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Dick Prescott's Fourth Year at West Point, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 18. Dan Dalzell's Crabtown Grin |
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_ CHAPTER XVIII. DAN DALZELL'S CRABTOWN GRIN Six minutes later, the umpire called the captains to the home plate for the toss. "There they are---the same old chums!" cried Dick, hitting Greg a nudge. Darrin and Dalzell, of the Navy nine, had been trying to catch the eyes of the Army battery. Now the four old chums raced together to a point midway between pitcher's box and home plate. There they met and clasped each others' hands. "The same old pair, I know!" cried Dave Darrin heartily. "And we think as much of you two as ever, even if you are in the poor old Army," grinned Dan. "We've come all the way up from Crabtown to teach you how to play ball. The knowledge will probably prove useful to you some day." "Why, Dick," protested Holmes in mock astonishment, "these cabin boys seem to think they can really play ball!" "And all I'm afraid of is that they can," laughed Dick. "Can't we, though---just!" mocked Dan, dancing a brief little step. "Wait until you take a stick to our work, and then see where you'll live!" "Cut it, Danny, little lion-fighter, cut it!" warned Dave Darrin, with quiet good nature. "You know what they tell us all the time, down at Crabtown---that 'brag never scuttled a fighting ship yet.' "Dave, you don't expect Danny to believe that, do you?" asked Greg, grinning hard. "Danny never went into anything that he didn't try to win by scaring the other side cold. If our instructors here know what they're talking about, hot air isn't necessarily fatal to the enemy." "I can tell you one thing, anyway," chipped in Dan, while the other three grinned indulgently at him. "Yes; you have it straight that this is to be the Army's game," mocked Greg. "But we knew that before we saw you to-day." "There goes our joy-killer," grunted Prescott, as the umpire's shrill whistle sounded in. "Dave, we'll be in the Navy's dressing room just as soon as-----" "Just as soon as this cruel war is over," hummed Dan. The toss having been won by the Navy, the captain of that nine had chosen to go to bat. Now the players on both sides were scattering swiftly to their posts. Dick took but a bound or two back to the box, just as the umpire broke the package around the new ball and tossed it to the Army pitcher. "Play ball!" It was on, with a rush, and a cheer, led by some eight measures of music from the Military Academy Band, which had been quiet for a few minutes. Then the cheer settled down, for Prescott found himself facing Dan Dalzell at the bat, with Darrin on deck. "Wipe 'em!" signaled Greg's antics. Now, to "wipe" Dalzell, who had known everyone of Dick's old curves and tricks in former days, did not look like a promising task, for Dalzell, in addition to his special knowledge about this pitcher, was an expert with the bat. But there might be a chance to put Dan on the mourner's bench. If Dalzell succeeded in picking up even a single from Dick's starting delivery, then Dave could be all but depended upon to push his Navy chum a bag or two further around the course. "If I can twist Dan all up, it may serve to rattle Dave, too," thought the Army pitcher like a flash. Dalzell poised the bat, and stood swinging it gently, with an expectant grin that, had it been a school audience, would have made the youngsters on the bleachers yell: "Get your face closed tight, Danny! That grin hides the stick!" Dalzell had often had that hurled at him in the old days, but he did not have to dread it now. But Prescott knew that old broad grin. It was Dalzell's favorite "rattler" for the balltosser. "I think I know the scheme for getting the hair off your goat," mused Prescott, as he sent in his first. "Ball one!" called the umpire. Dan's grin broadened. "Ball two!" Dalzell knew he had the Army pitcher going now, and didn't take the trouble to reach for the ball. "Strike one!" That took some of the starch out of the Navy batsman, who suddenly realized that this twirler for the Army was up to old tricks. "Strike two!" Dan was sure he had that one, and he missed it only by an inch. Gone, now, was the grin on Dalzell's face. A frown gathered between his eyes as he took harder hold of the stick and waited. Nor did Prescott keep him long waiting. The ball came in, and Dan gauged it fairly well. Yet he fanned for the third time. "Batsman out!" Dan hesitated an almost imperceptible instant at the plate. Swift as lightning he made a wry little mouth at Prescott. It nearly broke Dick up with laughter as Dalzell stalked moodily to the bench and Dave stepped forward. In fact, the Army pitcher choked and shook so that Durville called to him in a quiet, anxious voice from shortstop's beat: "Anything wrong, ramrod?" None of the spectators heard this, but most of them saw Dick's short, vigorous shake of the head as he palmed the ball. Then he let it go, for Darrin was waiting, and in grand old Dave's eyes flashed the resolve to retrieve what had just been taken from the Navy. "Darry can't lose, anyway. He'll take the conceit out of these Army hikers," predicted some of the knowing ones among the Navy fans. "Ball one!" Though not sure, Dave had expected this, and did not try keenly for Dick's first delivery, which, as he knew of old, was seldom of this pitcher's best. Then came what looked like a high ball. Of old, this had been the poorest sort for Darrin to bit, and Dick seemed to remember it. But Darrin had changed with the years, and he felt a swift little jolt of amusement as he swung for that high one. Just about three feet away from the plate, however, that ball took a most unexpected drop, and passed on fully eighteen inches under the swing of Darrin's stick. "Strike one!" At the next Darrin's judgment forbade him to offer, but the umpire judged it a fair ball, and called: "Strike two!" Dalzell, on the bench, was leaning forward now, his chin plunged in between his hands. "Dick Prescott hasn't lost any of his knack for surprises," muttered Danny. "And if we, who know his old tricks, can't fathom him at all, what are the other seven of us going to do?" As the ball arched slowly back into Dick's hands, Dalzell, in his anxiety, found himself leaping to his feet. And now Prescott pitched, in answer to Greg's signal, what looked like a coming jump ball. Dave Darrin knew that throw, and was ready. In another instant he could have dropped with chagrin, for the ball, after all, was another "drop," and Greg Holmes had mitted it for the Army in tune to the umpire's: "Strike three-out! Two out!" "David, little giant, your hand!" begged Dalzell, in a fiery whisper as his chum reached the bench. "What's up?" asked Darrin half suspiciously. "Agree with me, now---make deep and loud the solemn vow that we'll use Dick and Greg just as they've treated us!" "We will, if we can," nodded Darrin, more serious than his chum. "But I always try to tell you, Danny boy, that it's best not to do your bragging until after you've scuttled your ship." Just as Dave had stepped away from the plate, Hutchins, the little first baseman of the Navy, had bounded forward. Hutchins was wholly cool, and had keen eye for batting. He hoped, despite what he had heard of Prescott's cleverness, to send Navy spirits booming by at least a two-bagger. "Strike one!" Prescott had not wasted any moments, this time, and Hutchins was caught unawares. The little first baseman flushed and a steely look came into his eyes. At the next one he struck, but it came across the plate as an out-shoot that was just too far out for Hutchins's reach. Had he not offered it would have been a "called ball." With two strikes called against him, and nothing moving, Hutchins felt the ooze coming out of his neck and forehead. The Navy had been playing grand ball that spring. It would never do to let the Army get too easy a start. But Dick poised, twirled and let go. It was a straight-away, honest and fair ball that he sent. To be sure there was a trace of in-shoot about it that made Hutchins misjudge it so that, in the next instant, the passionless umpire sounded the monotonous solo: "Strike three---and out. Side out!" From the Navy seats dead calm, but from the band came a blare of brass and a clash of drums and cymbals as the cheering started. In an instant, out of all the hubbub, came the long corps yell from the cadets, ending with: "Prescott! Holmes!" Sweet music, indeed, to the Army battery. But Greg heard it on the wing, so to speak, for at the changing of the sides he had hastened forward, so as to pass Dan Dalzell: "Danny boy, after the game, I want you to do something big for me," whispered Cadet Holmes. "Surely," murmured Dalzell. "What shall it be?" "I think I know how you get that grin of yours, that conquering grin on your face, but I wish you'd show me how you make it stick!" "Call you out for that some day," hissed Dalzell, as, with heightened color, he made his way to catcher's post of duty behind the plate. Dave Darrin received the ball, and handled it, after the ways of his kind, for a few seconds, to detect any irregularities there might be to its surface or any flaws in its roundness. "Play ball!" called the umpire. With Beckwith holding the stick, and Durville on deck, Dick had time to do what he was most anxious to do---to make a study of any new things that Darrin might have learned. Dave appeared to be fully warmed at the start. "Strike one!" called the umpire, though Beckwith had not dared offer. Then: "Strike two!" Dick began to see light. Dave was in fine form, and was sending them in with such terrific speed that it was barely possible to gauge them. That style of pitching carried big hopes for a Navy victory! _ |
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