TOO MUCH TEMPTATION
"Is it poss-i-bill!" gasped Cap'n Wiley, staggering and clutching at
his forehead. "I am menaced by a swoon! Water! Whisky! I'll accept
anything to revive me!"
Fred Hallett hurried to the pan with his bat. "It's my turn now," he
said. "We've started on him, and we should all hit him."
Locke signalled that he would steal, and Hallett let the first one
pass. Lefty went down the line like a streak, but Schaeffer made a throw
that forced him to hit the dirt and make a hook slide. He caught his
spikes in the bag and gave his ankle a twist that sent a pain shooting
up his leg.
"Safe!" declared the umpire.
Locke did not get up. The crowd saw him drag himself to the bag and sit
on it, rubbing his ankle. Schepps bent over him solicitously.
"Dat was a nice little crack, pal," said the sandlotter, "and a nifty
steal. Hope youse ain't hoited."
But Lefty had sprained his ankle so seriously that he required assistance
to walk from the field. A runner was put in his place, although Wiley
informed them that they need not take the trouble. And Wiley was right,
for Jones struck Hallett out.
It was impossible for Locke to continue pitching, so Matthews took his
place. And the southpaw was left still uncertain and doubtful; the game
had not provided the test he courted. Weegman apparently had departed;
there was no question in the mind of Charles Collier's representative,
and, angered by the rebuff he had encountered, he was pretty certain
to spread the report that the great southpaw was "all in." He had
practically threatened to do this when he declared that every manager
and magnate in the business would soon know that Locke's pitching days
were over.
The Wind Jammers, spurred on by Cap'n Wiley, went after Matthews
aggressively, and for a time it appeared certain that they were going
to worry him off his feet. With only one down, they pushed a runner
across in the eighth, and there were two men on the sacks when a double
play blighted their prospect of tying up, perhaps of taking the lead,
at once.
As Jones continued invulnerable in the last of the eighth, the visitors
made their final assault upon Matthews in the ninth. But fortune was
against them. The game ended with Wiley greatly disappointed, though
still cheerful.
"A little frost crept into my elbow in the far-away regions of the
North," he admitted. "I'll shake it out in time. If I'd started old
Jonesy against Lefty, there would have been a different tale to tell."
The Wind Jammers were booked to play in Jacksonville the following
afternoon, but they remained in Fernandon overnight. Seated on the
veranda of the Magnolia, Wiley was enjoying a cigar after the evening
meal, and romancing, as usual, when Locke appeared, limping, with the
aid of a cane.
"It grieves me to behold your sorry plight," said the Marine Marvel
sympathetically. "I cajole with you most deprecatingly. But why, if
you were going to get hurt at all, weren't you obliging enough to do
it somewhat earlier in the pastime? That would have given my faithful
henchmen a chance to put the game away on ice."
"You can't be sure about that," returned Lefty. "You collected no
more scores off Matthews than you did off me."
"But you passed us six nice, ripe goose eggs, while he dealt out
only one. There was a difference that could be distinguished with the
unclothed optic. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Jones had something
on you; while he officiated, you were the only person who did any
gamboling on the cushions, and what you did didn't infect the result.
What do you think of Jones?"
"Will you lend me your ear while I express my opinion privately?"
"With the utmost perspicacity," said Wiley, rising. "Within my
boudoir--excuse my fluid French--I'll uncork either ear you prefer and
let you pour it full to overflowing."
In the privacy of Wiley's room, without beating around the bush, Locke
stated that he believed Jones promising material for the Big League, and
that he wished to size up the man.
"While I have no scouting commission or authority," said Lefty, "if
Kennedy should manage the Blue Stockings this season, he'd stand by my
judgment. The team must have pitchers. Of course, some will be bought in
the regular manner, but I know that, on my advice, Kennedy would take
Jones on and give him a show to make good, just as he gave me a chance
when I was a busher. I did not climb up by way of the minors; I made one
clean jump from the back pastures into the Big League."
"Mate," said Wiley, "let me tell you something a trifle bazaar: Jones
hasn't the remotest ambition in the world to become a baseball pitcher."
Locke stared at him incredulously. The swarthy little man was serious--at
least, as serious as he could be.
"Then," asked the southpaw, "why is he pitching?"
"Tell _me!_ I've done a little prognosticating over that question."
"You say he does not talk about himself. How do you--"
"Let me elucidate, if I can. I told you I ran across Jones in Alaska.
I saw him pitch in a baseball match in Nome. How he came to ingratiate
himself into that contest I am unable to state. Nobody seemed able
to tell me. All I found out about him was that he was one of three
partners who had a valuable property somewhere up in the Jade Mountain
region--not a prospect, but a real, bony-fido mine. Already they had
received offers for the property, and any day they could sell out for
a sum salubrious enough to make them all scandalously wealthy. They had
entered into some sort of an agreement that bound them all to hold on
until two of the three should vote to sell; Jones was tied up under
this contraction.
"I had grown weary of the vain search for the root of all evil. For me
that root has always been more slippery than a squirming eel; every
time I thought I had it by the tail it would wriggle out of my eager
clutch and get away. I longed for the fleshpots of my own native heath.
Watching that ball game in Nome, my blood churned in my veins until
it nearly turned to butter. Once more, in my well-fertilized fancy, I
saw myself towering the country with my Wind Jammers; and, could I
secure Jonesy for my star flinger, I knew I would be able to make my
return engagement a scintillating and scandalous success. With him for a
nucleus, I felt confident that I could assemble together a bunch of
world beaters. I resolved to go after Jones. I went, without dalliance. I
got him corralled in a private room and locked the door on him.
"Mate, I am a plain and simple soul, given not a jot or tittle to
exaggeration, yet I am ready to affirm--I never swear; it's
profane--that I had the tussle of my life with Jones. Parenthetically
speaking, we wrestled all over that room for about five solid hours. I
had supplied myself with forty reams of writing paper, a bushel basket
full of lead pencils, and two dictionaries. When I finally subdued
Jones, I was using a stub of the last pencil in the basket, was on the
concluding sheet of paper, had contracted writer's cramp, and the
dictionaries were mere torn and tattered wrecks. In the course of that
argument, I am certain I wrote every word in the English language,
besides coining a few thousand of my own. I had practically exhausted
every form of persuasion, and was on the verge of lying down and
taking the count. Then, by the rarest chance, I hit upon the right
thing. I wrote a paregoric upon the joys of traveling around over the
United States from city to city, from town to town, of visiting every
place of importance in the whole broad land, of meeting practically
every living human being in the country who was alive and deserved to
be met. Somehow that got him; I don't know why, but it did. I saw his
eyes gleam and his somber face change as he read that last wild stab of
mine. It struck home; he agreed to go. I had conquered.
"Now, mark ye well, the amount of his salary had not a whit to do with
it, and he entertained absolutely no ambish to become a baseball pitcher.
He was compelled to leave his partners up there running the mine, and to
rely upon their honesty to give him a square deal. You have been told
how he promulgates around over every new place he visits and stares
strangers out of countenance. Whether or not he's otherwise wrong in
his garret, he's certainly 'off' on that stunt. That's how I'm able
to keep him on the parole of this club of mine."
"In short, he's a sort of monomaniac?"
"Perhaps that's it."
Lefty did a bit of thinking. "You've been touring the smaller cities
and the towns in which an independent ball team would be most likely
to draw. In the large cities of a Big League circuit there are thousands
upon thousands of persons Jones has never met. He could work a whole
season in such a circuit and continue to see hosts of strangers every
time he visited any one of the cities included. Under such circumstances
he would have the same incentive that he has now. If he can be induced
to make the change, I'll take a chance on him, and I'll see that you
are well paid to use your persuasive powers to lead him to accept my
proposition."
"But you stated that you had no legal authority to make such a deal."
"I haven't; but I am willing to take a chance, with the understanding
that the matter is to be kept quiet until I shall be able to put
through an arrangement that will make it impossible for any manager in
organized ball to steal him away."
Wiley shook his head. "I couldn't get along without him, Lefty; he's
the mainsheet of the Wind Jammers. It would be like chucking the sextant
and the compass overboard. We'd be adrift without any instrument to
give us our position or anything to lay a course by."
"If you don't sell him to me, some manager is going to take him from
you without handing you as much as a lonesome dollar in return. You
can't dodge the Big League scouts; it's a wonder you've dodged them
as long as you have. They're bound to spot Jones and gobble him up.
Do you prefer to sell him or to have him snatched?"
"What will you give for him?"
"Now you're talking business. If I can put through the deal I'm
figuring on, I'll give you five hundred dollars, which, considering
the conditions, is more than a generous price."
"Five hundred dollars! Is there that much money to be found in one lump
anywhere in the world?"
"I own some Blue Stockings stock, so you see I have a financial, as
well as a sentimental, interest in the club. I'm going to fight hard to
prevent it from being wrecked. As long as it can stay in the first
division it will continue to be a money-maker, but already the impression
has become current that the team is riddled, and the stock has slumped.
There are evil forces at work. I don't know the exact purpose these
forces are aiming at, but I'm a pretty good guesser. The property is
mighty valuable for some people to get hold of if they can get it
cheap enough."
"They're even saying that you're extremely to the bad. What do you
think about it yourself, Lefty?"
Locke flushed. "Time will answer that."
"You look like a fighter," said Wiley. "I wish you luck."
"But what do you say to my proposition? Give me a flat answer."
"Five hundred dollars!" murmured the Marine Marvel, licking his lips.
"I'm wabbling on the top rail of the fence."
"Fall one way or the other."
Heaving a sigh, the sailor rose to his feet, and gave his trousers a
hitch. "Let's interview Jones," he proposed.