"If I can't lay the club against that ball," he told himself, "then that fellow's putting something on it beside speed and curves; he's using brains also."

Cap'n Wiley jumped up from the bench and did a sailor's hornpipe.

"This is the life!" he cried. "The real thing against the real thing!

Take soundings, Lefty; you're running on shoals. You'll be high and dry in a minute."

Straight and silent, Jones stood and looked at the Big League player, both hands holding the ball hidden before him. Wiley ceased his dancing and shouting and a hush settled on the crowd. To Locke it seemed that the eyes of the voiceless pitcher were plumbing the depths of his mind and searching out his hidden thoughts; there came to Lefty a ridiculous fancy that by some telepathic method the man on the slab could fathom his purposes and so make ready to defeat them. An uncanny feeling crept upon him, and he was annoyed. Jones pitched, and the batsman missed a marvelous drop, which he had not been expecting.

"Perhaps I'll have to revise my theory about him not using brains,"

was the southpaw's mental admission.

The next two pitches were both a trifle wide, and Lefty declined to bite at either. For the first time, as if he knew that here was a test, Jones appeared to be trying to "work" the batter. Locke fouled the following one.

"That's all there is to it," declared Wiley, "and I'm excruciatingly surprised that there should be even that much. Go 'way back, Mr. Locke!"

Again Jones surveyed Lefty with his piercing eyes, and for the third time he pitched a shoot that was not quite across. As if he had known it would not be over, the batsman made not even the slightest move to swing.

"Some guessing match!" confessed the Marine Marvel. "Now, however, let me give you my plighted word of dishonor that you're going to behold a specimen of the superfluous speed Jonesy keeps on tap for special occasions. Hold your breath and see if you can see it go by."

The ball did not go by; Lefty hit it fairly and sent a safety humming to right.

CHAPTER XII

TOO MUCH TEMPTATION

"Is it poss-i-bill!" gasped Cap'n Wiley, staggering and clutching at his forehead. "I am menaced by a swoon! Water! Whisky! I'll accept anything to revive me!"

Fred Hallett hurried to the pan with his bat. "It's my turn now," he said. "We've started on him, and we should all hit him."

Locke signalled that he would steal, and Hallett let the first one pa.s.s. Lefty went down the line like a streak, but Schaeffer made a throw that forced him to hit the dirt and make a hook slide. He caught his spikes in the bag and gave his ankle a twist that sent a pain shooting up his leg.

"Safe!" declared the umpire.

Locke did not get up. The crowd saw him drag himself to the bag and sit on it, rubbing his ankle. Schepps bent over him solicitously.

"Dat was a nice little crack, pal," said the sandlotter, "and a nifty steal. Hope youse ain't hoited."

But Lefty had sprained his ankle so seriously that he required a.s.sistance to walk from the field. A runner was put in his place, although Wiley informed them that they need not take the trouble. And Wiley was right, for Jones struck Hallett out.

It was impossible for Locke to continue pitching, so Matthews took his place. And the southpaw was left still uncertain and doubtful; the game had not provided the test he courted. Weegman apparently had departed; there was no question in the mind of Charles Collier's representative, and, angered by the rebuff he had encountered, he was pretty certain to spread the report that the great southpaw was "all in." He had practically threatened to do this when he declared that every manager and magnate in the business would soon know that Locke's pitching days were over.

The Wind Jammers, spurred on by Cap'n Wiley, went after Matthews aggressively, and for a time it appeared certain that they were going to worry him off his feet. With only one down, they pushed a runner across in the eighth, and there were two men on the sacks when a double play blighted their prospect of tying up, perhaps of taking the lead, at once.

As Jones continued invulnerable in the last of the eighth, the visitors made their final a.s.sault upon Matthews in the ninth. But fortune was against them. The game ended with Wiley greatly disappointed, though still cheerful.

"A little frost crept into my elbow in the far-away regions of the North," he admitted. "I'll shake it out in time. If I'd started old Jonesy against Lefty, there would have been a different tale to tell."

The Wind Jammers were booked to play in Jacksonville the following afternoon, but they remained in Fernandon overnight. Seated on the veranda of the Magnolia, Wiley was enjoying a cigar after the evening meal, and romancing, as usual, when Locke appeared, limping, with the aid of a cane.

"It grieves me to behold your sorry plight," said the Marine Marvel sympathetically. "I cajole with you most deprecatingly. But why, if you were going to get hurt at all, weren't you obliging enough to do it somewhat earlier in the pastime? That would have given my faithful henchmen a chance to put the game away on ice."

"You can't be sure about that," returned Lefty. "You collected no more scores off Matthews than you did off me."

"But you pa.s.sed us six nice, ripe goose eggs, while he dealt out only one. There was a difference that could be distinguished with the unclothed optic. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Jones had something on you; while he officiated, you were the only person who did any gamboling on the cushions, and what you did didn't infect the result.

What do you think of Jones?"

"Will you lend me your ear while I express my opinion privately?"

"With the utmost perspicacity," said Wiley, rising. "Within my boudoir--excuse my fluid French--I'll uncork either ear you prefer and let you pour it full to overflowing."

In the privacy of Wiley's room, without beating around the bush, Locke stated that he believed Jones promising material for the Big League, and that he wished to size up the man.

"While I have no scouting commission or authority," said Lefty, "if Kennedy should manage the Blue Stockings this season, he'd stand by my judgment. The team must have pitchers. Of course, some will be bought in the regular manner, but I know that, on my advice, Kennedy would take Jones on and give him a show to make good, just as he gave me a chance when I was a busher. I did not climb up by way of the minors; I made one clean jump from the back pastures into the Big League."

"Mate," said Wiley, "let me tell you something a trifle bazaar: Jones hasn't the remotest ambition in the world to become a baseball pitcher."

Locke stared at him incredulously. The swarthy little man was serious--at least, as serious as he could be.

"Then," asked the southpaw, "why is he pitching?"

"Tell _me!_ I've done a little prognosticating over that question."

"You say he does not talk about himself. How do you--"

"Let me elucidate, if I can. I told you I ran across Jones in Alaska.

I saw him pitch in a baseball match in Nome. How he came to ingratiate himself into that contest I am unable to state. n.o.body seemed able to tell me. All I found out about him was that he was one of three partners who had a valuable property somewhere up in the Jade Mountain region--not a prospect, but a real, bony-fido mine. Already they had received offers for the property, and any day they could sell out for a sum salubrious enough to make them all scandalously wealthy. They had entered into some sort of an agreement that bound them all to hold on until two of the three should vote to sell; Jones was tied up under this contraction.

"I had grown weary of the vain search for the root of all evil. For me that root has always been more slippery than a squirming eel; every time I thought I had it by the tail it would wriggle out of my eager clutch and get away. I longed for the fleshpots of my own native heath.

Watching that ball game in Nome, my blood churned in my veins until it nearly turned to b.u.t.ter. Once more, in my well-fertilized fancy, I saw myself towering the country with my Wind Jammers; and, could I secure Jonesy for my star flinger, I knew I would be able to make my return engagement a scintillating and scandalous success. With him for a nucleus, I felt confident that I could a.s.semble together a bunch of world beaters. I resolved to go after Jones. I went, without dalliance. I got him corralled in a private room and locked the door on him.

"Mate, I am a plain and simple soul, given not a jot or t.i.ttle to exaggeration, yet I am ready to affirm--I never swear; it's profane--that I had the tussle of my life with Jones. Parenthetically speaking, we wrestled all over that room for about five solid hours. I had supplied myself with forty reams of writing paper, a bushel basket full of lead pencils, and two dictionaries. When I finally subdued Jones, I was using a stub of the last pencil in the basket, was on the concluding sheet of paper, had contracted writer's cramp, and the dictionaries were mere torn and tattered wrecks. In the course of that argument, I am certain I wrote every word in the English language, besides coining a few thousand of my own. I had practically exhausted every form of persuasion, and was on the verge of lying down and taking the count. Then, by the rarest chance, I hit upon the right thing. I wrote a paregoric upon the joys of traveling around over the United States from city to city, from town to town, of visiting every place of importance in the whole broad land, of meeting practically every living human being in the country who was alive and deserved to be met. Somehow that got him; I don't know why, but it did. I saw his eyes gleam and his somber face change as he read that last wild stab of mine. It struck home; he agreed to go. I had conquered.

"Now, mark ye well, the amount of his salary had not a whit to do with it, and he entertained absolutely no ambish to become a baseball pitcher.

He was compelled to leave his partners up there running the mine, and to rely upon their honesty to give him a square deal. You have been told how he promulgates around over every new place he visits and stares strangers out of countenance. Whether or not he's otherwise wrong in his garret, he's certainly 'off' on that stunt. That's how I'm able to keep him on the parole of this club of mine."

"In short, he's a sort of monomaniac?"

"Perhaps that's it."

Lefty did a bit of thinking. "You've been touring the smaller cities and the towns in which an independent ball team would be most likely to draw. In the large cities of a Big League circuit there are thousands upon thousands of persons Jones has never met. He could work a whole season in such a circuit and continue to see hosts of strangers every time he visited any one of the cities included. Under such circ.u.mstances he would have the same incentive that he has now. If he can be induced to make the change, I'll take a chance on him, and I'll see that you are well paid to use your persuasive powers to lead him to accept my proposition."

"But you stated that you had no legal authority to make such a deal."

"I haven't; but I am willing to take a chance, with the understanding that the matter is to be kept quiet until I shall be able to put through an arrangement that will make it impossible for any manager in organized ball to steal him away."

Wiley shook his head. "I couldn't get along without him, Lefty; he's the mainsheet of the Wind Jammers. It would be like chucking the s.e.xtant and the compa.s.s overboard. We'd be adrift without any instrument to give us our position or anything to lay a course by."