“Whoa! whoa!” yelled the coacher at third, trying to stop the flying runner.
But somehow the fellow had stretched up his head and he turned his face for a look as he went over third without checking his speed.
The ball was in the air on the way to the second-baseman.
Then the witnesses saw a streak of boots and humanity going in to the plate from third. It seemed that all the condensed energy of the man was put into the effort to reach the plate ahead of the ball.
The pitcher’s stammering friend was standing on the bleachers, waving his hat and howling like a wild man. In fact, it had been a cry from him that caused the runner to take such desperate chances instead of obeying the coacher at third.
The crowd roared and gasped and grew silent.
The second-baseman took the ball, whirled like a flash, and lined it to the plate. The catcher was there to receive it and stop the run.
The throw was shoulder-high, and the runner suddenly threw himself headlong for a slide. Never in the history of the great national game had there been such a beautiful slide on that ground. The fellow seemed to scoot over the ground, and he was resting with his hand on the plate when the catcher bored the ball between his shoulders.
What a roar went up! The strange pitcher had stretched an ordinary three-bagger into a home run.
A wild scene followed. The St. Paul players rushed forward, lifted the jay, placed him on their shoulders, and bore him aloft.
“Oh, say!” he cried, “don’t make such a dinged fuss over a little thing like that! It makes me feel ’shamed! Put me down, for goshfrymighty sakes!”
But his words were drowned by the howling of the spectators and the cheering of the happy players.
But what was the more surprising to the crowd quickly followed. A boy ran out toward the players who were holding the jay aloft, and he was followed by the most remarkable figure ever seen on those grounds.
The spectators saw an old weather-beaten and wrinkled redskin, wrapped in a dirty red blanket. This old fellow advanced till he reached the home plate, where he suddenly snatched the tattered blanket from his shoulders, flaunted it round his head, and uttered such a yell of victory that it was heard clear and shrill and piercing above the roaring of the thousands of spectators.