"That'll do!" cried Captain Woodhouse sharply to his men. "Don't dispute any decisions. Leave that to me. We'll accept it. You're up, Kerr." Kerr was a notoriously good hitter and Ogden gave him his walking papers. Sid Henderson was next at the bat and he knocked a little pop fly, which the second baseman neatly caught, and Sid, shaking his head over his hard luck, went to the bench. Captain Woodhouse himself was next to try, and there was a grim look on his face as he went into the box. It was justified, for he made a safe hit and went to second on a swift grounder that Dutch Housenlager knocked, the ball rolling between the shortstop's fingers. The Randalls would have scored if Bricktop Molloy had hit harder or higher, but the shortstop made as pretty a catch as was seen on the grounds that day, leaping high for the ball, and with Bricktop out it was all over, and a goose egg went up on the scoreboard as the result of the first half of the initial inning. "Now, Langridge, don't let them get any hits off you," implored Kindlings as he and his men went to the field. "Of course not," promised the pitcher easily. His first ball was wild and there was an anxious feeling in the hearts of his chums. But he steadied almost at once and his next two deliveries were called strikes. "Here's where you fan!" he called to Pinky Davenport, who was up. "Do I? Watch me," replied Pinky, but he only hit the wind. "That's the way to do it!" called a shrill voice from the grandstand. "Fine, Langridge!" "All right, don't tell us what your uncle said," retorted the pitcher. "Keep that back, Fenton," for it was the boy with the ever-present relative who had yelled, and there was laughter at the pitcher's jibe. Langridge had never done better work than in that first inning when, after passing the hardest hitter of the Boxers to first purposely, in order to make sure of one of their weakest stick-wielders, the Randall twirler struck him neatly out, and the rivals of Randall were rewarded with a neat little white circle. In the next inning Jerry Jackson was first up and he ingloriously fanned, but Phil Clinton earned fame for himself in the annals of his _alma mater_ by bringing in a home run--the only one of the game. Langridge kept up his phenomenal work and another pale zero went up for Boxer, while Randall had a single mark that loomed big before the eyes of the cheering throng. But the hopes of those who wanted to see Randall win suffered a severe setback, for in the next two innings they could not score, while in each frame for the Boxers there were two runs chalked. "Four to one," remarked Tom to Phil Clinton. "They're crawling up. I wonder if we have any show?" "The game is young yet," answered Phil. "I think we will do them." Randall got one run in the fifth and Langridge was the lucky player who brought it in. He showed his elation.