“I’m going to try you with a curve, Doyle,” he told the batter. “Let’s see if you can win any shoes off it.” Coffin called for another straight one across Doyle’s shoulder, but Locke shook his head. “I told him I was going to pitch a curve,” he said. “Mr. Kennedy showed me one or two this morning. I wonder if I’ve forgotten how to use them?” “Lay one over anywhere,” invited Doyle, “and I’ll break the fence.” Even as he spoke, Locke pitched, starting the ball high, and making it take a break across the batter’s shoulders. Whereupon Doyle pounded the air for a second strike. “Told you you had him foul!” whooped McLaughlin. “How can he hit ’em? He can’t.” “Make him put ’em across, Pop,” urged Bristol. “Don’t let him fool you again.” Now, Lefty had deceived Doyle completely by telling him just what he was going to pitch, for the batter had looked for something entirely different. “Try another,” he entreated. “Give me another like that, and see it go out of the lot.” “Well,” said Lefty, “I’ll do it, if you’ll agree to swing.” “Look out for the straight one now!” shouted Elgin from the coaching line. “I know his pitching. That’s the way he mixes ’em――a curve and a straight one. That’s why he didn’t last in the Big League. They got wise to him. Meet it, Pop――meet it!” But, to the surprise of Elgin, although Lefty swung his arm as if about to waft over a smoker, he made such a beautiful change of pace that Doyle barely saved himself by holding the bat back on the swing. The slow ball dropped to the ground six inches in front of the plate, and Coffin gathered it on the bound. “That’s two and two,” said Elgin. “It takes only one to hit it.” Lefty rubbed his bare hand on the hip of Kennedy’s old Blue Stocking pants. “I’ve got another curve,” he observed thoughtfully. “Let me see if I can remember that one.” He threw it a moment later, the hook which dropped and twisted to the far side of the plate beyond Doyle; and again the batter checked himself on the swing, rejoicing when the umpire’s decision made it three to two. “Now,” he said, “you’ve got to put it over or hand me a walk. You don’t dare put it across!” “I’m going to put it across,” promised Lefty; “and of course I’ll have to use a straight one.” In such a hole some pitchers would have found it necessary to use the straight one. Apparently Locke pitched with that intention. Doyle tried to meet the ball and hoist it over the fence. It was another of those baffling “Johnson hooks” to the outside corner, and he missed by inches. “You’re out!” cried the umpire; and Peter McLaughlin had a fit then and there. CHAPTER XXXIV THE OTHER PITCHER Old Jack Kennedy’s lips were pressed together, not a word coming from them as Lefty Locke strode to the bench; but in the depths of the manager’s eyes there was a wonderful glow, and he could feel his usually steady pulse pounding with an erratic throb.