Fast Nine: or, A Challenge from Fairfield

"But all the same it was a ticklish thing for Toby, and what you might call a close shave," declared Elmer, thoughtfully.

"Whew, I wouldn't like to take the chances of a thirty-foot drop like that, if the branch broke or his trousers tore!" Lil Artha remarked. "And after all Toby ought to be thankful that they were new goods and not rotten stuff."

"Think of his nerve in jumping off that high cliff," said Elmer, shaking his head, as though the idea appalled him. "That fellow is getting too daring. I wouldn't be much surprised if he did try to drop down from the church tower some fine day if this thing isn't nipped in the bud."

"Then perhaps we ought to tell, Elmer?" suggested Lil Artha.

"You mean, let his folks know about the narrow call he had here to-day?"

"Yep. Seems to me it's kind of our duty to inform his dad. Another time, perhaps, Toby won't be just so lucky. And Elmer, if he got smashed or had his legs broken, you and me would feel like we was guilty, ain't that so?"

"I'll think it over, Lil Artha," replied the other. "I hate to tell on a chum, but this is something out of the ordinary. It may mean Toby's life, for all we can tell. And on the whole I think his folks ought to know."

"He won't blab on himself, that's dead sure," remarked the tall scout.

"Sounded like he didn't mean to, for a fact," Elmer continued.

"Tell you what, I'd have given a heap to have been around just then, Elmer."

"You mean when he took the jump? It must have been a bit thrilling for a fellow to deliberately drop off such a high place. But Toby's got the nerve, only sometimes it seems to me he's reckless. And that's a bad thing in anyone who wants to sail around through the air regions."

They went on exchanging opinions, and in due time arrived at the Bailey house, where Elmer delivered his charge to the owner of the big woods.

On the way back they neither saw nor heard anything of Toby, though they could easily imagine him hard at work trying to get his broken parachute in shape, so that it might be transported back to town, and fixed up for another exploit.

It would not be in boy nature to keep such a remarkable story secret, and before night it had likely traveled from one end of Hickory Ridge to the other in about a dozen different shapes. Some even had it that Toby had flown a mile before being caught in a tree, while others had him a wreck, with all the doctors in town trying to patch him up. But Elmer went straight to Mr. Jones, and gave him the true version, so that he might not be alarmed at anything he heard.

CHAPTER VII.

MORE WORK ON THE DIAMOND

When Lil Artha showed up on the field that afternoon, clad in his old baseball suit that showed the wear and tear of many a battle, he had his camera slung over his shoulder with a strap.

"Want to take the nine in action?" asked Elmer, as he noted this fact, and paused in his delivery of the ball to the catcher, Mark Cummings.

"Oh, I might, if the signs were right, and they showed that they deserved all that sort of attention," replied the tall scout, "but I've made up my mind about one thing, Elmer."

"What might that be?" asked the other, smiling at his friend's seriousness.

"I'm going to carry this little box around with me day and night, that's what. Just the time you want it most you haven't got it along," declared Lil Artha, with a look of sheer disgust.

"Well, I always heard that a fellow could see all sorts of game when he didn't happen to have a gun," laughed Elmer; "and I suppose the same thing goes with a camera. But I can guess what's ailing you now, my boy."

"Of course you can," grinned the other. "Say, just think what it would mean to you and me if we only had a picture of Toby Jones kicking the air up in that old tree, and learning to swim! Wow, no chance of us ever getting the blues while we had that to look at! It would have been the funniest ever. And to think it's all lost to us, just because I was silly enough to leave my box at home. Shucks!"

"Don't suppose Toby would pose it over again, do you?" suggested Larry Billings, who was passing a ball with Matty Eggleston, the leader of the Beaver Patrol, and one of the reliables in the nine.

"Well, hardly," Lil Artha replied. "I reckon Toby got enough of hanging that time to last him right along. Is he here this afternoon?"

"Sure he is, and as chipper as ever. Only grins when anybody tries to josh him about flying. Nothing ever feases that feller. He comes up again after every knockdown, as fresh as a daisy. Says he's going to give the old town a sensation some day before long. And he means it, too," remarked one of the other boys near by.

Elmer and Lil Artha exchanged meaning glances, and presently the latter managed to whisper to his companion of the morning:

"Did you do it, Elmer?"

"I asked my father what I ought to do, and he sent me over to tell Mr. Jones the whole story, because all sorts of yarns were going around, and he said Toby's mother might hear something awful had happened, and be frightened."

"And what did Mr. Jones say?" continued Lil Artha.

"He laughed a little," replied Elmer, then looked serious like. "I rather expect he'll put a crimp in Toby's flying business after this, though up to now he's rather encouraged the boy, thinking it was smart in him. Now he sees the danger. But get out in the field, and throw in a few from first, old fellow."

The scene was an animated one, with boys in uniform and without, banging out high flies, passing balls, and exercising generally. It really seemed as though every one in the town who could get off must be there that afternoon to see how the Hickory Ridge team gave promise of playing when up against the strong Fairfield nine.

Girls had come down in flocks, and not a few men were present, among whom Elmer noticed his old friend, Colonel Hitchins.

This fact caused him to remember something, and the sight of his catcher, Mark Cummings, fitted right in with his thoughts. Apparently Mark had also noticed the presence of the Colonel, for after throwing up his hand as a signal that he had had enough of practice for the time being, he advanced toward Elmer, and was presently speaking in a low tone to him.

"See who's here, Elmer?" he asked.

"Well, I notice a lot of mighty pretty girls for one thing," smiled the other.

"You know I don't mean them, or any particular girl," replied the catcher, who was a singularly modest lad as well as a handsome one. "Over yonder in that bunch – the old colonel!"

"Oh, yes, I noticed him a bit ago," remarked Elmer. "But that isn't surprising. He's always taken a heap of interest in boys' sports, and used to play baseball many years ago, he says, when it was a new game. He told me he was in a nine that played the old Cincinnati Reds the first year they ever had a league. And that was a long time ago, Mark."

"You're right, it was, Elmer; but when I saw the colonel it reminded me that so far I haven't done anything about finding out how that lost cap of mine happened to be picked up under his peach trees, when I dropped it a mile away, over on the bank of the Sunflower."

"I heard that two men had been arrested, charged with stealing those peaches," Elmer remarked.

"Yes, that's so, for they were silly enough to sell the fruit to Phil Dongari, the man who keeps the biggest fruit store in town. Colonel Hitchins could tell his prize peaches anywhere, so he went and bought them back again; and getting a line on the men, had them put in the town cooler, where they are yet."

"Just so, Mark; that's ancient history," smiled Elmer; "but as you say it doesn't do the first thing along the line of explaining how your cap got under those same trees, does it?"

"But, Elmer, I'm relying on you to get a move on and find out something before the trail gets cold," argued Mark.

"That sounds pretty fine, my boy," observed Elmer; "but what makes you believe I can do anything to help out? You've got all the advantages I have."

"That's so," admitted Mark; "only I'm a greenhorn about following a trail, and you know heaps. Besides, something in your manner seems to tell me you've already got a hunch on about this thing."

"Oh, that's the way you look at it, eh?" mocked Elmer.

"Yes, I haven't been going with you all this time not to know how to read your face and actions," replied Mark, boldly. "And it's my honest opinion right now that if you chose you could put your finger on the culprit."

"Thank you for your confidence, my boy; but I'm not quite so dead sure as you make out," returned Elmer.

"But you think you know?" protested Mark.

"I believe I've got a good clew; I admit that, Mark."