Ginger returned the discarded bat to the orderly array near the bench, sank to one knee beside it and watched anxiously. It was evident that Cross meant to send that game to extra innings. He was slow and canny, studying the batsman, gripping the ball with more than usual nicety. Ginger observed Joe Kenton and frowned slightly. It was plain to him that Joe had been instructed to bunt, and Ginger didn’t approve of the bunting game. Of course an occasional bunt was all right, if the other fellow wasn’t looking for it, or you wanted to pull a player out of position, but Ginger believed in forcing the issue, in going after the ball hard. “They’ll look for a bunt and he won’t have a Chinaman’s chance,” Ginger reflected. “That third baseman’s playing in for him right now. Gee, I wish he wouldn’t!” “He” in Ginger’s thoughts was Joe, and not the third baseman. The boy turned and shot an almost imploring glance at Gus Cousins, but the coach’s gaze was on the game. Then came the tragedy, and quite as Ginger had pictured it. Joe loosened his bat and thrust it in the path of the first delivery. The ball trickled slowly toward third. It was a nice bunt and, unexpected, might have won him first base. But the player on third came in at top speed, scooped up the rolling ball and, in the same motion, sped it to first. Joe was beaten by six feet! One down! But Ginger maintained his cheerfulness as he took the bat from the disgusted Joe. “Hard luck! Robbery, I call it!” Mac Torrey faced the pitcher now. Mac was no bunter, even had Gus elected to cling to the bunting game, and Ginger looked for something to happen. And as he looked his mind was busy with the future. Babe, untroubled, lolled on the bench, one big arm over Dave’s shoulders. Ginger frowned a trifle as he returned his gaze to the drama before him. If Mac got his base and Bud went out and it was up to Babe――Ginger sighed and shook his head. One ball, and then a strike at which Mac did not offer. A second ball. Cross was working deftly and easily, very much master of the situation as it seemed. A fourth delivery sped to the plate, a lazy ball that looked good until it began to curve outward and down. Mac swung hard and missed by inches. Ginger gave a little groan and his gaze shot sideways to where Babe’s black-handled bat lay close to his hand. Then he got to his feet, unnoted by any one, probably, on field or seats, and wandered along the edge of the stand toward the nearly empty press box. Short of it, he stopped and leaned with one elbow on the edge and watched the plate while Cross’s fifth delivery was met by Mac and sent arching over the first base pavilion. Then, quite as unobtrusively as he had left his place, Ginger loitered back to the end of the bench and again subsided to a knee. And just then Mac swung innocuously and the umpire waved him away and there were two down!