"Strike two!"

Dan was sure he had that one, and he missed it only by an inch.

Gone, now, was the grin on Dalzell's face. A frown gathered between his eyes as he took harder hold of the stick and waited.

Nor did Prescott keep him long waiting. The ball came in, and Dan gauged it fairly well. Yet he fanned for the third time.

"Batsman out!"

Dan hesitated an almost imperceptible instant at the plate. Swift as lightning he made a wry little mouth at Prescott. It nearly broke d.i.c.k up with laughter as Dalzell stalked moodily to the bench and Dave stepped forward.

In fact, the Army pitcher choked and shook so that Durville called to him in a quiet, anxious voice from shortstop's beat:

"Anything wrong, ramrod?"

None of the spectators heard this, but most of them saw d.i.c.k's short, vigorous shake of the head as he palmed the ball.

Then he let it go, for Darrin was waiting, and in grand old Dave's eyes flashed the resolve to retrieve what had just been taken from the Navy.

"Darry can't lose, anyway. He'll take the conceit out of these Army hikers," predicted some of the knowing ones among the Navy fans.

"Ball one!"

Though not sure, Dave had expected this, and did not try keenly for d.i.c.k's first delivery, which, as he knew of old, was seldom of this pitcher's best.

Then came what looked like a high ball. Of old, this had been the poorest sort for Darrin to bit, and d.i.c.k seemed to remember it. But Darrin had changed with the years, and he felt a swift little jolt of amus.e.m.e.nt as he swung for that high one.

Just about three feet away from the plate, however, that ball took a most unexpected drop, and pa.s.sed on fully eighteen inches under the swing of Darrin's stick.

"Strike one!"

At the next Darrin's judgment forbade him to offer, but the umpire judged it a fair ball, and called:

"Strike two!"

Dalzell, on the bench, was leaning forward now, his chin plunged in between his hands.

"d.i.c.k Prescott hasn't lost any of his knack for surprises," muttered Danny. "And if we, who know his old tricks, can't fathom him at all, what are the other seven of us going to do?"

As the ball arched slowly back into d.i.c.k's hands, Dalzell, in his anxiety, found himself leaping to his feet.

And now Prescott pitched, in answer to Greg's signal, what looked like a coming jump ball.

Dave Darrin knew that throw, and was ready. In another instant he could have dropped with chagrin, for the ball, after all, was another "drop," and Greg Holmes had mitted it for the Army in tune to the umpire's:

"Strike three-out! Two out!"

"David, little giant, your hand!" begged Dalzell, in a fiery whisper as his chum reached the bench.

"What's up?" asked Darrin half suspiciously.

"Agree with me, now---make deep and loud the solemn vow that we'll use d.i.c.k and Greg just as they've treated us!"

"We will, if we can," nodded Darrin, more serious than his chum.

"But I always try to tell you, Danny boy, that it's best not to do your bragging until after you've scuttled your ship."

Just as Dave had stepped away from the plate, Hutchins, the little first baseman of the Navy, had bounded forward.

Hutchins was wholly cool, and had keen eye for batting. He hoped, despite what he had heard of Prescott's cleverness, to send Navy spirits booming by at least a two-bagger.

"Strike one!"

Prescott had not wasted any moments, this time, and Hutchins was caught unawares. The little first baseman flushed and a steely look came into his eyes.

At the next one he struck, but it came across the plate as an out-shoot that was just too far out for Hutchins's reach. Had he not offered it would have been a "called ball."

With two strikes called against him, and nothing moving, Hutchins felt the ooze coming out of his neck and forehead. The Navy had been playing grand ball that spring. It would never do to let the Army get too easy a start.

But d.i.c.k poised, twirled and let go. It was a straight-away, honest and fair ball that he sent. To be sure there was a trace of in-shoot about it that made Hutchins misjudge it so that, in the next instant, the pa.s.sionless umpire sounded the monotonous solo:

"Strike three---and out. Side out!"

From the Navy seats dead calm, but from the band came a blare of bra.s.s and a clash of drums and cymbals as the cheering started.

In an instant, out of all the hubbub, came the long corps yell from the cadets, ending with:

"Prescott! Holmes!"

Sweet music, indeed, to the Army battery. But Greg heard it on the wing, so to speak, for at the changing of the sides he had hastened forward, so as to pa.s.s Dan Dalzell:

"Danny boy, after the game, I want you to do something big for me," whispered Cadet Holmes.

"Surely," murmured Dalzell. "What shall it be?"

"I think I know how you get that grin of yours, that conquering grin on your face, but I wish you'd show me how you make it stick!"

"Call you out for that some day," hissed Dalzell, as, with heightened color, he made his way to catcher's post of duty behind the plate.

Dave Darrin received the ball, and handled it, after the ways of his kind, for a few seconds, to detect any irregularities there might be to its surface or any flaws in its roundness.

"Play ball!" called the umpire.

With Beckwith holding the stick, and Durville on deck, d.i.c.k had time to do what he was most anxious to do---to make a study of any new things that Darrin might have learned.

Dave appeared to be fully warmed at the start. "Strike one!"

called the umpire, though Beckwith had not dared offer.

Then: