The Argosy, April 1912 — page 99: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CATCHER COMES BACK. 85 “Y’ ain’t playin’ bean-bag, ye big stiff!” piped a small boy, and everybody laughed. And so for six innings Mary Truesdell watched Curley make errors which a kid on a vacant lot might have been ashamed of. At the bat he never even came near hitting the ball, and some one shouted “Get a balloon,” when he struck out for the third time. The score was now 9-1 in favor of the Buccaneers, a man informed her. “Three groans for Curley McGrath! Get the hook! Give him the gate! Back to the bush league!” shouted the more ex- citable fans, as Curley dropped a foul which he should have caught easily. Two more runs came in. “Eleven to one!” groaned the big man who was keep- ing score. “Puzzled and astonished, Mary Trues- dell tried to think. Curley had never played like that at college, even when he was a beginner. She could not understand. Let- ting her eyes wander beyand the field to the near-by houses, the roofs of which were crowded with people watching the game free, she endeavored to think of some pos- sible solution of the mystery. Suddenly her attention was attracted by a powerful, blinding light which flashed in her eyes for a fraction of a second, and was as suddenly withdrawn, leaving her blink- ing and confused. She looked in the direc- tion from which this light seemed to come, and saw something odd in a window of one. of the houses not far from the grounds. A man was standing by some very bril- liant object, which glittered in the sunlight and sent forth a slender ray of light, which at the moment pointed upward and seemed to fade out within a few feet of the reflector which was its source. She raised her glasses and watched the man working with this in- strument, which he could shut off with a curtain at will. Mary thought at first that it might be some sort of camera, but evidently it was not. The man was also watching the game through field-glasses. He removed the cur- tain from his apparatus, and just at that moment Curley McGrath came up to the bat again. Each time he swung at the ball Mary imagined she saw a flash of light from the strange affair in the window. As she expected, he struck out, but not as another man might, missing the ball by a trifle. He struck wildly, blindly, and missed by feet instead of inches. McGrath was the third man out and the Buccaneers now came to the bat. In his po- sition as catcher the girl could not see his face, though his back was not directly to- ward her either. As he crouched close be- hind the batter she got a partial side view of him, and by watching closely she was al- most certain she could see a glint of some- thing very like sunlight on the wires of the heavy, protruding mask he was wearing, though the part of the field in which he stood, by the home plate, was now in the shadow of the grand stand. A strange suspicion was forming in her mind, which she was timid about wording definitely even to herself. Perhaps her woman’s ignorance on the subject of base- ball and sports in general was leading her into the invention of an absurdly wild, im- possible theory. She wanted to find out something which would solve Curley’s difficulties and prove that he was all right. She admitted this now. So probably her desire to help him was running away with her imagination. Yet she knew that Curley could play ball if let alone, and she knew that he was not - “throwing” the games, as that horrid news- paper article had intimated. Therefore there must be some outside influence work- ing against him. And the suspicion in her mind “became stronger. The people were jeering at him again now. She bit her lips in anger and the tears sprang to her eyes as she watched him crouching patiently in his place, his big shoulders hunched forward, evidently try- ing his hardest in spite of the Insults that were being hurled at him. . Brushing aside this weakness, and with it all her “former feelings of hesitation and timidity, she de- cided that she would do something at once to find out if there was anything in the queer theory she had formed. But when this decision was reached she did not know just how to proceed. If she only had some one to advise her! Glancing about somewhat helplessly, her glance fell upon the big fellow who had in- formed her of the score. He was a good- natured, kindly-looking man, and did not seem at all the kind that would try to flirt. Evidently his one desire in life at that es- pecial time was that the Black Sox might win the game. _ Also he appeared to be the sort of man who would understand all about sporting subjects and would be able to deal intelli- comicaoolkks CO