CHAPTER XXVII

A CHANCE TO MAKE GOOD

Jack Stillman lolled in the big cushioned chair, his eyes fixed on the backs of two men, carrying suitcases, who were just leaving the hotel in company with half a dozen of their fellow players.

“Back to the hay fields for yours,” he murmured sardonically. “Another couple of years, and you may be ready for fast company. This is the beginning of the exodus, Lefty.”

For an instant Locke’s face was rather serious. Then he smiled faintly.

“You’re a stony-hearted ruffian, Jack,” he said. “I feel sorry for them. After working hard and getting your hopes away up, it’s a beastly disappointment to be told you haven’t made good. I suppose you’ll think it’s a joke when I pack my little bag and go forth into the cold world.”

“I’d laugh myself sick,” chuckled the newspaper man. “At present, however, I don’t see any chance of that coming about. At the risk of giving you a swelled head, I’ll tell you, old chap, that you’re liable to stick around.”

“This from the oracle!” laughed the southpaw. “I’m overwhelmed. But seriously, Jack, if I have improved a little, so has Bert Elgin. Of course, I’d never admit it to any one else, but it’s my private opinion that he’s the better pitcher.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Stillman returned decidedly. “There’s no denying that Elgin’s good. He’s got speed and fine curves and very fair control, but the combination of all three doesn’t always make a first-class pitcher. He’s got to pitch with his brain as well as his arm, and he’s got to have plenty of nerve, both of which qualities I’ve noticed in you. I’m curious to see what Elgin will do when he’s up against a real team.”

“Well, I hope the old man agrees with you,” Lefty returned. “It looks to me as if it would be a fight between us two as to which will be kept and which farmed out.”

“Why shouldn’t he keep you both?” the newspaper man inquired.

“Look at the corking bunch of regulars he has already,” Locke protested.

Stillman laughed. “Haven’t you got wise yet to the fact that a team can’t have too many good twirlers? A Big League season is a whole lot different from the ball you played last summer. It begins in April, and doesn’t end till October. It’s fight, fight, fight, week after week, month after month, with the knowledge that a single game, a single inning, sometimes even a single play, may start a slump. It’s hard, grilling work, and Brennan knows well that any minute one of his star twirlers may be down and out. He’s not running any chances, and you take my word for it that, if you and Elgin don’t fall down, he’ll keep you both.”

“You’re a real comfort, Jack,” Lefty said. “I’ll try not to slump. Wish I knew who was going on to the slab first to-morrow.”

“Don’t you?” the reporter asked, with sudden interest. “I thought he picked the team this afternoon.”

“So he did, all but the battery. Perhaps we’ll hear before bedtime. I’d sure like to go in. This will be rather different from the usual practice game.”

Stillman nodded emphatically. “You bet your boots! The first game with an outside team is usually an eye-opener. You fellows think you’re pretty hot stuff because you’ve trimmed the regulars a few times, forgetting that the old men take things so easy during training season that you’d hardly know they were working at all. Cy Russell lets you hit him a dozen times in a game; so does old Pop. I’ve seen you fan Dutch Siegrist twice running. Do you s’pose you could do that a month from now? Forget it! This game to-morrow is going to be a jolt for some lads, if what I hear about that wild Texas bunch is right. I wonder the old man would consent to a match so early. They usually aren’t pulled off till just before we start north.”

“Buck told me their manager had sent in a challenge, and the chief didn’t feel like turning it down,” Lefty remarked. “I s’pose he didn’t want to give ’em a chance to crow.”

“Very likely. Well, it’ll be some fun, anyhow. I understand their pitcher has a reputation for rough-and-ready baseball. I’ll be hanged, old man, if I wouldn’t be just as well pleased to see Elgin up against that sort of thing if I were you.”

“I’ll take a chance,” Lefty laughed. “I’ve been up against some tough characters before, and perhaps even this Texas steer can’t put much over me.”

“That remains to be seen,” chuckled Stillman. “The old man’s heading this way with Ogan, and from the expression on his face I should say you’d been chosen for the goat.”

His surmise proved to be correct.

“You’ll start the game to-morrow, Locke,” the manager said abruptly, as he halted by Lefty’s chair. “I’m told this Schaeffer is a roughneck, so look out for squalls. No matter what he does, don’t let him badger you into anything. I’ll see to it that he’s kept within bounds, but them kind of ball players is so full of tricks you can’t catch ’em all. You and Ogan and Fargo better get together to-night and fix up your signals.”

After Lefty and the cub captain had departed to hunt up their backstop, Jim Brennan stood for a moment looking at Stillman out of the corner of his eye. The latter was one of the few reporters with the squad that year who knew baseball from the ground up, and the stories he sent home to his paper usually had the manager’s entire approval.

“You don’t seem much fretted about putting your cubs up against this young sagebrush fellow,” the newspaper man remarked presently.

Brennan’s eyes twinkled a bit.

“I ain’t,” he admitted. “Likely they’ll get the pants licked off ’em, but that’ll do ’em good.”