“Who sent you here?” demanded the belligerent individual. “What business have you got coming poking your nose into my affairs? You’d better chase yourself sudden.”

Instead of exhibiting alarm, Lefty laughed in the man’s face. “Don’t make a show of yourself, Mit,” he advised. “Bluster won’t get you any ball players; at least, it won’t get you this one. I’ve already made a deal for Jones.”

“You haven’t got his name on a contract; you hadn’t time. If you had, Wiley’d told me.”

“I made a fair trade for him before I went North.”

Into Skullen’s eyes there came a look of understanding and satisfaction. His lips curled back from his ugly teeth.

“You didn’t have any authority to make a trade then, for you weren’t manager of the Stockings. You can’t put anything like that over on me. If you don’t chase yourself, I’ll throw you over the fence.”Sensing an impending clash, with the exception of the mute and the catcher, the Wind Jammers ceased their desultory practice and watched for developments. A portion of the spectators, also becoming aware that something unusual was taking place, turned their attention to the little triangular group not far from the visitors’ bench.

“You couldn’t get Jones if you threw me over into Georgia,” said Locke, unruffled. “It won’t do you any good to start a scrap.”

“Permit me to impersonate the dove of peace,” pleaded Cap’n Wiley. “Lefty is absolutely voracious in his statement that he made a fair and honorable compact with me, by which Jones is to become the legitimate chattel of the Blue Stockings. Still,” he added, shaking his head and licking his lips, “flesh is weak and liable to err. If I had seen fifty thousand simoleons coming my way in exchange for the greatest pitcher of modern times, I’m afraid I should have lacked the energy to side-step them. The root of all evil has sometimes tempted me from the path of rectitude. But now Lefty is here, and the danger is over. It’s no use, Skully, old top; the die is cast. You may as well submit gracefully to the inveterable.”

Muttering inaudibly, Skullen turned and walked away.

“I have a contract in my pocket ready for the signature of Jones,” said Lefty. “Will you get him to put his name to it before the game starts?”

“It will give me a pang of pleasure to do so,” was the assurance.

There on the field, envied by his teammates, Mysterious Jones used Locke’s fountain pen to place his signature–A. B. Jones was the name he wrote–upon the contract that bound him to the Blue Stockings. What the initials stood for not even Wiley knew. For a moment the mute seemed to hesitate, but the Marine Marvel urged him on, and the deed was done.

“If you cater to his little giddyocyncracies,” said the sailor, “you’ll find him a pearl beyond price. Unless you’re afraid Skully may return and mar your pleasure, you may sit on the bench with us and watch him toy with the local bric-a-brac. It is bound to be a painfully one-sided affair.”

“Skullen,” laughed Lefty, “has ceased to cause me special apprehension. The contract is signed now.”

So Locke sat on the bench and watched his new pitcher perform. When he walked to the mound, Jones seemed, if possible, more somber and tragic than usual, and he certainly had his speed with him. Yet neither the ominous appearance of the mute nor his blinding smoke was sufficient to faze the Vienna batters, who cracked him for three clean singles in the last half of the opening inning, and then failed to score because of foolish base running.

“He seems to be rather hittable to-day,” observed Locke. “What’s the matter, Wiley? This Vienna bunch doesn’t look particularly good to me; just a lot of amateurs who never saw real players, I should say.”

“That’s it; that’s what ails them, for one thing,” replied the manager of the Wind Jammers. “They have accumulated together no special knowledge of Simon poor baseball talent, and so they don’t know enough to be scared. Even the great Mathewson has confessed that the worst bumping he ever collided with was handed out by a bunch of bushers who stood up to the dish, shut their blinkers when he pitched, and swung blind at the pill. These lobsters don’t realize that Jonesy’s fast one would pass right through a batter without pausing perceptibly if it should hit him, and so they toddle forth without qualms, whatever they are, and take a slam at the globule. Next round I’ll have to get out there on the turf and warn them; I’ll put the fear of death into their hearts. Get them to quaking and they won’t touch the horsehide.”

But such a program didn’t suit Locke. “If all Jones has is his speed and the fear it inspires, he won’t travel far in fast company. You ought to know that, Wiley. Big League batters will knock the cover off the fast one unless a pitcher puts something else on it. Sit still once, to please me, and let’s see what Jones can do without the assistance of your chatter.”

“It’s hardly a square deal,” objected the Marine Marvel. “The jinx has been keeping company with us ever since we struck Fernandon. From that occasion up to the present date, Anno Domino, we haven’t won a single consecutive game. Such bad luck has hurt my feelings; it has grieved me to the innermost abscess of my soul.”

“Do you mean to say that these country teams have been trimming you, with Jones in the box?”

“Alas and alack! I can’t deny it unless I resort to fabrication, which I never do. The Euray Browns tapped Jonesy for seventeen heart-breaking bingles, and the Pikeville Greyhounds lacerated his delivery even more painfully. My own brilliant work in the box has been sadly insufficient to stem, the tide of disaster.”

Locke frowned. What success, or lack of it, Wiley had had as a pitcher was a matter of no moment; but the statement that amateur teams of no particular standing had found Mysterious Jones an easy mark was disturbing. Was it possible that he had been led, with undue haste, to fritter away good money for a pitcher who would prove worthless in the Big League? True, the mute had seemed to show something in the Fernandon game, but in similar contests Lefty had seen many a pinheaded, worthless country pitcher give a fine imitation of Walter Johnson in top-notch form. The test of the bush was, in reality, no test at all.

Throughout five innings the southpaw succeeded in restraining Wiley, and during that portion of the game the Viennas found Jones for nine singles and two doubles, accumulating four runs. Only for bad judgment on the paths they might have secured twice as many tallies. In the same period the local pitcher, using a little dinky slow curve, held the visitors to one score. The mute seemed to be trying hard enough, but he could not keep his opponents from hitting.

With the opening of the sixth, Wiley broke the leash of restraint. “I’ve got to get out and get under,” he declared. “You can’t expect me to sit still and watch my barkentine go upon the rocks. Here’s where we start something. Get into ’em, Schepps! Begin doing things! We’ll back you up, for in onion there is strength.”

Schepps led off with a hit, and immediately the Wind Jammers, encouraged by Wiley, leaped out from the bench, dancing wildly and tossing the bats into the air. Locke smiled as he watched them. He had seen Big League teams do the same thing in an effort to drive away the jinx and break a streak of bad luck. But although Lefty smiled, he was not wholly happy.

“If Jones is a quince,” he thought, “I’ve wasted my time trying to brace up our pitching staff. Even Mit Skullen will have the laugh on me.”

His anxiety had led him to come straight from New York to Vienna, without stopping at Fernandon. He had sent a message to Janet telling her that he would be home the following day.

The Wind Jammers kept after the local twirler, and succeeded in pounding two men round to the registry station. Then Wiley did some wigwagging to Jones, and the gloomy mute nodded assurance. After which he walked out and fanned three batters in a row.

“You see, Lefty!” exulted the Marine Marvel. “That’s what he needs. Give him proper encouragement, and he’s there with the damsons.”

“Temperamental or yellow, which?” speculated the southpaw. “Either sort of a pitcher is worthless in pinches.”

The visitors failed to continue their hitting streak in the seventh. Whether or not Jones was disheartened by this, he let down in the last half of the inning, and Vienna added another score, Wiley’s warnings having no impression upon them. Nor did the mute show any remarkable form in the remainder of the game, which terminated with the score six to four in favor of the locals.

“The old jinx is still with us,” lamented the dejected manager of the Wind Jammers. “Wouldn’t it congeal your pedal extremities!”

“It is enough to give one cold feet,” admitted Locke. “But with Jones doing any real pitching to-day four tallies would have been sufficient for you.”

Picking up his overcoat and traveling bag, he started to follow the well-satisfied crowd from the field. As he approached the gate, Mit Skullen stood up on the bleachers and singled him out. Mit’s face wore a leering grin.

“You’re welcome to that lemon, Locke!” he cried. “I wouldn’t take him now for a gift. You’ve got stung good and proper.”

Lefty walked on without replying.