Lefty o' the Bush

Kingsbridge had taken the field for practice, the visitors having warmed up already. The Northern League, a genuine “bush” organization, had opened two days earlier in Bancroft and Fryeburg, but this was to be the first game of the season in Kingsbridge, a hustling, crude, though ambitious pulp-mill town.

As it was Saturday afternoon, when the mills closed down at three o’clock, there was certain to be a big crowd in attendance, double assurance of which could be seen in the rapidly filling grand stand and bleachers, and the steady stream of humanity pouring in through the gates.

As Riley approached, a lean, sallow man, with a hawk-beak nose, rose from the home bench and nodded, holding out a bony hand, which, cold as a dead fish, was almost smothered in the pudgy paw put forth to meet it.