“Collier’s got the dough to buy almost anything, and he’s a plunger when he gets started,” said Stillman. “I reckon he’d be willing to lose money this season to cop the championship again. Anyhow, Carson wouldn’t deny that he was trying to put such a deal across. He wouldn’t say anything about it.” “Whether it’s true or not, the story is bad for Locke,” said Nelson; “and if it gets to his ears it’s going to make him worse than he is.” “Or brace him up,” put in Daly. “Mebbe it will do that.” Of course, the rumor spread swiftly, and in short order every man on the team had heard of it, save Locke himself. For reasons, no one told Lefty. The fears of the Blue Stockings seemed justified when the Specters walked away with the third game of the series by a score of eight to two. Such a defeat, instead of disheartening them, seemed to fire them with desperation, and the fourth and final game proved to be another terrific battle, in which the two teams seesawed from start to finish, resorting to every legitimate device and trick as opportunities arose. Nevertheless, only for a fluke in the eighth inning, the locals doubtless would have taken the game. With two down and two on the cushions, Herman Brock banged the ball into deep left, and it went bounding to the fence, with Forbes in hot pursuit. The fielder had been playing deep, knowing Brock’s menace as a slugger, and, but for an unforeseen freak of fate, he doubtless would have secured the ball and held the enemy to a single run. It happened, however, that close to the ground there was a small hole in the fence――a hole barely large enough to push an ordinary baseball through; and never before had the sphere sought out that little opening hidden by a thin fringe of grass. Now, with seeming perverseness, it went straight through the hole, giving Brock a homer and putting the visitors again in the lead. Orth had been wabbling, and Carson had wisely kept Dillon warming up all through the game. Now, when the Specters came to bat again, the manager took a chance and sent Pink to the hillock. Strange as it seemed, the slants and benders of this second-string pitcher, which had been so easy for the locals to fathom two days before, now proved tremendously puzzling. And, though the fighting “ghosts” became menacing in both the eighth and ninth, they could not quite succeed in pushing a runner round the course. Therefore, for all of the tattered condition of their pitching staff, the Blue Stockings broke even in the series with their most dangerous rivals. But they were now to invade the territory of the Terriers, always to be feared, and the dark cloud swung lower. CHAPTER XIX THE STRANGER