Wagging his bat loosely, almost lightly, Dutch Schwartz was in position to step into anything handed up. Possibly delaying in an effort to get the batter’s nerve, Lefty made no further move until he provoked a protest from the Specter captain. Then, like one awaking from a half trance, the pitcher balanced himself on one foot, swung far back, brought his body over and forward, and made the delivery. Never had anyone present witnessed a wilder pitch. It was a wonder that the ball did not go clean over the top of the grandstand. “Oh, oh, oh!” shouted the coachers, while the startled crowd broke into exclamations. “Look a’ that! Get a scaling ladder, Schwartzy.” The Dutchman grinned and tapped the pentagon with the end of his bat. A boy recovered the ball and threw it to Nelson, who made a pretense of looking it over before he tossed it to Locke. On the bench the watchful Billy Orth, actually shivering, whispered to himself: “Now, I wonder if he did that on purpose――I wonder. It doesn’t seem likely. If he did, he’s getting to be a good subject for the foolish factory.” Others beside Billy were wondering. While they were thus engaged Locke pitched again. This time he whipped a smoker over, and Schwartz fouled it against the right-field bleachers. “That makes you even, old boy!” called Grant, ere he turned to receive the ball from the fielder who had chased it down. But, somehow, his voice seemed to lack the ring of genuine cheerfulness. Even the least astute spectator could see that the Blue Stockings were all keyed up to a point of tension little short of snapping. Something in the very air seemed to presage a break. And that meant――disaster. It was such a situation, however, as provides one of the intense thrills of the game, the sort of a thrill and suspense which makes it so fascinating to its thousands upon thousands of followers. It is the desire to feel just this keen distress and uncertainty, intensely delicious in its poignant pain, that lures a fan to the ball park day after day to witness dead and uninteresting games, hoping always for the pinch that will set them swallowing hard to keep their hearts from choking them. Frowning, Lefty pitched again. The ball seemed to make a yellow streak through the air, and Nelson, though he held it, was actually set back the least fraction by the terrific impact of the sphere in his big mitt. Schwartz had struck again――and missed. “Smoke! Smoke!” shouted Dalton, laughing suddenly in his old-time way. “He couldn’t see it, my boy! Once more, and you’ve got him!” Indeed, Laughing Larry had suddenly decided that the pitcher he had doubted might be playing a clever game, even though the wisdom of it could be questioned. Nor was Larry the only one with confidence suddenly revived. “Such speed!” muttered Billy Orth. “And his control was perfect――that time.” “That’s two on him!” howled an excited man from the middle stand. “He’s your meat, Lefty! You never did fail us!”