SNATCHED FROM THE FIRE
Although his heart was with Mabel, Joe’s mind was once more thoroughly
alert. Two runs at the very beginning of a game is not much, to be
sure, under ordinary circumstances. But it did not take him long to see
that the team was not running right. Something was decidedly wrong even
though he could not put his finger on just what that something was.
From the way the second inning began it looked as though the Giants
were going to have their work cut out for them simply to keep the
opposing team from scoring further, let alone the making up of those
two runs.
Joe felt something of the old fighting spirit rising within him again
and then, at thought of Mabel, his heart sank. He wondered, as he had
wondered before, how, with every moment a torment of apprehension to
him, he was going to play ball.
“Go to it, Joe,” McRae ordered brusquely. “Get out there and see if
you can’t pull this team together. Looks as if this game was lost
before it began. Go in and give ’em a sample of pitching that’ll open
their eyes.”
Joe tried his best to smile his old joyful smile as he started for the
box, but it was hard work. His muscles felt drawn and tight and the
best he could manage was a rather sickly grin.
Then his gaze met Reddy Hupft’s and he was suddenly conscious of a wave
of dislike and disgust that made his former resentment of the fellow
seem a lukewarm emotion. There was more than malice in Reddy’s eyes
too――this time Joe was sure of it. Instinctively he threw back his
shoulders and his head went up.
“If Hupft and McCarney think they can put one over on me they’ll soon
find out their mistake.”
He wound up deliberately, then sent over a ball so swift that it seemed
but the barest second from the time it left his hand till it dropped
with a thud in the catcher’s glove. Three men he struck out in swift
succession and the crowd was in an uproar.
“At a boy, Joe, don’t let ’em sass you!” shrilled a voice Joe thought
he recognized, and he grinned in the direction of the grandstand.
Thereafter followed some of the most brilliant work Joe had ever given
the fans to marvel at, and though the Giants failed to score, he at
least kept the opposing team from scoring.
But that was not enough. Joe knew it, and every member of the team, as
well as the clamoring crowd in grandstand and bleachers, knew it too.
Three, four, five innings passed without changing the score. Then in
the first part of the sixth Neale of the Bostons knocked a homer that
made wild men of their little band of supporters.
Three to nothing the score stood now, in the first half of the sixth,
and the Giants were in the throes of what promised to be a first-class
slump.
“Looks as if you had to carry the whole team on your shoulders, Joe,”
said Robbie, adding, with a comprehensive glance: “They look broad
enough to stand it, at that. Listen, Joe, pretty soon you’re going
behind that bat and you’re going to smash that score into little bits
and make a brand new one, understand?”
And Joe did. He waited till he was sure of his ball, and then with all
the weight of his shoulders behind it he caught the ball squarely on
the end of his bat, sent it winging skyward as though its ambition were
to see just how far up in the clouds it could go and manage to get back
to earth at all.
At the crack of the bat Joe started and reached home without sliding
just as the ball connected with the catcher’s glove.
The crowd went mad. There was a storm of cheering and stamping and
frantic yells, but Joe took no notice of them. He was thinking of
Mabel. Was his little wife waiting for him, wondering why he did not
come, perhaps reproaching him?
At the end of the sixth the score stood as Joe had made it: 3 to 1 in
favor of Boston. In various innings there had been men on first and
second and, at one time, on all three, but, somehow, they fell just
short of scoring.
“It’s just what I tell you, Joe,” growled Robbie. “You have to carry
the whole team. You give them an opening and they don’t even see it.”
“That was great work, Joe,” Jim told him a few moments later. “I’d give
anything to be able to bat as you do. It sure is a privilege to see you
knock out one of those home runs.”
“Say, Jim,” Joe broke in with an abruptness that showed he had not
heard one word of Jim’s tribute, “what do you suppose is the matter
with Reggie? Why don’t we hear from him?”
“I wish you’d give me an easy one,” answered Jim anxiously. “I’ve been
wondering that same thing myself. However,” he added, “I suppose no
news is good news.”
“That’s pretty thin comfort for me,” growled Joe, adding quickly, the
feverish light in his eyes showing plainly the strain he had been
under: “I tell you I can’t stand this any longer, Jim. I’m going up
there and try to get in touch with Riverside again, and if I can’t get
them, I’ll try Reggie. Then, if that fails, I’m going to Mabel!”
“You can’t do that, Joe,” Jim protested. “Why, you’re the only one who
has a ghost of a show to pull this game out of the fire. Look at the
score!”
“Hang the score!” cried Joe explosively, as he got up. “I can’t stand
this any longer, I tell you! I’ve got to find out!”
As he started toward the clubhouse he found himself face to face with
McRae. The game had evidently fretted the manager, and he was in a bad
temper.
“’Phone call for you, Joe,” he snapped. “And say, hurry back, will you?
Something tells me I’m going to need you.”
But the last words failed entirely to reach Joe. He was already half
way to the clubhouse.
At last he was going to know! He was eager, yet fearful. He did not
know what awful news awaited him at the other end of that wire.
Somehow he found his way to McRae’s office, and with shaking fingers
lifted the receiver to his ear. He did not notice Jim, who had followed
him in and now stood close beside him.
“Hello,” said Joe, surprised that his voice sounded so nearly normal.
“This you, Reggie? Confound it, why didn’t you ’phone long ago? How is
she?”
“Joe!” came the voice that was the sweetest music in the world to his
ears. Just now it was eager and a little breathless. “Is this you, Joe
dear? What in the world is the matter?”
“Mabel――――” for a minute Joe could not go on. Then he cleared his
throat noisily and demanded to know, in a voice from which all anxiety
had not yet disappeared, if she was all right. “You’re sure you’re not
sick?” he insisted, and Mabel’s reassuring little laugh floated back to
him.
“Of course I’m not sick, silly boy,” she said, adding with a sudden
swift realization of what he must have suffered: “I’m so sorry you have
been worried, honey. Who do you suppose could have done such a wicked
thing as to send you that telegram? What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know,” said Joe, feeling as though a thousand-ton weight had
been lifted from his heart. “We’ll find out about that later. The
important thing to me just now is that you’re well. But tell me,” he
added, “why didn’t Reggie call me as soon as he found you were all
right?”
“He did,” said Mabel. “You see, a neighbor of Mother Matson’s bought
himself a new car and he insisted on our going out riding with him.
Poor Reggie had nearly collapsed with worry when we finally got back.
Thought we had been abducted or something, I suppose.” Then followed
a bit of conversation that would not have been a bit interesting to
any one but Joe and Mabel but which they seemed to find eminently
satisfactory.
When Joe finally hung up the receiver and faced about to find Jim
there, his face was beaming.
“Hello, Jim, you old shadow!” he cried. “Have you been here long?”
“Long enough to learn the glad news,” returned Jim, and he could not
quite resist adding: “Didn’t I tell you not to go off half-cocked,
especially when Reddy Hupft and McCarney are on the same lot with you?”
“You did,” admitted Joe, adding with a frown as they turned to leave
the place together: “You think the responsibility for this contemptible
trick can be traced to Hupft or McCarney then?”
“Who else?” returned Jim. “It was somebody else who actually sent the
telegram, of course, but I’d be willing to stake my hat that the scheme
originated with one or the other of them.”
“Well,” drawled Joe, with a glint in his eye that boded no good for
either McCarney or Hupft or any of their gang, “it seems to me it’s
time there was some housecleaning done on this lot.
“And now,” he added, as his gaze traveled joyfully out to the field,
“we’re going to show those Bostonians how ball should be played!”
To say that Joe made good his boast would be to understate the facts in
the case.
From that time on he set the side down with the ease and precision of a
machine. The Bostons came up to the bat like so many automatons, made
futile swings at the ball, and went back growling to the bench. And
in the eighth, when, the score still stood 3 to 1 in favor of Boston,
Joe lammed out a mighty three-bagger that brought home three of his
comrades who had filled the bases. That made the score 4 to 3 in the
Giants’ favor, and so it remained when Joe struck out the last Boston
batsman in the ninth.
It was a glorious triumph for Joe――two triumphs in fact, for he had
not only beaten the Bostons, he had thwarted the dastardly plot of his
enemies.