“There is good sense in that, Billy boy,” said Charlie King, who had joined the party while the discussion was going on. “There is plausibility in it, too, for I remember seeing Ben go into that office and make some inquiries, as we were going to the grounds, day before yesterday, to practice.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Heaton was trying to comfort the young ladies in Judge Morris’s family, but his well-meant efforts were discouragingly received by the fair champions of the Catalpa club. Miss Alice was perfectly certain, she averred, that Ben Burton had purposely thrown the game. She had watched him narrowly, and had been, at times, half inclined to send down word to Mr. Boyne, or to the captain, rather (and this was said with a blush), that Burton was playing false. The players could not see it, but she could, and she knew him so well that she could not keep her eyes off him while he was playing, whether it was in the field, at the bat, or base-running.
Later in the evening, Albert came in with two or three of the Catalpa men, bearing the doleful news from Tom Selby. “Didn’t I tell you so?” demanded Alice, with animation. “Didn’t I tell you, Larry Boyne, to beware of that young man?”
“You did indeed, Miss Howell,” replied Larry, with mock dejection. “And we would have looked out for him, as you suggested, if we had had any tangible suspicion, or any proof whatsoever, that he was crooked. But how could we make a stand against one of our own number, merely on so vague a hint as that which we had?”
“If I were a member of the Catalpa club,” said the girl, with spirit, “I would not have so evil a young man as Ben Burton in it, evidence or no evidence.”
“Miss Alice is right,” said Neddie Ellis, “I always did dislike Ben Burton, and I would have voted against him, if it had not been that he was such a good man at shortstop that I couldn’t think of putting my little prejudices against what seemed to be the good of the nine.”
Once more it was agreed that it was useless to discuss the matter until the party had reached home, when the charges against Burton, and the evidence, if there were any, would be brought up in due form.
By the time the players and their friends had embarked on the westbound train, next day, they had recovered somewhat their usual high spirits. The buoyancy of youth and the natural hopefulness of healthy young fellows like these came to their relief, and the gay, chattering party that took possession of one end of a railway car, that morning, could hardly have been compared with the depressed and angry knot of youngsters that had discussed defeat and treachery, the night before. If they had been sold out, they argued to themselves, and had still fairly held their own against the famed Calumets, what was not possible for the team when purged of an unworthy member?
So they neared home with hearts lightened of a grievous burden and were once more cheered with the reflection that they had achieved one notable victory, at least, since their departure for Chicago, although a defeat counterbalanced that triumph.
And when the train drew up before the Catalpa depot, the returning adventurers were gladdened by the sight of innumerable flags flying over the town in the distance. They were to be received with congratulations, after all, not as humiliated captives.
“That is because we come home neck and neck, I s’pose,” said “The Lily,” as the notes of a brass band startled his ample ear.
“It’s because we are not so badly off as we might be, Billy boy,” replied Larry Boyne.
XV
Mike Costigan’s Discovery
Meantime, strange things had happened in Catalpa. The town was in a ferment on the morning of the great day when the Catalpa nine were to play their second game with the Calumets. The glory of the first day’s victory shone brightly to encourage the friends of the club as they loitered towards the telegraph office and clustered under the windows of the office of The Leaf, when the time for calling the game drew near.
In the office of that influential sheet there was much commotion, as every printer at the case and every member of the slender editorial staff, even down to the young lady who wrote fashion articles out of the Chicago newspapers, was in some way interested in baseball. Those who were not members of a nine were in training, or were represented by men who were active players. Therefore, while the expectant crowd in the street below was hungry for news from the Diamond Field, the smaller convocation in the printing office above was even hungrier for the opportunity to hang out the banner of victory which all were sure would wave from the roof of The Leaf before the day was done.
A few despatches, vague and dealing only in glittering generalities, as the editor said, were sent early by Albert Heaton and were duly bulletined by “The Leaflet,” as Mr. Downey’s office boy was generally called. There were many inquiries at the telegraph office for news, but “the lady operator,” with needless asperity, referred all applicants to the editor of The Leaf.
Mike Costigan, the telegraph messenger, and Hank Jackson, the ex-champion of the Dean County Nine, were the greatest trials which the long-suffering lady at the telegraph desk had to endure. Mike had put his whole soul, which was large for his small body, into the baseball championship, and he was ready to weep if the Catalpas should not return with what he called “the skelps of them Chicago fellers” at their belts. As for Hank, he pretended to be in momentary expectation of a telegraphic despatch. As early as nine o’clock in the morning, he had begun to haunt the telegraph office and demand a message that did not
