"How about young Wilson?" asked his friend. "I heard the other day that he had showed up pretty well in practice. It looks now as though Reddy meant to put him in the box. See, he's warming up over there right now." "Ye gods and little fishes!" lamented the other. "Now we are cooked, for fair. It was bad enough with Winters pitching, but now when they put that greenhorn Freshie in, we'll just be a laughing stock, that's all. Why doesn't the band play the funeral march?" "Aw, wait and see," said the other. "I don't suppose we've got the ghost of a show, but Dick Trent was telling me of some pretty good stunts this boy Wilson has pulled off before this. He was telling me about a race in which Wilson drove a car across the tape a winner after a dickens of a grilling race. Any fellow that's got nerve enough to drive a racing auto ought to be able to hold his own at baseball or anything else. You just sit tight and don't groan so much, and he may show us something yet." "Forget it, Bill, forget it," returned the other. "They've got our team running, and they'll keep it running, take my word for it." "That's right," agreed another, "we might as well go home now as to wait for the slaughter. This game is over, right now." "Hey, look at that!" yelled the first speaker, excitedly. "There goes Wilson into the box. Three cheers for Wilson, fellows. Now! One! two! three!" The cheers were given by the faithful fans, but they had given up hope. It was indeed, as the rooter had said, however, and Bert was actually being given an opportunity to pitch in a big game, when he had only been with the team a few months! Many a pitcher has been a substitute until his junior year, and never had a chance like this one. And, to tell the truth, Reddy himself would have been the last one to put what he considered an inexperienced pitcher into the box, if he had had any alternative. Now, however, it was a case of having no choice, because he knew that the game was irretrievably lost if Winters continued to pitch, so he put Bert in as a forlorn hope, but without any real expectation that he would win. As he noticed the confident way in which Bert walked to the box, however, he plucked up courage a little, but immediately afterward shook his head. "Pshaw," he thought, "they've got too big a lead on us. If Wilson can only hold them down so that they don't make monkeys of us, it will be more than I have a right to hope." For all Bert's nonchalant air, however, it must not be thought that he was not excited or nervous. He had had comparatively little baseball experience in such fast company as this. He had learned, however, to keep a cool and level head in times of stress, and he knew that everything depended on this. So he just gritted his teeth, and when he motioned to the catcher to come up and arrange signals, the latter hardly suspected what a turmoil was going on under Bert's cool exterior.