Well, then there was a _crack_ of wood against leather and the batsman was speeding to base! The ball went to Tom, but it was bounding crazily and he could only knock it down in his first stab for it. When he had it in hand he turned toward third to head off the runner from second and saw that that youth had changed his mind and was on his way back to the middle sack. Wheeling quickly, Tom pegged to Joe at first. But by that time the Petersburg runner had rounded first and was dashing to second. Joe caught and turned to throw to Smith when he caught sight of the further runner doubling back. Sensing a mix-up, Joe held the ball and raced for second base. The two runners reached that bag simultaneously. The expected happened. Plump into each other they went with a bang that doubtless made them see stars as they each rolled apart, clear of the base! Joe threw himself between them, his hand with the ball shot to the left and then to the right, and the game was over! Two minutes later, when Joe, with most of the others who had been caught on the field, was being borne crazily about through the laughing, jubilant throng, swaying and pitching above a sea of faces, his bearers brought him for a moment abreast of Frank Foley and their glances met. “That was great, Faulkner!” called Frank warmly. But Joe, smiling happily, shook his head. “Only luck,” he answered. THE END Transcriber’s Notes: ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). ――Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate. ――Printer’s, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.