CHAPTER XLIGONE WRONG
Locke muttered a single word of disgust as he rose from the bench and walked toward the pitcher’s slab. On the way he stopped suddenly, staring for an instant toward some teams and automobiles down beyond the far end of the third-base bleachers. Then he walked onward, but some of the flush was gone from his face.
Hutchinson, sitting silent on the bench, had done little toward directing his players. Should the game go against Kingsbridge, as he believed it would, he was prepared to answer criticism by saying that Henry Cope’s interference had made it impossible for him to rely on his own judgment and generalship.
Long before Crandall named the Bancroft pitcher, Hutch was wise to the man. He had likewise observed that Locke did not seem as efficient as usual, although good support had prevented the Bullies from hammering out runs.
“When the break comes,” thought the rascallymanager, “it’s dollars to doughnuts they’ll get his goat for fair.”
The Kingsbridge pitcher looked ill as he found the slab at the beginning of the fifth; his face was pale and set, and there was something like a glare in his eyes. He seemed to be in haste to hand Pat McGovern a pass, pitching one ball after another without pausing to steady down, though both Oulds and Stark begged him to take more time; and not one of the four he threw for Pat even grazed a corner.
Following this, he bored Bernsteine in the ribs, and two men were on the sacks, with no one down. Remembering the first game Locke had pitched on that field, the Kingsbridge crowd declined to be frightened.
“He’ll steady down in a moment,” they said. “Just watch him.”
But in a moment McGovern and Bernsteine each moved up a sack on a weirdly wild pitch to Lisotte.
Hutchinson turned quickly to Ringling.
“Shake the kinks out of your arm, Ring,” he directed. “Hurry up about it.”
Oulds had called Locke, meeting him a few steps in front of the pan.
“What’s biting you now, son?” he growled, heedless of the howling Bancrofters, who were demandingthat the umpire should keep the game going. “You’ve got the wabbles; I don’t believe you can see the rubber.”
He wondered at the look in Tom’s eyes. Locke moistened his dry lips.
“Yes, yes, Oulds,” he said huskily; “I’m all right now.”
“Well, you don’t look it,” retorted Hunchy. “Be you havin’ a fit, or what? You’ve got to stop heavin’ the ball as fast as you can git holt of it. Take your time, now. Don’t let Lisotte bunt; prob’ly he’ll try it. If they start scorin’, they’re li’ble to win the game right here.”
“I tell you I’m all right now,” declared Locke savagely. “Give me the ball.”
“He’s havin’ a reg’ler fit,” muttered the catcher, surrendering the sphere and backing toward his position behind the pan.
Lisotte squared himself again; the coachers talked excitedly, the Bancroft crowd rooted for runs; Kingsbridge was silent. Bernsteine took a long lead off second, and McGovern danced back and forth at third. Locke was taking time at last, apparently trying hard to throw off the feverish wildness that had put him into “a hole.”
Swift, high, and close came the ball to Lisotte, difficult indeed to bunt safely. But the little Canuckdid not try to bunt; instead, as if he knew just what was due, he met the sphere with a snappy swing, driving it humming into the field between center and right.
McGovern danced gayly to the scoring station, Bernsteine following with a rush. There was a wild riot on the Bancroft bleachers, men leaping up and down, flinging their hats into the air and yelling themselves purple in the face; for, with two runs scored, no one out, Locke apparently all to the bad, and Pinwheel Murtel in Big League form, it seemed that the game had been clinched for the Bullies.
Since coming on the field, Tom Locke had been looking for Janet Harting; somehow he was confident she would attend this game. It is likely that thoughts of her had disturbed him and prevented him from concentrating upon the work of pitching, although he had not been aware of it.
Walking out to take his position at the beginning of the fifth, however, his searching eyes discovered her blue parasol, and, beneath it, Janet, sitting at the side of Benton King in the same carriage in which he had first beheld her. As Locke looked, King seemed to be returning his gaze. The pitcher saw Bent lean toward the girl and say something, whereupon both laughed. For thetime being Tom lost his head, greatly to the advantage of the rejoicing Bancrofters.
He knew it; no one on that field knew it better. And nothing could have served better to sober him and bring him to his senses than that wicked, timely line drive by Lisotte. He saw Ringling warming up and Hutchinson talking to Henry Cope, who plainly was not feeling right. Of course, the manager was asking permission—or demanding it—to remove him immediately from the game.
“I’m a fool!” thought Tom. “I have played right into that rascal’s hand.”