"Cattle and ball players."

"It's wrong! Isn't there any way--"

"The Federals are showing the way."

"Your sympathy's with them. You're not bound to the Blue Stockings; you're still your own free agent."

"Under the circ.u.mstances what would you have me do?"

At last he had asked her advice. Now she could speak. She did so eagerly.

"Accept the offer the Federals have made you."

"My dear," he said, "would you have me do that, with my own mind in doubt as to whether or not I was worth a dollar to them? Would you have me take the ten thousand I could get, knowing all the time that they might be paying it for a has-been who wasn't worth ten cents? Would that be honest?"

"You can be honest, then," she hurriedly declared. "No one knows for a certainty, not even yourself, that you can't come back to your old form. You can go to the manager and tell him the truth about yourself.

Can't you do that?"

"And then what? Probably he wouldn't want me after that at any price."

"You can make a fair bargain with him. You can have it put in the contract that you are to get that money if you do come back and make good as a pitcher."

Lefty laughed. "I think it would be the first time on record that a ball player ever went to a manager who was eager to sign him up, and made such a proposition. It would be honest, Janet; but if the manager believed me, if he saw I was serious, do you fancy he'd feel like coming across with the first year's salary in advance and the bonus? You see I can't raise the money I need, and be honest."

She wrung her hands and came back to the first question that had leaped from her lips: "What can you do?"

"I don't think I'll make any decisive move until I find out what sort of queer business is going on in the Blue Stockings camp. I could get money through Kennedy if he were coming back. Everything is up in the air."

"How can you find out, away down here? You're too far away from the places where things are doing."

"I've been looking for a telegram from old Jack, an answer to mine. I feel confident I'll get a wire from him as soon as he reads my letter.

Meanwhile I'll write to my parents and try to cheer them up. It's bound to take a little time to settle up the affairs of that building and loan a.s.sociation. Time is what I need now."

That very day Locke received a telegram from Jack Kennedy:

Meet me at the Grand, Indianapolis, the twenty-third. Don't fail.

A train carried Lefty north that night.

CHAPTER XIV

ONLY ONE WAY

The registry clerk stated that no Mr. Kennedy was stopping at the Grand Hotel. Locke was disappointed, for he had expected old Jack would be waiting for him. However, the veteran manager would, doubtless, appear later. Lefty registered, and the clerk tossed a room key to the boy who was waiting with the southpaw's traveling bag.

As the pitcher turned from the desk he found himself face to face with a man whom he had seen on the train. The man, Locke believed, had come aboard at Louisville. There was something familiar about the appearance of the stranger, yet Lefty had not been able to place him.

He had narrow hips, a rather small waist, fine chest development, and splendid shoulders; his neck was broad and swelling at the base; his head, with the hair clipped close, was round as a bullet; his nose had been broken, and there was an ugly scar upon his right cheek. He did not look to be at all fat, and yet he must have weighed close to one hundred and ninety. His hands, clenched, would have resembled miniature battering-rams.

This person had not taken a look at the register, yet he addressed the pitcher by name.

"How are you, Locke?" he said, with a grin that was half a sneer, half a menace. "I guessed you'd bring up here."

Lefty knew Mit Skullen the moment he spoke. One-time prize fighter and ball player, Skullen now posed as a scout employed by the Rockets; more often he acted as the henchman and bodyguard of Tom Garrity, owner of the team, and the best-hated man in the business. Garrity had so many enemies that he could not keep track of them; a dozen men had tried to "get" him at different times, and twice he had been a.s.saulted and beaten up. Skullen had saved him from injury on other occasions.

Garrity was the most sinister figure in organized baseball. Once a newspaper reporter, he had somehow obtained control of the Rockets by chicanery and fraud. Sympathy and grat.i.tude were sentiments unknown to him. He would work a winning pitcher to death, and then send the man shooting down to the minors the moment he showed the slightest symptom of weakness. He scoffed at regulations and bylaws; he defied restraint and control; he was in a constant wrangle with other owners and managers; and as a creator of discord and dissension he held the belt.

And he snapped his fingers in the face of the national commission. The league longed to get rid of him, but could not seem to find any method of doing so.

"Been lookin' 'em over a little down South," explained Skullen superfluously. "Not much doin' this season, but I spotted one pitcher with a rovin' bunch o' freaks who had more smoke and kinks than you ever showed before you broke your arm, old boy. And he won't cost a cent when we get ready to grab him. n.o.body's wise to him but me, either.

S'pose you've come on to meet Weegman, hey?"

"Where'd you run across this find?" asked Locke casually, endeavoring not to appear curious.

Skullen pulled down one corner of his mouth, and winked. "T'ink I'll tell youse, old boy. But then Texas is a big bunch o' the map."

Texas! The Wind Jammers had come to Florida from Galveston.

"Did you have a talk with this unknown wizard?" questioned Lefty.

"He didn't talk much," returned the scout. "Oh, you can't pump me!

I know your old Blue Stocks ain't got a pitcher left that's worth a hoot in Halifax, or hardly a player, for that matter; but I ain't goin'

to help you out--you an' Weegman. You gotter get together an' do your own diggin'."

"Weegman is in Indianapolis?"

"As if you didn't know! Never had no use for that guy; but, all the same, I advise you to grab on with him. It's your only chanct for a baseball job; everybody in the game's wise that you'll never do no more hurlin'."

Boiling inwardly, Locke permitted himself to be conducted to the elevator. While he was bathing he thought, with increasing wrath and dismay, of the insolent words of Skullen. The question that perplexed him most was how the bruiser knew anything of Weegman's business, especially the attempt to sign Locke as a manager. And Weegman was in Indianapolis!

Coming down, Lefty went again to the desk to inquire about Kennedy.

He was handed a telegram. Tearing it open, he saw that it was from the Federal manager who had offered him a three years' contract. It stated curtly that the offer was withdrawn. Skullen was right; the story had gone forth that the star southpaw of the Blue Stockings would do no more pitching. Weegman was getting in his fine work.

Lefty felt a hand grip his elbow.

"Locke!" A well-dressed, youngish man grasped his hand and shook it. It was Franklin Parlmee, who, for a long time, had evinced deep interest in Virginia Collier. Parlmee, with family behind him, and a moderate income, had shown a distaste for business and a disposition to live the life of an idler. Collier had refused to countenance his daughter's marriage to Parlmee until the latter should get into some worthy and remunerative employment, and make good. For two years Parlmee had been hustling, and he had developed into a really successful automobile salesman.

"By Jove!" said Parlmee. "I didn't expect to run across you here, old man. I'm mighty glad to see you. Perhaps you can tell me something about Virginia. What has Mrs. Hazelton heard from her?"

The man seemed worried and nervous, and his question surprised Lefty.

"If any one should know about Miss Collier, you are the person,"

returned the pitcher. "Janet has scarcely heard from her since she sailed with her father. We supposed you were corresponding with her regularly."

Parlmee drew him toward a leather-covered settee. "I'm pegged out,"

he admitted, and he looked it. "Business forced me to run on or I'd not be here now. I'm going back to New York to-night. Do you know, I've received only two letters from Virginia since she reached the other side, one from London, the other from Eaux Chaudes, in France.