One runner had scored, and two were left, on second and third bases respectively.

Chase walked to the plate with determination. He allowed the first ball to go by, but watched it closely, gauging its speed and height. The next one he met squarely with a solid crack. It shot out over second base, went up and up, far beyond the fielder. Amid the delirious joy of the Brownsville partisans the two runners scored ahead of Chase, and before the ball could be found he too reached home.

The Jacktown players went to pieces after that, and fumbled so outrageously and threw so erratically that Brownsville scored three more runs before the inning was over.

Plain it was that when Jacktown came in for their bat nothing short of murder was impossible for them. They were wild-eyed, and hopped along the baselines like Indians on the war-path. But yell and rage and strive all they knew how, it made no difference. They simply could not get their bats to connect with Chase's curves. They did not know what was wrong.

Chase delivered a slow, easy ball that apparently came sailing like a balloon straight for the plate, and just as the batter swung his bat the ball suddenly swerved so that he hit nothing but the air. Some of them spun around, so viciously did they swing, but not one of them so much as touched the ball.

The giant pitcher grunted like an ox when he made his bat whistle through the air; and every time he swung at one of the slow, tantalizing balls to miss it, he frothed at the mouth in his fury. His reputation as a great hitter was undone that day and he died hard.

In the eighth inning, with the score 11 to 0, matters were serious when the Jacktown team came in for their turn at bat. They whispered mysteriously and argued aloud, and acted altogether like persons possessed. When the first batter faced Chase the other players crowded behind the plate, where already a good part of the audience was standing.

"It's his eye, his crooked eye," said one player, pointing an angry finger. " See thet ! You watch him, an' you think he's goin' to pitch the ball one way, an' it comes another. It 's his crooked eye, I tell you!"

A sympathetic murmur from the other players and the crowd attested to the value of this remarkable statement. The first batter struck futilely at the balls, getting slower and more exasperating, and when he had missed three he slammed his bat on the ground and actually jumped up and down in his anger. The second batter aimed at a slow coming ball and swung with all his might, only to hit a hole in the air.

With that the umpire tripped lightly before the plate, and standing on his tiptoes, waved his hand to the spectators. His eyes were staring with excitement, and on his cheek blazed the hue of righteous indignation.

" Ga-me cal-led! " he yelled in his Pen!etrating tenor. " Game called, 9 to 0, favor JacktownI! BROWNSVILLE PITCHER THROWS A CROOKED BALL! "

Pandemonium broke loose among the spectators. They massed on the field in inextricable confusion. The noise was deafening. Hats were in the air, and coats, and everything available for throwing up.

Hutchinson fought his way through the crazy crowd, and grasping Chase pulled him with no gentle hand from the mob in the direction of the barn. Once out of the tumult he said " Hurry and change. I don't like the looks of things. These Jacktown fellows are rough. I think we'd better hurry out of town."

It was all so amusing to Chase that he could not help laughing, but soon Hutchinson's sober aspect, and the wild anger of the other Brownsville players, who poured noisily into the barn, put a different coloring on the affair. What had been pure fun for him was plainly a life-and-death matter to these rustics. They divided their expression in mauling Chase with fervid congratulations and declarations of love, and passionate denunciations of the umpire and the whole Jacktown outfit.

Suddenly, as loud shouts sounded outside the barn, Hutchinson ran out, to return at once with a startled look.

" You've got to run for it!" he cried. "They're after you; they're in a devil of a temper. They'll ride you on a fence-rail, or tar and feather you.