Baseball Joe In The Big League Part 35

"Well, I made a bluff at it," said Joe, grimly and gamely.

"Well, I'll be Charlie-horsed!" exclaimed the trainer. "Say, you won't do any more pitching for a week! I've got to take you in hand."

Of course the story of Joe's grit got out, and the papers made much of how he had pitched through nearly a full game, winning it, too, which was more, with a badly hurt arm.

"But don't you take any such chances as that again!" cried Manager Watson, half fiercely, when he heard about it. "I can't have my pitchers running risks like that. Pitchers cost too much money!"

This was praise enough for Joe.

And so he had a much-needed rest. Under the care of Boswell the arm healed rapidly, though, for some time, Joe was not allowed to take part in any big games, for which he was sorry.

Whether it was the example of Joe's grit, or because they had improved of late was not made manifest, but the Cardinals took three of the four games with the Phillies, which made Manager Watson gleeful.

"They called us tail-enders!" he exulted, "but if we don't give the Giants a rub before the end of the season I'll miss my guess!"

The Cardinals were on the move again. They went from city to city, playing the scheduled games, winning some and losing enough to keep them about in fifth place. Joe saw much of life, of the good and bad sides.

Many temptations came to him, as they do to all young fellows, whether in the baseball game, or other business or pleasure. But Joe "pa.s.sed them up." Perhaps the memory of a certain girl helped him. Often it does.

The Cardinals came to New York, once more to do battle with the redoubtable Giants.

"But you won't get a game!" declared Manager McGraw to "Muggins" Watson.

"Won't we? I don't know about that. I'm going to spring my colt slab artist on you again."

"Who, Matson?"

"Um," said the manager of the Cardinals.

"Um," responded the manager of the Giants, laughing.

St. Louis did get one game of a double-header, and Joe, whose arm was in perfect trim again, pitched. It was while he was on the mound that a certain man, reputed to be a scout for the Giants, was observed to be taking a place where he could watch the young pitcher to advantage.

"Up to your old tricks; eh, Jack?" asked a man connected with the management of the Cardinals. "Who are you scouting for now?"

"Well, that little shortstop of yours looks pretty good to me," was the drawling answer. "What you s'pose you'll be asking for him."

"He's not for sale. Now if you mentioned the centre fielder, Jack----"

"Nothing doing. I've got one I'll sell you cheap."

"I don't suppose you want to make an offer for Matson; do you?" asked the Cardinal man with a slow wink.

"Oh, no, we've got all the pitchers we can use," the Giant scout responded quickly. It is thus that their kind endeavor to deceive one another.

But, as the game went on, it might have been observed that the Giant scout changed his position, where he could observe Joe in action from another angle.

"Didn't see anything of Shalleg since we struck Manhattan; did you, Joe?" asked Rad, as he and his chum, taking advantage of a rainy day in New York, were paying a visit to the Museum of Natural History.

"No," replied Joe, pausing in front of a gla.s.s case containing an immense walrus. "I don't want to see him, either. I'm sure he planned to do me some harm, and I'm almost positive that some of his tools had to do with my sore arm. But I can't prove it."

"That's the trouble," admitted Rad. "Well, come on, I want to see that model of the big whale. They say it's quite a sight."

The rain prevented games for three days, and the players were getting a bit "stale" with nothing to do. Then the sun came out, the grounds dried up and the series was resumed. But the Cardinals were not very lucky.

Philadelphia was the next stopping place, and there, once again, the Cardinals proved themselves the masters of the Quakers. They took three games straight, and sweetened up their average wonderfully, being only a game and a half behind the fourth club.

"If we can only keep up the pace!" said the manager, wistfully. "Joe, are you going to help us do it?"

"I sure am!" exclaimed the young pitcher.

There was one more game to play with the Phillies. The evening before it was scheduled, which would close their stay in the Quaker City, Joe left the hotel, and strolled down toward the Delaware River. He intended to take the ferry over to Camden, in New Jersey, for a friend of his mother lived there, and he had promised to call on her.

Joe did not notice that, as he left the hotel, he was closely followed by a man who walked and acted like Wessel. But the man wore a heavy beard, and Wessel, the young pitcher remembered was usually smooth-shaven.

But Joe did not notice. If he had perhaps he would have seen that the beard was false, though unusually well adjusted.

Joe turned his steps toward the river front. It was a dark night, for the sky was cloudy and it looked like rain.

Joe just missed one ferryboat, and, as there would be some little time before the other left, he strolled along the water front, looking at what few sights there were. Before he realized it, he had gone farther than he intended. He found himself in a rather lonely neighborhood, and, as he turned back a bearded man, who had been walking behind the young pitcher for some time, stepped close to him.

"I beg your pardon," the man began, speaking as though he had a heavy cold, "but could you direct me to the Reading Terminal?"

"Yes," said Joe, who had a good sense of direction, and had gotten the "lay of the land" pretty well fixed in his mind. "Let's see now--how I can best direct you?"

He thought for a moment. By going a little farther away from the ferry he could put the stranger on a thoroughfare that would be more direct than traveling back the way he had come.

"If you wouldn't mind walking along a little way," said the man eagerly.

"I'm a stranger here, and----"

"Oh, I'll go with you," offered Joe, good-naturedly. "I'm not in any hurry."

Be careful, Joe! Be careful!

CHAPTER XXVI

ADRIFT

"There," said Baseball Joe, coming to a halt at a dark street corner, the stranger close beside him, "if you go up that way, and turn as I told you to, it will take you directly to the Reading Terminal."

"I don't know how to thank you," mumbled the other. He seemed to be fumbling in his pocket. "I'll give you my card," he went on. "If you are ever in San Francisco----"

But it was not a card that he pulled from the inner pocket of his coat.

It was a rag, that bore a strange, faint odor. Joe stepped back, but not quickly enough. He suspected something wrong, but he was too late.