CHAPTER IXSOME PITCHING!
There was a change in the aspect of the crowd and its behavior, for this was more like something worth while, and a few were beginning to think it possible they might have underestimated the ability of the southpaw slabman. Yet, lost confidence had not been wholly restored, and they waited to see what the final result would be, the Kingsbridgers silent, the Bancroft crowd still laughing and scoffing.
“Never mind, Wop,” called the coacher at third. “He can’t do it agin. If he does, give it a ride. Come on, Trollop; git off that mattress—tear yourself free. On your toes! Ready to scorch if Wop biffs it. Git away, away, away off! More than that! I’ll watch the ball. Come on! Come on!”
Locke drove Trollop back to the sack once, following which he quickly pitched the third ball to Grady. He had a way of throwing every one in almost precisely the same manner, which prevented a batter from judging what was coming byhis style of delivery. It looked like another high one that might turn into a drop, but it proved to be a fancy inshoot, and Grady, doing his prettiest to connect, made a clean miss.
“Y’u’re out!” barked the umpire.
Then the crowd did cheer, for, in amazing contrast to the manner in which he had opened up, Tom Locke had whiffed Grady without wasting one.
Henry Cope poked the silent Hutchinson in the ribs. “What’d I tell ye? What’d I tell ye?” he spluttered delightedly. “Now I guess you’ll see I ain’t such a bonehead in pickin’ pitchers. I played this game myself once.”
“Wait,” said the manager without a flutter, or the slightest variation of intonation. “Strikin’ out one man that’s looking to walk don’t make a pitcher. He’s got to show me more’n that.”
“He’ll show ye, all right,” asserted Cope. “I knew what he c’d do.”
Gus Mace followed Grady at the pan. The right fielder of the Bullies, he was regarded as their heaviest hitter, and his batting the year before had caused the Kingsbridgers to groan with grief. He was boiling over with confidence as he faced Locke, but, getting a signal from Riley, he let the first one pass, in order that Trollop, grownweary of camping on first, might try to steal.
It was a strike, and Oulds winged it to second in the effort to nail the runner, who had made a flying start and was burning up the ground. Trollop slid, spikes first, and Stark, who seemed to have him nipped, dropped the sphere in the attempt to avoid those spikes and tag the man at the same time. Trollop was safe.
“Now’s the time, Mace!” cried the coacher back of third. “Hit it out. Give it a long sail, and let Andy walk home.” He had dropped his chatter about waiting for a pass.
Mace gripped his trusty war club and waited, crouching a little. It was plain that the Kinks’ new pitcher had recovered his control, and the batter meant to hit anything that came across. He struck left-handed, and the next one pitched looked good to him. It dragged him almost across the pan, and he did not even foul it lightly.
A sharp yell went up from the once-more vibrant and excited crowd, but this time it was a yell of satisfaction. Choking, agitated men began to predict that Lefty would fan Mace, also.
“If he does,” said one, “I’m goin’ to throw a fit right here! I’ll own up honest that I’m the biggest fool that ever barked like a sore-eared pup at a good man.”
The Bancrofters were still trying hard to rattle Locke, but now, absolutely cool, self-possessed, and confident, he gave no more heed to their racket than he might to the buzzing of a single fly. There was something in his clean-cut face, his steady eyes, firm mouth, and deliberate manner which proclaimed him absolute master of himself, and predicted that he also would show himself master of the situation.
Oulds, his confidence completely restored, grinned through the meshes of the wire mask. “I reckon you was jest monkeyin’ with ’em boy,” he said. “They’ll all look alike to ye from now on. This one’s jest as easy as any.”
And so it proved, for Big Mace slashed again, and found nothing but empty air; whereupon the Kingsbridge crowd rose in a body and roared a splendid salvo for the man they had been reviling and threatening a short time before.
As that burst of applause died away, a Neapolitan laborer, standing on the bleachers, his shirt open at the throat, the oily, blue-black hair of his bared head shining in the sun, his kindled eyes almost popping, and his teeth flashing like scimitars, shook his grimy fists in the air, and screamed:
“What’s-a da mat’ with-a da Lefty?”
The answer was a great shout of laughter, andanother hearty round of applause, which told how suddenly and completely the humor of that recently raging and reviling assemblage had altered. He whom a few minutes before they were deriding and threatening, had, by his amazing performance, become the admired idol of the moment, the Horatius at the bridge, the Moses to find the promised land.
They were more than willing to accept him as king of warriors and savior of wilderness wanderers, but to retain his scepter he must still further demonstrate his prowess in battle or his ability to smite a dry-shod pathway across a mythical Red Sea.