Chapter XVIII: The Vanishing Ball

“Don’t get sore and do the baby act,” Dillon admonished. “You’re out, and there’s no sense howling about it.”

“If you say so, I suppose it goes, Pink,” sneered Lewis; “but it’s a raw deal or a bum joke. You know the ball wasn’t pitched. This gink catching flashed another ball, and――”

“Be a sport, Kid, for the love of Mike!” interrupted Torrey, the catcher. He had taken off his mask, and was busy adjusting the strap. “Pulling off a string of guff like that don’t get you anywhere.”

Lewis glared at him, and swallowed hard. He seemed about to retort when Dalton sharply ordered him to cut it out.

“That’ll be about all for you, Kid,” he said. “Quit holding up the game. Now, Gene, old boy, just put a little something on the ball, and show these infants what they’re up against.”

Lefty could not help smiling a little as he saw Lewis slouch sourly out to his place in the infield, scowling and kicking up the dirt for all the world like a child who has been scolded.

“Too bad for anybody to take these little games seriously,” he remarked to Pete Grist, beside him.

The veteran of the pitching staff absently cuddled a stiff elbow, and nodded. “That’s one of Kid’s failings. He certainly is there with the alibis whenever he goes wrong at bat.”

The unexpected rally on the part of their pitcher heartened the cubs to such a degree that they hammered out two runs in the first half of the third, and would have made more only for a bit of swift fielding on the part of Larry Dalton.

Taking their turn at bat, the Regulars managed to force one man across the rubber before they, too, were brought up sharply by clever work in the infield.

“Some kid――that playing third,” remarked Grist approvingly. “What’s his name?”

“Palsifer――Tap they call him,” Locke explained. “He’s from the Southern League. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jack was thinking of him for Daly’s place.”

The old pitcher nodded understandingly. Third base was one of the positions everybody felt to be weak, and throughout the remainder of the game Grist kept an eye on this promising youngster.

In the fourth inning Temple slumped distinctly, letting the Yannigans hit him right and left. Had it not been for the admirable support given him by the Regulars, the cubs would have sewed the game up in a sack then and there. As it was, the score stood three to one in their favor, a rather surprising thing, considering the efforts which were being made by the older men.

Nels Savage, on the contrary, distinctly improved. Apparently he was making no greater effort than before, and the insolent indifference of his manner continued unabated. In spite of all this, there was no question of his better form. In the last half of the fourth he struck out two men, the first of whom was Lewis, who again started to raise a protest that the ball had not been pitched. He was promptly squelched by Dalton, who was also beginning to show signs of pettishness. As Lewis passed Lefty, scowling and angry, the southpaw hailed him.

“What sort of a game is that you’re trying to put over, Kid?” he bantered.

Lewis glared. “It ain’t a game! It’s gospel. Dillon called me out twice on a third strike when Savage hadn’t made a move to deliver the ball. They put up a job on me, that’s what they done. What in thunder’s the matter with Pink I don’t know, but――”

“Say,” interrupted Locke suddenly, “you aren’t really serious? You sure can’t mean to say you didn’t see that ball come over?”

“Didn’t see it!” repeated Lewis angrily. “How could I see it when there wasn’t any to see? I tell you, the gink didn’t make a move to――”

“Don’t talk nutty, Kid!” admonished Grist. “Lefty and I saw it as plain as you could see the ball he just pitched to Douro. What’s the sense in talking like that?”

Lewis refused to argue further. He turned and departed, leaving Locke, at least, slightly puzzled by his manner. It seemed impossible that he could really mean what he said, yet there was a convincing touch of earnestness in the heat of his temper.

Lefty and Grist were still discussing the question when Kennedy’s voice sounded behind them:

“Locke, get out there and pitch the last inning. They’ve got Temple sweating blood, and the rest of the staff are about the worst-bunged-up lot of cripples I ever saw.”

The southpaw was glad of a chance to use his arm even for a single inning. He limbered up a bit, and by the time the last Regular had flied out to the cub center fielder he was quite ready.

Trusting mainly to his support, Lefty kept down the Yannigans’ score. With the arrival of the final half of the inning Locke felt a sudden desire to put his batting skill to the test of Savage’s pitching. Of course, what Lewis contended was absolutely absurd, but it would be interesting to see what the fellow had.

As man after man stepped to the plate and left it either for the bench or in the direction of first, Lefty’s interest in the proceedings became greater. In a vague way, he felt as if he were waiting for something unusual which was presently to take place, and even when another tally was scored that feeling continued unabated.

Two men were out, and there was a runner on second. Lefty had a feeling that the batter would be put out and the game ended without his going up. It was Larry Dalton’s voice urging him to hustle, rather than the crack of leather meeting wood, which brought the realization that he had not guessed right. He snatched up a bat at random, and hurried to the plate.

Seen from this particular part of the diamond, Lefty decided that the sagebrush twirler’s sneering countenance was more disagreeable than even he had supposed. The uptilt of the lips, the slow, insolent, heavy-lidded glance, the dragging, maddening deliberation of movement were all emphasized; and all combined to arouse deep irritation. Locke felt a sudden desire to plant a fist on those sneering lips. With difficulty he pulled himself together, realizing with a flush of chagrin that Savage had put a strike over.

“Careful, old man!” cautioned Dalton. It was Lefty’s carelessness and inattention which had made that first strike possible. He would see to it that there was no more of that. He stood waiting, tense and ready, his gaze fixed keenly on the narrow slits through which gleamed the Westerner’s strange, baleful eyes.

Savage’s movements were very slow. A ball was put over――another, and another still. To Locke the time consumed had been so everlasting that he wondered for a moment if it wasn’t four, and why he did not hear the order to take his base.

The last delivery had been so wild that it was all Torrey could do to pull the ball down. The horsehide slipped from his grasp and rolled toward the rubber, where Locke bent and picked it up. He held it for a second in his hand before snapping it out to Savage with a force which was a wordless protest against the busher’s unnecessary slowness; and, great as was his abstraction, he remembered noticing along one side of the sphere a streak which was half cut, half scratch, as if the leather had scraped against a sharp stone.

If this was the method followed by Savage in regular games, he would be hooted every time he appeared on the field. The fans like snap and ginger above all else in a player. No umpire would permit it. That everlasting stare, too, was annoying. Lefty began to wish the busher would look in another direction, if only for a moment.

Presently he looked down himself to see whether he had inadvertently stepped too far forward. Before he glanced up again the ball, whizzing over, buried itself in the catcher’s mitt; and Dillon’s voice, full of a most unprofessional admonition, announced:

“Two――and three!”

Flushing, Lefty straightened his shoulders and tapped the rubber with his bat. What could have induced him to be so careless he did not know. He was quite sure, though, that it wouldn’t occur again.

With eyes unwavering, he waited. Every movement of the pitcher’s dragging wind-up was impressed vividly on his mind. In the midst of that movement Savage seemed to pause and remain set, poised and motionless. Lefty was contemplating demanding judgment on a balk, when the unmistakable plunk of something hard smashing against the catcher’s mitt made him catch his breath and whirl round.

“Batter――out!” cried Dalton. Under his breath he growled scathingly: “Oh――you――big――bonehead!”

Lefty paid no attention to this uncomplimentary remark. In fact, it is doubtful if he heard it. He was staring unbelievingly at a soiled baseball lying in the hollow of Torrey’s mitt――a ball which bore on the uppermost side a long streak――_the_ ball which he had held in his hand a few minutes before!