JIMMY KIRKLAND AND A PLOT FOR A PENNANT

CHAPTER I

_Panthers or Bears?_

The defeat in the opening game of the final series of the season
between the Panthers and Bears had been a hard blow to the championship
hopes of the Bears, and its effect was evident in the demeanor of the
players and those associated with them. It was the second week in
September. Since early in May the Blues, the Panthers and the Bears,
conceded to be the three strongest teams in the league, had struggled
day by day almost upon even terms, first one team leading by a narrow
margin, then another, until the interest of the country was centered
upon the battle for supremacy.

Then, with the Blues holding the lead by the narrowest of margins,
Maloney, their premier pitcher, strained his arm, and the Blues, in
despair, battled the harder only to overtax the strength of the
remaining pitchers, so that the team dropped rapidly into third place,
still hoping against hope to get their crippled pitching staff back
into condition for the finish.

It seemed that the four-game series between the Bears and Panthers
probably would prove the crisis of the year's efforts, and decide the
question of supremacy. On the eve of the commencement of that series
the Bear hopes had received a shock. Carson, the heaviest batter, the
speediest base runner and one of the most brilliant outfielders in the
league, had fractured a leg in sliding to a base, and was crippled so
seriously that all hope of his recovery in time to play again that year
was abandoned.

Until the day the news that Carson could not play again during the
season became public, the Bears had been favorites, but with their
hardest batter crippled, and Holleran, the substitute, known to be weak
against curve pitching, their hope seemed destroyed. Manager William
Clancy, of the Bears, his kindly, weather-beaten face wearing a
troubled expression, in place of his customary cheerful grin, was
investigating. The defeat of the Bears in the first game with the
Panthers had revealed to all the vital weakness of the holders of the
championship, and Clancy, as he sat nibbling the end of his penholder
in the writing room of the hotel, faced a discouraging situation.

Across the table from him a slender girl, attired in a close-fitting
street gown, was writing rapidly, covering many sheets of hotel
stationery with tall, angular hieroglyphics as she detailed to her
dearest friend at home the ex