or I’ll drive it straight through the meridian of your anatomy!’
“Let me tell you now, mate, that Breck was a gentleman, and that was the first and only time I ever knew him to lose his temper. Under the circumstances, he was excusable. I put all my nerve-shattering steam into the next pitch, and, instead of dropping, the ball hopped over his bat when he smote at it. I had fanned the mighty Breckenridge, and the wondering crowd lifted their voices in hosannas. Yet I know they regarded it in the nature of an accident, and not until I had whiffed him three times more in the same game did either Breck or the spectators arrive at the conviction that I had something on him.
“After that,” said the narrator, as if in conclusion, “I had him eating out of my hand right up to the final and decisive game of the season.”
Weegman begged the fanciful romancer to tell what happened in the last game.
“Oh, we won,” was the assurance; “but we never would have if Breck had been wise the last time he came to bat. It was in the ninth inning, with the score three to two in our favor, two down, and runners on second and third. Knowing it was Breck’s turn to hit, I was confident we had the game sewed up. But the confidence oozed out of me all of a sudden when I saw the big fellow paw the clubs over to select a bat other than his own. Clammy perspiration started forth from every pore of my body. With any other swat stick beside his own, I knew he was practically sure to drive any ball I could pitch him over the fence. The agony of apprehension which I endured at that moment gave me my first gray hairs.
“Although I did not know it at the time, it chanced that Breck had selected the bat of another player who had had it bored and loaded with an ordinary steel rod. This, you can clearly understand, made it more than doubly certain that he would hit the magnetized ball, which would be attracted instead of repelled. Had I known this, I shouldn’t have had the heart to pitch at all.
“As the noble warrior stood up to the pan, I considered what I could pitch him. Curves could not fool him, and he literally ate speed. Therefore, without hope, I tossed him up a slow one. Now it chanced that the old boy had decided to try a surprise, having become disheartened by his efforts to slug; he had resolved to attempt to bunt, knowing such a move would be unexpected. So he merely stuck out his bat as the sphere came sailing over. The magnet was attracted by the steel rod, and the ball just jumped at the bat, against which it struck–and stuck! I hope never to tell the truth again, mate, if I’m not stating a simple, unadulterated, unvarnished fact. The moment the ball touched the bat it stuck fast to it as if nailed there. Breck was so astonished that he stood in his tracks staring at the ball like a man turned to stone. I was likewise paralyzed for an extemporaneous fraction of time, but my ready wit quickly availed me. Bounding forward, I wrenched the ball from the bat and tagged old Breck with it, appealing to the umpire for judgment. There was only one thing his umps could do. He had seen the batter attempt to bunt, had seen bat and ball meet, and had seen me secure the ball on fair ground and put it on to the hitter. He declared Breckenridge out, and that gave us the game and the championship.”
Bailey Weegman lay back and roared. In doing so, he seemed to perceive Lefty for the first time. As soon as he could get his breath, he said:
“Oh, I say, Locke, let me introduce you. This is Cap’n Wiley, owner and manager of the Wind Jammers.”
CHAPTER V
A MAN OF MYSTERY
The swarthy little fabulist rose hastily to his feet, making a quick survey of the southpaw. “Am I indeed and at last in the presence of the great Lefty Locke?” he cried, his face beaming like the morning sun in a cloudless sky. “Is it possible that after many weary moons I have dropped anchor in the same harbor with the most salubriously efficacious port-side flinger of modern times? Pardon my deep emotion! Slip me your mudhook, Lefty; let me give you the fraternal grip.”
He grabbed Locke’s hand and wrung it vigorously, while the other members of the Wind Jammers pressed nearer, looking the Big League pitcher over with interest.
“In many a frozen igloo,” declared Wiley, “I have dreamed of this day when I should press your lily-white fingers. Oft and anon during my weary sojourn in that far land of snow and ice have I pictured to myself the hour when we should stand face to face and exchange genuflections and greetings. And whenever a smooched and tattered months-old newspaper would drift in from civilization, with what eager and expectant thrills did I tremulously turn to the baseball page that I might perchance read thereon how you had stung the Hornets, bitten the Wolves, clipped the claws of the Panthers, or plucked the feathers from the White Wings!”
“And I have been wondering,” confessed Lefty, “if you could be the original Cap’n Wiley of whom I heard so many strange tales in my boyhood. It was reported that you were dead.”
“Many a time and oft hath that canard been circulated. According to rumor, I have demised a dozen times or more by land and sea; but each time, like the fabled Phœnix, I have risen from my ashes. During the last few fleeting years I have been in pursuit of fickle fortune in far-off Alaska, where it was sometimes so extremely cold that fire froze and we cracked up the congealed flames into little chunks which we sold to the Chilkoots and Siwashes as precious bright red stones. Strange to say, whenever I have related this little nanny goat it has been received with skepticism and incredulity. The world is congested with doubters.”
“When you wrote me,” admitted Locke, “proposing to bring your Wind Jammers here to play the Fernandon Grays, I thought the letter was a hoax. At first I was tempted not to answer it, and when I did reply it was out of curiosity more than anything else; I wanted to see what the next twist of the joke would be.”
“Let me assure you that you will find playing against the Wind Jammers no joke. I have conglomerated together the fastest segregation of baseball stars ever seen outside a major league circuit, and I say it with becoming and blushing modesty. Look them over,” he invited, with a proud wave of his hand toward the remarkable group of listeners. “It has always been my contention that there are just as good players to be found outside the Big League as ever wore the uniform of a major. I have held that hard luck, frowning fate, or contumelious circumstances have conspired to hold these natural-born stars down and prevent their names from being chiseled on the tablet of fame. Having gathered unto myself a few slippery shekels from my mining ventures in the land where baseball games begin at the hour of midnight, I have now set out to prove my theory, and before I am through I expect to have all balldom sitting up agog and gasping with wonderment.”
“I wish you luck,” replied Lefty. “If you don’t do anything else, you ought to get some sport out of it. I presume you still ascend the mound as a pitcher?”
“Oh,” was the airy answer, “on rare occasions I give the gaping populace a treat by propelling the sphere through the atmosphere. When my projector is working up to its old-time form, I find little difficulty in leading the most formidable batters to vainly slash the vacant ether. The weather seeming propitious, I may burn a few over this p.m. I trust you will pitch also.”
“I think I shall start the game, at least.”
Bailey Weegman butted in. “But he won’t finish it, Wiley. Like yourself, he’s not doing as much pitching as he did once.” His laugh was significant.
The owner of the Wind Jammers looked startled. “Tell me not in mournful numbers that your star is already on the decline!” he exclaimed, looking at Locke with regret. “That’s what the Big Leagues do to a good man; they burn him out like a pitch-pine knot. I’ve felt all along that the Blue Stockings were working you too much, Lefty. Without you on their roster ready to work three or four times a week in the pinches, they never could have kept in the running.”
“You’re more than complimentary,”
