the same class as Kinsey, but your fellows are supporting him in
great shape, and saving many a run by fine field work. But of course
we'll win in the end; we're bound to. One of our boys will put in
the big wallop and circle the bases on a trot, and then it'll all be
over but the shouting. It's no disgrace to be whipped by a Belleville
team, Scranton."

"Spell able first!" taunted the visiting fan, still filled with
implicit faith in his school representatives.

It was now the beginning of the twelfth. Hugh had again talked to
his fellows, and once more implored them to get busy with their bats.

"Don't ever get the notion in your heads that you can't hit Kinsey's
shoots and drops!" he told them, as Julius Hobson selected his bat,
being the first man up. We've just _got_ to work a man around the
circuit this inning."

"If we don't we never will next time, because it's the unlucky
thirteenth," remarked another, who, like many baseball players,
seemed to have a touch of superstition in his make-up.

"The thirteenth is as good as any other," Hugh told him, reprovingly;
"and if we reach it I hope you'll not lie down on that account. Julius,
you're due for a wallop, remember."

"Sure thing, Hugh, watch my smoke!" chuckled the other, as he stepped
blithely out and tapped his bat several times on the plate after
a fashion he had, while Kinsey was eyeing him reflectively, as though
trying to remember what the long and short suit of the Hobson boy was.