After a little more chaffing, Joe left Hughson and walked over towards the Giants’ dugout. He felt a touch on his shoulder and, turning around, saw Jackwell.
“What is it, Dan?” he asked, noting at the same time that the player was pale.
“I don’t feel quite in shape, Captain,” said Jackwell in a voice that was far from steady. “I was wondering whether you couldn’t put someone in my place to-day.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Joe. “Look here, Jackwell,” he went on sharply, “are you trying to pull some of that ptomaine poisoning stuff again? Because, if you are, I tell you right now, you’re wasting your time.”
“It—it isn’t that,” stammered Jackwell, nervously fingering his cap. “I just feel kind of unstrung, shaky-like. I’m afraid I can’t play the bag as it ought to be played, that’s all.”
“Jackwell,” commanded Joe sternly, “comeright out like a man and tell me what’s the matter with you. Lay your cards on the table. Are you playing for your release? Do you want to go to some other team?”
“No, no! Nothing like that!” ejaculated Jackwell, in alarm. “I’d rather play for the Giants than for any other team in the country.”
“Well, I’ll tell you straight that you won’t be playing for the Giants or any other team very long if this sort of thing keeps on,” said Joe sharply. “What do you think this is, a sanitarium for invalids? Here, McRae’s taken you from the bush league and given you the chance of your lives with the best team in the country. Do you want to go back to the sticks?”
“Nothing like that,” muttered Jackwell, twisting about uneasily.
“Then go out and play the game,” commanded Joe. “I’m getting fed up with all this mystery stuff. There’ll have to be a show-down before long, unless you get back your nerve.”
Jackwell said no more and went back to the bench, where he had a whispered colloquy with Bowen, who seemed equally nervous.
When they went out to their positions, Joe noticed that both had their caps drawn down over their faces much more than usual. It could not have been to keep the sun out of their eyes, for clouds obscured the sky and rain threatened.
Fortunately, that is, for the Giants, for despite Hughson’s prediction, it was not the Reds’ winning day. Jim pitched for the Giants, and though he was nicked for seven hits, he was never in danger and held his opponents all the way. He did not have to extend himself, as his teammates, by free batting, gave him a commanding lead as early as the third inning, and after that the Giants simply breezed in.
Allison was the first of the Cincinnati pitchers to fall a victim to the fury of the Giants’ bats. In the third inning, with the Giants one run to the good, Barrett, the first man up, sent a sharp single to left. Iredell followed with another in almost identically the same place, and an error by the Red shortstop filled the bases. Then Jackwell singled sharply over second, bringing in two runs.
It was clear that Allison’s usefulness for that day was at an end, and Hughson replaced him by Elkins. Bowen lifted a sacrifice to Gerry in center and another run came over the plate. Mylert doubled and Jackwell scampered home. Curry hit to third and Mylert was tagged on the base line. Burkett was passed, as was also Wheeler. Then Joe, who, in the new shake-up of the batting order, occupied the position of “clean-up” man, justified the name by coming to the plate and hammering out a mighty triple that cleared thebases. There he was left, however, for Larry, up for the second time in the same inning, popped an easy fly that was gathered in by the second baseman. Seven runs had been the fruit of that avalanche of hits in that fateful inning.
From that time on it seemed only a question of how big would be the score. Two other pitchers were called into service by Hughson before the game was over, and although the torrent of Giant hits had almost spent its force, they came often enough to keep the Red outfielders on the jump.
In the eighth the Reds made a rally and succeeded in getting three men on bases with only one man out. But the rally ended suddenly when Jim made Haskins, the star batter of the Reds, hit to short for a snappy double play that ended the inning.
No further runs were made by either side, and the first game of the Western invasion went into the Giants’ column by a score of ten to two.
In the clubhouse, after the game, Joe asked Jackwell and Bowen to stay after the others had gone, in order that he might have a word with them.
“I don’t want to pry into your personal affairs, boys,” he said to them kindly, when they were at last left alone. “I’d be the last one to do that. But I’m captain of this team, and I’ve got tosee that my men are in fit condition to play. And if there’s anything that prevents you showing your best form, it’s up to me to find just what it is.”
They made no answer, and Joe went on:
“I notice that whatever it is that’s bothering you seems to affect you both. You both were sick, or said you were, at the same time the other day. You, Jackwell, told me that you were not feeling fit to-day, and although Bowen didn’t say anything, I suppose it was because you told him it was of no use. I noticed that right after your talk with me, you went back to Bowen and held a whispered conversation with him. And when you went out on the field, you both pulled your caps over your faces more than usual.
“Then, too, neither of you played your usual game to-day. Luckily, we had such a big lead that the errors didn’t lose the game, but in a close game any one of them might have been fatal. That was a ridiculously easy grounder, Jackwell, that you fumbled in the fourth, and in the sixth you failed to back up Iredell on that throw-in by Curry. And that was a bad muff you, Bowen, made of Haskins’ fly to center, to say nothing of the wild throw you made to second right afterwards.
“Now, what’s the trouble? Let’s have a showdown. Speak up.”
Still Jackwell and Bowen stood mute, neither of them venturing to meet Joe’s gaze.
“If you don’t tell it to me, you’ll have to tell it to McRae,” suggested Joe. “I’m trying to let you down easy, without calling it to his attention. If we can settle it among ourselves, so much the better. Is it some trouble at home that’s weighing on your mind? Is it something about money matters? If it’s that, perhaps I can help you out.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Matson,” said Jackwell, who seemed by common consent to be the spokesman for the two. “But it isn’t either of those two. It’s something else that neither Ben nor I are quite ready yet to talk about.
“I know very well that you have a right to know anything that’s interfering with our playing the game as it ought to be played. And I’ll admit, and I guess Ben will, too, that we were off our game to-day. But I think we’ll soon be able tosettle the trouble so it won’t bother us any more.
“I wish you could see your way clear to give us a little more time. Let Ben and me have time to think and talk it over together. If we can settle the matter without letting any one else know about it, we’d much rather do so.”
Joe pondered for a moment.
“I’m willing to go as far as this,” he announced at last. “I’ll give you a little more time, on this condition. If I note any further falling off in your play, or you come to me with any excuses to be let off from a game, I’m going to come down on you like a load of brick. Then you’ll have to come across, and come across quick, or you’ll be put off the team. Do you understand?”
“That’s all right,” said Jackwell. “You won’t have any further cause to complain of me, Mr. Matson. I’ll play my very best.”
“I’ll work my head off to win,” declared Bowen.
They kept their promise in the series of games with the Western teams that followed. Jackwell played at third with a skill that brought back the memory of Jerry Denny, and Bowen covered his territory splendidly in the outfield. It seemed as though Joe’s problem was solved, as far as they were concerned.
But the worry about them was replaced by another regarding Jim. There was no denying that the latter was not doing his best work. Hewas intensely loyal and wrapped up in the success of the team. But the opposing teams were getting to him much more freely than they had before that season. He was getting by in many of his games because the “breaks” happened to be with him, and because the Giants, with the new spirit that Joe had infused into them, were playing a phenomenal fielding game. But there was something missing.
There was nothing amiss in Jim’s physical condition. His arm was in perfect shape and his control as good as ever. But his mind was not on the game, as it had formerly been. He worked mechanically, sometimes abstractedly. He was always trying, but it was as though he were applying whip and spur to his energies, instead of having them act joyously and spontaneously.
Joe knew perfectly well what was worrying his chum. Ever since that involuntary hesitation of Mabel’s, when asked about Clara, Jim had been a different person. Where formerly he and Joe had laughed and jested together on the closest terms of friendship and mutual understanding, there was now a shadow between them, a very slight and nebulous shadow, but a shadow nevertheless. Jim’s old jollity, the bubbling effervescence, the sheer joy in living, were conspicuous by their absence.
It was a matter that could not be talked about,and Joe, grieved to the heart, could only wait and hope that the matter would be cleared up happily. To his regret on his chum’s account was added worry about the influence the trouble might have on the chances of the Giants.
For if there was any weak place in the Giants’ armor, it was in the pitching staff. At the best, it was none too strong. Joe himself, of course, was a tower of strength, and Jim was one of the finest twirlers in either League. But Markwith, though still turning in a fair number of victories, was past his prime and unquestionably on the down grade. In another season or two, he would be ready for the minors. Bradley was coming along fairly well, and Merton, too, had all the signs of a comer, but they were still too unseasoned to be depended on.
If the deal for Hays had gone through, he would have been a most welcome addition to the ranks of the Giant boxmen. But the Yankees had had a change of heart, and had decided to retain him for a while.
So Joe’s dismay at the thought of Jim, his main standby, letting down in his efficiency was amply justified.
The Cincinnatis came back, as Hughson had prophesied, and took the next game. But the two following ones went into the Giants’ bat bag, and with three out of four they felt that they had gotrevenge for the trimming that had been handed to them on their last trip to Redland.
St. Louis came next, and this time the Giants made a clean sweep of the series. They were not so successful with the Pittsburghs, and had to be satisfied with an even break. But when the latter went over the bridge the Brooklyns rose in their might and took the whole four games right off the reel, thus enabling the Giants to pass them and take second place in the race.
Then came the Chicagos, who were still leading the League, but only by the narrow margin of one game. If the Giants could take three out of four from them, the Cubs would fall to second place.
Joe had made his pitching arrangements so that he himself would pitch the first and fourth games. He did so, and won them both. He had never pitched with more superb skill, strength and confidence, and the ordinarily savage Cubs were forced to be as meek as lapdogs.
They got even, to an extent, with Markwith, whom they fairly clawed to pieces in the second game. Jim pitched in the third, and but for a senseless play might have won.
That play was made by Iredell in the ninth inning, with the Giants making their last stand. The Cubs were three runs to the good. One manwas out in the Giants’ half, Curry was on third and Iredell was on second, with Joe at the bat.
Suddenly, moved by what impulse nobody knew, Iredell tried to steal third, forgetting for the moment that it was already occupied.
“Back!” yelled Joe in consternation. “Go back!”
With the shout, Iredell realized what he had done, and turned to go back. But it was too late. The Cub catcher had shot the ball down to second, and Holstein, with a chuckle, clapped the ball on Iredell as he slid into the bag.
A roar, partly of rage, partly of glee, rose from the spectators, and Iredell was unmercifully joshed as he made his way back to the bench.
Joe, a minute later, smashed out a terrific homer on which Curry and he both dented the plate. But the next man went out on strikes, and with him went the game. If Iredell had been on second, he also would have come home on Joe’s circuit clout and the score would have been tied. The game would have gone into extra innings, with the Giants having at least an even chance of victory.
As it was, the Chicagos were still leading the League by one game when they packed their bats and turned their backs upon Manhattan.
McRae was white with rage, as he told Iredell after the game what he thought of him.
“You ought to have your brain examined,” he whipped out at him. “That is, if you have enough brain to be seen without a microscope. To steal third when there was a man already on the bag! You ought to have a guard to see that the squirrels don’t get you. What in the name of the Seven Jumping Juggernauts did you do it for?”
“I didn’t know there was a man there,” said Iredell lamely.
McRae looked as though he were going to have a fit.
“Didn’t know a man was there!” he sputtered. “Didn’t know a man was there! Didn’t know a— Look here, you fellows,” he shouted to the rest of the Giants gathered round. “I want you to understand there are no secrets on this team. You tell Iredell after this whenever there’s a man on third. Understand?”
He stalked away from the clubhouse in high dudgeon to share his woes with the ever-faithful Robbie.
It was a hard game to lose, but Joe, as he summed up the results of the Western invasion felt pretty good over the record. The Giants had won eleven out of sixteen games from the strongest teams in the League, and were now only one game behind the leaders. They had climbed steadily ever since he had become captain.
But though he was elated at the showing ofthe team his heart was heavily burdened by his personal troubles. His mother was still in a precarious condition. He tore open eagerly every letter from home, only to have his hopes sink again when he learned that she was no better. Sometimes the strain seemed more than he could bear.
Then there was Jim, dear old Jim, with the cloud on his brow and look of suffering in his eyes that made Joe’s heart ache whenever he looked at him. From being the soul of good fellowship, Jim had withdrawn within himself, a prey to consuming anxiety. He seemed ten years older than he had a year ago. And as a player, he had slipped undeniably. He was no longer the terror to opposing batsmen that he had been such a short time before. Joe gritted his teeth, and mentally scored Clara, who had brought his friend to such a pass.
But, troubled as he was, Joe summoned up his resolution and bent to his task. His work lay clearly before him. He was captain of the Giants. And the Giants must win the pennant!
“Joe,” said McRae, on the eve of the Giants’ second trip West, “I want to have a serious talk with you.”
“That sounds ominous, Mac,” replied Joe, with a twinkle in his eye. “What have I been doing?”
“What I wish every member of the team had been doing,” responded McRae. “Pitching like a wizard, batting like a fiend, and playing the game generally as it’s never been played before in my long experience as a manager. No, it isn’t you, Joe, that I have to growl about. You’re top-notch in every department of the game, and as a captain you’ve more than met my expectations. You’ve brought the team up from the second division to a point where any day they may step into the lead.”
“Give credit to the boys,” said Joe, modestly. “They’re certainly playing championship ball. That is, with one exception,” he added hesitatingly.
“With one exception,” repeated McRae. “Exactly! And it’s just about that exception I want to talk to you. Of course, we’re both thinking of the same man—Iredell.”
Joe nodded assent.
“I’ve worked myself half sick trying to brace him up,” he said. “But he’s taken a bitter dislike to me since he was displaced as captain of the team. He only responds in monosyllables, or oftener yet with a grunt. He’s such a crack player when he wants to be that I’ve been hoping he’d wake up and change his tactics.”
“Same here,” said McRae. “He’s been with the team for a long time, and for that reason I’ve been more patient with him than I otherwise would. But there comes a time when patience ceases to be a virtue, and I have a hunch that that time is now.”
“You may be right,” assented Joe. “I’m sorry for Iredell.”
“So am I,” replied McRae. “I’m sorry to see any man throw himself away. And that’s just what Iredell is doing. If it were only a slump in his playing, such as any player has at times, it would be different. But it’s more than that. I’ve had detectives keeping track of him for the last week or two, and they report that he has been drinking and frequenting low resorts. You know as well as I do, that no man can do that andplay the game. So I’m going to bench him for a while and see if that doesn’t bring him to his senses. If it does, well and good. If it doesn’t, I’ll trade him at the end of the season.”
“That’ll mean Renton in his place,” said Joe, thoughtfully.
“Do you think he measures up to the position?” inquired McRae.
“I’m inclined to think he will,” affirmed Joe. “Of course, he isn’t the player that Iredell is when he’s going right. But he’ll certainly play the position as well as Iredell has since we returned from the last trip. He is an upstanding, ambitious young chap, and he’ll play his head off to make good. He has all the earmarks of a coming star. With Larry on one side of him and Jackwell on the other, and with you and me to drill the fine points of the game into him, I think he’ll fill the bill.”
“Then it’s a go,” declared McRae. “I’ll have a talk with Iredell to-night. You tell Renton that he’s to play short to-morrow, and that it’s up to him to prove that he’s the right man for the job.”
Joe did so, and the young fellow was delighted to learn that his chance had come.
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Matson,” he promised, “and give you and the team all I’ve got. If I fall down, it won’t be for the lack of trying.”
Pittsburgh was the first stop on the Giants’ schedule, and Forbes Field was crowded to repletion when the teams came out on the field. The local fans had been worked up to a high pitch of enthusiasm by the closeness of the race, and they looked to see their favorites put the Giants to rout, as they had on the first visit of the latter to the Smoky City.
“Look who’s here,” said Jim to Joe, as the two friends drew near to the grandstand before the preliminary practice.
“Meaning whom?” asked Joe, as his eyes swept the stands without recognizing any one he knew.
“In the second row near that post on the right of the middle section,” indicated Jim.
Joe glanced toward that part of the stand, and gave a violent start of surprise, not unmixed with a deeper emotion.
“That lob-eared scoundrel, Lemblow!” he ejaculated. “And confabbing with Hupft and McCarney.”
“Evidently as thick as thieves,” commented Jim. “A precious trio. I wonder they have the face to show themselves at a baseball game when they’ve done the best they could to bring the sport into disgrace.”
“Three of the worst enemies we have in the world,” murmured Joe, as his mind ran over the exciting events of the previous season.
Hupft and McCarney had been members of the Giant team that year. They were good players, but had entered into a conspiracy with a gang of gamblers—who had bet heavily against the Giants—to lose the pennant. Lemblow was a minor-league pitcher who had long wanted to get a chance to play with the Giants. If Joe, their star pitcher, could be put out of the game, Lemblow figured that his chance for a berth would be better. He also, therefore, had fallen in with the plans of the gambling ring, and had, seemingly, stopped at nothing to bring Joe to grief. How their plans miscarried, how Hupft and McCarney had been put on the blacklist that debarred them forever from playing in organized baseball, how Lemblow had been exposed and disgraced, are familiar to those who have read the preceding volume of this series.
“Wonder what they’re doing here,” puzzled Joe.
“Rogues naturally drift together,” said Jim. “I heard some time ago that the bunch was playing with one of the semi-pro teams in the Pittsburgh district. But they usually play only on Saturdays and Sundays, so I suppose they’re choosing this way to spend their off time. I suppose if we could hear what they’re saying about us at this moment, our ears would be blistered.”
“Whatever it is doesn’t matter,” laughed Joe.“They made acquaintance with our fists once, and I don’t think they’re anxious to repeat the experience. But I guess we’d better pick out catchers and begin to warm up. I’ve a hunch that the Pirates are going to pitch Miles to-day, and if they do we’ll need the best we have in stock to turn them back.”
By the time the bell rang for the beginning of the game, the stands were black with spectators. The Giant supporters were comparatively few, but they made up in vehemence what they lacked in numbers.
From the beginning it was evident that the game would be a pitchers’ duel. Miles was in superb form, and up to the ninth inning had only given three hits, and these so scattered that no runs resulted.
But Joe was in the box for the Giants and was pitching for a no-hit game. Up to the ninth, not even the scratchiest kind of hit had been registered from his delivery.
Could he keep it up? The crowd waited breathlessly for the answer.
With Burkett, Barrett and Joe at the bat for the Giants in their half of the ninth inning, it looked as though the nine might have a chance to score.
But Miles had turned those same batters back earlier in the game, and he nerved himself to repeat.
“Murderer, are you?” he sneered, as the burly Burkett came to the bat, and referring to a nickname gained because of the many balls “killed.” “Well, see me send you to the electric chair.”
“Aw, pitch with your arm instead of your mouth,” retorted Burkett. “You’re due to blow up anyway. You’re only a toy balloon, and I’m going to stick a pin in you.”
But Miles had the last laugh, for he fanned Burkett with three successive strikes, and the latter went sheepishly back to the bench.
“That pin must have lost its point,” Milescalled after him. “I knew you were bluffing all the time.”
Larry came up to the plate, swinging three bats. He threw away two of them and faced the pitcher.
“Why don’t you throw that one away too?” queried Miles. “You might as well, for all the good it’s going to do you.”
“Your name is Miles, ain’t it?” asked Larry. “Well, that’s the way I’m going to hit the ball—miles.”
He lunged savagely at the first ball that came over the plate and lashed it into the crowded grandstand for what would have been a sure homer, if it had not been a few inches on the wrong side of the foul line.
Larry kicked at the decision, but to no avail, and he came back disappointedly to the plate. But the mighty clout had sobered Miles somewhat, and the next two were out of Larry’s reach and went as balls. Larry fouled off the next for strike two, and let the next go by for the third ball.
“Good eye, Larry,” called Joe approvingly. “He’s in the hole now and will have to put the next one over. Soak it on the seam.”
Larry caught the next one fairly, and it started on a journey between right and center. Platz, the Pirate rightfielder, took one look at it and turned and ran in the direction the ball was going. At the back of the park was a low fence thatseparated the field from the bleachers. Just as the ball was passing over this, Platz reached out his hand and grabbed it. The force of the ball and the rate at which he was running carried him head over heels to the other side, but when he rose, the ball was in his hand.
It was a magnificent catch, and well deserved the thunderous applause that rose from the stand, applause in which even the Giant supporters joined, though it seemed to sound the death knell of their hopes.
“Hard luck, old man, to be robbed that way,” said Joe consolingly, as Larry came back, sore and muttering to himself.
“To crack out two homers in one turn at bat and not even get a hit,” mourned Larry. “Sure, if I was starvin’ and it started to rain soup, I’d be out in it with only a fork to catch it with.”
Joe received a generous hand as he came to the bat, due not only to his general popularity but to the wonderful game he had so far pitched.
“Oh, you home-run king!” shouted an enthusiastic fan. “Show them that you deserve the name. Win your own game.”
“Watch Miles pass him,” yelled another.
Whether Miles was deliberately trying to pass him, Joe could not tell. In any event, the first two balls pitched were wide of the plate, and the crowd began to jeer.
The third was by no means a good one, but still it was within reach, and Joe reached out and hit it between third and short to leftfield. With sharp fielding it would have gone for only a clean single, but the leftfielder fumbled it for a moment, and Joe, noting this, kept right on to second, which he reached a fraction of a second before the ball.
That extra base was worth a great deal at that stage, for now a single would probably bring Joe in for the first and perhaps the winning run of the game.
But would that single materialize? There were already two men out, and the chances were always against the batter.
Joe noticed that Miles was getting nervous. Wheeler was at the bat, and Miles was so anxious to strike him out that he was more deliberate than usual in winding up. Joe took a long lead off the bag, and watched the pitcher with the eye of a hawk.
The first ball whizzed over the plate for a strike. Joe noted that Wheeler hit full six inches under the ball. Evidently his batting eye was off. There was little to be hoped for from that quarter.
When Miles started his long wind-up, Joe darted like a flash for third. The startled catcherdropped the ball, and Joe came into the bag standing up.
“Easy to steal on you fellows,” Joe joshed Miles, as he danced around the bag.
“That’s as far as you’ll get,” snapped Miles. “I’ve got this fellow’s number.”
And Joe was inclined to think he was right, for when the next ball went over, Wheeler missed it “by a mile.” One more strike, and the inning would be over.
Jamieson, the Pirate catcher, threw the ball back to Miles. Before it had fairly left his hand Joe was legging it to the plate. There was a yell from the spectators, and Miles, aghast at Joe’s audacity, threw hurriedly to Jamieson.
Twenty feet from the plate,Joelaunched himself into the air andslid into the rubber in a cloud of dust. The ball had come high to Jamieson, and he had to leap for it. He came down with it on Joe like a thunderbolt, and the two rolled over and over.
“Safe!” cried the umpire.
The play was so close and so much depended on it that there was a rush of Pirate players to the plate to dispute the decision. But the umpire refused to change it, and curtly ordered them to get back into the game.
Joe picked himself up, and, smiling happily, walked into the Giants’ dugout, where he was mauled about by his hilarious clubmates, while McRae and Robbie beamed their delight.
“You timed that exactly, Joe,” cried Robbie, “and you came down that base path like a streak. It’s plays like that that stand the other fellows on their heads. Look at Miles. He’s mad enough to bite nails. You’ve got his goat for fair.”
“It looks like the winning run,” said McRae. “And it’s lucky that you didn’t depend on Wheeler to bring you in, for there goes the third strike. Now it’s up to you to hold the Pirates down in their last half.”
“And rub it in by making it a no-hit game,”adjured Robbie, as Joe put on his glove and went out to the box.
Joe needed no urging, for his blood was up and his imagination was fired by the prospect of doing what had not been done in either League so far that season.
But the Pirates were making their last stand in that inning, and he knew that he would have his work cut out for him. Their coachers were out on the diamond, trying to rattle him and waving their arms to get the fans to join in the chorus. From stands and bleachers rose a din that was almost overpowering.
Joe sized up Murphy, the first man up, and sent one over that fairly smoked. Murphy lashed out savagely and hit only the empty air.
“Strike one!” cried the umpire.
Murphy gritted his teeth, got a good toe hold, and prepared for the next. Joe drifted up a slow one that fooled him utterly.
Then for the third, Joe resorted to his fadeaway, and Murphy, baffled, went back to the bench.
Jamieson, who succeeded him, gauged the ball better and sent it on a line to the box. A roar went up that died away suddenly when Joe thrust out his gloved hand, knocked it down and sent it down to first like a bullet, getting it there six feet ahead of the runner.
Then Miles, the last hope, came up, and Joe wound up the game in a blaze of glory by letting him down on three successive strikes.
The Giants had won 1 to 0 in the best-played game of the year. The newspaper correspondents exhausted their stock of adjectives in describing it in the next day’s papers.
Only twenty-seven men had faced Joe in that game. Not a man had reached first. Not a pass had been issued. Not a hit had been made. It was one of the rarest things in baseball—a perfect game.
And as the crowning feature, the one run that gave the victory to the Giants had been scored by Joe himself by those dazzling steals to third and home.
It was a good omen for the success of the Western trip, and the Giant players were jubilant.
“No jinx after us this time,” chuckled Larry.
“If there is, he got a black-eye to-day,” laughed Jim. “Gee, Joe, that was a wonderful game. You won it almost by your lonesome. The rest didn’t have much to do.”
“They had plenty,” corrected Joe. “More than one of those Pirate clouts would have gone for a hit if it hadn’t been for the stone-wall defense the boys put up. No man ever won a no-hit game with bad playing behind him.”
At the hotel table that night Joe noticed that Iredell was not present.
“Wonder where Iredell is,” he remarked to Jim, who was sitting beside him.
“Search me,” answered the latter. “He may be in later. He’s so grouchy just now that he seems to be keeping away from the rest of the fellows as much as he can. You can’t get a pleasant word out of him these days. I spoke to him to-day on the bench, and he nearly snapped my head off.”
“Too bad,” remarked Joe, regretfully. “I’ve gone out of my way to be friendly with him, but he won’t have it. Seems to think that I’m to blame for all his troubles.”
They would have been still more concerned about the missing member of the team, could they have seen him at that moment.
Iredell, on his way to the hotel, had drifted into one of the low resorts which ostensibly sold only soft drinks, but where it was easy enough to get any kind of liquor in the back room. To his surprise, he saw Hupft, McCarney and Lemblow sitting at one of the tables.
There was a momentary hesitation on the part of the trio before they ventured to speak to him, for they did not feel sure how their advances would be received. But a glance at his faceshowed that he was in a dejected and reckless mood, and that decided them.
“Hello, Iredell,” called out McCarney, with an assumption of boisterous cordiality. “Sit down here and take a load off your feet. Have something with us at my expense.”
Three months before, Iredell would have scorned the invitation. Now he accepted it.
They talked of indifferent matters, the others studying Iredell intently.
“I noticed you weren’t playing to-day,” remarked McCarney, with a sickly grin.
“No,” said Iredell, bitterly. “I ain’t good enough for the Giants any more. They’ve benched me and put that young brat, Renton, in my place.”
“Case of favoritism, I suppose,” said McCarney, sympathetically. “Why, you can run rings around Renton when it comes to playing short!”
“That fellow, Matson, has got it in for me,” growled Iredell. “But I’ll get even with him yet.”
“Sure, you will,” broke in Hupft. “Nobody with the spirit of a man would take that thing lying down. He’s jealous of you, that’s what he is. You’ve been captain once, and he’s afraid you may be again, and so he wants to freeze you off the team.”
“Matson has a swelled head,” declared McCarney. “He thinks he’s the whole show. He’s done us dirt, and now he’s thrown you down. Are you going to stand for it?”
“No, I’m not!” snarled Iredell, now in the ugliest of moods. “I’ll get even with him if it’s the last thing I do.”
“That’s the way I like to hear a man talk,” said Lemblow. “I owe him a lot for the way he’s treated me, and so does every man here. We all hate him like poison. Then why don’t we do something? It ought to be easy enough for the four of us to figure out some way to put the kibosh on him.”
“It would be easy enough if he weren’t so much in the limelight,” said Hupft, uneasily. “If we put anything across on him, the whole country would be ringing with it. The League itself would spend any amount of money to run us down.”
“Bigger men than he is have got theirs,” rejoined McCarney. “It all depends on the way it’s done. Now, a scheme has popped into my head while we’ve been talking. I don’t know how good it is, but I think it may work. If it goes through, we’ll have our revenge. If it doesn’t we’ll be no worse off and we can try something else. Now listen to me.”
They put their heads together over the table, while McCarney in a low voice unfolded his scheme. That it was a black one was evident from the involuntary start the others gave when it was first broached. But as McCarney went on to explain the impunity with which he figured it could be carried out and the completeness of their revenge if it succeeded, they gave their adhesion to it. Iredell was the most reluctant of the four, but his drink-inflamed brain was not proof against the arguments of the others, and he finally acquiesced and put up his share of the estimated expense.
The next day witnessed another battle royal between the Giants and the Pirates. Jim pitched, and although his work was marked by some of the raggedness that Joe knew only too well the reason for, he held the Pittsburghs fairly well, and the Giants batted out a victory by a score of 7 to 3.
“Sure of an even break, anyway, on the series,” remarked Curry complacently, after the game.
“Yes,” replied Joe. “But that doesn’t get us anywhere. That only shows that we’re as good as the other fellows. We want to prove that we’re better. To play for a draw is a confession of weakness. I want the next two games just as hard as I wanted the first two. That’s the spirit that we’ve got to have, if we cop the flag.”
But though Markwith twirled a good game the next day and was well supported, the best he could do was to carry the game into extra innings, and the Pirates won in the eleventh.
“Beaten, but not disgraced,” was Joe’s laconic comment, as he and Jim made their way to the hotel. “Let’s hope we’ll have better luck to-morrow.”
“I’ve had a box sent up to your room, Mr. Matson,” said the hotel clerk, as he handed the young captain his key. “It came in a little while ago.”
“Thanks,” said Joe, and went upstairs with Jim to the room they occupied together.
In the corner was a wooden box, about two feet long, a foot wide, and of about the same depth. On the top was Joe’s name and the address neatly printed, but nothing else, except the tag of the express company.
“Wonder what it is,” remarked Joe, with some curiosity.
“It isn’t very heavy,” said Jim, as he lifted it and set it down again. “Some flowers for you perhaps from an unknown admirer,” he added, with a grin.
“It’s nailed down pretty tightly,” said Joe. “Got anything we can open it with?”
“Nothing here,” answered Jim, as he searched about the room. “Guess we’ll have to phone down to the office and have them send us up a chisel to pry the cover off.”
“Oh, well, it will keep,” said Joe. “I’m as hungry as a wolf, and I want to get my supper. We’ll stop at the desk on our way back and get something from the clerk.”
They had a hearty meal, over which they lingered long, discussing the game of the afternoon. Then they stopped at the desk, secured a chisel, and returned with it to their room.
Jim switched on the electric light, while Joe lifted the box and placed it on a table, preparatory to opening it.
“What’s that?” Jim exclaimed suddenly, turning from the switch.
“What’s what?” queried Joe in his turn.
“That buzzing sound.”
“You must be dreaming,” scoffed Joe. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“It seemed to come from the box when you lifted it up,” said Jim. “Lift it up again.”
Joe did so, and this time both of them heard a faint buzzing, whirring sound that, without their exactly knowing why, sent a little thrill through them.
Again he lifted it with the same result.
The two young men looked at each other with speculation in their eyes.
“Lay off it, Joe,” warned Jim, as a thought struck him. “Perhaps it’s an infernal machine.”
“Nonsense,” laughed Joe, though the laugh was a little forced. “Who’d send me anything like that?”
“There are plenty who might,” affirmed Jim, earnestly. “Remember those crooks we saw at the game the other day! They hate you for exposing them. I wouldn’t put anything past them. They’d go to all lengths to injure you.”
Joe took out his flashlight and sent the intense beam all over the sides of the box. Suddenly he uttered an ejaculation, and pointed to a number of small holes, not visible on a casual inspection.
“Look!” he cried. “Air holes! Jim, there’s some living thing in that box!”
“A living thing!” exclaimed Jim, in wonderment.
“Yes,” replied Joe, whose quick mind had already reached a conclusion. “And I can make a guess at what it is. It’s a rattlesnake!”
“What?” cried Jim, aghast. “Oh, no, Joe, you must be dreaming. No one would send you a thing like that.”
“Well, I’ll bet that somebody has,” said Joe, grimly. “That would explain the buzz we heard just now. It was the whirr of the snake’s rattles. We disturbed him when we lifted the box, and he’s given us warning that he’s on the job. Lucky we didn’t open the box while it was on the floor. See here.”
He lifted the box and let it fall with a sharp jolt on the table. This time there was no mistaking the angry rattle that issued from the box. They had heard it more than once when they had occasionally come across one of the deadlyreptiles while out hunting. It was one of the sounds that once clearly heard could never be mistaken for anything else. Even now, with the box closed, it sent a thrill of horror through them.
Their faces were pale as they looked at each other and realized what might have been the fate of one or both of them but for that ominous warning.
“You see the dope?” questioned Joe, with an angry note in his voice. “I would be curious to see what had been sent to me, and would open the box probably with my face close above it. Then something would strike me like a bolt of lightning, and it would be good-night. I would have been out of the game with neatness and dispatch.”
“The scoundrel!” ejaculated Jim, fiercely. “Oh, if I only had my hands on whoever did it!”
“I’d like to have a hand in settling that little matter, too,” said Joe, with a blaze in his eyes that boded ill for the miscreant if he should ever be discovered. “But that can wait. The first thing to do is to put this rattler beyond the power of doing mischief.”
Jim’s eyes searched the room for some weapon.
“No,” said Joe, “there’s a safer way than that. That ugly head must never be thrust alive out of that box. Just turn on the water in the bathtub.”
They had a private bath adjoining their room, and Jim turned on the tap. When the tub washalf full, Joe brought in the box and put it in the tub, placing sufficient weight upon it to keep it beneath the surface of the water.
“Those air holes will do the business, I think,” said Joe. “In a few minutes the box will be full of water. We’ll leave it there a little while, and then we’ll open the box and see if we guessed right.”
At the expiration of twenty minutes, they drained the water out of the tub. Then Joe got the chisel, and with considerable effort forced open the cover of the box.
“You see,” he said.
Jim saw and shuddered.
Lying in the water that was still seeping out through the air holes was a rattlesnake all of four feet long.
They viewed the creature with a feeling of loathing. But still deeper was the feeling they had against the scoundrels who had chosen that cowardly way of attempting to injure Joe. The snake, after all, was just the instrument. Infinitely worse were the rascals who had employed it as their weapon.
“We’ve had some pretty narrow escapes,” said Joe. “And this is one of them. If you hadn’t happened to hear that buzz, I might be a dead man this minute.”
“It’s too horrible for words!” exclaimed Jim,“It seems incredible that any one could plan such a thing for their worst enemy. Who do you think did it?”
“One guess is as good as another,” replied Joe. “But if you ask me, I should say that the man or men who did it sat in the grandstand on the first day we played in this city.”
“Lemblow, Hupft and McCarney,” said Jim. “One or perhaps all of them. Well, why not? Lemblow tried deliberately to harm us both last year when he pushed that pile of lumber over from the scaffold above us. We came within an ace of being killed. If he were ready to harm us then, why shouldn’t he be again, especially as he hates us worse now than he did before?”
“The box was certainly sent from somewhere in this city,” said Joe, examining the cover carefully. “There’s nothing to indicate that it came by railroad. And there are plenty of rattlesnakes in this part of Pennsylvania. Some of the stores exhibit them as curiosities.”
“It’s up to us to put the police on the trail right away,” suggested Jim.
“I don’t know about giving this thing publicity,” mused Joe thoughtfully. “In the first place, it would create a sensation. It would be featured on the first page of every newspaper in the country. And you can see in a minute how it might react against baseball. The public would beginto figure that gamblers were trying to put the Giants out of the race. They haven’t forgotten the Black Sox scandal that came near to ruining the game. We’ve got to think of the game first of all. You remember what hard work we had to save the League last year, and how we had to forego punishing the scoundrels in order to keep every inkling of the gamblers’ scheme from the public. Baseball has to be above suspicion.”
“Then do you mean to say that whoever did this is to get away scot free?” demanded Jim, hotly.
“No,” said Joe, grimly, “I don’t mean that. When the season closes, I’m going to make a quiet investigation of my own. And if I find the villains I’ll thrash them within an inch of their lives and make them wish they had never been born. But they won’t tell why I did it, and I certainly won’t. At any cost, this thing must be kept from the public. The good of the game comes before everything else.”
“I suppose you are right, Joe,” assented Jim, regretfully. “But it makes me boil not to be able to put the scoundrels behind prison bars. Those human snakes ought to have some punishment meted out to them.”
“They surely ought,” agreed Baseball Joe. “But we’ll have to postpone their punishment. Everything will have to wait till the end of the season. Apart from anything else, if we found them out now and had them arrested, see how it would break into our work. We’d have to leave the team to come here to testify at the trial and perhaps stay away for weeks, and that would cost the Giants the pennant. But speaking of this fellow here in the box, what are we going to do with him? We can’t leave him here.”
“It’s rather awkward,” remarked Jim. “I suppose we could take him down to the cellar and have him burned in the furnace.”
“Not without arousing the curiosity of thefurnace man and leading to talk,” objected Joe. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We leave town to-morrow night. We’ll wrap the snake up in a compact package and carry it along in a suitcase. Then at night while the train is speeding along, we’ll open a window and drop him out.”
They agreed on this as the best solution.
“I suppose there’s no question that the snake is dead,” remarked Jim, with an inflection of uncertainty in his voice. “It would be mighty awkward to have him come to life again in the suitcase.”
“I guess he’s drowned all right,” returned Joe. “He was a long time under water. But just to make assurance doubly sure, I’ll cut off his head.”
He took out his heavy jackknife and severed the reptile’s head from his body. Handling the grisly creature was a repugnant task, and they were glad when it was finished.
“Guess I’ll keep this head,” remarked Joe, as a thought came to him. “I’ll slip it into a jar of alcohol and that will preserve it indefinitely.”
“What on earth do you want it for?” queried Jim. “I shouldn’t think you’d care for that kind of souvenir.”
“I have a hunch it may come in handy some time,” answered Joe. “Now let’s wrap up this body and get it out of our sight.”
Their dreams that night were featured by wriggling, writhing forms.
“I’m glad I’m not scheduled to pitch to-day,” remarked Jim, at breakfast. “I’m afraid the Pirates would bat me all over the lot. I never felt less fit.”
“Such an experience isn’t exactly the best kind of preparation for box work,” replied Joe, with a ghost of a smile. “I guess Bradley will start, while I’ll stand ready to relieve him if he gets in a jam. I’m hoping, though, that he’ll pull through all right.”
After lunch they took a taxicab to the grounds, but the vehicle got in a traffic jam, and it was later than they expected when they finally reached Forbes Field.
They hurried over to the clubhouse and were entering the door when they met Iredell, who was coming out.
Iredell gave a sharp ejaculation and started back, while his face went as white as chalk.
“Why, what’s the matter, Iredell?” asked Joe.
“N—nothing,” stammered Iredell, by a mighty effort regaining control of himself and walking away.
Their wondering glances followed him, and they noticed that his gait was wavering.
“What do you suppose was the reason for that?” asked Jim.
“I’m afraid he’s been drinking again,” conjectured Joe, regretfully. “His nerves seem to be all unstrung. When he looked at me, you might think that he saw a ghost.”
“Perhaps he did,” said Jim, slowly but significantly.
“What do you mean?” asked Joe, quickly.
“Just what I say,” answered Jim. “Perhaps he thought that you were—well, in the doctor’s hands, and that what he saw must be a ghost.”
“You don’t mean——”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, no!” exclaimed Joe, in horror. “Lemblow, Hupft, McCarney? Yes! But Iredell! A man on our own team! A man we’ve played with for years! No, Jim, I can’t believe it possible.”
“Perhaps not,” admitted Jim. “I hate even to think of it. I hope I’m wrong. But drink, you know, will weaken a man’s moral fiber until he’s capable of anything. Iredell’s been steadily going to the dogs of late. Perhaps he’s fallen in with McCarney’s gang. He knows all of them, and a drinking man isn’t particular about his company. Let a man hate you and then let him drink, and you have a mighty bad combination. Just suppose Iredell was in the plot. Suppose he knew that rattler was sent to you yesterday. Wouldn’t he act just as he did when he saw you turn up safe and sound to-day?”
“It certainly was queer,” admitted Joe, half-convinced. “I can only hope you’re wrong. At any rate, it won’t hurt to keep our eyes on him and be doubly on our guard.”
Bradley showed more form that afternoon than he had before that season, and took the Pirates into camp in first class fashion by a score of 5 to 3. Apart from victory itself, it was gratifying to McRae and Robbie to note that Bradley was improving rapidly and furnishing a reinforcement to Joe and Jim, who, in a pitching sense, had been carrying the team on their backs.
Three out of four from so strong a team as the Pittsburghs was a good beginning for the swing around the Western circuit, and the Giants were in high feather when they arrived in Cincinnati.
“Hate to do it, old boy,” declared the grinning McRae, as he shook hands with Hughson, “but we’ll have to take the whole four from you this time.”
“Threatened men live long, Mac,” retorted Hughson. “Just for being so sassy about it, I don’t think we’ll give you one. Just remember the walloping we gave you the last time you were here. That wasn’t a circumstance compared to what’s coming to you now.”
As it turned out, both were false prophets, for each team took two games.
“Five out of eight aren’t so bad for a team away from home,” Jim remarked.
“Better than a black eye,” admitted Joe. “But still not good enough. We want twelve games out of the sixteen before we start back home.”
It was an ambitious goal, but the Giants reached it, taking three out of four from the Chicagos and making a clean sweep in St. Louis. It was the best road record that the Giants had made for a long time past, and it was a jubilant crowd of athletes that swung on board the train for New York.
“I’m already spending my World Series money,” crowed Larry, the irrepressible, to his comrades gathered about him in the smoker.
“Better go slow, Larry,” laughed Joe. “There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. We haven’t got the pennant clinched yet, by any means. And even if we win the pennant, there’s the World Series, and that’s something else again. It looks as though the Yankees would repeat in the American, and you know what tough customers they proved last time. And when Kid Rose gets going with that old wagon-tongue of his——”
“Kid Rose!” interrupted Larry, with infinite scorn. “Who gives a hoot for Kid Rose? What’s Kid Rose compared with Baseball Joe?”
Joe’s caution was justified by what followedafter the Giants’ return home. Suddenly, without warning, came one of the mysterious slumps that no baseball man can explain. If they had gone up like a rocket, they came down like the stick. They fielded raggedly, batted weakly, and fell off in all departments of the game. Perhaps it was the reaction after the strain of the Western trip. Whatever the cause, the slump was there.
McRae raged, Joe pleaded. They shook up the batting order, they benched some of the regulars temporarily, and put the reserve men in their places. Nothing seemed to avail. The “jinx” was on the job. The Phillies and Boston trampled them underfoot. In three weeks they had lost the lead, and the Chicagos and Pittsburghs had crowded in ahead of them.
Still Joe kept his nerve and struggled desperately to turn the tide. He himself had never pitched or batted better, and what occasional victories were turned in were chiefly due to him. But he was only one man—not nine—and the Giants kept on steadily losing.
Only one ray of light illumined the darkness for Baseball Joe. Mabel had come to him.