CHAPTER XIII.

THE JAY SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO.

A wild scene followed. The St. Paul players rushed forward, lifted the jay, placed him on their shoulders, and bore him aloft.

“Oh, say!” he cried, “don’t make such a dinged fuss over a little thing like that! It makes me feel ’shamed! Put me down, for goshfrymighty sakes!”

But his words were drowned by the howling of the spectators and the cheering of the happy players.

But what was the more surprising to the crowd quickly followed. A boy ran out toward the players who were holding the jay aloft, and he was followed by the most remarkable figure ever seen on those grounds.

The spectators saw an old weather-beaten and wrinkled redskin, wrapped in a dirty red blanket. This old fellow advanced till he reached the home plate, where he suddenly snatched the tattered blanket from his shoulders, flaunted it round his head, and uttered such a yell of victory that it was heard clear and shrill and piercing above the roaring of the thousands of spectators.

The piercing yell of the old Indian caused the shouting spectators to grow silent, while they looked on in thrilled astonishment. As there came a hush the old man cried:

“Heap big hard hit! Him mighty whiteskin chief!” Then he ended with a most bloodcurdling war-whoop.

“A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!” brayed the stammering fellow on the bleachers. “Didn’t I tell you he could dud-dud-dud-do it! A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!”

When the rejoicing players lowered the hero of the moment, the boy who had dashed out ahead of the Indian sprang forward and grasped the jay’s hand.

“I knew you’d do it!” he said, his handsome face glowing, while there was a look of pride in his eyes. “Why, you can do anything! You can do everything!”

“Oh, not by a gosh-ding sight!” exclaimed the countryman awkwardly. “I couldn’t keep a certain gingery young colt from buckin’ over the traces oncet on a time; but I kainder guess he won’t do it no more.”

“Never!” declared the boy, something like a look of shame coming to his face. “Oh, I was silly! Just see what I would have missed had I gone away!”

Trueman took hold of the jay and drew him aside.

“See here, man!” he exclaimed, in repressed excitement; “who are you, anyhow? Where did you ever play?”

“Mud Crick, Slabtown, Suckerville, an’ other towns like that. Oh, I’ve got a reppertation where I’m known! I tole yer I could do a thing ur two.”

“I believe you have saved this game!”

“Think very likely I hev,” was the cheerful answer. “It would be jest like me.”

“If you can keep up this kind of work I’ll sign you for the St. Paul team.”

“Git out!”

“Of course,” said Trueman, who did not wish the stranger to “get his ideas up,” “you lack experience, and, therefore, you cannot command much money; but I’ll give you a chance to show what you can do, and then we’ll talk about money matters.”

“A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!” laughed the jay. “Why, mister, you don’t know how funny it is to hear you talk that air way.”

Trueman flushed, wondering if the fellow was half-witted.

“Talk what way?” he asked.

“’Bout me lackin’ ’sperience, an’ such stuff as that. But I don’t want to play perfessional baseball, anyhow, an’ I jest stepped inter this game ter help ye out. You can’t hire me.”

“But think----”

“You ain’t gut money enough.”

“Ten dollars weekly and all expenses.”

“A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!”

Again Trueman’s face reddened, for the note of derision in the laughter of the jay could not be mistaken.

“Isn’t that enough?” asked the captain of the St. Pauls.

“Be you the manager?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t make no kind of an offer, mister. What be you talkin’ about?”

“I’m taking chances. I’ll bring round the manager.”

“’Tain’t no use. He ain’t gut money ernuff to hire me.”

“What?”

“That’s right. I wouldn’t play perfessional baseball fer two hundred dollars a week, and I mean business when I say so. I’m jest doin’ this ter-day fer the fun of the thing, an’---- Well, gol-dinged ef that feller ain’t out!”

The next batter had been thrown out at first.

“Now do your handsomest,” urged Trueman. “If you hold ’em down I’ll give you five dollars.”

“A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!” brayed the queer character. “Don’t be so dinged generous. If you’d said twenty-five it’d sounded better. I’ll do my best ter hold ’em down, but you kin keep your old fiver in your trousers.”

Then he walked out onto the diamond in the same slouching, careless way.

Old Joe Crowfoot and Dick were now seated on the St. Paul bench, having been placed there as mascots. The savage had wrapped his dirty blanket about his shoulders once more, and he was stoically puffing away at a long black pipe. The boy, however, was quivering with excitement, although he did his best to repress it.

The work of the jay in that inning was something amazing. First he called down the catcher for a bit of private talk, and the catcher was heard to exclaim:

“What are you giving me! Impossible! It can’t be done! Of course I can hold it!”

Then they went back to their positions, and the first batter of the Minneapolis team was at the plate.

The first ball pitched by the jay amazed the batter, for it started with a curve out, but seemed to change its course and shoot in with amazing speed, crossing the plate. The batter had not looked for anything like that, and he stood with the bat lifted, letting the ball pass. The catcher, for all of his little talk with the pitcher, was unprepared, and the ball got past him, after hitting his mitt.

“Strike!” gasped the umpire, who had a good eye, but who seemed more astonished than anybody else.

“Thought you said you’d hold it!” exclaimed the pitcher. “Put your fins on it and fasten ’em there.”

The face of the catcher showed his chagrin, for all of the cage he wore.

“Try it again,” he said.

“Yes, try it again!” growled the batter.

In the stand behind the catcher there was great excitement. One man was wildly declaring that the ball had curved like a wiggling snake, and several others agreed with him, while yet others asserted that it was an optical illusion.

The jay grinned as he pressed the ball into his hand to deliver it again. He looked at the catcher and nodded, and the catcher braced himself.

Then came another surprise, for the ball started with an in curve that caused the batter to get back from the plate, but it changed to an out and passed over the plate fairly.

“Strike two!” declared the umpire.

A great shout went up from the grand stand, where many persons were excitedly telling each other that the ball had curved both ways.

The catcher had managed to stop the second one, although it fell from his mitt, but he was bewildered.

The batter started to kick, but the umpire quickly closed him up.

“A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!” laughed the jay. “Tole you folks I hed somethin’ hot up my sleeve. Don’t believe you ever seen northin’ like that afore.”

“A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!” roared his friend on the bleachers. “Now, you’re mum-mum-mum-making mum-mum-mum-monkeys of ’em, old mum-mum-mum-man!”

“Mum’s the word, Joe,” returned the pitcher. “Ain’t this the greatest fun you ever seen?”

“Bub-bub-bub-better’n a circus,” declared the chap on the bleachers.

The batter was angry and bewildered. He was looking for another of those peculiar twisting balls, and, as a result, he fanned out when the jay put the next one over the inside corner of the plate.

Then the strange pitcher and his stammering friend “a-hawed” in unison, while the crowd shouted and applauded.

“What sort of a wizard are we up against?” muttered the captain of the Minneapolis team.

The catcher was on edge now, for he realized that he was catching a pitcher who stood far ahead of any one he had ever supported before.

The next batter was fooled quite as easily as the first had been, fanning wildly at the first two balls and then letting the third one pass, although it cut the plate, and he was declared out on three strikes.

The third man was looking for something of the same sort, and he was keyed to a high pitch to hit speed, which caused him to swing far too soon when the first ball came in dead slow, rocking in the air without turning, so that the stitches in the covering could be distinctly seen.

“That’s my dope ball,” laughed the strange pitcher. “Ain’t it a baby?”

Under his breath the batter swore and gripped his bat. The stranger was “making monkeys” of the hitters as fast as they came up to strike.

“That pitcher is worth five hundred dollars a month to any team!” declared the pale-faced Minneapolis man. “He must be some old-timer.”

“He doesn’t look very old,” said the dark-faced man, who had confessed to having money bet on the game. “It must be nothing but a streak of luck.”

These two men were well known in Western sporting circles, the pale-faced man being Charley Bates, who had inherited a million and lost it all in two years of fast living, while the dark-faced one was Hank Dowling, a notorious gambler and race-track man.

“How much do you stand to lose on this game if St. Paul wins?” asked Bates.

“Eight hundred dollars,” answered Dowling.

“Well, I reckon you’re out that much.”

“Not yet. The score is tied, and there is another show. We have our last half.”

“But St. Paul can’t touch that pitcher. Look at that! He has two strikes on Gibson, and Gib is the third man up this inning.”

“But that fellow may be fixed.”

“How?”

“I’ll find a way.”

Then, as the jay pitcher struck the third man out the crowd went wild, and somebody in the grand stand yelled:

“Talk about Frank Merriwell’s double-shoot! Why, here’s a man who can pitch all around Merriwell!”