"Not on your life!" cried the captain. "You are all right. It was just a slip. Hold hard and we'll do 'em."
Joe held hard, and there was a little encouragement when his team got one run, making the score at the ending of the fifth inning seven to five in favor of the Morningside team.
Once more in the opening of the sixth Joe did the trick. He allowed but one single, and then three men fanned in succession, while, just to make things more than ever interesting, the Excelsiors got two runs, again tying the score.
"Say, we'll have to wake up if we're going to wallop these fellows," confided the visiting captain to his lads. "They have certainly improved a lot by getting Hiram and Luke out."
"Oh, we'll do 'em," predicted Ted Clay, the pitcher.
From then on the Excelsiors fairly "played their heads off," and they ought to have done much better than they did when their hard work was taken into consideration. But there were many weak spots that might in the future be eliminated by good coaching, and Joe needed harder practice.
But in every inning thereafter the home team got at least one run, save only in the seventh. In their half of the sixth they got two, as I have said,
