Page:Lefty o' the Bush.djvu/56

 "Get ready to catch me," Locke cut him short. "I tell you I'm going to get this man."

Then, seemingly deaf to the continued howling of the crowd, he turned and walked back, apparently disregarding the taunting base runners, who were dancing off the sacks to lure a throw.

Larry Stark, doubtless wondering that Hutchinson had not signaled for a change, stood listless, twelve feet off second; but, without betraying the fact, Locke observed that Jim Sockamore, the Indian center fielder, apparently hoping to work an old trick in the midst of the excitement, was walking swiftly, but unobtrusively, in toward the sack. Indeed, Sockamore was not twenty feet from the bag when the pitcher faced Grady at the plate.

Only for an instant were Locke's eyes turned toward the batsman; like a flash, he whirled again to face second, and the ball shot from his fingers as he turned.

He had not received a signal to throw, but he did so on the chance that the foxy Indian player would sneak all the way to the hassock, if for no other purpose than to show up what might have been pulled off with a live pitcher on the slab.

Sockamore was within five feet of the cushion when Locke turned, and, seeing the ball was com