"I wasn't speaking of the Federal Army," explained Mr. Birdseye, desperately upset. "I was speaking of the Federal League."

"Oh, the Federal League!" said the other. "I beg your pardon, suh. Are you--are you interested in baseball?" He put the question wonderingly.

"Am I interested in--well, say, ain't you interested?"

"Me? Oh, no, suh. I make it a rule never to discuss the subject. You see, I'm a divinity student. I reckon you must've mistaken me for somebody else. I was afraid so when you first spoke. I'm mighty sorry."

"Yes, I must've," agreed Mr. Birdseye. He got upon his own feet and stumbled over the young man's feet and ran a hand through the hair on his pestered head. "I guess I must've got in the wrong car."

"That's probably it," said the pale-haired one. His odd-coloured but ingenuous countenance expressed solicitude and sympathy for the stranger's disappointment. Indeed, it wrinkled and twitched almost as though this tender-hearted person meant to shed tears. As if to hide his emotions, he suddenly reached for his discarded newspaper and in its opened pages buried his face to the ears--ears which slowly turned from pink to red. When next he spoke it was from behind the shelter of his newsprint shield, and his voice seemed choked. "Undoubtedly that's it--you got in the wrong car. Well, good-bye, my brother--and G.o.d bless and speed you."

At this precise moment, with the train just beginning to pull out from Barstow Junction, with the light-haired man sinking deeper and deeper inside the opened sheets, and with Mr. Birdseye teetering on uncertain legs in the aisle, there came to the latter's ears what he might have heard before had his hearing been attuned for sounds from that quarter.

He heard a great rollicking, whooping, vehement outburst coming from the next car back, which was likewise the last car. It had youth in it, that sound did--the spirit of unbridled, exuberant youth at play, and abandon and deviltry and prankishness and carefreedom. Mr. Birdseye faced about.

He caught up his handbag and, swift as a courier bearing glad tidings, he sped on winged feet--at least those extensive soles almost approximated wings--through the cramped pa.s.sage flanking the smoking compartment. Where the two cars clankingly joined beneath a metal f.l.a.n.g.e he came into collision with a train butcher just emerging from the rear sleeper.

Butch's hair was dishevelled and his collar awry. He dangled an emptied fruit basket in one hand and clinked coins together in the palm of the other. On his face was a grin of comic dismay and begrudged admiration.

"Some gang back there--some wild gang!" he murmured and, dodging adeptly past Mr. Birdseye, was gone, heading forward.

The searcher rounded the jog of the compartment reservation, and inside him then his soul was lifted up and exalted. There could be no mistake now. Within the confines of this Pullman romped and rampaged young men and youths to the number of perhaps twenty. There seemed to be more than twenty of them; that, though, was due to the flitting movements of their rambunctious forms. Norfolk-jacketed bodies, legs in modishly short trousers deeply cuffed at the bottoms, tousled heads to which rakish soft hats and plaid travelling caps adhered at angles calculated to upset the theory of the attraction of gravitation, showed here, there, everywhere, in a confused and shifting vista. Snappy suit cases, a big, awkward-looking, cylindrical bag of canvas, leather-faced, and two or three other boxes in which, to judge by their shapes, stringed musical instruments were temporarily entombed, enc.u.mbered a seat near by.

All this Mr. Birdseye's kindled eye comprehended in the first quick scrutiny. Also it took in the posture of a long, lean, lanky giant in his early twenties, who stood midway of the coach, balancing himself easily on his legs, for by now the train was picking up speed. One arm of the tall athlete--the left--was laid along his breast, and in its crook it held several small, half-ripened oranges. His right hand would pluck up an orange, the right arm would wind up, and then with marvellous accuracy and incredible velocity the missile would fly, like a tawny-green streak, out of an open window at some convenient target.

So fast he worked and so well, it seemed as though a constant stream of citrus was being discharged through that particular window. An orange spattered against a signpost marking the limits of the yard. Two oranges in instantaneous succession struck the rounded belly of a water tank, making twin yellow asterisks where they hit. A fourth, driven as though by a piston, whizzed past the nappy head of a darky pedestrian who had halted to watch the train go by. That darky ducked just in time.

Mr. Birdseye lunged forward to pay tribute to the sharpshooter. Beyond peradventure there could be but one set of muscles on this continent capable of such marksmanship. But another confronted him, barring his way, a stockily built personage with a wide, humorous face, and yet with authority in all its contour and lines.

"Well, see who's here!" he clarioned and literally he embraced Mr.

Birdseye, pinning that gentleman's arms to his sides. He bent his head and put his lips close to Mr. Birdseye's flattered ear, the better to be heard above the uproar dinning about them. "What was the name?" he inquired.

"Birdseye--J. Henry Birdseye."

Continuing to maintain a firm grasp upon Mr. Birdseye's coat sleeve the stocky individual swung about and called for attention:

"Gentlemen, one moment--one moment, if you please."

Plainly he had unquestioned dominion over this mad and pranksome crew.

His fellows paused in whatever they were doing to give heed unto his words.

"Boys, it gives me joy to introduce to you Colonel Birdshot."

"Birdseye," corrected his prisoner, overcome with gratification, not unmixed with embarra.s.sment.

"I beg your pardon," said the master of ceremonies. Then more loudly again: "I should have said Col. Birdseye Maple."

"Three cheers for the walking bedroom set!" This timely suggestion emanated from a wiry skylarker who had drawn nigh and was endeavouring to find Mr. Birdseye's hand with a view to shaking it.

Three cheers they were, and right heartily given too.

"And to what, may I ask--to what are we indebted for the pleasure of this unexpected but nevertheless happy meeting?" asked the blocky man.

One instant he suggested the prime minister; the next, the court jester.

And was not that as it should be too? It was, if one might credit what one had read of the king-pin of managers.

"Why--why, I just ran over from Anneburg to meet you and ride in with you--and sort of put you onto the ropes and everything," vouchsafed Mr.

Birdseye.

"Well, isn't that splendid--we didn't expect it!" Once more he addressed his attentive fellows:

"Gentlemen, you'll never guess it until I tell you. It is none other than the official reception committee bearing with it the keys of the corporation. I shrewdly suspect the Colonel has the words 'Welcome to Our City' tattooed upon his chest."

"Let's undress him and see."

The idea was advanced by the same wire-drawn youngster who had called for the cheers. He laid hold on Mr. Birdseye's collar, but instantly the happy captive was plucked from his grasp and pa.s.sed from one to another of the cl.u.s.tering group. They squeezed Mr. Birdseye's fingers with painfully affectionate force; they dealt him cordially violent slaps upon the back. They inquired regarding his own health and the health of his little ones, and in less than no time at all, it seemed to him, he, somewhat jostled and dishevelled, confused but filled with a tingling bliss, had been propelled the length of the aisle and back again, and found himself sitting so he faced the directing genius of this exuberant coterie of athletes. The rest, sensing that their leader desired conference with the newcomer, resumed their diversions, and so in a small eddy of calm on the edge of a typhoon of clamour these two--Birdseye and the great manager--conversed together as man to man.

"And so you ran down to meet us--that was bully," said the blocky man.

His mood was now serious, and Mr. Birdseye set himself to reply in the same spirit. "What's the prospects for a crowd over in Anneburg?"

"Couldn't be better," Mr. Birdseye told him. "Everybody in town that can walk, ride or crawl will be out to see you fellows play."

"To see us play--that's good!"

"The Mayor is going to be there, and ex-Governor Featherston--he's about the biggest man we've got in Anneburg--and oh, just everybody."

"Whosoever will, let him come, that's our motto," stated his vis-a-vis; "entertainment for man and beast. You'll be there of course?"

"In a front seat--rooting my head off," promised Mr. Birdseye, forgetting in the supreme joy of this supreme moment that he owed first duty to Anneburg's own puny contenders. "Say, you fellows are just exactly like I thought you'd be--regular h.e.l.lions. Well, it's the old pep that counts."

"You said it--the old pep is the thing."

"What kind of a trip did you have coming up?"

"Fine--fine from the start."

"And where do you go from Anneburg?"

"Asheville, then Richmond. Anneburg is the smallest town we play."

"Don't think we don't appreciate it, Swifty. Say, the Big Fellow certainly can pitch, can't he?" Mr. Birdseye pointed toward the flinger of oranges who, having exhausted his ammunition, was now half out of a window, contemplating the flitting landscape. "How's his arm going to be this year?"

"Better than ever--better than ever. I guess you know about the no-hit game he pitched last year--the last game he played?"

"Tell me something about that kid I don't know," boasted Mr. Birdseye.

"I've followed him from the time he first broke in."

"Then you know he's there with the pipes?"

"The pipes?"

"Sure--the educated larynx, the talented tonsils, the silver-lined throat--in other words, the gift of song."