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 this controversy over him go on? Then, there's Cope, who thinks—"

"Nobody in the Northern League knows Hazelton. Even Cope may be fooled."

"How? He signed Hazelton to pitch."

"But even he had never see the man. He made arrangements entirely by letter. What if Hazelton, not caring to come himself, sent a substitute? Jupiter! If that's how the land lays, this Locke would have the laugh on ev'rybody when the truth came out. We'd all feel like a man caught tryin' to spend plugged money."

Hutchinson pondered. The possibility suggested by Riley was something that had not occurred to him, but, although he could perceive that such a thing might be true, a brief bit of meditation led him to reject it as improbable.

"You're wrong," he said. "I'll stake my life that he is Hazelton."

"We've got t' be sure," growled the Bancroft manager. "It won't do to go ahead until we are. Say, I wouldn't have him put one like that over on me for a cool thousan'. I'd be guyed aplenty. Think of us howlin' about Hazelton and claimin' that Locke was him, only to have it pan out that we'd been makin' a lot o' jacks of ourselves. I wouldn't hear the last of it in a year."