Apparently, he had relaxed and was holding his bat carelessly, so Phil tried to push over a swift, straight one. With a smash Copley landed on the horsehide, driving it toward right field. "Ah!" gasped the spectators. "Go!" yelled Larkins. "Score on it, Whiting! It's a two-bagger!" Out there in right garden Rodney Grant was sprinting after that ball almost as it left Copley's bat. There seemed scarcely a chance for Grant to reach the whistling sphere, but he covered ground with amazing speed and leaped into the air, thrusting out his bare right hand. The ball smacked into that unprotected hand and stuck there, as Grant dropped back to the turf. A few too eager enthusiasts on the Barville bleachers had started to blow horns and ring bells when they beheld Copley's drive shooting safely, to all appearances, into that unoccupied portion of the field; now, of a sudden, these sounds were drowned by the great yell--almost a roar--of joyous relief and exultation which burst from the Oakdale sympathizers. On those seats boys wearing the crimson colors jumped up and down, shrieking wildly, while they pounded other boys, similarly decorated, over their heads and shoulders; girls likewise screamed, waving frantically the bright banners, on each of which was emblazoned a large white letter O. At the smash of bat and ball Phil Springer's teeth had snapped together, as if to guard his heart from leaping from his mouth; and despairingly he had whirled around to watch the course of the ball, perceiving out of the corner of his eye Whiting, with a long start off second, fairly tearing up the ground as he flew toward third on his way to the plate. Phil likewise saw Rod Grant stretching himself to get that whistling white sphere, and even as a voice within the pitcher's brain seemed to cry, "He can't touch it!" the Texan made that amazing leap into the air and held the ball. "Mercy!" gasped Phil. "What a catch!" He waited for Grant, who came loping in from the field, his face flushed, his eyes full of laughter. "Oh, you dandy!" cried Phil, giving his chum a resounding open-handed slap on the shoulder. "That was reaching for it some." "I sure didn't think I could touch it," confessed Rod; "but I was bound to try my handsomest for it." Which was characteristic of the young Texan. "They're cheering for you," said Phil. Then jovially he reached and lifted Rod's cap with one hand, at the same time using the other hand to give his companion's head a push, thus forcing him to bow. Newt Copley surveyed Oakdale's right fielder disgustedly. "That was a fearful blind stab," he said sourly. "Didn't know you had it, did you?" "Not till I looked to see," acknowledged Rod pleasantly. Eliot gave the boy from Texas a look of approval. "That's the way to get after them," he said. "That's playing baseball and supporting a pitcher." "I was pretty rotten, wasn't I?" said Phil with a touch of dejection.