DROPPED OUT OF SIGHT
The quickness with which a man can be forgotten is never flattering to
his self-esteem. For a full month Lefty Locke had been a member of the
Hornets’ training camp squad. During all that time he had been well
liked by the majority of the older men, and admitted by some to terms
of intimacy which are rarely accorded a new recruit. Ever since the
strenuous contest with the team of Texas bushers his fellow cubs had
also made him one of them in every sense of the word.
Then came the catastrophe. For a brief space his name was in every
mouth. The players took sides on the question of Brennan’s judgment,
some contending that the manager was right, others voicing their
continued faith in the disgraced player.
But with the departure of Locke from Ashland, followed swiftly by
that of the entire squad, the subject soon palled. There was so much
else of vital personal interest that even those who had championed
the unfortunate pitcher’s cause became more and more indifferent.
Some, even, hearing the cleverly phrased traducements which Bert Elgin
never lost a chance to utter regarding his former rival, came to the
conclusion that they had been deceived. Jim Brennan rarely made a
mistake in sizing up a man. There must, after all, have been a yellow
streak in the young pitcher which he successfully concealed from all
save the lynx-eyed manager.
So at the end of one short week it is doubtful whether more than three
men out of all that number wasted a single thought on the youngster who
had, a brief time before, been so popular with them.
Buck Fargo did not forget; he was not built that way. Esteemed as
he was among players generally, and adored by the fans, it was,
nevertheless, a fact that the big backstop did not usually make friends
quickly――that is, what he called real friends, as opposed to pleasant
but casual acquaintances.
Somehow, Lefty had attracted him from the first. He liked the way the
boy had taken Elgin’s part that night at the Palace Theater and stood
up unflinchingly against heavy odds. He liked Locke’s attitude with his
fellow recruits when they started the boycott against him early in the
season. The way the southpaw set out to conquer his faults and improve
his playing appealed strongly to Fargo, who had been obliged to labor
quite as steadily and strenuously himself before reaching his present
enviable position. And when, little by little, he had come to know the
youngster better, the Big Leaguer’s liking changed to something deeper
and more abiding, which made it quite impossible for him to forget.
At first he had been openly angry. He berated Brennan for a blind
idiot, and had to be forcibly restrained from punching Elgin’s head.
Then he wanted Lefty to stay with the crowd on a chance of the manager
coming to his senses. He soon saw, however, what an impossible
condition of affairs that would bring about, and reluctantly, though
with much outward brevity, said good-by.
“You’ll write, of course, and let me know how you make out?” he urged.
“I ain’t much of a hand with the pen, but I’ll guarantee to answer
every letter right off.”
There was a queer expression in Lefty’s eyes. He was finding the phases
of the situation even more difficult than he had supposed. It was not
easy to keep in place the mask of indifference he had assumed the night
before.
“I’ll write when I make good, Buck,” he returned quietly. “There won’t
be anything to tell you till then.”
Argument was futile. His mind was made up. He told no one his plans.
It seemed doubtful whether he had made any. He simply said good-by and
went his way, leaving behind ripples of discussion and conjecture,
which swiftly spread out with ever-lessening volume until, like the
departed pitcher, they vanished as if they had never been.
Fargo’s one consolation was in Jack Stillman. He found the newspaper
man’s feelings in perfect accord with his own. There was one
difference, however: while the big backstop was ready and eager to do
anything in his power to rehabilitate his friend, no way occurred to
him; it was Stillman’s brain, trained by three years of reporting on
a metropolitan newspaper, which hit upon the only possible manner in
which that could be done.
“We’ve got to find the boy who delivered that message,” he said tersely
as they left the station. “If we can get hold of him and manage to
choke the truth out of him, we ought to be able to nail this crooked
trick fast to the man who put up the job.”
He began working to that end at once. But the time was very short. The
two squads――cubs and regulars――were leaving that very afternoon, and
the task of finding an unknown boy in the few hours remaining, even
though he had been foresighted enough to obtain an accurate description
of the fellow from Lefty, was next to impossible.
As it was, Stillman risked a call-down from his editor by staying over
a day at Ashland. When he finally left to catch up with the team he was
scheduled to accompany North, he had found no clew, but had placed the
matter in the hands of a retired member of the San Antonio police force
living in the smaller town.
William Bowers was shrewder than the ordinary run of officers. He had
been a sergeant for years, and time hung heavily on his hands. He might
succeed, and he might not. Stillman felt that the result would be a
toss-up. But it was the best he could do.