“Truest thing you know,” averred the outfielder fervently. “Ask Monte Harris, or Dutch, if you don’t believe me. We was all talking downstairs about the match between Kid Baker and Young Glover in Memphis to-morrow, and Ross――he’s that punky cub fielder――says he’d back Elgin against any amateur in his class. Nolan picks up his ears, and, one word leading to another, we goes up to my room to call his bluff. Take it from me, there wasn’t any bluff about the kid, though. He’s got science and speed to burn, and the dandiest left hand wallop you ever saw. It sent Nolan sprawling in the third round as nice as could be, and Ed ain’t no slouch. I sure wish you all could have seen it.” “Why in thunder didn’t you put us wise, then?” demanded Russell indignantly. “You’re a hot sketch, pulling off a scrap and letting nobody in.” A chorus of similar reproaches were hurled at Hagin from all sides, mingled with eager queries about Elgin’s other good points, and calls for a more detailed description of the bout. Buck Fargo alone sat unmoved and apparently incurious, a look of incredulity on his face. He was thinking of that night in the Palace Theater when Elgin had slipped away, leaving Lefty to face the wrathy mob alone. He remembered, also, the story Jack Stillman had told him of the beating Locke had started to give his college mate three years before at Princeton, and he smiled a wide, disbelieving smile as he listened to Hagin’s vivid description of the cub pitcher’s prowess with his fists. But when, later in the day, Monte Harris and Carl Siegrist backed up the statement, and even Nolan himself admitted sourly that “the kid wasn’t so worse,” Fargo grew puzzled. “Something queer about this,” he thought. “Looks like I’d have to do a little investigating on my own hook.” All morning he was preoccupied and thoughtful, only arousing himself when Brennan’s eye was upon him, and even then quite lacking in his usual joshing repartee. Once or twice he noticed with a sort of absent approbation that Lefty was showing some steam and curves in the work-out with other pitchers; but aside from that he paid little attention to anything. During dinner his abstraction continued, but afterward, on the way back to the field, he might have been observed suddenly to slap one thigh with his hand, and mutter something under his breath. After that he was the old Buck Fargo again. The daily practice game now took place in the afternoon, leaving the morning for batting practice, throwing, running, and various other exercises. Ogan, the captain of the cubs, put Redmond, a fairly promising young twirler, into the box, but at the end of the second inning withdrew him, and substituted Bert Elgin.