Of course, Locke went out to the farm with old Jack, and again they sat on the veranda, this time watching the moon coming up over the eastern horizon. For a long time Kennedy was silent as he smoked, and Locke also seemed busied with his thoughts. The moonlight, creeping beneath the veranda, fell upon Lefty’s face, making it seem strangely handsome and strangely sad. Suddenly the old manager burst out laughing.
“Wonder if Bert Elgin will get his release the way he did the first time you went up against him with the Blue Stockings behind you, son?” he said. “You remember what Brennan done to Elgin after that game was over?”
Locke swung round and faced the speaker.
“I don’t remember anything at all,” he said, “because, as far as I’m concerned, it never happened. Like the others, Mr. Kennedy, you’ve got me mixed up with another man.”
“Mebbe so,” said old Jack; “but I don’t believe it. Look here, if you ain’t Lefty Locke, the boy who pitched for me when I was handling the Blue Stockings the first of the season, how does it happen that you can go into a game same as you did to-day and pitch like a veteran?”
“That’s one thing I can’t answer,” was the confession. “Of course, you gave me some practice here in the morning, but—”
Kennedy snapped his fingers. “All I gave you didn’t amount to that, unless you knew how to pitch before,” he declared. “No matter how much you remembered, it was what you didn’t seem to remember that was telling you what to do in that game. That’s how you could go in there and win for us. I don’t know where you picked up the name of Stranger, but—”
“I’ve always had that name. I’m a diamond cutter, pal. My folks were rather strait-laced, and I was a wild one. They’re both gone, and I’m alone in the world.”
“That sounds first-rate as fur as it goes,” said Kennedy; “but it don’t go fur. Where was you born, and where was you brung up? You’ve got plenty of folks who know about you, of course. Where be they?”
“I was just trying to think,” said Locke. “Something has made me forget, but I’ll remember to-morrow, perhaps.”
“Hope you do,” said Kennedy. “If you remember, you’ll get it straightened out that I was your manager. The new owner fired me, and Al Carson took my place. Something happened between you and Carson. You didn’t get along. I was watching things in the papers. You was fined and suspended. Then the team was mixed up in that railroad smash, an—”
“Stop!” interrupted Locke, in mingled excitement and confusion. “I can’t follow you as fast as that. No use for me to try.”
“But you remember—you remember now?” persisted Kennedy.
“Not a thing,” was the reply. “I still think you’re mistaken.”
The following morning Kennedy sent a telegram to Al Carson, of the Blue Stockings:
Can tell you where to find your missing pitcher, Locke.
John Kennedy.
By noon he received an answer:
Don’t want to find him. He’s blacklisted for quitting.
Carson.
“Hooray!” said Kennedy, as he thrust the message into his pocket. “I’ve done my duty. They don’t want him. Now I can keep him—unless he gets cured of a sudden, and goes hustling back to them.”
For a time the old manager felt nothing but keenest satisfaction over the situation. Gradually, however, having a conscience, he began to fret and worry. It was all wrong, he told himself, and the fact that Carson was prejudiced and had given Locke a rotten deal did not excuse him for remaining silent under the circumstances and using the youngster to his advantage. If Locke’s mind was affected immediate treatment was what the young man needed—immediate attention by an expert in mental disorders; and Kennedy could not con himself into satisfaction by saying over and over that nothing could be better for Lefty than the peace and quiet of the country, together with an occasional game of baseball to keep awake his interest in a life of action.
“But I’ll wait till Monday, when the Bucks come over here,” he told himself. “That young doctor likely will come along at the same time, and we can talk it over again. I’ve got to have advice.”
In this manner he pacified his troublesome conscience for the time being.
In the afternoon, playing the Stars upon Deering field, the Deers, with Curley on the hillock, had it pretty much their own way. Danger of release had spurred Curley to do his level best, and in all the pinches he pitched with a skill which made his performance one of the finest exhibitions he had ever given in that bush league.
Furthermore, the snatching of the game from the Buccaneers had inspired the Deers with new hope and fire, and they backed Curley up in an errorless manner, and hit well. Not only that, but both Sullivan and Heines, before the game started, had asked to pitch.
Kennedy knew what that meant. The work of Locke, and the probability that some one of the others would get his release, had put them all on their mettle.
“Got ’em now,” thought old Jack; “got ’em where I want ’em. They’ll all work till they drop in the harness, and it’s only up to me to keep watch that I don’t push ’em beyond the limit.”
On the other hand, the Stars were nervous and fearful and altogether too eager. They seemed to realize that the Deers, unless beaten right away, would eventually leap into first place and clinch the championship. A day or two earlier they had feared the Buccaneers most, but the victory of the Deers over the Bucks had brought a new menace to the front; and the former champions, having endured the strain to the seventh inning, went to pieces generally, handing the locals a well-earned but rather staggering victory.
Lefty Locke sat on the bench, again wearing Kennedy’s Blue Stocking uniform. He had warmed up a little, although the manager had scarcely a thought of putting him in under any circumstances; and the visitors had watched him with the utmost interest. For surely an unknown twirler thrown into a game at Hatfield by Kennedy, and able to stop the fierce Buccaneers in their tracks, was a real pitcher.
“I wonder who he really is?” the bushers asked one another. “Stranger—that ain’t his name, never!”
After the game was over, Kennedy, outwardly calm, but inwardly chuckling with satisfaction, made his way to the Central House, where he found Landlord McLaughlin ready to set out the cigars for everybody.
“Well, say, Jack,” called the proprietor, as Kennedy strolled in, mopping his perspiring face, “things have turned our way, sartain. I knowed you could do it if we could only get you to take holt of the team. That there championship is as good as ourn.”
“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched, Peter,” advised Kennedy. “You’ll find the Buccaneers and Hank Bristol still in the game. Of course, they put the Boobs to the mat to-day, but our winning from the Stars keeps us neck and neck with ’em, and ready to step into fust place before we go under the wire at the finish. To-morrow we’ll have a crack at the Boobs, and Monday we get another swing at the Bucks right here to home. Monday I’ll pitch Stranger again. Watch him trim them, if the boys back him up the way they did Curley to-day.”
“Say, Jack,” chuckled the old man behind the cigar counter, as he put forth box after box, “this town is sartain red-hot baseball crazy right now. Talk about Deering being dead! Why, it’s the liveliest little burg between the two oceans. Mark me, next Monday we’ll have out the best crowd that has ever seen a baseball game in these parts.”
From a near-by booth came a sharp call of the telephone bell.
“Mebbe that’s the report of the game at Somerset,” said McLaughlin, leaving the cigars for anybody who wanted them to take one or a handful, and turning toward the booth. “I’ll just see if ’tis, and find out how bad the Buccaneers beat the Boobs.”
He entered the booth, and closed the door. Those outside heard him shouting into the receiver a few minutes later: “What? What’s that? Say it over. Ain’t you got that wrong end to? Well, I swan to man! Good-by.”
The minute he could push open the door and stick his head out, he cried:
“The Bucks have gone up! The Boobs beat ’em four to two. We’re at the head of the league. Hooray!”