CHAPTER IITHE JAWS OF DEATH
The burning house was a frame structure, three stories in height, very old in appearance, and so dry that if the flames got a good hold on it it would evidently burn like tinder.
On their way the ball players had to pass a small store over the door of which Joe saw a pay telephone sign.
“You go in there, Jim, and call up the fire department,” he panted. “Then join me as quickly as you can.”
Jim dashed into the store and Joe kept on, his steps quickened still more, if that were possible, by shrill shrieks that came from the imperiled house.
The thick volume of smoke made it difficult at first to detect the owner of the voice, but as he drew nearer Baseball Joe saw the head and shoulders of an elderly woman hanging out of a window of the third story.
She was evidently frantic with fear and her screams were heart-rending.
As Joe reached the house and looked up he saw that she had climbed to the window sill and was supporting herself by holding on to the jamb.
“Don’t jump!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Stay there till I come. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
He looked wildly about him for a ladder. He spied one at a little distance, ran and got it and set it up along the side of the house. But it fell full ten feet short of the window at which the woman was standing.
He left it and ran to the front door. It was locked, but he put his shoulder against it and drove it in.
As the door yielded a terrific blast of smoke came out that fairly knocked Joe off the low porch. He picked himself up and saw at a glance that there was no hope of getting in at that entrance. The interior of the hall was a seething mass of flame in which no human being could live for a minute.
There seemed to be but one chance left, and Joe took it.
“Jim,” he said to his chum, who, having called up the fire department, had just arrived breathless, “stay here and try to keep the woman from jumping until there’s nothing else left to do. Perhaps with the help of these men”—he indicated several who, attracted by the flames, were runningtoward them—“you can rig up something to catch her in if she should make the leap. But tell her not to jump. Tell her some one’s coming to get her.”
Before Jim could answer Joe started for the back of the house.
The door at the back stood open and dense volumes of smoke were coming from it. But though Joe could hear a fierce crackling, he caught no sight of fire. The flames so far seemed to be confined to the front of the house.
There was a rain barrel half full of water standing near the porch. Joe stripped off his coat, plunged it into the water, and then wound the dripping garment around his neck and face, leaving just room for his eyes to see where he was going.
Then he plunged into the reeking fumes and groped about for a staircase. He was not sure that there was one in the back and he breathed a sigh of relief as his hand touched a banister.
He went up the stairs quickly, guided only by the sense of touch, for his eyes were smarting so from the smoke that they refused their office. Even if they had not done so they would have been of very little use in that dense blackness.
But there was light enough—too much—when he reached the second floor. Here the flames had secured a strong grip. The front rooms wereablaze and red tongues were licking at the stairs that led to the third story.
Joe had hoped that the back staircase would extend to the top of the house. But he found it ended at the second floor. From that landing he had to traverse the hall and make the rest of his journey up through the front of the house.
He drew his wet coat more tightly around his face and made a dash for the stairs. The flames reached out for him. The heat was intolerable. The chances were ten to one that if he ever went up that staircase he would never come down.
But he did not hesitate a second. Up he went, shielding himself as best he could, and found himself on the top floor.
To his right was the room in which the woman was trapped. Luckily she had shut the door after the one terrified glance that had revealed to her the fire below. That shut door had held off the flames temporarily, but now it was beginning to blaze.
Joe burst in. He was just in time, for already the frenzied woman was poising herself for the leap that would have meant maiming or death.
Joe ran to the window and pulled her off the sill.
“Come!” he shouted. “Quick! Here, take this!”
He stripped off the coat and threw it over her head and shoulders.
She was trembling so that she could hardly stand and he had to support her while he adjusted the garment.
“Oh!” she screamed, as he led her toward the door which he had taken the precaution to close after him. “I cannot go down! Everything is afire down there! I will be burned!”
“Not if you do as I tell you,” said Joe hurriedly. “Keep your eyes shut and bury your mouth and nose in this coat. I will hold your arm and we will get down all right.”
He dragged her toward the door and opened it. As he did so the draft from the window drew in a sheet of flame that drove them back.
The woman screamed and sank inert to the floor and Joe knew that she had fainted.
There was not an instant to lose. Joe stooped, lifted her, threw her over his shoulder and staggered out of the door, shutting his eyes for a moment as the flames swirled round him.
He reached the stairs and, holding on to the banisters with one hand while the other held close his unconscious burden, he made his way down, pressing his nose and mouth against the coat so as not to inhale the flames.
As he reached the next to the last step on the stair the charred step gave way beneath him, lettinga leg through. By a mighty effort he clutched the banister and drew the leg back and a moment later found himself in the hall of the second story.
His lungs felt as though they were bursting, for he did not dare to draw a full breath. He felt as though he were one blister from head to heel.
But he kept on, summoning all his strength for one supreme effort. His head was reeling from the smoke fumes. If only he were sure of retaining consciousness for one minute longer!
Between him and the top of the back staircase the flames were mounting high. The floor sagged under him as he tottered through the hall. He shut his eyes, dashed through and swung himself around to descend the stairs.
As he did so his foot slipped and he almost dropped his burden. But he recovered himself and staggered on.
Choking, half-fainting, he reached the lower hall. A lightening of the murk showed him the direction of the door. He made one last effort and reached it, reached the blessed sunshine and the outer air and deposited his burden on the porch.
He had won through!
As in a daze he heard the cheers that rang out as he appeared and saw the figures that surroundedhim, patted him, supported him, applauded him, beat out the fire that at various places was eating through his clothes, drenching him with water.
What he had done counted for nothing with him, viewed as an exploit. But he was thankful beyond words that he had saved a human life from one of the most terrible of deaths.
And while he is seeking to steady his dizzy head it may be well for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volumes of this series to tell who Joe Matson was and what had been his adventures up to the time this story opens.
Joe’s birthplace was Riverside, a thriving little town in a middle western state. His parents were estimable people of moderate means and respected by the citizens of the town, with whom Joe became a prime favorite as he grew up. He early became a leader of the boys of his own age in all kinds of sports, but especially in baseball, for which he developed a natural aptitude. His inclination drew him toward the pitcher’s box, and here he showed such skill and speed, combined with coolness and good judgment, that he became a fixture in that position. His reputation quickly spread beyond the confines of his own town, and under his leadership the local team won many victories from nines of the same age throughout the county. What difficulties he encountered in climbing thefirst rungs of the baseball ladder and the way in which he overcame them are narrated in the first volume of this series, entitled: “Baseball Joe of the Silver Stars; or, The Rivals of Riverside.”
He won new laurels on his school nine, a little later on, despite the obstacles thrown in his way by the bully of the school. The experience he there gained stood him in good stead when, on the completion of his course there, his parents sent him to Yale. Here he maintained an excellent rank in his studies, but found plenty of opportunities to develop his skill and muscle in the pitcher’s box. By a combination of unlooked for circumstances he was called upon to assume the pitcher’s burden in a critical game with Princeton. The Tiger had come down from old Nassau prepared to claw the Bulldog to bits, but Joe’s great work sent him back to his lair with his tail between his legs and another victory was chalked up for Yale.
Such a light as Joe’s could not be hidden under a bushel, especially with keen-eyed scouts ranging over the country in search of talent. One of them had witnessed the Yale-Princeton game, and shortly afterward Joe got an offer from the Pittston team of the Central League. He accepted it, and soon became known as far and away the best twirler in that organization.
Still he was in “the sticks,” and his ambition reached much higher. It was realized sooner than he had expected when the St. Louis team of the National League put in a claim for him at the end of the season and secured him through the draft.
Now he was at last in “fast company,” and the acid test was applied to him when he was called on to hold up his end against the greatest boxmen of the country. But he refused to be daunted by their reputation, and in his duels with the best won oftener than he lost. His team played behind him with confidence, for they knew that he would never quit until the last man was out.
McRae, the manager of the Giants, himself an old-time player of remarkable ability and one of the best judges of men in either league, laid his lines for Joe and at last succeeded in getting him.
Now at last Joe felt that he had the chance of his life time. He was on the pitching staff of the most renowned team in baseball, and it behooved him to make good. And this he did to such purpose that he soon became the mainstay of the team.
In baseball parlance, Joe “had everything,” curves, drops, hops, slants and speed. But it was not only his arm of steel and his eye of a hawk that made him a wizard in the box. Those werephysical assets, indispensable to be sure, but valuable only as a foundation. What made him the greatest pitcher of the national game was the brain that dominated his nerves and muscles. As McRae had said, he played with his head all the time. He studied the characteristics of every man who faced him, learned his weaknesses and his strong points, what he could hit and what could fool him; and what he learned he never forgot. He was unequaled in outguessing the batter. Many a game that with any other pitcher would have been absolutely lost he had put in the winning column by his quick thinking, which led him to some unexpected move that had never been seen before on the diamond.
Nor was the prowess that had several times led the Giants to the championship of the National League and to victory in the World Series confined wholly to the pitching mound. Joe had developed into the leading batsman of his circuit. When he hit the ball, it traveled. His timing was perfect, and when with all the strength of his mighty shoulders he “leaned” against the ball, it was usually ticketed as a homer. Soon it became a habit with the crowds to pack the baseball parks in the various cities of the league not only to witness his wonderful pitching but to see Baseball Joe “knock another homer.”
Joe Matson had won prizes in other fields thanbaseball. He had saved a charming girl, Mabel Varley, from serious accident in a runaway, and the acquaintance so romantically begun had ripened into a deeper feeling that led them to the altar. Their married life was ideal.
Joe’s pretty sister, Clara, had been introduced by him to Jim Barclay, a Princeton man, who was also a pitcher on the Giant team and second only to Joe himself in skill. The young folks had fallen in love and had been married at the end of the season just preceding the opening of this story.
How Joe had been made captain of the Giants when they were in a slump, how he brought them out of it and led them to victory, how he thwarted the attempts of enemies to overcome him, are told in the preceding volume entitled: “Baseball Joe, Captain of the Team; or, Bitter Struggles on the Diamond.”
And now to return to Joe as he sought to control his reeling brain after his escape with the woman from the burning house.
“Are you badly hurt, old man?” asked Jim, in a voice husky with emotion.
“I guess not,” gasped Joe. “I feel pretty well done up and I’m blistered in various places, but nothing of any account. I’ll be all right as soon as I can get my breath back. How’s the woman getting on?”
“They’re attending to her now,” replied Jim,pointing to a doctor and a woman who were ministering to her on the grass a little distance away. “The fright has probably hurt her worse than anything else. You had that coat of yours wound so tightly over her head and shoulders that she couldn’t have got burned much.”
At this moment the doctor rose and came over to Joe and Jim. His professional air gave way to one of surprise as he looked at the stalwart young hero of the occasion.
“Baseball Joe!” he exclaimed.
“You seem to know me,” remarked Joe, with a smile.
“Who doesn’t?” replied the doctor. “Many’s the time I’ve seen you pitch when I was at my studies in New York. So it was your million dollar arm that carried this woman downstairs!”
“I’m afraid you rate the arm too highly,” replied Joe, grinning.
“Not a bit of it,” returned the doctor, a young man named Templeton. “It’s earned more than that for the Giants. And now, in addition to saving many a game, it’s saved a life. It’s a magnificent thing you’ve done, Mr. Matson. I only hope you haven’t been seriously injured in doing it. Suppose you let me look you over?”
Joe submitted, and a hasty examination seemed to prove that his burns were superficial, thoughthe doctor looked long and somewhat gravely at his pitching arm.
“Scorched!” he muttered to himself.
“Nothing serious there, is there, doctor?” asked Joe. “I need that arm in my business, you know.”
He tried to speak lightly, but his heart sank as he realized what a terrible calamity it would be to him if that mighty pitching arm were put out of commission.
“I don’t think so,” replied the doctor, but not with the conviction in his voice that Joe would have liked to hear. “But you’ll have to let up on your practice for a time and take the best of care of it. I’ll give it a temporary dressing now and drop around later at your hotel, if you say so, to go over it more carefully.”
He bandaged the arm with deftness and skill.
“You’d better get right back to your hotel now,” he recommended. “You’ll feel the reaction from the strain pretty soon, and you’ll need to rest for a day or two. There are a number of cars around, and the owner of any one of them will be proud to give you a lift. I’d take you in mine, but I’ve got to take the woman over to the hospital.”
“Who is she anyway?” asked Joe. “Do you know her?”
“Slightly,” replied Doctor Templeton. “Hername is Bultoza. A foreigner of some kind, though she speaks fairly good English. She and her husband have lived here for some time. He’s a queer kind of chap, but he’s gone to New York, I believe, where she intended to join him. That old house has been condemned and was going to be torn down that another one might be built on its site, and the other families that were living there have moved away. That’s the reason she happened to be the only occupant. Well, the fire has done the work now, and there won’t be much left of the old house to be pulled down.”
At this moment a woman detached herself from the group gathered about Mrs. Bultoza and came over to Joe.
“She wants to see you and thank you for saving her life,” the messenger said.
Joe would have liked to escape this, for he was as modest as he was brave.
“Better go,” urged the doctor as Joe hesitated. “It will relieve her mind and help in her recovery from the shock.”
Thus adjured, Joe, with Jim and the doctor, went over to the group, which parted to let them through.
Mrs. Bultoza, her face and hands bandaged, was propped against a tree. She had a swarthy complexion that betrayed her foreign origin. Joe saw that she was no longer young.
Her eyes, which were kindly and intelligent, brightened as she looked at Joe and then filled with tears.
“How can I thank you?” she cried brokenly, as she stretched out her hands to him. “You are so brave! So brave! You saved my life. And you did not know me! But you went through the fire for a woman you did not know. Oh, I shall pray God every day to bless you, you brave young man!”
“That’s all right,” said Joe, greatly embarrassed, but touched by her fervent gratitude. “I’m glad I happened to be near by. And I hope you will soon be all right again.”
She reiterated her thanks, and it was with some difficulty that Joe at last was able to get away.
He and Jim accepted an offer of one of the many cars that were eagerly put at their service and were whirled away to their hotel.
“I must look like something that the cat dragged in,” remarked Joe, as he gazed ruefully at his discolored and bedraggled clothing.
“Like a tramp,” admitted Jim, with a grin. “But heroes aren’t supposed to be dolled up like an Adonis.”
“Let’s try to slip in through the back door of the hotel and get up to our rooms without being seen,” suggested Joe.
“All right,” agreed Jim. “Though I’m afraidthere isn’t much chance,” he added. “The car will have to pass the front in trying to get around to the side, and a bunch of the boys are sure to be hanging around the veranda.”
“I only hope that I can keep this thing from Mabel,” said Joe, as his thoughts recurred to his young wife. “She’d worry her heart out for fear that I was hurt worse than I’d admit.”
“You can’t keep it from her, old boy,” declared Jim. “That’s one of the penalties of fame. You’re as much in the public eye as the President of the United States. The local paper here will tell all about it in screaming headlines. And do you suppose the newspaper correspondents here with the crowd are going to pass up a nice juicy item like that? Not on your life. To-morrow morning the sporting page of every newspaper in the country will have a big story of how Baseball Joe, the idol of the fans, the mainstay of the Giants, the most famous pitcher the game ever knew, climbed the stairs of a burning house and brought an old woman on his shoulder through the flames. Swell chance you’ll have to keep it from Mabel! And, after all, why should you want to? She’ll be worried of course, but she’ll be as proud as Punch. Though, heaven knows, she doesn’t need to be any prouder of you than she is.”
“I suppose it will be impossible to keep thething from her,” conceded Joe, “and I guess the best thing I can do is to send her a night letter telling her positively that I’m all right. But there’s another thing,” he added, with a shade of anxiety. “How do I know that I am all right? The doc didn’t seem to be any too sure about my pitching arm. If that arm gets out of kilter, I’m done for.”
“And so are the Giants,” said Jim soberly. “It would kill their pennant chances right at the start. You don’t realize, Joe, with that confounded modesty of yours, just what you mean to the team. Their greatest pitcher, their heaviest hitter, and the cleverest captain that ever wore baseball shoes. But there,” he added, with a forced assumption of lightness, “we’re not going to admit even the possibility of anything being the matter with your arm. It’s probably only a superficial burn that hasn’t affected any of the muscles, and in a few days you’ll be shooting them over again as fast as ever. We’ll have Dougherty give the arm the once over as soon as you get to your room. Here we are at the hotel now.”
As they had conjectured, a number of the Giants were lounging on the porch waiting for the supper gong.
Joe and Jim pressed back as far as they could into the tonneau in the hope of avoiding recognition,but not far enough to escape the eagle eye of McRae.
“Hello!” he shouted in surprise, as the auto did not stop in front of the hotel but made for the entrance that led to the back. “Where are you fellows going?”
Joe threw up his hands, literally as well as figuratively.
“It’s all off!” he exclaimed, as he requested the driver to stop.
He and Jim jumped out and a shout went up from their teammates as they noted Joe’s appearance.
McRae rushed toward him in consternation.
“What’s the matter, Joe?” he shouted. “Are you hurt? Don’t tell me that you’re hurt!”