Joe and Jim did not care to discuss the matter before their mates, and the attack was put down to some rowdy who was sore at the umpire’s decision and took that method of showing it. But the two friends knew that it was much more than that.
“Well, what do you think now of my hunch?” demanded Jim, when the chums were alone together. “Was I right when I said I was uneasy about that fellow being in the grandstand?”
“You certainly were, Jim,” answered Joe. “It must have been Bugs who threw that bottle. I know at any rate that it was he whom I saw hustling out of the stands. And when I looked at where he had been sitting the seat was empty.”
“It was Bugs all right,” affirmed Jim with decision. “I saw his face once, when he glanced behind him while he was running. Then, too, only a pitcher could have hurled the bottle with the swiftness and precision that he did. It went nearly as far as the pitcher’s box before it struck the ground. Gee! my heart was in my mouth for a second when I saw it go whizzing past your ear. If it had hit you fair and square, it would have been good night.”
“It did barely touch me,” replied Joe, pointing to a scratch on his ear. “The old rascal hasn’t forgotten how to throw. How that fellow must hate me! And yet I was the best friend that he had on the team.”
“He hates you all right,” replied Jim. “But it wasn’t only his own personal feeling that prompted him to do that thing to-day. That isn’t Bugs’ way. He’d dope your coffee on the sly. Or he’d throw a stone at your head in a dark street, as he did that time when we’d started on our tour around the world. But to do a thing in the open, as he did to-day, means that he had a mighty big incentive to lay you out. That incentive was probably money. Somebody has put up the cash to send him to St. Louis, and that same somebody has probably promised him a big wad of dough if he could do you up. The chance came to-day, when the fans began to throw bottles at the umpire. He figured that that was the time to get in his work. If he’d been caught, he could have said that he was only one of a good many who did the same thing, and that he had no idea the bottle was going to hit anybody.”
“Then you think that Bugs this time was acting as the tool of Braxton, or whoever it is that’s trying to put me out of business,” remarked Joe.
“Think so!” cried Jim. “I’m sure of it. So many things, all pointing to deliberate purpose, don’t happen by accident. The same fellow who hired those auto bandits to cripple you hired Bugs for the same purpose. Lots of people have heard of the hatred that Bugs has for you. I suppose he’s panning you all the time in the joints where he hangs out. This fellow that’s after your hide has heard of Bugs and put him on the job. If he can’t get you in one way, he’s going to try to get you in another. He figures that some time or other one of his schemes will go through. Gee!” he exclaimed, jumping up and pacing the floor, “what would I give just to come face to face with him and have him in a room alone with me for five minutes. Just five minutes! I’d change his face so that his own brother wouldn’t know him.”
“I hope that job’s reserved for me,” replied Joe, as his fist clenched. “He’d get a receipt in full for all I owe him.”
“In the meantime, what shall we do about Bugs?” asked Jim anxiously. “He ought to be put in jail. It isn’t right that a man who’s tried to cripple another should be at large.”