimented Darrell. Sam Morton scowled.

The next batter hit an easy fly which was so promptly gathered in by the shortstop that there was little use in the player starting for first.

Then Joe struck out the next lad after he had hit a couple of fouls.

"That's the stuff!" cried Tom Davis, as he patted his chum on the back.

"You'll be in the box for the Stars yet."

"Don't get me all excited," begged Joe with a smile. Yet he could not help feeling elated.

There was a viciousness in the pitching of Sam when he toed the plate that showed how his feelings had been stirred. He was evidently going to show how much superior he was.

He did strike out two men, and then came Joe's turn at the bat. Our hero thought he detected a gleam of anger in Sam's eyes.

"He'd just as soon hit me with a ball as not," thought Joe, "and if he does it will hurt some. And he may be trying to bluff me so that I won't stand up to the plate. I'll see what I can do to him."

Consequently, instead of waiting for the ball to get to him Joe stepped up and out to meet it before the curve "broke." He "walked right into it," as the baseball term has it, and the result was that he whacked out a pretty two-bagger that brought his mates to their feet with yells. Sam bit his lips in anger, but he kept his temper by an effort and struck out the next man so that Joe's effort resulted in nothing.

The game went on, and when Sam at bat faced Joe, our hero could not help feeling a trifle nervous. He had sized up Sam's style of batting, however, and was prepared.

"I'm going to give him a slow ball with an in-shoot to it," decided Joe.

"He keeps back from the plate and this will make him get still farther back. I'm going to strike him out."

And strike him out Joe did, though not until after Sam had hit one foul that was within a shade of being fair. But when on his next two strikes he fanned the wind, there was a look of wonder and gratification on the face of Darrell.

"I believe Joe is going to make good," he said to Rankin.

"It sure looks so. What about it?"

"You'll see in a minute. I'm going to give him a chance to pitch part of the game against the Fayetteville Academy nine--that is if you agree to it."

"Sure, go as far as you like."

At the close of the game, which was won by the Stars, though by a small margin, Darrell approached Joe.

"Well?" asked the new pitcher diffidently.

"You did first rate. How would you like to pitch part of the game Sat.u.r.day?"

"Do you mean it?" was the eager question.

"Certainly. I'll put you in for a few innings toward the end, after we've cinched it, for I think it will be easy for us."

It was not the highest honor that could have come to Joe, but he realized what it meant.

"I'd like it immensely," he said, "but won't Sam--what about him?"

"I don't care anything about him," said Darrell quickly. "I'm running this team. Will you pitch?"

"I sure will!" and Joe's heart beat high with hope.

CHAPTER XXI

TO THE RESCUE

Joe Matson felt as though he was walking in the air when he went home that afternoon following the scrub game. That his ambition was about to be realized, and so soon after joining the team, was almost unbelievable.

"Why, what's the matter, Joe?" asked Clara, as her brother fairly pranced into the house, caught her around the waist and swung her in the start of a waltz.

"Matter? Plenty's the matter! I'm going to pitch on the Stars Sat.u.r.day.

Hurray!"

"My! Any one would think you were going to pitch up _to_ the stars the way you're going on. Let go of me; you'll have my hair all mussed up!"

"That's easily fixed. Yes, I'm going to pitch."

"Against whom?"

"The Fayetteville Academy, on their grounds. It won't be much of a game, and I'm not to go in until it's in the ice box----"

"In the ice box?"