“He’s pretty near that now,” replied Jim. “And I don’t wonder. He’d set his heart on winning the flag this season, and it begins to look as though his cake was dough.”
“Even Robbie’s lost his smile,” said Joe. “And things must be pretty bad when he gets into the doleful dumps.”
“I thought that when we got those rascals, Hupft and McCarney, off the team, everything would be plain sailing,” remarked Jim. “They seemed to be the only disorganizing element.”
“Yes,” agreed Joe. “And especially when we got such crackerjacks in their places as Jackwell and Bowen. But speaking of them, have you noticed anything peculiar about them?”
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Jim, in some alarm. “You don’t mean to intimate that they’re crooks, too?”
“Not at all,” replied Joe. “From all I can see, they are as white as any men on the team. And they certainly know baseball from A to Z. They can run rings around Hupft and McCarney. But, just the same, I’ve noticed something odd about them from the start.”
“What, for instance?” asked Jim, with quickened interest.
“They seem nervous and scared at times,” answered Joe. “Jackwell, at third, keeps looking towards that part of the grandstand. The other day I was going to throw to him, to catch Elston napping; but I saw that Jackwell wasn’t looking at me, and so I held the ball. And I’ve noticed that when he’s coming into the bench between innings he lets his eyes range all over the stands.”
“Looking to see if his girl was there, perhaps,” laughed Jim.
“Nothing so pleasant as that,” asserted Joe. “It was as though he were looking for some one he didn’t want to see. And the same thing is true of Bowen. Of course he’s out at center, and I can’t observe him as well as I can Jackwell. But when he’s been sitting in the dugout waiting for his turn at bat, he’s always squinting at the fans in the stands and the bleachers. The other boys aren’t that way.”