Frazer was beginning to show signs of exhaustion.  He had tried every trick he had in his list on the batters who faced him.  They had begun to solve his delivery more and more the oftener they came up.  And there was a very demoralizing way about their confident attitude that no doubt added much to poor Frazer’s distress.  He began to believe they were just playing with him, and at a given time would fall upon his delivery, to knock the ball at will to every part of the field.

Hugh knew it was coming, and he hardly felt able to go into the box himself to stem the rising tide; but anything was better than to have Frazer submerged under an avalanche of hits.  “Big Ed” seemed to be getting better the longer he pitched, and just the reverse could be said of Frazer, who was on the verge of a total collapse.

“Better take me out before I go to the wall, Hugh,” begged the other, after the sixth frame showed the score to be six to two, with more runs looming up in the “lucky seventh” in prospect.  “I’m ashamed to say I’ve lost my nerve.  Those fellows mean to get at me in the seventh and it will be a Waterloo.  I just feel it in my bones they’ve been waiting to lambast my offerings then, for I’ve seen them talking together, and laughing, as though they had a game laid out.  You go in and feed them those teasers of yours.  The boys will take a brace in batting, if you can hold Allandale; and in the end it may not be such a terrible calamity after all.”

Hugh knew it must be.  Frazer had gone to the wall, and would pitch poorly if allowed to go in the box in the next inning.

“I hate to do it, Frazer,” he told the other, feeling sorry for him; “but any port in a storm; and it may be possible these sluggers will trip up on that balloon ball of mine, though I haven’t much else to offer them.”

That inning the locals did a little batting on their own account, with the result that the score looked a shade better, for it was three to six when once more Scranton went into the field.

When it was seen that Hugh walked to the box some of the local rooters cheered lustily, for Hugh was a great favorite.  Cat-calls also greeted his appearance, coming principally from Nick Lang and his followers; though they were frowned upon by a crowd of Scranton boys, who threatened to hustle them off the grounds unless they mended their ways.

As Hugh left third one of the substitutes, named Hastings, was placed on that sack.  Thad gave Hugh a queer look on discovering this, and followed it with a peculiarly suggestive grin; so that Hugh understood how his chum was thinking of another Hastings with whose name they had taken undue liberties.

Allandale seemed pleased to know that there was to be a change of slab artists.

“All pitchers look alike to us when we’ve got our batting clothes on!” one of them sang out blithely, as he swung a couple of bats around, being the next man up, and desirous of making himself feel that he held a willow wand in his hands when throwing one aside and wielding the other.