CHAPTER XIV
AFTER THE GAME
The indescribable uproar which greeted the strike-out that settled the game prevented Hoover’s words from reaching Locke’s ears, but the glare in his eyes, the expression of his face, and the movement of his lips told well enough what he said. The triumphant pitcher barely avoided the whistling bat by an agile side spring. In another instant, his face went white; he was coming at Hoover with a rush.
Tense with excitement, Janet Harting saw it all; she saw the steady, youthful, almost boyish, Kingsbridge pitcher fool the Caliban-faced Bully for the final fruitless slash which settled the game, two to nothing, in the home team’s favor; saw Hoover, snarling, hurl the bat; and then beheld a swirling rush of shouting, wrathy human beings, who smashed the restraining rails in front of the bleachers, and poured upon the field like a spring flood from a bursted reservoir.
“I think,” said Benton King, gathering the reins, “that it is time for me to take you away from here, Janet.”
Trembling, she grasped his arm. “No, no!” she cried. “What are they going to do? That wretch threw his bat at—at Lefty.”
“Yes; and he’ll get his, if his friends don’t look out for him well. Locke has got all Kingsbridge behind him, and they’re a tough bunch when they get good and mad. There’s likely to be some broken heads.”
“Oh, wait a moment!” she entreated. “Look! They’re trying to hold the crowd off, and I believe Lefty is helping them.”
Out there on the diamond, raging, frothing men were shaking their fists at the offending pitcher; while others, including a number of Kingsbridge players, having packed themselves round the threatened man, were holding the hot-heads back by main force. And it was true that Tom Locke was one of those who sought to protect Jock Hoover from the wolfish mob.
“Stop!” his voice rang out, clear and distinct. “Keep back! The trouble is between that man and me. We’ll settle it.”
“Let-a me git at-a him!” raged an Italian, the same who had amused the crowd after the striking out of Mace in the first inning, by asking what was the matter with Lefty. “He throw-a da bat! I knock-a da block off-a da sneak-a!”