TAKING A CHANCE
There was a scream from the frightened girls and a gasp from the young men
as they saw this messenger of death bearing down upon them.
They knew at a glance what had happened. A Malay, yielding to the
insidious mental malady that seems peculiar to his race, had suddenly gone
mad and started out to kill. That he himself would inevitably be killed
did not deter him for a moment. He wanted to die, but he wanted at the
same time to take as many with him as possible.
He had made his offering to the infernal gods, had blackened his teeth and
anointed his head with cocoa oil, and had started out to slay.
With his eyes blazing, his head rolling from side to side like a mad dog,
and with that blood-chilling cry coming from his foam-flecked lips, he was
like a figure from a nightmare.
For a moment the Americans stood rooted to the spot. That instant past,
Baseball Joe, as usual, took the lead.
"Look after the girls, Jim!" he cried, and started full tilt toward the
awful figure that came plunging down the street.
Mabel and Clara screamed to him to stop, but he only quickened his pace,
running like a deer, as though bent on suicide. The Malay saw him coming,
and for a second hesitated. He had seen everyone else scurry from him in
fear. What did this man mean by coming to meet him?
It was just this instant of indecision upon which Joe had counted, and
like a flash he seized it.
When within twenty feet of the Malay, Joe launched himself into the air,
and came down flat on the hard dirt road, as he had done many a time
before when sliding to base.
The Malay, confused by the unlooked-for action, slashed down at him. Had
Joe gone straight toward him, the knife would have been buried in him. But
here again his quickness and the tactics of the ballfield came into play.
Instead of going straight toward his antagonist, his slide had been a
"fall away."
Many a time when sliding to second he had thrown himself this way out of
the reach of the ball, while his extended hand just clutched the bag.
So now, his sinewy arm caught the Malay by the leg, while his body swung
round to the right. Down went the Malay with a crash, his blood-stained
knives clattering on the ground and the next instant Joe was on his back.
His hands closed upon the man's throat with an iron grip.
But there was no more fight left in the would-be murderer. The fall had
jarred and partially stunned him. In an instant Jim had joined Joe, other
men came rushing up; and the danger was over.
The crazed man was secured with ropes and carried away, while Joe,
perspiring, panting and covered with dust, received the enthusiastic
congratulations of the rapidly gathering crowd.
"Pluckiest thing I ever saw in my life!" exclaimed the colonel of the army
command, who had witnessed the exploit.
"That fall-away slide of yours was great, Joe!" cried Larry Barrett, who
had come up. "I never saw a niftier one on the ballfield."
"You made the bag all right!" grinned Denton.
"He never touched you!" chuckled Burkett.
"If he had it would have been some touch," declared McRae, as he picked up
one murderous-looking knife and passed it round for inspection.
It was a wicked weapon, nearly a foot in length, with a handle so
contrived as to get all the weight behind the stroke and a wavy blade
capable of inflicting a fearful wound.
"Has a bowie knife skinned a mile!" ejaculated Curry, expressing the
general sentiment.
Joe hated to pose as a hero but it was some time before the crowd would
let him get away and rejoin the girls who were waiting for him.
All the plaudits of the throng were tame compared with what he read in the
eyes of Mabel and his sister.
The baseball teams stayed nearly a week in Manila, making short excursions
in the suburbs as far as it could be done with safety. Two games were
played, one between the Giants and All-Americans, which resulted in favor
of the latter, and another between the Giants and a picked nine from the
army post.
Many of Uncle Sam's army boys had been fine amateur players and a few had
come from professional teams, so that they were able to put up a gallant
fight, although they were, of course, no match for the champions of the
world.
"But they certainly put up a fine game," was Joe's comment. "They had two
pitchers who had some good stuff in 'em."
"That's just what I was thinking," returned Jim.
"One of those pitchers used to play ball on a professional team from Los
Angeles," said McRae, who was standing near. "I understand he had quite a
record."
"I wonder what made him give up pitching and join the army," remarked Jim
curiously.
"Oh, I suppose it was the love of adventure," answered the manager.
"That might be it," said Joe. "Some fellows get tired of doing the same
thing, and when they have a chance to leave home and see strange places,
they grab it."
While warming up prior to this last game, Joe's attention was attracted by
a muscular Chinaman, who was standing in the crowd that fringed the
diamond, interestedly watching the players at practice. He recognized him
as a famous wrestler who had taken part in a bout at a performance the
night before and who had thrown his opponents with ease.
"Some muscles on that fellow," Joe remarked to Jim.
"Biggest Chink I ever saw," replied Jim, "and not a bit of it is fat
either. He'd make a dandy highbinder. You saw what he did to the Terrible
Turk in that match last night. He just played with him. And the Turk was
no slouch either."
"Look at those arms," joined in Larry, gazing with admiration at the
swelling biceps of the wrestler. "What a slugger he'd make if he knew how
to play ball. He'd break all the fences in the league."
"He sure would kill the ball if he ever caught it on the end of his bat,"
declared Red Curry.
"I've half a mind to give him a chance," laughed Joe.
"Go ahead," grinned Larry. "I'd like to see him break his back reaching
for one of your curves."
"He might land on it at that," replied Joe. "A wrestler has to have an eye
like a hawk."
He beckoned to the wrestler, who came toward him at once with a smile on
his keen but good-natured face.
"Want to hit the ball?" asked Joe, piecing out his question by going
through the motions of swinging a bat that he picked up.
The wrestler "caught on" at once, and the smile on his face broadened into
a grin as he nodded his head understandingly.
"Me tly," he said in the "pidgin English" he had picked up in his travels,
and reached out his hand for the bat.
"Have a heart, Joe," laughed Larry. "Don't show the poor gink up before
the crowd. At any rate let me show him how it's done."
"All right," responded Joe. "You lead off and he can follow."
Larry took up his position at the plate and motioned to the wrestler to
watch him. The latter nodded and followed every motion.
Joe put over a swift high one that Larry swung at and missed. He "bit"
again at an outcurve with no better result.
"Look out, Larry," chaffed Jim, "or it's you that will be shown up instead
of the Chink."
A little nettled, Larry caught the next one full and square and it sailed
far out into right field.
"There," he said complacently, as he handed the bat to the wrestler,
"that's the way it's done."
The latter went awkwardly to the plate and a laugh ran through the crowd
at the unusual sight.
Joe lobbed one over and the Chinaman swung listlessly a foot below the
ball.
"Easy money," laughed Denton.
"Where's that good eye you said this fellow had?" sang out Willis.
The second ball floated up to the plate as big as a balloon, and again the
wrestler whiffed, coming nowhere near the sphere.
But as Joe wound up for the third ball, the listlessness vanished from the
Chinaman. A glint came into his eyes and every muscle was tense.
The ball sped toward the plate. The wrestler caught it fair "on the seam"
with all his powerful body behind the blow.
The ball soared high and far over center field, looking as though it were
never going to stop. In a regular game it would have been the easiest of
home runs.
The wrestler sauntered away from the plate with the same bland smile on
his yellow face while the crowd cheered him. He had turned the tables, and
the laugh was on Joe and his fellow players.
"But why," asked Jim, after the game had resulted in a victory for the
visitors by a one-sided score, and he was walking back with Joe to the
hotel, "did he make such a miserable flunk at the first two balls? Was he
kidding us?"
"Not at all," grinned Joe. "It's because the Chinamen are the greatest
imitators on earth. He saw that Larry missed the first two and so he did
the same. He thought it was part of the game!"