t catcher. What a
hoarse thundering roar shook the stands and waved in a blast over the
field! Carroll stood bowing his acknowledgment, and then swaggered a
little with the sun shining on his handsome heated face. Like a
conqueror conscious of full blown power he stalked away to the
clubhouse.

Madge Ellston came out of her trance and viewed the ragged score-card,
her torn parasol, her battered gloves and flying hair, her generally
disheveled state with a little start of dismay, but when she got into
the thick and press of the moving crowd she found all the women more or
less disheveled. And they seemed all the prettier and friendlier for
that. It was a happy crowd and voices were conspicuously hoarse.

When Madge entered the hotel parlor that evening she found her uncle
with guests and among them was Burns Carroll. The presence of the
handsome giant affected Madge more impellingly than ever before, yet in
some inexplicably different way. She found herself trembling; she
sensed a crisis in her feelings for this man and it frightened her.
She became conscious suddenly that she had always been afraid of him.
Watching Carroll receive the congratulations of many of those present,
she saw that he dominated them as he had her. His magnetism was
over-powering; his great stature seemed to fill the room; his easy
careless assurance emanated from superior strength. When he spoke
lightly of the game, of Crane's marvelous catch, of Dalgren's pitching
and of his own triple play, it seemed these looming features retreated
in perspective--somehow lost their vital significance because he
slighted them.

In the light of Carroll's illuminating talk, in the remembrance of
Sheldon's bitter denunciation, in the knowledge of Pat Donahue's
estimate of a peculiar type of ball-player, Madge Ellston found herself
judging the man--bravely trying to resist his charm, to be fair to him
and to herself.

Carroll soon made his way to her side and greeted her with his old
familiar manner of possession. However irritating it might be to Madge
when alone, now it held her bound.

Carroll possessed the elemental attributes of a conqueror. When with
him Madge whimsically feared that he would snatch her up in his arms
and carry her bodily off, as the warriors of old did with the women
they wanted. But she began to believe that the fascination he
exercised upon her was merely physical. That gave her pause. Not only
was Burns Carroll on tri