"Still, he might be blind to that fact," Jack explained. "The one thing before his eyes would be that he could pick up the money so sorely needed, and for which he might even be tempted to barter his honor. All sorts of explanations could be made up to tell where he got the cash. But there's even something more than that to make matters look bad for Fred."
"As what, Jack?" begged Toby, breathlessly.
"Just day before yesterday," the other continued, "I chanced to pass along over yonder, and glancing across saw Fred sitting on this very bench. He was so busy talking with a man that he never noticed me. That man was a stranger in Chester, at least I had never seen him before. Yes, and somehow it struck me there was a bit of a sporty look about his appearance!"
"Gee whiz! the plot thickens, and that does look black for Fred, I must say," grunted Toby, aghast.
"I was interested to the extent of hanging around to watch them further," Jack went on to say, "and for half an hour they continued to sit here, all the while talking. I thought the sporty stranger glanced around a number of times, as though he didn't want any one to overhear a word of what he was saying. He seemed to have a paper of some sort, too, which I saw Fred signing. I wondered then if he could be such a simpleton as to attach his name to any dishonorable deal; but sometimes even the sharpest fellow shows a weak point. Now I know that Fred must be fairly wild to get hold of a certain sum of money, it makes me more afraid than ever he is pledged to toss away the game, if it looks as though Chester is going to win out on a close margin."
"Then we ought to drop Fred out, and take our medicine with another man on third," proposed Steve, hotly.
"I'd do that in a minute, and take no chances of foul play," said Jack, "if only we knew of anybody capable of filling his shoes. If Harmony knows a weak player covers third bag, they'll make all their plays revolve around him, that's sure. The only thing I can see is to let Fred keep on, and hope the game will not be so close that he could lose it for Chester by a bad break. Besides that I could have a heart-to-heart talk with him, not letting him see that we suspected his loyalty, but impressing it on his mind that every fellow in the team believed in him to the utmost, and that we'd be broken-hearted if anything happened to lose us this game on which the whole future of clean sport in Chester hangs."