Sockamore was within five feet of the cushion when Locke turned, and, seeing the ball was coming, he leaped forward. Harney, not a little surprised, lunged back. Like a bullet the scarcely soiled ball sped straight into the eager hands of the young redskin, who met Harney and jabbed it on to him viciously as the Bancroft captain weakly sought to slip under. The howling of the angry and dissatisfied crowd was instantly cut short. The sudden silence was ruptured by a single hoarse word shot from the lips of the umpire, who had been so surprised that for a moment he had faltered in giving the decision: “Out!” The spectators gasped; Harney choked and rumbled weakly. Sockamore grinned into the face of the tricked and chagrined man. At the bench, Henry Cope brought his hand down with a resounding slap upon his thigh, crying jubilantly: “There! He got him!” After a few moments of dazed silence, some scattered persons ventured to applaud and cheer faintly, while, apparently struck by the seeming incongruity of the unexpected performance, many others laughed. “Oh, what an accident!” groaned one of the coachers, as Harney, his face red with mortification, rose to his feet and gave Locke a stare. “How’d you ever happen to think of it?” sneered the Bancroft captain. Chuckling, Sockamore threw the ball to the pitcher, and capered back into center field. Harney, his mouth twisted and his cheeks burning, made slowly for the Bancroft bench. “Accidents will happen,” came from a coacher. “Never mind that. Take a constitutional, Wop; he’ll accommodate ye.” Grady idled at the pan, laughing silently over the discomfiture of his captain. He was still idling when Locke, seeing Oulds ready, shot over a scorcher that clipped the inside corner. “Strike!” declared the umpire. “What’s that? What’s that?” cried the coacher. “It can’t be poss-i-bill? Another accident!” Surprise was general, but still, like the coacher, the spectators on the bleachers and in the stand fancied it related in a way to something “accidental,” and not one in a hundred thought it probable that the left-hander could put over another without wasting several. Oulds, wondering, called for an out-drop, but Locke, knowing the batter had not yet been egged into a condition that would make him easy to “pull,” shook his head. The signal was changed to one requesting a straight drop, and the pitcher swung into a snappy, quick delivery. The ball seemed to be too high, and not looking for the despised twirler to “put much on it,” Grady permitted himself to be caught again. Down past his shoulders shot the sphere, to the instant croaking of “Strike tuh!” from the umpire. “Hey, hey! What’s comin’ off here?” bellowed an uncoated, unshaven, collarless man back of first base. “Lightnin’s hit agin in the same place.” CHAPTER IX SOME PITCHING!