CHAPTER XXVI
JUST IN TIME
Bill Smith, about that same time, was wondering the same thing. He had dozed off after his captors had left him, but, with the first glint of morning sun into the room where he was a prisoner he had awakened. He was still bound.
“Well, this is pretty punk!” he exclaimed. “To think that they got ahead of me this way! I wonder where I am, anyhow? And I wonder how I can get away, and back—Great muskmelons! If I don’t show up at the game—”
The thought was too much for Bill. He resolved on bold tactics. Considering that his promise not to make an outcry ended with the leaving of his captors, he raised his voice in a shout.
“Help! Come here, somebody! Let me out! Police!”
Bill didn’t particularly want the police, for he knew that his captivity was the result of some school prank, and the boys never called on the officers of the law if they could help it. But “Police!” was an easy word to say, and it carried well. Therefore the captive yelled it again and again.
But there was no answer to his cries, and after straining his throat until it ached, the pitcher decided that he had better save his breath and try other means to escape.
“First to see if I can’t get rid of some of these ropes onmy arms and legs,” he murmured. He tugged and strained at them, after wiggling to a sitting position, but the knots had been made with care, and held. Bill tried to pull his hands from the loops but it was useless, and his feet were equally secure. He could not gnaw through the ropes as he had sometimes read of prisoners doing, for his hands were tied behind his back.
“I certainly am up against it,” he said aloud. Then, for the first time, he took note of his prison. He was in a vacant room, evidently in some old fashioned house, to judge by the character of the woodwork and the wall paper. There were two windows, and a door, the latter apparently quite solid.
“Let’s have a look outside,” suggested Bill to himself. He struggled to his feet, and, by a series of hops, gained the windows. He was in the third story of a house, set in the midst of a neglected garden, and the scene that met the lad’s gaze was unfamiliar to him.
“I might be a hundred miles from nowhere, for all I can tell,” he concluded dubiously. “Well, now for a try at the door.”
Hopping over to the portal Bill turned around with his back to it, and managed to reach the knob with his hands. It turned, but the door was locked.
“Nothing doing there!” exclaimed the captive. “Well, here’s for some more noise.” He yelled and shouted at the top of his voice, accompanying himself by beating on the door with his bound fists. Silence was his only answer.
Once more Bill hopped to the window. He looked out, hoping he might see some one to whom he could appeal. Then, as he gazed helplessly out, he noted a nail driveninto one side of the casement. At once a plan came into his mind.
“If I can rub the rope that binds my hands, up and down over the head of that nail, I may fray the ropes enough to break them,” he remarked aloud, for it made it seem less lonesome to speak thus. “Once I get my hands loose—” Bill did not finish, but he had great hopes of what he could then do.
He began at once with the rusty nail as a knife. It was hard work, and several times his hands slipped and his wrists were scratched, but he kept at it, and finally found that the cords were giving way. He worked faster, and then, with a sudden strain he found his arms free. Then it was an easy matter to loosen his feet, and he stood up unbound.
“Now for a try at that door!” exclaimed the lad, and after giving the knob a vigorous turn, and vainly pulling on the portal he began to kick it violently.
He was engaged in this, at the same time yelling and demanding to be released, when the door suddenly opened. So suddenly in fact that Bill toppled outward with it, and was caught in the arms of a big man who entered quickly, carrying the captive backward with him, and immediately locking the portal again.
Surprise bereft the lad of speech for a moment, and the man, after gazing at him, and noting the ropes on the floor, remarked:
“Well, you got rid of ’em yourself, I see. If you’d have waited a little longer I’d have taken ’em off. I’m a little late getting here with your breakfast.”
“Breakfast!” gasped Bill. “You’d have taken off theropes! Say, what kind of a game am I up against, anyhow?”
“Oh, I guess it’s all right,” said the man easily.
“Well it isn’t all right,” declared Bill. “If you don’t let me out of here right away there’s going to be the biggest row you ever saw,” and, as if in support of his assertion the pitcher rushed over and began kicking on the door again.
“Hum! Them fellers was right,” murmured the man seemingly not a bit disturbed by what Bill was doing.
“What fellows?” demanded the pitcher, pausing in his attack.
“The ones what brought you here. They said you’d cut up rough, and make a lot of fuss, an’ by gum, they was right! I guess you sure enough do need a straight-jacket.”
“A straight-jacket!” gasped poor Bill. “Say, for the love of cats, tell me what I’m up against; won’t you?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” was the calm reply. “I was told to humor you until the keeper come, an’ I’m doin’ it. What would you like for breakfast?”
“I don’t want any—let me out!” pleaded Bill. He was beginning to see the joke now.
“I don’t dast,” replied the man. “The fellers what brung you here said you was dangerous at times, an’ I might be held responsible. They fetched you here in an automobile, an’ arranged with me to leave you in this vacant house of mine until they could come again, with keepers from the lunatic asylum, to take you away. I’m expectin’ ’em every minute, but they said I was to untie you by daylight,an’ feed you, as you was less violent when it wasn’t dark.”
“Say, look here!” cried Bill. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“I’m sure of it,” was the answer. “At least, no, I ain’t neither. There I clean forgot to say what them fellers told me to. No you ain’t crazy. I am, an’ everybody else is, but you’re sane. That’s what they said I was to tell you, if you asked me that question. All crazy persons thinks they are sane,” he went on in explanation. “You’re sane.”
“But look here!” pleaded the captive. “Of course I’m sane. I’m a student at Westfield, and the fellows who brought me are either students from there, or from some other school, playing a joke on me. Now let me go!”
The man shook his head.
“They told me you’d say that, too,” he said. “I can’t let you go. I promised to keep you here until the keepers came, an’ I’m goin’ to do it. Now take it easy and you’ll be all right. I’ll bring you some breakfast. You look hungry.”
“I am, but say—” Then the hopelessness of appealing any further to the man came forcibly to Bill, and he was silent.
“That’s better,” announced the man, preparing to unlock the door again. “I live over here a little way. This house belongs to me, but it’s been vacant some time, so you can yell and holler all you please—no one will hear you. I’ll go get you some victuals. Is there anything special you’d like? My wife is a good cook.”
“Oh, bring anything,” said poor Bill. He knew that he would have to eat if he was to keep up his strength, for hehad determined to try to escape by the windows as soon as he was left alone again. He had a wild idea of making a rush when the farmer opened the door, but a look at the bulky frame of the man made him change his mind.
The food was good and Bill ate a hearty meal. Then he was left alone again, the farmer, on locking the door, saying that he expected the keepers any moment. It was evident that he believed the stories the captors of Bill had told him.
Once he was alone, and when a look from the windows had assured him that he was not being watched, Bill began to put into operation his plan of getting away.
He hoped that the ropes which had bound him would enable him to make his way down them out of the window, but on tying the pieces together he discovered that they were not long enough.
“Up against it!” exclaimed the lad, until, looking more carefully out of the end casement he discovered that a stout lightning rod ran near it, down the side of the house.
“That’s just the cheese, if it will hold me,” murmured the lad. “I’m going to try it anyhow.”
He crawled out on the window sill, tested the rod as best he could, and then swung himself down it. To his joy it held, and in a few seconds he was safe on the ground.
“Now to find out where I am, and streak it for school and the game!” he murmured, looking around to see that the farmer was not in sight. He got his bearings and was soon out on a dusty highway. He ran for some distance until a turn in the road hid the house of his captivity from him, and then slowed down to a walk.
The surroundings were still unfamiliar to him, but meetinga man driving a carriage he learned that he was near the village of Belleville, about twenty miles from Westfield.
“And it’s coming on noon, I haven’t half enough to buy a railroad ticket, and the game is called at two o’clock!” groaned Bill. “I certainly am up against it good and hard!”
The man whom he had accosted was going in the wrong direction, or he would have given the lad a lift. However, he did consent to drive him to the railroad station.
“I’ll see if I can’t give the agent a hard-luck story, and have him trust me for a ticket,” thought the pitcher.
But the station agent proved to be a hard-featured man, who had once lost a dollar by lending it to a young lady who told him a pathetic story, and he turned a deaf ear to Bill’s pleading.
“No money no ticket,” he declared.
“But look here,” gasped Bill. “Some fellows, either at my school, or from Tuckerton, played a joke on me last night—kidnapped me. I’m to pitch in the championship Freshman baseball game at two o’clock this afternoon, and I’ve justgotto be there. I’ll pay you back if you trust me for a ticket. Or say, you can ship me as express, C. O. D. and the boys will pay the charges at Westfield.”
“Live stock has to travel in cattle cars, not as express,” answered the agent with a grim smile. “Besides I don’t believe in baseball anyhow. Some boys was battin’ a hall once, an’ they busted one of the windows in this ticket office. I had to pay for it, too! I ain’t got no manner of likin’ for baseball.”
Bill saw that it was no use in pleading, and turned away. With despair in his heart he noted that it wasnearly one o’clock. He might as well give up. Already the players were beginning to get ready for the game. In fancy he could hear the words of wonder at his absence from the diamond.
“They may think I threw the game,” thought Bill, and then he remembered that his brothers and Whistle-Breeches had seen him captured, and would tell the story.
“They’d come to the rescue if they only knew where to come, too,” thought Bill gloomily.
The pitcher was in desperate straits. A search through his pockets disclosed the fact that he had nothing to pawn on which to raise money, even if there had been a pawn shop in the village. He was just giving up, deciding to walk to Westfield, hoping to arrive before dark, when, as he left the station he nearly collided with a pretty girl, who was just entering, having alighted from a trim little motor car, that was still puffing outside.
“I beg your pardon,” mumbled Bill.
“Oh!” exclaimed the girl. “I—why it’s Mr. Smith!” she cried, holding out her hand. “I’m glad to meet you again. But why aren’t you over at school at the big game? I’m on my way there.”
For a moment you could have knocked Bill down with the wind from a slow ball, as he afterward expressed it. He looked at the girl, and recognized her as Miss Ruth Morton, to whom he had been introduced by Bob Chapin at one of the school games.
“Miss Morton!” he murmured. “I—Oh, if you’re going to Westfield will you take me? I’m marooned!”
Then, rapidly, he blurted out the whole story of his capture and his inability to get back.
“Take you! Of course I’ll take you!” exclaimed Miss Morton. “I have to stop for a girl friend, who is going to the game with me, but there’ll be plenty of room for you.”
“I’ll ride on the mud guard or hang on back!” exclaimed Bill, a gleam of hope lighting his woe-begone countenance. “Only I want to beat Tuckerton!”
“And I want you to, even if a—a friend of mine goes there. I think it was an awfully mean trick they played on you.”
“Oh, I’m notsureany Tuckerton fellows did it,” said Bill, who wanted to play fair. “It may have been some of the Westfield crowd,” but he had his own opinion.
Miss Morton, who had come to the station to inquire about some express package, hurried out to her car, followed by Bill. He offered to run it for her, but she was not a little proud of her own ability to drive.
“We’ve got to make time,” suggested the pitcher nervously.
“I can do it,” the girl assured him, and, once she had thrown in the third gear, the pitcher had no reason to complain of lack of speed.
Miss Morton’s girl friend—Miss Hazel Dunning—was taken aboard and then, with Bill sitting on the floor in front, and resting his feet on the mud-guard step, for the machine was only a runabout, the trip to Westfield was begun.
Back on the school diamond there was an anxious throng of students and players. The news of Bill’s kidnapping was known all over, and while there was despair in the ranks of the Westfield Freshmen and their supporters,there was ill-concealed joy among the Tuckerton nine and their adherents.
“Those fellows know where Bill is,” declared Cap.
“But we don’t dare accuse them,” agreed Pete.
“And we’ll lose the game,” went on Armitage dubiously.
Bill never forgot his trip with Miss Morton. She was a daring driver, for a girl, and once or twice took chances that made even the nerve-hardened pitcher wince. But with a merry laugh she sped on, after cutting in ahead of a load of hay, on a narrow bridge.
Once there was a hail from a speed-watching constable but the girl kept on.
“There’s oil on my number, and I never expect to come this way again,” she declared recklessly.
“If only we don’t get a blow-out!” murmured Miss Dunning.
“Don’t you dare suggest such a thing, Hazel!” cried Miss Morton.
She turned on more speed. It lacked five minutes to two, and Bill knew the game would be called on the dot. They were two miles away, and could hardly get there on time, but the pitcher consoled himself with the reflection that at least he could take part after the first inning.
“Are we going to make it?” asked Miss Dunning.
“We’vegotto!” declared Miss Morton, as she swung around in front of a farm wagon, thereby causing the grizzled driver symptoms of heart failure.
Bill could hear the shouts on the diamond now. He was in a fever of excitement, and stood up to catch a first glimpse of the field. Miss Morton, with her lips set firmly around her pretty mouth grasped the steering wheel morerigidly and drove on. Toward the diamond she turned. There was another cheer from the crowd, but Bill could not see what was going on, and feared the game had started. There came a break in the throng and he had a glimpse of the field. What he saw reassured him.
“I’m just in time!” he gasped. “They’re only practicing!”
He leaped out as the girl brought the car to a sudden stop with both brakes grinding and screeching.
“See you later! A thousand thanks—never could have done it but for you, Miss Morton!” burst out Bill as he ran over the grass. “I’ll never forget it.”
“Me either,” murmured the girl. “I never drove so fast before in all my life, but I wasn’t going to tell him so,” she confided to her chum, as they left the car and walked toward the grand stand.