Chapter IX: The Training Camp

Delayed by a blizzard, Lefty and Gene Temple did not reach the sleepy little Southern town of Tulane until the second day of the spring training. Kennedy and his crowd of recruits had left for the ball park some time before, so the two belated ones stopped at the hotel only long enough to change into their baseball clothes before following them.

After the bitter cold, the snow and general disagreeableness, which they had left behind so short a time ago, there was an infinite relaxation in the soft, caressing warmth and brilliant sunshine of this Southern clime. The sky was deep blue, and cloudless. The trees were just bursting into bud, their branches covered with a delicate tracery of tender green. From the fresh-plowed fields came the indescribable odor of new-turned earth. Somewhere a bird was caroling joyously.

There was something about it all which sent a thrill through the Blue Stockings’ pitcher, bringing back in a vivid flash the remembrance of this time a year ago, when he had appeared, unknown and unwelcome, at the Texas training camp of the famous Hornets.

His experience there had been fraught with much hard feeling. It was exceptional, to be sure; but it had, nevertheless, been the cause of his looking forward to the trip this year with the reverse of pleasure. He had never actually clothed the dislike with conscious thought. He was not even fully aware of it until this very moment, when, with his blood beginning to tingle in his veins, he drew in the soft, fragrant air in deep gulps, and realized that the prejudice had vanished, that he was glad to be alive and here.

“Pretty slick, isn’t it?” he said aloud, glancing at Temple.

The latter nodded, and answered with a brief affirmative. His face was slightly flushed; his eyes were bright. Lefty smiled a little as he realized that the youngster was just where he had been a year ago――eager, dubious, thrilled with anticipation, devoured with curiosity, and more than a little nervous. It made Locke appear older and amazingly experienced. That single year which separated him from Temple seemed infinitely longer in retrospection than it had been in passing.

Presently the long line of unpainted high board fence showed ahead of them, and instinctively the two players broke into a trot. Neither of them spoke. Their spikes sank into the warm earth. Their eyes were fixed upon the arching spheres of white that curved into view above the fence, to fall swiftly away in swallow flight below that line of dingy boardings.

Through the gate they trotted; then Lefty halted for a moment, eying with interest the busy scene. Scattered over the field were eighteen or twenty men, in uniforms of various sorts, engaged in almost equally varied exercises. Some merely tossed a baseball back and forth slowly, stiffly, and with occasional facial contortions which made Lefty grin sympathetically. He knew from experience the discomfort, almost the torture, of that “second” morning. Half a dozen were passing the medicine ball about a circle. In front of the stand others were batting the slow, straight balls pitched to them by Jack Kennedy himself.

As Locke took it all in, he felt again that tingling thrill of enthusiasm. In spite of the toil and drudgery, the aches and pains and stiffness ahead of him, he saw the distant goal lying beyond everything, and was glad to be here.

“Take it easy, Mac!” sounded in old Jack’s crisp tones. “You may want some of that smoke later on.”

Chuckling, Locke moved forward, closely followed by Temple. A moment later the manager was gripping the southpaw’s hand and asking the inevitable questions in that earnest tone of his which robbed it of its perfunctoriness.

“Fine!” responded Lefty promptly. “Held up by a blizzard north of Washington, but I reckon it won’t take long to catch up with the bunch. This is Gene Temple, Jack.”

Kennedy shook hands with the recruit, his keen dark eyes sweeping over the youngster from head to foot.

“You look pretty fit,” he commented. “A mite soft, maybe, but we’ll soon fix that. Just take my place for a bit. Straight, easy balls, you know. We don’t want any fireworks yet a while.”

Handing over the ball, he stepped aside and watched Temple for a few minutes, correcting him when he seemed to be putting on a little too much speed.

“Hardest thing in the world to keep ’em down at first,” he said, turning to Lefty, with a grim smile. “He won’t hardly be able to move that wing to-morrow morning if he ain’t careful.”

“Don’t I know it!” laughed Locke as they moved a little farther back, where the manager could overlook the entire squad. “Well, how’s tricks? I suppose Nels Savage showed up all right?”

Kennedy flashed a swift, oddly inquiring glance at his premier pitcher.

“What makes you ask that?” he asked briefly.

“Because I’m interested,” was the equally brief answer.

“Hum!” Kennedy’s eyes shifted out across the field. “Easy, there, Coombs! Don’t put too much on the old soup bone!” he yelled. Then he glanced back at Lefty. “I didn’t know he was such a friend o’ yours,” he went on quietly. “It sure didn’t seem so, the way you met up on my porch a couple of weeks ago.”

The southpaw laughed. “We weren’t then,” he explained. “Can’t say that we’re so awful chummy now, either. I just happened to run into him again around New York, and changed the opinion I’d formed of him when we first met.”

“That so?” drawled the manager. “Funny――but I did the same identical thing, only it wasn’t a change for the better. I’m afraid Sackett picked a lemon that time. He’s a booze fighter. I landed here Monday night, and he showed up next morning, full as a tick and devilish! There ain’t any other word to express it. When he’s got a load aboard he’s the limit. I reckon he must have been in that condition when you first ran into him.”

“Guess he was,” returned Lefty. “Jove, that’s mighty hard lines, Jack! Sober, he’s as decent a chap as you’d want around. What are you going to do――ship him back to the sticks?”

Kennedy’s eyes snapped. “Not unless I have to. I’m going to boost him aboard the water wagon, and keep him there. He hasn’t had a drop since he landed here, and I’ll see that he don’t get it. There’s a chance to make something good out of him if he’ll only do a little trying on his own hook, for he’s pretty clever with the horsehide.”

“Don’t you worry about that, Jack,” the pitcher forcibly assured him, a remembrance of Savage’s brief, halting half confession on the train flashing into his mind. “He’ll work with you, all right, or I’ve got him sized up far wrong. I reckon he must be one of those poor devils who let alcohol get a strangle hold, and then can’t shake it off. I’ll do anything I can to help――if you care to have me.”

“Good idea,” agreed Kennedy, pulling out his watch. “I can’t have him in sight every minute. Well, it’s time we were breaking up the morning session. I’ll see you at the hotel, Lefty. I got to chase down and send a wire to Larry. He’s on the road with some theater company, and I haven’t located him yet.”

Turning away, he raised his voice in a stentorian shout: “Everybody run in!” Then he made straight for a horse and buggy hitched in the shadow of the stand.

For a minute or two Lefty stood watching the players as they stopped instantly whatever they were doing and jogged toward the gate. Then, recognizing Savage as one of those who had been in the medicine-ball circle, his eyes brightened, and he moved hastily forward.

He hadn’t the least idea of trying anything so crude as an open attempt at reformation. He simply wanted to say a word of greeting to the man he had taken such a decided interest in; he wished to renew the pleasant intercourse which had been cut off so abruptly that night on the platform of the Hudson River tube. So he ran after the square-shouldered, muscular figure bringing up the rear of the jogging line, and clapped him on the back in a friendly fashion.

“Well, old scout, how goes it?” he cried. “Glad to see you escaped from the wilds of Brooklyn all right.”

The busher stopped abruptly, whirling round with a savage yank that jerked his shoulder from Locke’s light touch.

“Keep your hands off me!” he snarled, glaring balefully from under lowering brows. “What in blazes do you mean, pawing me like that? If we was only away by our two selves I’d knock the dome off you so quick you wouldn’t know what hit you!”

For a moment Lefty stared in utter astonishment at the dark, sneering face, with its snarling lips and evil, glowering eyes. There was no smell of liquor about the fellow; he was absolutely sober.

Suddenly the sting of those unprovoked insults penetrated that mental armor of bewildered amazement. It send the crimson tide of indignation surging into Locke’s face; brought a hard, cold glint into his eyes. A swift side glance told him that the last straggler had almost reached the gate. He took a step forward, and regarded Savage for a moment from under drooping lids.

“You’ve been shooting off considerable hot air since I first saw you,” he remarked coldly. “I’m rather curious to know if there’s anything back of it. We’re never likely to be more alone than we are this minute. Suppose you start in with that licking you’ve been blowing so much about? Come ahead! I’m ready.”