CHAPTER XXIII

THERE’S MANY A SLIP

In company with Jean Forsythe, a pretty, breezy Texas girl, Janet reached the baseball park the next afternoon about half past two. They drove down in Jean’s runabout, and the little car had no sooner come to a stop on the turf back of first base than Miss Harting forgot everything but her enthusiasm at the sight she beheld.

The whole field seemed filled with brown-skinned, clear-eyed athletes engaged in the usual practice. A number of them were scattered over the diamond in their regular positions, while some one batted to them. At a little distance others were practicing bunting. Back by the grandstand an old pitcher was warming up easily. Farther on a couple of cub twirlers were doing the same thing, with much more snap and speed. The crack of wood meeting leather sounded rhythmically, intermingled with shouts and joshing laughter. Balls curved gracefully into the sunlight. The air was soft and balmy, and full of the fragrance of growing things. The sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue, and it was springtime.

As the girl’s eyes took in the scene, her heart began to beat a little unevenly; her gloved hands lay quietly in her lap, the fingers tightly interlaced.

“It’s splendid!” she whispered to herself.

It was deeply interesting to one who could delve beneath the surface, and see a little of what lay under that smiling, sunny crust. Here was a veteran whose name was famous from sea to sea, and to whom baseball was the very breath of life, struggling with every fiber of his being against the inevitable. Perhaps no one else had a suspicion that he was passing his prime, but some day――and that soon――his throwing arm would lose its vigor, or his legs fail to take him down to first in the marvelous way they had done for years. After that the toboggan slide; back to the minors for a while, and then to the scrap heap.

To the seeing mind the field was full of little tragedies like this, which might seem cruel, but which were really inevitable. There is no sentiment in professional baseball. One unvarying law of the Big League is the survival of the fittest. As long as a man can fill a position a little better than any other player the manager can secure――and that individual is always on the lookout for new material――he stays on the crest of the wave. Once let him slip back a very little, however, and he sinks beneath the surface, never, or at least rarely, to struggle into sight again.

Happily Janet did not realize all of this, though perhaps she sensed intuitively a little of the hopes and fears, the jealousies and heartburnings, which were inevitable in such a gathering. Presently she saw Lefty waving to her, and answered him with a quick smile and nod. A little later, when the game began, he hastened over to the car, bringing Buck Fargo with him; for he was anxious that his friend should meet the two girls.

The big backstop could stay only a moment, but Lefty remained for several innings, enjoying the enthusiasm of the girls over the game. Toward the end of the fourth inning, however, he arose reluctantly from where he had been sitting on the step of the car.

“I’ll have to start warming up,” he explained. “They’re going to put me in with the beginning of the seventh.”

They both smilingly urged him to win the game for the cubs, said they would wait for him afterward, and watched him cross the field with a lithe, springy step.

“He’s fine, isn’t he?” remarked Jean Forsythe enthusiastically. “I like that Mr. Fargo, too. Where’s the other one you were telling me about? I wonder he doesn’t come over.”

Janet had been wondering herself. Quite early in the game she had picked out Bert Elgin over by the grandstand pitching to one of the youngsters who was not playing. It seemed rather odd that he could not spare a moment to run over and see them.

“Oh, he’s warming up,” she explained carelessly. “He’s going in with the regulars at the seventh inning. It’ll be awfully exciting to see which does the better.”

Lefty talked for a moment or two with Al Ogan, and then, corralling a fellow to catch for him, started to limber up his arm. He felt that he had never been in better form, and the realization inspired him. So far the game was very close, for the Yannigans were having a streak of hitting, of which they took every advantage, so that they were one run to the good at the end of the fourth inning.

If Lefty could help them win the game it would be a triumph, indeed, and would more than atone for his losing the first time.

At the end of the fifth inning the score remained unchanged. In the last half of the sixth, however, the regulars secured the tying run. A little later Lefty slipped into his sweater, walked to the bench, and sat down. Elgin had stopped warming up a moment or two before, and stood near; but neither paid any attention to the other.

As the inning ended, Lefty saw Jim Brennan beckon to Ogan and engage him in conversation. He seemed to be laying down the law in that sharp, decisive manner of his, and something in the cub captain’s face sent a momentary thrill of apprehension through the southpaw.

He thrust it from him, however, and when Ogan finally turned away from the manager and walked slowly in, Lefty moved to meet him.

“Old man changed his plans?” the cub pitcher asked carelessly.

Something, he knew not what, prompted him to put the question. It never really occurred to him that Brennan had changed his mind, but afterward he was more than thankful that the suggestion had come from him.

“Yes!” snapped Ogan. “He wants Redmond to go in. I told him I’d promised you, and Redmond’s arm wasn’t limbered up, but that didn’t make any difference. Sorry, old fellow, but I’ll make it up to you another time.”

Lefty turned away with a shrug, and tossed his glove up, catching it deftly as it fell. Then he laughed. Ogan could have no idea, of course, how difficult it was to make that laugh sound natural.

“Sure!” Lefty said lightly. “You won’t want me at all, then?”

“Not this afternoon. I’ll put you in to-morrow, though, if it takes a leg.”

He passed on toward the bench, leaving Locke to follow more slowly, his face still indifferent, but his mind full of bitter disappointment. To-morrow! That promise was poor consolation when he had set his heart on pitching to-day. He would never have another chance like this to pit himself against Bert Elgin.

The next instant he raised his head and met Elgin’s eyes fixed upon his face with a look of malicious satisfaction. For a fraction of a second Lefty stared. Then he smiled, and, turning, made his way straight toward the runabout containing the two girls.

It had suddenly come to him that he would have to go back and explain to them. He hated the necessity intensely; but, since it had to be done, it might as well be gotten over swiftly.