Sullivan started badly by handing one to the first Buccaneer who faced him in the third which the hitter slashed into right for a single. Remembering Bristol’s instructions, the runner went down to second on Sullivan’s first swing, from which anchorage it would be possible for him to score on the right kind of a safety. Then Sullivan dealt out a pass, which brought Kennedy to his feet, and caused Heines to come trotting slowly and reluctantly toward the mound. Lefty Locke, joining the spare catcher, began to warm up. CHAPTER XXXII FILLING THE BREACH Like Jewett in the first two innings, Heines was lucky, and the change enabled the Deers to hold the locals, despite their savage efforts to increase the lead. “Keep after them!” urged Kennedy, as the players came to the bench. “There are six more innings to follow. If you can hit this fellow Elgin at all, and we can hold them where they are, we’ll be neck and neck with them to-night, or I’ve never seen a game of baseball. Elgin has got a jinx, and he’ll show up before long. Don’t let him put the Injun sign on you with his bean ball.” But, in spite of old Jack’s attempt to encourage his batters, Elgin seemed to have the “Injun sign” on the Deers. “You can’t hit him,” Yapp told the three batters who faced Buck’s pitcher in the first of the fourth. “If you did you’d never get farther than first, for you’d see him tighten like a bowstring. You never could hit a real pitcher, anyhow.” He made them believe it, too. And when a batter thinks he cannot hit a pitcher it is only by the most remarkable bull luck that he ever gets as much as a scratch single. So Elgin had it easy, striking out two men and fielding the weak roller which the third sent his way. “Gods of war!” growled Kennedy. “I’ll have to get out there myself, and show them how to hit this gink. If they ever fell on him he’d take a sail. Where’s Locke? Oh, there he is――at it.” Old Jack watched the work of Heines like a hawk, waiting for the first show of wabbling; for by this time Locke had loosened his wing, and could come to the rescue. Just what he could do against Bert Elgin, Kennedy believed he knew. The old manager remembered that first game with the Hornets, when the two youngsters had faced each other in the Big League; remembered that Elgin had gone down to defeat and disgrace, while Lefty Locke made his reputation under the most trying circumstances a new man could possibly meet. Just now, as on that other occasion, with the great mass of spectators favoring him, Elgin seemed invincible; but with the first cry of “Take him out!” Kennedy believed the yellow streak would show. Would the break in the game lead the local crowd to shout for his removal? While he was going strong the little bunch of Deering fans might howl themselves black in the face without effect.