“He’s fine, isn’t he?” remarked Jean Forsythe enthusiastically. “I like that Mr. Fargo, too. Where’s the other one you were telling me about? I wonder he doesn’t come over.”
Janet had been wondering herself. Quite early in the game she had picked out Bert Elgin over by the grandstand pitching to one of the youngsters who was not playing. It seemed rather odd that he could not spare a moment to run over and see them.
“Oh, he’s warming up,” she explained carelessly. “He’s going in with the regulars at the seventh inning. It’ll be awfully exciting to see which does the better.”
Lefty talked for a moment or two with Al Ogan, and then, corralling a fellow to catch for him, started to limber up his arm. He felt that he had never been in better form, and the realization inspired him. So far the game was very close, for the Yannigans were having a streak of hitting, of which they took every advantage, so that they were one run to the good at the end of the fourth inning.
If Lefty could help them win the game it would be a triumph, indeed, and would more than atone for his losing the first time.
At the end of the fifth inning the score remained unchanged. In the last half of the sixth, however, the regulars secured the tying run. A little later Lefty slipped into his sweater, walked to the bench, and sat down. Elgin had stopped warming up a moment or two before, and stood near; but neither paid any attention to the other.
As the inning ended, Lefty saw Jim Brennan beckon to Ogan and engage him in conversation. He seemed to be laying down the law in that sharp, decisive manner of his, and something in the cub captain’s face sent a momentary thrill of apprehension through the southpaw.
He thrust it from him, however, and when Ogan finally turned away from the manager and walked slowly in, Lefty moved to meet him.
“Old man changed his plans?” the cub pitcher asked carelessly.