JOE FOILS THE PLOTTERS
There was a carriage waiting just outside the ball grounds, a carriage
drawn by one horse. A man whom Joe had never seen before, so far as he
knew, held the reins.
"There's the man who wants you," explained the lad who had acted as
messenger.
"Who is he?" asked the young pitcher quickly. "I don't know him. Where
did he come from? Where did you meet him?"
"I guess he'll tell you all you want to know," said the lad. "All I know
is that I was standing outside the ball grounds after the game, and he
give me that note to bring in to you. I didn't come with him."
"Oh, I see," replied Joe, but he was wondering who the man was, and how
the fellow came to know that he was in Fayetteville.
"Hope I didn't take you away from the game," began the man with what he
evidently meant for a pleasant smile. Yet, somehow Joe did not like
that smile. The man seemed to have a shifty glance and Joe mistrusted
him.
"Oh, the game is over," answered the young pitcher. "I didn't play in
the last part. But what is the matter? Is my mother or father ill?"
"It's nothing serious," spoke the man. "No one is ill. I came to get you
about your father's patents."
"Oh!" exclaimed Joe. He felt a sensation of relief until he realized the
danger that threatened his father's inventions. Then he asked: "What's
wrong? Is Mr.----" Then he stopped for he did not know whether or not to
mention names to this stranger.
"I can't give you any particulars," said the man with another smile.
"All I can say is that they engaged me to come and get you to save
time."
"Who engaged you?" asked Joe.
"Your father," replied the man. "He sent me off in a hurry and said I'd
find you at this game. I sent you in the note by the lad. Your father
had no time to write one, but you are to go to him at once. He wants you
to help him about the patent models I think. We'd better hurry."
Joe's suspicions vanished at once. He knew his father was preparing to
send on some models to Washington and now probably some need of haste
had arisen necessitating his aid. He climbed up into the carriage, and
though he noted at the time that the rig did not seem to be from the
local livery stable, which had only a few, he thought nothing of it
then.
The man flicked the horse with the whip and the animal started off on
the jump. Just outside the ball grounds there was a private road leading
into the main one. On reaching the chief thoroughfare the man turned
north whereas, to reach Riverside, he should have gone south.
"Hold on!" cried Joe, "you're going the wrong way."
"Be easy. It's all right," answered the man with a smile. "Your father
has taken all his things to a little shop in Denville. He had to have
some changes made in the models I believe, and he wanted to be in a
machine shop where he could work quietly. He told me to bring you
there."
Joe remembered that on one or two occasions Mr. Matson had had some work
done in Denville, and once more the suspicions that had arisen were
lulled. Joe sank back on the cushions and began thinking of the game
just played. His arm was getting quite stiff.
"I'll have to attend to it as soon as I get home," he mused. "It won't
do to have it go back on me just when things are in such good shape. If
they keep on I may become the regular pitcher. Sam certainly did poorly
in his part of the game, and I'm not getting a swelled head, either,
when I say that." Joe knew he had done good work, considering his sore
arm, and he made up his mind to do still better.
The man drove along rapidly, and in about an hour had reached the
outskirts of Denville. He turned down a road that was evidently little
used, to judge by the grass growing in it, and halted the horse in front
of a small building. It did not look like a place where inventors'
models would be made. In fact the shack had a forlorn and forsaken air
about it, and Joe looked curiously at it. His suspicions were coming
back.
"Where is my father?" he demanded. "I don't see him."
"It's all right now--it's all right," said the man quickly. "Hello in
there!" he called.
The next instant Joe saw a face at the window. Then it disappeared, but
that momentary glance had showed him it was the face of Mr. Isaac
Benjamin. In a second it was all clear to him. He had been trapped. He
attempted to spring from the carriage seat.
"I'm on to your game!" he exclaimed to the man.
"Oh, are you? Well, you're not going to get away!" and with that the man
grabbed Joe around the waist, pinning his arms to his sides. Then from
the little building came running Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Holdney.
"Did you get him all right?" asked the manager of the harvester works
eagerly.
"I certainly did," panted the other man, for Joe was struggling to get
loose. "Didn't give me any trouble either, until just now."
"Well, I'll make lots of trouble for you, if you don't let me go!" cried
Joe.
"Now, young man, take it easy," advised Mr. Benjamin. "We don't intend
to do you a bit of harm, and we only brought you to this place to have a
quiet talk with you. It's in your father's interest and I hope you'll
overlook the unconventional way we took to get you here. Bring him in,"
he added to the man in the carriage and, despite Joe's struggles he was
lifted out and carried into the little building. The door was shut and
locked, and he was alone with his three captors.
"What do you want of me?" hotly demanded the lad.
"Now don't get excited and we'll tell you," said Mr. Benjamin. "It's
about your father's patents."
"Yes," broke in Mr. Holdney, "we want to know where they are. He had no
right to take the papers and models away from the harvester works. Those
inventions are the property of the company and aren't your father's at
all. We want----"
"Better let me talk to him," advised Mr. Benjamin. "Now Joe, you can't
understand all the ins and outs of this business, for it's very
complicated. You know that your father is working on certain patents
about a corn reaper and binder; don't you?"
"Yes," admitted Joe cautiously, "but I'm not going to tell you anything
about it."
"Perhaps you will after you hear all I have to say," went on Mr.
Benjamin. "Now, it's like this: Your father is unduly alarmed about the
safety of his rights in the patents, and I will admit that he has some
rights. For some reason he saw fit to take his models and papers away
from the shop at the harvester works where he was engaged on them."
Joe smiled--well he knew why his father had removed the valuable models
and papers.
"What we want," said Mr. Benjamin, "is to get access to those models. We
want to see them for a short time, and also look over the papers. Now
you can fix that for us if you will."
"Why don't _you_ ask my father?" inquired Joe.
"We have, but----" began Mr. Holdney.
"He won't listen to reason," put in Mr. Benjamin. "He thinks we would
deprive him of his rights." Joe thought so too, but he said nothing.
"Now if you can quietly get those models and papers and let us have a
look at them they will be returned to you without fail," said the
manager. "Your father's rights will be fully protected. It may seem
strange to you for us to make this proposition in this way, and bring
you here as we have done, but it was necessary."
"Suppose I refuse?" asked Joe.
"Then we'll----" began Mr. Holdney, in blustering tones.
"Now, now, easy," cautioned Mr. Benjamin. "The consequences may be
disastrous for your father," he said quietly. "I am doing this for his
own good. He will not hear of showing the models, but if you can get
them for us it will save much trouble and annoyance for--well, for all
of us. If you don't, your father may lose all he possesses and be
without a position. I know what inventors are. They can only see one
thing at a time. It is a simple thing that we ask of you. Will you do
it? Now, you needn't answer at once. Take a little time to think it
over. Go in that room there and wait. We'll give you half an hour. If by
that time you don't decide to help us we'll----"
"We'll _make_ you!" exclaimed Mr. Holdney. "I've got too much money tied
up in this to see it lost by the obstinacy of a boy."
"Well, if you refuse, we will have to take other measures," said Mr.
Benjamin, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Joe's heart was beating fast. He did not know what to do. Being
practically kidnapped after he had worked so hard in the game, his fears
for his father aroused, it is no wonder that he could not think clearly.
He welcomed the chance to go off quietly by himself, but never for a
moment did he think of betraying his father. Only for an instant did he
place any confidence in what the wily manager had said. Then he knew
there must be a trick in it all.
"But if I let them trap me it's my own fault," thought Joe. "I've got to
think up some way of escape."
"Well?" asked the manager as Joe hesitated.
"I--I'll think it over," answered the young pitcher.
"All right. You can go in that room," and Mr. Benjamin opened the door
of an apartment leading out of the main one.
Joe cast a quick glance about it as the door closed behind him. He noted
that it was not locked, but that with three men in the outer room the
boy knew he could not escape that way.
"And I'm going to escape if I can," he told himself. "I don't need any
more time to think over what I'm going to do. They shan't have a glance
at dad's models and papers."
A rapid survey of the room showed him that it had but one window and
that was heavily barred. He raised the sash softly and tried the bars.
They were rusty but held firmly in the wood.
"No use trying that way," murmured Joe. He heard the hum of voices in
the outer room and listened at the keyhole.
"Don't you think he can get away?" he heard the man who had brought him
to the place ask the others.
"I don't believe he'll try," was the answer from Mr. Benjamin. "After
all, we couldn't hope to keep him a prisoner long. There would be too
much hue and cry over it. All I expect is that he'll be so worried and
frightened that he'll tell us what we want to know."
"Oh, you've got another think coming," whispered Joe.
He walked back to the window once more and, as he crossed the room he
saw what looked like a trap door in the floor. Kneeling down he applied
his nose to the crack. There came up the damp, musty smell of a cellar.
"That's it!" cried Joe. "If I can get that door up I can drop into the
cellar even if there aren't any stairs, and I guess I can get out of the
cellar. But can I get that door up?"
There was no ring to lift it by, and no handle, but Joe was a
resourceful lad and in an instant his knife was out. With the big blade
inserted in the crack he managed to raised the door a trifle. He
endeavored to hold the advantage he had gained until he could take out
the knife blade and insert it again farther down, but the door slipped
through his fingers.
"I've got to get some way of holding it up after each time I pry," he
thought. A hurried search through his pockets brought to light part of a
broken toe plate. He had had a new one put on for the Academy game, and
had thrust the broken piece in the pocket of his trousers.
"This ought to do it," he reasoned, and it did, for with the aid of that
Joe was able to hold up and raise the trap door. The damp, musty smell
was stronger now, and Joe was glad to see, in the dim darkness of the
cellar, a flight of steps. "They're pretty rotten, but I guess they'll
hold me," he murmured.
The next instant he was going down them, and he let the trap door fall
softly into place over his head. It was so dark in the cellar now that
he could see nothing, but when his eyes became accustomed to the
blackness he saw the dim light of an outer window.
It was the work of but a moment to scramble through it, and a few
seconds later Joe was running away from the place of his brief
captivity.
"I guess I won't give you an answer to-day," he murmured as he looked
back.
He heard a shout and saw Mr. Benjamin rush out. Then our hero caught
sight of the horse and carriage and like a flash he made for it. Jumping
in he called to the animal and was soon galloping down the road while
the shouts behind him became fainter and fainter.
"This is the time I fooled you!" cried Joe exultantly, as he urged on
the horse.