Brewster looked nervous, but he didn’t act so. He judged the first offering correctly and let it go, started to swing at the next, changed his mind, and heard it called a strike and held back from the third, which dropped at the bag and almost got away from Hunt. The shouting of spectators and coaches was having its effect on Ellis at last. A third ball followed. The uproar increased. Even the base-runners added their voices to the pandemonium of sound. Ellis fumbled his cap, looked around the field, rubbed a perspiring hand in the dust, took the signal very deliberately, although it could mean but one thing unless Hunt had decided to pass the batsman, wound up slowly, and pitched. Perhaps it would have been the part of wisdom to have walked Brewster, under the circumstances, but Toonalta chose otherwise and so things happened as they did. The ball, fast and straight, went to the plate like a shot from a gun, but Brewster was ready for it. A fine, heartening crack sounded over the diamond, the ball sailed off toward left field, Billy White sprang into his stride and Wayne lit out for third. Left fielder came in on the run, got the ball on the first long bounce, set himself quickly, and plugged it home. It was a good throw and it reached Hunt only one stride from the plate. But that one stride was sufficient to bring victory to the Blues and defeat to the Browns, for when Hunt fell to his knee and swept the ball downward Wayne was stretched on his back with one scuffed, dust-covered shoe fairly on the rubber! After that, confusion, cheering, a grinning, white-toothed June pulling Wayne to his feet, an influx of shouting, happy Medfieldians, amongst them Arthur Pattern, and hands thumping Wayne on the back as he pushed his way toward the bench. He was breathless, dusty, and tired, as he added his feeble voice to the cheer for the defeated rival, but he was terrifically happy at the same time. CHAPTER XIV “A GENTLEMAN TO SEE MR. SLOAN” There was a Fourth of July entertainment at the Y. M. C. A. that evening, and Wayne and June stayed in town for supper and afterward walked around to the Association building through the warm summer night. June still talked about that ninth inning. “Mas’ Wayne, that was surely one fine ol’ innin’,” he declared for the tenth time. “Lawsy-y-y, but I certainly was scared, yes, sir! When that yere Mister Brewster grab a bat an’ walk up to that yere plate I didn’ look for nothin’ but jus’ disappointment. But he delivered the goods, didn’ he? He certainly did! But I was mortal ’fraid you wasn’ goin’ get home before that ol’ ball!” June chuckled. “You surely did run _some_, Mas’ Wayne!”