# The Stolen Bridegroom

Extracted from Everybody's magazine, 1906 December, pp. 736-744. Accompanying illustrations by F. Foster Lincoln may be omitted.
The Stolen Bridegroom
A Story of Tainted Baseball on the Far Frontier
By EMERSON HOUGH
Author of "The Mississippi Bubble" "Heart's Desire," etc.
WHEN Frederick William Ware, better known as Runt Ware, left Princeton, he faced life with his usual blithe resignation to fate. Gathering his mandolin under his arm, he pulled his five feet six of affable manhood together, wired for the price of a ticket, and so departed for the ancestral halls, where, luckily for him, fatted calf was daily on the menu.
“What can you do?” asked his father.
“Pitch four curves,” said the Runt, “and stand for even Lon Byron's delivery. And oh, Pater, you ought to see that fellow pitch! Say—” and he bent over the ancestral desk until Pater forgot to sign his dictation.
There seem nothing particular for Runt Ware to do in a business concern where everything was already doing, so there was a paternal sigh of relief, albeit a few maternal tears, when once more the Runt with his customary happy smile placed his mandolin under his arm, about a hundred thousand dollars in his pocket, and artlessly announced that he thought of going west.
“Just as bad there as here,” said Pater. “Better not.”
“O Frederick!” said Mater.
“But,” said the Runt, “Billy Hardy is going, and he's no end a good sort. He plays the banjo. We have to go together or the glee business would be busted”; and other collegiate speech, at the end convincing.
Whereupon the Runt ere long turnedd up, in company with Billy Hardy, at Barth, on the edge of the booming Canadian west, and they two on the second day of their arrival bought up a grocery and outfitting business, of which they knew nothing in the world and to which they paid no attention whatever, but which, to the great surprise of their families, though not in the least of themselves, began to pay thirty-five per cent. from the start.
“My observation of tourists, Pater,” said the Runt in one of his letters home, “is that they are three-fourths cash and the other one-fourth easy. You'd better come out.”
Since the mountain views were magnificent, and sport was on every side, and the air like champagne, and life in the newly builded bungalow (christened “Stumbleholme” by these twain) was very bachelorish and delectable, the Runt, who ever swam with the passing tide, casually took out naturalization papers, was elected lieutenant of Light Horse in the local troop, assumed an ultra-English speech, and took to wearing fierce clothes of all manner, sorts, and varieties, including mauve puttee and eight kinds of leggings with straps, not to mention a Northwest Mounted Police hat, which in combination with his mandolin, made him altogether irresistible to the summer femininity at the big tourist hotel.
Previous to the arrival of the Runt, all western Alberta was largely under the dominion of King Edward VII of Great Britain. Young men wore caps and knickers and other things during business hours, and went out collecting or soliciting with tennis-racket or cricket-bat in hand. This industrial and social system did not please the Runt.
“Just look at them,” he would say to Billy Hardy. “Not a baseball game in the whole time we've been here. This is what I call the hardship of the frontier life. I'll tell you—let's start baseball!”
At this speech the two sat up straight upon their couches at the bungalow and stared at each other in the solemnity of a large inspiration.
“Why, of course,” said Billy.
So they started baseball; and such was the personal popularity of the Runt over three hundred miles of ranch lands where his check was very usual and very good, that in the second season there was bitterness of soul between Alberta and Saskatchewan. As for British Columbia, her name was anathema; for lo! the team of Vancouver had manicured the earth with everything except the team of Barth, the latter, of course, captained by no less a person than the Runt himself.
In the Barth team were two Royal Northwest Mounted Policemen, Ramsay and O'Brien; one saloon-keeper by the name of Deakin; the local telegraph-operator, Williams; a negro porter by name of Sam, who lay over at Barth between runs to the coast; a highly intelligent Japanese curio-dealer called Itche Ban (though the Runt said it was a shame); a rancher by name of Billings, who once lived in Montana, and a “rawncher” of English extraction bearing the name of Jennings. Also there was Mr. Frederick William Ware.
It was in its way a gladsome sight to see the Barth baseball team take the field and deploy into action. Only in the heart of their captain did any doubt exist that the Barth team was utterly invincible. To Billy Hardy the Runt confided his own bitter conviction that they were a bunch of the most abject dubs ever assembled under the protecting aegis of any nation of the globe.
“Look at 'em!” he hissed between his teeth, as he and Billy approached the field and cast their gaze upon the mixed multitude. “Look at 'em! O Gawd!”
News came to Barth of the standing of all the clubs on the provincial circuit, and always the name of Vancouver led the rest. “Listen to me,” said the Runt to Billy Hardy. “Something is going on over there in Vancouver, I tell you, or they couldn't have cleaned up Spokane 12 to 0. I'll bet a dollar they've got a man in from Seattle; that's what I'll bet. Tainted baseball in these new lands of King Edward! Oh, what an age!”
As he said these words, the Runt was mixing something for himself at the sliding shelf of the bungalow's cellaret. All at once his educated and artistic spoon grew more deliberate in its motion. It slackened, stopped. A gentle smile overspread his features. He fumbled in his pockets, and presently spread out upon his knee a crumpled telegram.
“That's from Byron. Don't you see?” he remarked. “From Byron.”
“Yes?” said Billy. “Awfully good fellow, Byron, too. I'm glad he's comin' through. We'll meet him at the train, as he says. Haven't heard from him in two years, but s'pose he's deep in business like you and me and too busy to write.”
“Yes,” said the Runt, “he's doin' law or somethin'. Now here he is comin' through on the gallop, headed for Victoria. Goin' to intercept the boat from Vancouver up coast to Alaska. Awful hurry, of course; but we'll meet him at the train—yes, we'll do that all right.”
“Why's he in such a rush?” asked Billy.
“Oh, I believe he's goin' to get married or somethin' of the sort. He always was doin' some impractical thing or other.”
“Oh, I remember,” said Billy reminiscently. “He was awf'ly gone on Georgie Dinwiddie, that Virginia girl he met at Wilson's house party that summer, you know.”
“I suppose that's who it is. She's been out at Seattle and 'Frisco and Victoria and places—her uncle is stopping at Victoria right now trying to keep her away from By. You see, poor fellow, By didn't have a lot of start in the world.”
“Of course we'll meet him at the train,” resumed Billy, reaching out for the glass that the Runt had forgotten.
“I should say we would,” said the Runt, putting the glass behind his back. “1 should just say we would!”
“Help him on, if it's an elopement,” said Billy. “Uncles don't always have the best judgment in the world. But, say, what are you thinkin' about, you expatriated little cuss?”
“Oh, nothin',” said the Runt. “Nothin' at all in the whole wide world—only that Byron was absolutely the best pitcher ever put on the black and orange—only that he whitewashed Yale and set the world crazy, and won me twenty-five hundred dollars, which I lost the same night on something else! Only—oh Lord, Billy, I don't see why you were made in the image of a man!”
“Well,” insisted Billy, “I don't see what Byron has got to do with it, if he is goin' through on the jump for his weddin', and that two days before the game. He might like to stop, but how could he? I know I wouldn't.”
“You would, under the circumstances,” said the Runt grimly.
II
The reports by wire from the coast were ominous. Odds at the Barth Hotel wavered, drew up, and stood even; nay, they even broke against the home team. Sporting judgment overbalanced loyalty. Every face in Barth was long except that of the Runt, who whistled and was inscrutable.
“But I tell you. Runt, it's his weddin' trip,” began Billy Hardy, once more.
“What is a weddin' here or there, I'd like to know?” asked the Runt.
Billy sighed. He did not like to see his friend disappointed, and, besides, he had five hundred up on the game with Vancouver, which bid fair to be the hottest ever played in west Canada. As for the Runt, he wavered not, but spoke apart in whispers to O'Brien of the Mounted Police.
The Runt and Billy were upon the platform to meet Byron's train, the former in spick-and-span business garb, with bright new yellow gloves, and puttees so tight they made his legs ache. His clean-shaven bronze young face shone with health, and confidence sat upon his brow. As the Imperial Flier rolled in and spread a thick scum of strange and wonderfully clad folk over the platform, Billy and the Runt made for the rear end, where the sleepers were attached. Sergeant O'Brien might have been seen to pause at the step where a pompous porter descended, and to engage in brief and imperious conversation with that person. A bill passed from a brown hand to one somewhat browner. The porter ran back into the car, hurriedly picked up two suit-cases, a hand-bag, a stick, and an umbrella and hurried out again. O'Brien took charge of them. The Runt and Billy meantime were conversing with a lean, hard young man with a wide chin and a soft voice, who had swung off the car and caught them both in a great embrace—Byron, '03, the Man with the Braided Arm.
Byron beamed and gulped and gasped and blushed and admitted. “Oh, by George, fellows,” he said, “I'm glad to see you both. I'll stop here comin' back. I will, for a fact. She—I know she— Why, why—” He blushed some more, for Byron was always shy, except when there were three on bases and a good batter up.
“Lucky boy, lucky boy!” murmured the Runt.
(The conductor, afar up the platform: “B-o-o-o-or-r-rd!”)
“I'm the happiest beggar in the world!” glowed Byron. “I say, I thought you were such asses to come up here, but it's great, great! Just look at those mountains. Ain't they bully? Just bully!”
(The conductor, afar off: “O-o-o-o-or-r-r-t-t-t”)
“Here, you,” cried Byron suddenly, “I'm off! There she blows. Leggo, you! Dang it, Runt! Wait! quit! stop! Leggo! I tell you!”
“Grab him, Billy!” gasped the Runt, his head between Byron's legs, his hands gripping Byron's ankles like iron.
And Billy, a great light dawning upon him, grabbed him. Hard climbing after bighorn sheep, long hours in the saddle at polo, hours at tennis, at cricket, at baseball, had kept these two malefactors hard as nails. Byron struggled in vain against their combined jiu jitsu.
(The engine: “Tchoo-choo-oo-o—ooo-ooo-ooo-oooo!”)
“You low-down fiends!” cried Byron, sobbing, as he stood over his now vanquished assailants, his fists doubled, his eyes flashing, his face red with anger. “You low-down fiends! Look! look!— Last train— Married to-morrow!— Steamer— Oh, what will she do? What will she do? What will she do?”
He sat down on the edge of the platform, his rumpled head in his hands.
“What's wrong here?” asked Sergeant O'Brien of the Northwest Mounted Police, stepping up briskly.
Byron sprang again to his feet. But the Runt felled him before he could make start.
“I'll never forgive you—I'll never—” said Byron.
“Besides,” said the Runt, “the telegraph-office is up-town. Let's go! By Jove, old man, I'm awf'ly sorry if I've caused you any inconvenience. But just let's run over to our place, and have a drink, and talk it all over!”
“You treacherous brute!” said Byron, his eyes wet. “She—she— Oh, what will Georgie think of me?”
III
“At any rate,” said Byron, after the Runt had stirred something for him in a glass, “I didn't really mean to bang you fellows up so much. Your nose is all swelled.”
“Don't mention it,” said the Runt. “Jolly well glad to see you in such good shape. Now I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll make a joint message to Georgie.”
“You mean Miss Dinwiddie,” said Byron frigidly. “No, I think I can take care of that part alone. When does the next train go west?”
“Emigrant at 2 a.m,” said the Runt, sighing, “but of course you couldn't go on that.”
“Oh, I suppose I couldn't,” said Byron, with sarcasm.
“Well, at any rate, we can't hurry the Canadian Pacific,” said the Runt. “Nothing can. It made these mountains and regulates the rising and setting of the sun. No use crowding the Canadian Pacific Railroad, for it's like givin' the elbow to divine Providence. We'll get you on the train all right in due time. In the meantime we'll just go out and have a little horseback ride. Say, you ought to see how that Vancouver gang is playin' ball. Why, they've got into the game as if 'twas the only thing they ever did in all their livin' lives. Spokane, 12 to 0; Walla Walla, 18 to 0; Seattle, 9 to 0; Victoria, 21 to 0! When they played over at Revelstoke the game was never finished at all. They kept on runnin' around till midnight, and then they had to stop to catch their train. But there's the horses.”
It was a joyous little canter around through the hills, under the pine-trees, past the corner of the summer hotel, along the Spray brook, and so back to the main street of the little mountain village. “We'll just go a bit down the street,” called back the Runt; and Byron, exulting in the air and the speed, clattered behind him over the little bridge, with thunderous hoofs; to meet O'Brien, sergeant of the Northwest Mounted Police, in full uniform.
O'Brien lifted a solemn but efficient hand. The Runt and Byron pulled up hard.
“Sorry, sir,” said O'Brien, “but this is against the law. Furious ridin'. Have to take you in charge, sir.”
“Well, I'm d——” said Byron wonderingly. “Well, now I am d——d!”
“I wouldn't talk, sir,” said O'Brien. “You might incriminate yourself.”
“You are right,” said Byron; “I might."
After that he rode in silence beside O'Brien to the door of the little lockup, all Barth crowding there for to see and to admire.
“I say, fellows,” began Byron again, as the strong arm of O'Brien thrust him through the iron-barred gate, “this is too much. We won't stand for it. No trial; no desk-book! Why, where is the bail-bond?”
The Runt winked at O'Brien. The latter suddenly locked the door.
“What's up?” cried Byron. “Why, ain't you fellows in it? You started it! Why, you treacherous, murdering, lying little beast, this is a great joke, ain't it? Now, say, how long will I be in here?”
“Till you promise to be good,” said the Runt sweetly.
“What's that?”
“Till you promise to pitch for Barth at the game day after to-morrow,” said the Runt sternly.
“Day after to-morrow? Why, that's too late,” wailed Byron. “I've got to get to Vancouver to-morrow. Can't you see?” he pleaded, shaking the bars of his prison.
The Runt looked at him implacably. “You will get to Vancouver after we've beat the suffering tar out of that Vancouver ball-team, and not before. Why, man, what's a weddin' against a real emergency like this? Haven't you got any heart?”
The unfortunate Byron could do no more than groan and sink down up on his narrow cot in outraged and astonished anger. The Runt and Billy, excusing themselves, departed, and sent the following message:
   “Miss Georgie Dinwiddie, care Col. James S. Dinwiddie, Victoria, B. C.
   Frederick William Ware.”
Before bedtime messages began to arrive, all addressed to Frederick William Ware, all signed “Georgie Weston Dinwiddie.” No. 1 said: “Much alarmed. Send details at once.” Ten minutes later No. 2 asked: “Why no details? Situation urgent. Impossible to come.” In five minutes No. 3 stated: “Cannot stand suspense. Must know.” No. 4, apparently three minutes later, said: “Start east ten-thirty. Give him my love. Tell him bear up until I arrive.”
“Confound it!” said the Runt, turning out of bed at 3 a.m. to read the last message. “I don't see why that girl can't keep calm. She'll come on now sheddin' tears and telegrams all down the road; and, by Jove! I'll bet she'll be here on the same train with the Vancouver nine. Think of that!”
It was as the Runt had said. When the east-bound Imperial Flier rolled into town, it bore a shouting, stalwart, piratical band of youths, whose bosoms disported a large red lettered V.B.C. and who carried at their head a broom and eke thereto a spotted bull pup. It bore also a somewhat disheveled and tearful but undeniably desperately handsome girl with big eyes and hair in thick brown coils, and a frock that evidently had come from somewhere.
The Runt gasped. “We're in, Billy!” he hissed. “I'm scared now.” Then he stretched out his hand. “My dear Miss Dinwiddie!” he exclaimed. “How glad we are! This suspense! Knew how you'd feel. Not the least occasion in the world for anxiety. Wants to see you, of course. You see, I've sort of heard about it, and, by Jove, don't I congratulate him, though! This is Mr. Hardy, also a friend of Mr. Byron. We both knew him years back.”
When he finished speaking, they had stepped into a waiting carriage, and a few moments later they were in front of a building wherein lay a situation of perplexity to any one but a man truly fit for leadership.
“This doesn't look like a hospital,” said Miss Dinwiddie. “But tell me, is he much hurt? Will he know me?”
“Well, I would, if I had ever seen you once,” said the Runt gravely.
She entered the narrow corridor, trembling. Then swiftly her eyes took in the details of the barred door, the tiny window, the straw upon the floor, the narrow cot, the forlorn figure that turned swiftly and sat erect, the bottle and siphon near by (gift of O'Brien, sergeant of the Northwest Mounted Police, who, after all, had a heart). Georgie Dinwiddie looked at these things and at the central figure, with woman's resentment that he showed no injury.
“Alonzo Byron,” she said, “what have you done? What is that bottle? Tell me this instant.”
Byron sprang to the bars. “Kiss me, Georgie!” he exclaimed, forgetful.
“Hardened wretch!” remarked the runt sotto voce to Billy Hardy.
“That bottle!” repeated Georgie Dinwiddie. “Ah, I see it all!”
“That? Oh!” convulsively exclaimed Byron. “Why that's for—for insects! Oh, Georgie, get me out of this.”
“Come away,” whispered the runt to the girl. “He's wanderin' again.”
In the parlor at the summer hotel Georgie Dinwiddie and Frederick William Ware held earnest converse. “So it is for this you have put me in such a position!” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “For the sake of winning a beastly little ball-game!”
“Well, of course, I don't know that he can win the game,” began the Runt.
“Of course he could win. Why, I've seen him blank the Pittsburgs two straight in the same day,” retorted Georgie hotly. “I've seen him hold Columbia down to three hits—win a little sand-lot ball-game with a team of scrubs that couldn't qualify in St. Paul. For this you put me in this kind of a situation! I didn't stop to think. I thought he was hurt, My uncle doesn't know where I am. Why, I couldn't marry Alonzo Byron now. He would think I was following him around. I'll never forgive you—never.”
“You can marry him after the game, if you want to,” said the Runt tentatively.
“I'll never marry him!”
“Then,” said the runt sweetly, “that's all right. I'll marry you myself, if you say so. There'll be a weddin' all right. I've never said that to another girl in my life, Miss Dinwiddie. But I never did intend to prevent any weddin' that was already arranged. My position just is that it's no harm to postpone a marriage in case of anything more important—any act of God—that sort of thing.”
The girl gazed at him in open-eyed astonishment.
“I'll tell you what I think,” went on the Runt. “If you were any sort of Yankee girl at all, you'd use your influence to get Byron to pitch in this game. I know well enough you've seen a game or so yourself.”
“But I'll not be bulldozed into doing anything,” retorted Georgie Dinwiddie, with spirit.
“Then, madam”—and the Runt's voice was firm—“the prisoner is in the hands of British Justice, and that is no light thing here, as it is in Pittsburg. I should dislike to see you in the adjoining cell.”
The girl sank back upon the divan in perturbation.
“Will you ask him?” said the Runt.
“Yes, yes, oh, yes, I will—I'll do anything.”
“Will you marry my friend, Mr. Byron, after this game is won, Miss Dinwiddie?”
“Yes, yes, oh, yes!” with sobs.
“And will you explain to him, Miss Dinwiddie, that unless he does win this game, there isn't goin' to be any weddin'?”
“You brute! Yes, yes!” (Sobs.)
Later, the hypnotic eye of Frederick William Ware actually held Byron quiet behind the bars while the former made explanation.
“She'll be in the grand stand back of you, old man,” said he. “You know she likes a good bit of ball as well as you or I. You come out in the Barth uniform to-morrow about 3.30 You let those howlin' dervishes put up their best B.C. antediluvian baseball for a few turns. Work 'em! Jolly 'em! Fool with 'em! Play with 'em! And then, by all the saints, just turn loose for old Nassau, and give the ignorant, benighted Britons a touch of baseball as she is did. Oh, do it. By! Do it! If you will. I'll see you married before you leave this town. I'll be your best man. Billy'll be usher. And if you don't, why, by the Lord! you stay in jail, and I'll marry the girl myself. Your case will linger in the courts till it gets to the Home Office in Great Britain. I wouldn't squeeze a man—much less a girl—I mean coerce, you know—but these are the terms: I run this town.”
Byron sat on the edge of his cot, his head in his hands, for some time.
“Oh, well,” said he after a while, slowly. “Oh, well!”
IV
There were two attractions in Barth on the following afternoon. One was the baseball game, and the other was Georgie Dinwiddie. That young woman presented certain problems even to the analytic mind of Frederick William Ware. How she accomplished it none might say, yet she was as the lilies of the field in wardrobe. Her hat was of the latest, also evidently from somewhere. Her veil was exquisite, her gloves brand-new, her boots bright, her red scarf really tied. Her face was the picture of repose and calm, yet withal so fair that men grew alarmed as they gazed.
“My, ain't she easy to look at?” whispered the Runt to Billy.
They led Byron on the field in full uniform two minutes before the game was called. The prisoner dared not look up at the grand stand. He felt rather than saw the presence in the sanctuary back of the protecting net.
The toss-up put Barth at the bat, which pleased the Runt, who was anxious to study Bingham, the Vancouver importation in the pitcher's box. The latter went about his work with superciliousness, striking out O'Brien and the highly intelligent Jap in one-two order. Barth's face fell as Jennings, who played third, followed these with empty hands and Vancouver came trooping in with sneering cheers.
Byron, between O'Brien and Ramsay of the Northwest Mounted Police, walked to the pitcher's box with methodical step. His long figure carried his flannels well. He pulled down his cap over his face, kicked about in the dust till he got his bearings, turned the ball for a twist or so, and then passed an easy one over to Salters, captain for Vancouver. The latter struck it so vicious a blow amidships that it sailed past the third baseman so far that the latter got lost in trying to find it. The pride of Vancouver was too deep for articulate speech. The nine simply looked at one another. Upon the face of the girl behind the net there froze a swift look of horror, of incredulity. She moved down a seat or so toward the front.
Welton went to the bat for Vancouver. “Strike one!” tolled the umpire; and again, “Strike two!” The face behind the net brightened. But how was this? At the next instant Welton also caught the ball full, and made second with mocking ease. Another Vancouver man got to first. Was Byron, '03—the Man with the Braided Arm—going to pieces? The Runt grew anxious. Georgie Dinwiddie sat in a cold trance, her hands tight clasped in her lap.
Vancouver scored two more. With dull surprise Byron had seen three men steal around him, and with loud exultation beat upon the shoulders of their friends and shout about odds and cry out baseball insult to him—Byron!—Princeton, '03, in whose hand had lain the whitewash-brush of humiliation many a time and oft. Byron was as one in a trance and scarce wist what was toward. There had come to him the sudden thought that this was his wedding-day and that he could not be married—yet there was she!—He scarcely knew when the inning ended.
When Byron was escorted to his seat at the bench near the net he heard something behind him, something like a sob. Then he flung discretion to the winds, and turned swiftly.
“Georgie!” he cried, “tell me, are you broken up over this beastly business? It wasn't my fault. I couldn't come.”
“Oh, it isn't that,” sobbed Georgie Dinwiddie. “It's not that! I'm sorry to lose you, but that isn't it—that was such rotten ball! Alonzo Byron, do that again, and I won't marry you; not if you were the last man in the world!”
Secrecy was impossible at this interview. “Bully girl!” cried the Runt, with enthusiasm. Then he and Billy Hardy and Sergeant O'Brien and others arose and stood in line before Byron, '03.
“Do that again, and she'll not marry you!” they chanted soulfully.
The rude men from Vancouver also arose and stood in line, derisively chanting as well: “Do that again and she'll not marry you!”
“This,” said the captain of Vancouver, confidentially to the circumambient air, “is what I call easy!”
A white, hard face was thrust close up against his. A glittering gray eye looked coldly into his own.
“It's what you call easy, is it, you lubber?” hissed Byron. “Now, look here, I'll just bet you five hundred to one that you yourself never get to first again. I'll bet you the same your team doesn't get another run. I'll make it the same, by gad! that not two of you ever get as far as second. Pitch! Why, confound your souls, I'm just playing with you children!”
“Is that so?” sneered Vancouver's captain.
“It is the soest sort of so!” retorted Byron hotly, rolling the sleeve back over a corded arm as he spoke. “By the Lord! if ever I did whitewash any poor suffering lot of infants, it's going to be you benighted Eskimos right here!”
Byron later said he was pitching for Georgie. The Runt said he had forgotten all about everything but baseball at the time. In any event, it was baseball that he pitched.
It chanced that Salters, the Vancouver captain, came first to the bat. He swung back, and concentered every fiber of his being as he saw an easy, slow, straight ball come sailing in as big as a balloon and as slow as a fat hen. With all his might he smote it full—or thought he did so. There was no resistance, and he gazed wildly about in the upper air. In reality the ball had changed its mind. It dropped a few feet in front of him and rolled softly and aimlessly in. “Strike one!” chanted the umpire.
The Vancouver man braced again for a clean one that came in fast and straight—the sort he liked—good for three bags at least. But some way it rose and went chug! into the big mitten of the Runt, catcher for Barth, whose chuckle behind him gave him agony.
Again Vancouver's captain swung the bat. Why he missed that easy, easy ball he never knew. It had resembled a Yorkshire pudding in size and contour to his gaze.
“Oh, this is easy, is it?” called Byron from the box. “You big dub! Dig out another drugged lamb, you people!”
They put in Sanfield, a good, even man with the stick, and him the captain bespoke in hurried converse. But Sanfield fanned sweet, thin mountain air in vain, and sat down, red and sad.
“Oh, easy!” mocked Byron, now a raging fiend, as the next man came to bat; and thereupon hurled in so terrible a straight ball that the Runt's face grew white, though he stood close up in obedience to the signal.
“Strike one!” tolled the umpire. And presently Vancouver retired to huddle and confer.
It was of no use. Bingham, the Vancouver importation, held stoically together, and prevented an absolute panic, but for the remaining innings the work was all for the battery, so far as Barth was concerned. Once the Runt dropped a straight one that came in too hot, and winced a bit as he did so. A Vancouver man got first on that. But he never got beyond. The umpire himself did not really know just where the curves were going, and he kept wide of the plate, not relishing artillery-fire.
For the last three rapid innings Georgie Dinwiddie, flushed, her bosom heaving with excitement, crowded close to the net behind the catcher. She saw eight men of the nine mutilate the air with wild swings, slashes, and swipes, emphasized by groans and protests and muttered oaths; but not one got to first. The score stood 8 to 4 for Barth, with hours of daylight to spare.
“Isn't this great ball?" cried Georgie to the players' bench, impersonally.
Byron stood, smiling calmly at his last victim, and tossed him a slow drop with so much back roll that, though bat-tipped, it got scarce twenty feet away from the plate before he had it in his own hands again. He fielded swiftly to first, where Ransom of the Northwest Mounted Police solemnly touched his man out, with “'arf an hour to spare,” as he explained it.
But before that, Byron, not looking around, had left his box and was making toward the shielding net. The girl met him, flushed, radiant, her nose against the meshes.
“Lon!” she cried.
“Georgie!”
“Why don't you walk around the net?” asked the Runt judicially.
“What is the matter with your hand, you poor thing?” asked she, as the Runt drew off his big catcher's glove a few moments later.
“Nothin',” said the Runt. “Little finger broke, I s'pose. I'm always breakin' it. Maybe she's tore a little. They came a trifle warm in the fifth inning.”
“You dear boy!” said Georgie, and kissed him openly and in public, while Byron wrung his other hand.
“It was great!” said Georgie again, looking with pride into Byron's eyes. Then suddenly she grew rosy and silent.
Byron, '03, started as though suddenly thinking of something he had forgotten.
“That's so!” said he.
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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