Chapter XIX: A Thing Incredible

It was not strange that Lefty gasped and stared in utter amazement. The thing was uncanny――impossible! It made him feel for an instant as if something had happened to his brain――some twist or kink in the nerves of vision. In the flash of time before he got a grip on himself he felt vividly the staggering nature of such a thing happening at the crucial moment of a real game instead of a time like this, when nothing really mattered.

“Great Scott, Lefty,” came suddenly from Dalton, in a decidedly peevish voice, “you’re certainly a pippin, throwing away the game like that! Why didn’t you come out of your trance and baste that last one? It cut the pan in halves.”

Locke swung his bat carelessly in the direction of the pile, and turned to his chum, with a laugh.

“Sorry, old man,” he said. “That curve fooled me, that’s all.”

He made no effort to lower his voice, glancing coolly at Savage, who was coming in from the box. The pitcher’s eyes held a gleam of triumph and derision, which brought a touch of color to Lefty’s face, and roused in him a longing to get even with this fellow for the humiliation.

“Curve!” cried Dalton. “It was straight, and it didn’t have anything on it but the cover.”

The southpaw moved closer to his friend. His manner was casual and indifferent, but in his eyes was a look of earnestness which instantly caught the infielder’s attention and held it.

“Nothing on it!” murmured Locke lightly. “Larry, if Savage could turn that trick at will, he’d be the greatest pitcher the world has ever seen.”

He paused an instant and glanced around. Most of the players were heading toward the gate, for it was after eleven, and they were in a hurry for their shower, rubdown, and lunch. Dillon stood at a little distance, however, talking with Kennedy, while Kid Lewis was staring at the southpaw from near the bench. Catching his eye, Lefty waved him over.

“You don’t understand what I mean, Larry,” Lefty said, in a low tone. “Nobody could who hadn’t been through the same thing. Don’t ask any questions until I’ve talked with Kid; then I’ll tell you all about it.”

Without waiting for Dalton to speak, Lefty turned toward the approaching shortstop.

“Say, Kid,” he asked lightly, “what’s the matter with your eyes? How’d it happen you didn’t swing when Savage whipped over a straight one twice for the third strike?”

The shortstop’s eyes narrowed, and he scowled. “See here, Locke,” he snapped, in the tone of one driven to the limit of irritability, “do I look weak in the garret? Anybody ever hint I was ready for the foolish foundry? There ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes; they was examined by the best doctor in New York, and found O. K. Savage balked both times Dillon called me out. I saw him wind up and stop, glaring at me like he could chaw me up; he didn’t pitch the ball either time. Torrey smacks his fist into his mitt, and then shows another ball. Then everybody tries to make me think I’ve been asleep. Fine work! Nice little joke! But I never thought Kennedy would stand in on anything so piffling and childish.”

His jaws snapped shut over the last words like the slam of a door in a person’s face; turning on his heel, he marched off across the field. As Grist had remarked that afternoon, the shortstop was prone to make excuses for poor stickwork and errors, but aside from that he was a decent, good-natured chap. Evidently the supposed trick, with its resulting banter, had worked him up to the point of exploding, Lefty’s question being all that was needed to fire the fuse.

“What’s it all about?” Dalton suddenly inquired. “Don’t keep a fellow in suspenders. What’s all this bunk about a game being put up on Kid? Is he crazy, or just sore?”

Lefty turned to his friend, his face serious. “It’s simply this, Larry: Three times to-day――twice with Lewis, and once with me――Savage has pitched a ball the batter couldn’t see.”

“Couldn’t see! You mean he sneaked it over?”

“Nothing of the sort. I mean, from the batter’s point of view, the ball was invisible.”

Dalton’s jaw sagged, and he stared oddly at his friend. “You don’t happen to be――in earnest, do you?” he asked, in a queer voice.

“Quite,” Locke smiled faintly. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s a fact. Listen now, and I’ll tell you.”

When he had finished a brief, but comprehensive, account of the inexplicable incident Dalton’s mouth and eyes were open to their widest extent.

“Queerest thing I ever heard tell of,” he commented dazedly at last, running the fingers of one hand through his thick, curly hair. “I don’t mean to doubt your word, old man, but――an invisible ball! Why, that’s wilder than the worst nature fake ever doped out by a cub reporter. You haven’t thought of any sane explanation of the thing, have you?”

Lefty hesitated, a slight flush creeping into his face. “I don’t know whether you’d call it sane or not,” he answered slowly, feeling decidedly foolish and fully expecting his friend to burst into a roar of derisive laughter, “but it’s the only one I can think of. Do you suppose he could have done it by――some sort of hypnotism?”

“Hypnotism!” exclaimed Dalton. “Why, look at the distance he was away from you! How the deuce could he pull off a stunt like that? They always have to look you square in the eyes and make a lot of motions with their hands, and all that.”

“Not always. I don’t know much about it except the little I’ve read, but it is claimed that sometimes Oriental magicians can hypnotize a whole crowd at once, and make them believe something is happening which isn’t at all. Of course, Savage isn’t an East Indian, but he’s certainly got queer eyes that make you think he might do things like that.”

“You’ve got me,” Dalton admitted in a bewildered tone. “When you come to discussing East Indian wizards and their tricks, just count me out; I don’t know anything about ’em.”

He paused an instant, a smile struggling through the puzzled lines in his face. “If the same thing hadn’t happened to two of you,” he went on, his eyes twinkling, “I’d have laid it to a touch of biliousness. That puts a chap on the bum as quick as anything. As it is, though―― Look here, Lefty, Jack Stillman’s got a head on his shoulders. He’s heading this way now. You don’t mind his knowing, do you?”

Locke shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, I suppose not,” he returned slowly. “I’m not keen about having every one know the kind of trick that was put over on me.”

To tell the truth, the southpaw was humiliated by the possibility that he had been hypnotized by such a character as Nelson Savage. It was only natural, of course. No man cares to admit that he can be, even for a moment, brought under the influence of another person. There is a general conviction, which is much more widespread than true, that such succumbing is proof of a weaker intellect. It was this feeling that brought to the southpaw a sense of shame――concealed under the guise of light indifference, but none the less poignant――and made him disposed to shrink from telling even so close a friend as the newspaper man.