Locke shook it off instantly. "Were I as big a rascal as you, Weegman,"

he said, with limitless contempt, "I'd make a dash through that door.

Thank Heaven, I'm not!"

The baffled man snapped his fingers. "You are using language you'll regret!" he harshly declared, although he maintained his smiling demeanor to such a degree that any one a few yards distant might have fancied the conversation between the two was of the pleasantest sort.

Lefty returned to the coaching line, taking the place of Tremain; for Wiley had issued a pa.s.s to Hallett, Watson was at bat, and the doctor followed Watson. Instantly sizing up the situation, the southpaw signaled for a double steal, and both runners started with the first movement of the pitcher's delivery. Schaeffer's throw to third was not good, and Sommers slid under. Hallett had no trouble about reaching second.

"What are you trying to pull off here?" cried the manager of the Wind Jammers. "Such behavior is most inconsiderate, or words to that effect.

However it simply makes it necessary for me to inject a few more kinks into the horsehide."

Admittedly he did hand up some peculiar curves to Watson, but his control was so poor that none of the twisters came over and like Hallett, the left fielder walked. This peopled the corners.

"Here," said Wiley, still chipper and undisturbed, "is that jolly soul who obligingly batted an easy one into my fin the last time. I pa.s.sed the last hitter in order to get at this kind party again."

Tremain let one pitch go by, but the next one pleased him, and he cracked the ball on the nose. It was a two-base drive, which enabled the runners already on to score. As the three raced over the plate, one after another, Wiley was seen violently wigwagging toward the bench. In response to his signal, Mysterious Jones rose promptly and prepared to warm up with the second catcher.

"I'm off to-day; perhaps I should say I'm awful," admitted the Marine Marvel. "A spazoozum like that is sufficient to open my eyes to the humiliating fact that I'm not pitching up to cla.s.s. In a few minutes, however, you'll have an opportunity to see Mr. Jones uncork some of the real stuff."

Wiley dallied with the next batter for the purpose of giving the dummy pitcher time to shake the kinks out of his arm. Apparently Jones did not need much time in which to get ready, for when the sailor presently dealt out another pa.s.s the relief twirler signified his willingness to a.s.sume the burden.

As Jones walked out upon the diamond, Locke looked around vainly for Weegman. It was possible, of course, that Collier's private secretary had departed at once following his last rebuff, but somehow Lefty felt that he was still lingering and taking pains not to be seen by Mysterious Jones. Suddenly the southpaw felt a desire to bring the two men face to face, wondering what would happen. There was more than a possibility that such a meeting might present some dramatic features.

Turning back, Lefty's eyes followed Jones. The interest and fascination he had felt at first sight of the man returned, taking hold upon him powerfully and intensely. There was something in the solemn face of the mute that spoke of shattered hopes, deep and abiding sorrow, despair, tragedy. He was like one who stood aloof even while he mingled with mankind. Knowing other mutes, many of whom seemed happy and contented, Locke could not believe that the peculiarities of Mysterious Jones were wholly due to resentment against the affliction which fate had placed upon him. Behind it all there must lay a story with perhaps more than one dark page.

CHAPTER XI

BURNING SPEED

As a pitcher, Jones displayed no needless flourishes. His style of delivery was simple but effective. Into the swing of his long arm he put the throwing force of his fine shoulder and sinewy body. Wiley had exaggerated in boasting of the mute's speed; nevertheless that speed was something to marvel at. Norris, the clean-up man of the Grays, who preferred smokers to any other kind, was too slow in striking at the first two pitched to him by Jones. Norris looked astounded and incredulous, and the spectators gasped.

"That's his slow one, mates!" cried Wiley. "Pretty soon, when he gets loosened up, he'll let out a link or two and burn a few across.

The daisies are growing above the only man he ever hit with the ball."

Although Norris was not slow in swinging at the next one, the sphere took a shoot that deceived him, and the mute had disposed of the first hitter with three pitched b.a.l.l.s.

"And the wiseacres say there are no real heavers left in the bushes!"

whooped Cap'n Wiley.

Locke was thrilled. Could it be that here was a discovery, a find, a treasure like a diamond in the rough, left around underfoot amid pebbles? The Big League scouts are the grubstakers, the prospectors, the treasure hunters of baseball; ceaselessly and tirelessly they scour the country even to the remote corners and out-of-the-way regions where the game nourishes in the crude, lured on constantly by the hope of making a big find. To them the unearthing of a ball player of real ability and promise is like striking the outcroppings of a Comstock or a Kimberly; and among the cheering surface leads that they discover, a hundred peter out into worthlessness, where one develops into a property of value. More and more the scouts complain that the ground has been raked over again and again and the prizes are growing fewer and farther between; yet every now and then, where least expected, one of them will turn up something rich that has been overlooked by journeying too far afield. The fancy that Mysterious Jones might be one of these unnoticed nuggets set Locke's pulses throbbing.

Jones had appeared to be a trifle slender in street clothes, but now Lefty could see that he was the possessor of fine muscles and whipcord sinews. There was no ounce of unnecessary flesh upon him anywhere; he was like an athlete trained to the minute and hardened for an enduring test by long and continuous work. There seemed little likelihood that protracted strain would expose a flaw. He had speed and stamina; if he possessed the required skill and brains, there was every reason to think that he might "deliver the goods." With the advent of the silent man upon the mound, Locke's attention became divided between doubts about himself and interest in the performance of the mute.

Hampton, who followed Norris, was quite as helpless against the dazzling speed of Jones; he could not even foul the ball. "Great smoke, Locke!"

he exclaimed, pausing on his way to center field. "That man's a terror!

He seems to groove them all, but you can't see them come over."

"Perhaps he can't keep it up," said Lefty.

"I hope not. If he does, we've got to win on the runs we've made already; there'll be no more scoring for us. It's up to you to hold them down."

The southpaw held them in the fourth, but he did so by working his head fully as much as his arm. By this time he had learned something of the hitting weaknesses of the Wind Jammers, and he played upon those weaknesses successfully. To his teammates and the spectators the performance was satisfactory; to him it proved only that his brain, if not his arm, was still in perfect condition.

Mysterious Jones came back with two strikeouts; in fact, he struck Sommers, the third man, out also; but the whistling, shooting sphere went through the catcher, and Sommers raced to first on the error.

This brought Locke up, and he was eager to hit against Jones. He missed the first one cleanly, but fouled the next two, which was better than any one else had done. Then the silent man put something more on the ball, and Lefty failed to touch it.

"Nice little pitcher, don't you think?" inquired Cap'n Wiley blandly.

"He behaves well, very well," admitted the southpaw.

The Grays implored Locke to keep the enemy in hand; the crowd entreated him. This was the game they desired to win. To them it was a struggle of vital importance, and the winning or losing of it was the only question of moment. They did not dream of something a thousand times more momentous involving Lefty Locke.

Loyal to the team and its supporters, the southpaw could not take needless chances of losing, no matter how much he longed to be put upon his mettle and forced to the last notch. Therefore he continued to work his head while on the slab. Schaeffer fouled out, Jones fanned indifferently, and Nuccio popped to shortstop.

"Lucky boy!" called Wiley. "But things won't always break so well for you. You'll have to go your limit before the game is over."

"I hope so," said Lefty.

Hallett caught one of Jones' whistlers on the end of his bat and drove it straight into the hands of the first baseman.

"Hooray!" laughed Watson. "At least that shows that he can be hit."

"A blind man might hit one in a million if he kept his bat swinging,"

scoffed Wiley. "Let's see you do as much."

Watson could not do as much; he fanned three times. Then Jones pitched four b.a.l.l.s to Tremain, and the doctor placed himself in Watson's cla.s.s.

The game had become a pitchers' battle, with one twirler cutting the batters down with burning speed and shoots, while the other held them in check through the knowledge he had swiftly acquired regarding their shortcomings with the stick. In every way the performance of Jones was the most spectacular, and in the crowd scores of persons were beginning to tell one another that the mute was the greater pitcher.

The truth was, experience in fast company had taught Lefty Locke to conserve his energies; like Mathewson, he believed that the eight players who supported him should shoulder a share of the defensive work, and it was not his practice to "put everything on the ball,"

with the cushions clean. Only when pinches came did he tighten and burn them across. Nor was he in that cla.s.s of pitchers who are continually getting themselves into holes by warping them wide to lure batters into reaching; for he had found that a twirler who followed such a method would be forced to go the limit by cool and heady batters who made a practice of "waiting it out." Having that prime requisite of all first-cla.s.s moundmen, splendid control, he sought out an opponent's weakest spot and kept the ball there, compelling the man to strike at the kind from which he was least likely to secure effective drives. This had led a large number of the fans who fancied themselves wise to hold fast to their often-expressed belief that the southpaw was lucky, but they were always looking for the opposition to fall on him and hammer him all over the lot.

Therefore it was not strange that the crowd, a.s.sembled to watch the game in Fernandon, should soon come to regard the mute, with his blinding speed and jagged shoots, as the superior slabman. Apparently without striving for effect, Jones was a spectacular performer; mechanical skill and superabundant energy were his to the limit. But Locke knew that something more was needed for a man to make good in the Big League.

Nevertheless, with such a foundation to build upon, unless the fellow should be flawed by some overshadowing natural weakness that made him impossible, coaching, training, and experience were the rungs of the ladder by which he might mount close to the top.

Loyal to the core, Lefty was thinking of the pitching staff of the Blue Stockings, weakened by deflections to the Federals, possibly by his own inability to return. For a little time, even Weegman was forgotten.

Anyway, the southpaw had not yet come to regard it as a settled thing that Bailey Weegman would be permitted to undermine and destroy the great organization, if such was his culpable design; in some manner the scoundrel would be blocked and baffled.

The sixth inning saw no break in the run of the game between the Grays and the Wind Jammers. Bemis, O'Reilley, and Schepps all hit Locke, but none hit safely, while Jones slaughtered three of the locals by the strike-out method. As Wiley had stated was the silent man's custom, he seemed to be seeking revenge on the world for giving him a raw deal.

When Oleson began the seventh with a weak grounder and "got a life"

through an error, Lefty actually felt a throb of satisfaction, for it seemed that the test might be forced upon him at last. But the Swede attempted to steal on the first pitch to Rickey, and Sommers threw him out. Rickey then lifted a high fly just back of first base, and Colby put him out of his misery. Plum batted an easy one to second.

"There's only one thing for me to do," thought Locke. "I've got to work the strike-out stuff in the next two innings, just as if men were on bases, and see if I've got it. The game will be over if I wait any longer for a real pinch."

When Jones had polished off Gates and Sommers, Locke stepped out to face the mute the second time. Having watched the man and a.n.a.lyzed his performance, the southpaw felt that he should be able to obtain a hit.