Jimmy Kirkland and the Plot for a Pennant Part 8

"One of the women with the team, daughter of the secretary," he explained, striving to appear unconcerned.

"Is she pretty?"

"Why--yes--I don't know. She is very pleasant and nice looking."

"Rather odd, isn't it, a woman traveling with a lot of tough ball players?"

"You are unjust," he exclaimed indignantly. "She is with her father and Mrs. Clancy. Besides, the ball players are not tough--at least none of them is while she is with the club."

"You seem ready to rush to her defense," she remarked with jealous accents.

"Of course, I cannot let you think she is not a nice girl."

"Of course not"----her tone was sarcastic. "Traveling around the country with a crowd of men and eavesdropping in hotel parlors."

"She would not do such a thing. You must not speak of her in that way," he stormed indignantly.

"I congratulate her upon having captured so gallant a champion," she mocked.

They were verging upon a sharper clash of words when a big man, heavy of jaw and red of face, strolled into the parlor, not taking the trouble to remove his hat.

"Oh, here you are, Helen," he said. "I've been looking everywhere.

Time to start or we'll be late to bridge."

"Uncle Barney," said the girl, rising, "this is Mr.--oh, I forget.

What is it you call yourself now?--McCarthy. I knew him when he was at college. He plays on some baseball team--one of those we saw to-day.

Mr. McCarthy, this is my uncle, Mr. Baldwin."

"I have heard of you often, Mr. Baldwin," said McCarthy coolly, although fearful that Baldwin might remember him.

"You're McCarthy, the new third baseman, eh?" asked Baldwin, without offering his hand and merely glancing at the boy. "Saw you play to-day. Too bad you threw that game away."

"I"----McCarthy started to offer defense.

"We must be going, Helen," said Baldwin.

The girl extended her hand carelessly.

"We hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again," she said.

Baldwin, with a curt nod to the player, turned to leave the parlor and McCarthy, seizing the opportunity, said:

"As a favor, Helen, do not reveal my ident.i.ty. Your uncle did not recognize me as the boy he saw play on the Shasta View team."

"You need not fear," she responded rapidly. "And, Larry, please be sensible. Go home and make it up with Mr. Lawrence--and you may hope.

And," she added in a low tone, "beware of that girl."

She hurried after her uncle, who had stopped and turned impatiently, leaving McCarthy staring after her and frowning. After all, he thought bitterly, his uncle was right. All she cared for was the money and not for him. He had quarreled with his uncle, his best friend, who had taken care of him since his childhood and who had made him his heir--on account of her. He was free. Yes, he was free.

He found himself wondering that he was happy instead of bitter over the loss of Helen Baldwin. He knew now he never had loved her. With a thrill of gladness came the thought of Betty Tabor. His jaw set, the fighting look came into his blue eyes and he saw his way clearly. He was not free. His duty was to the Bears.

CHAPTER VIII

_In the Deeper Waters_

Two defeats at the hands of the Maroons sent the Bears into the final game of the series desperately determined to win. Their pitching staff was exhausted from the effort to stop the team which they had expected to beat easily.

The game was a brilliant exhibition of defensive playing on the part of the Bears, who were driven back by the hard hitting of the Maroons. In spite of the fierce batting of the Maroons the magnificent defensive work of the Bears held their rivals to two runs, while by their brilliant and resourceful attack and skilful inside work they had scored three runs on five scattered hits, and at the start of the eighth inning were holding grimly to their lead of one run.

McCarthy, spurred by determination to redeem himself for the errors of the preceding games, was giving a wonderful exhibition of third-base play. The knowledge that Helen Baldwin, her uncle and a group of friends were sitting in one of the field boxes directly behind him urged him to greater efforts. It was his long hit in the sixth inning, followed by a clever steal of third, that had enabled the Bears to gain the lead which they were holding by their fast work on the infield.

The Bears failed to score in their half of the eighth, and the Maroons opened with a fierce a.s.sault upon Klinker that threatened to break down the Bears' inner wall of defense. Swanson's brilliant stop and throw of a vicious drive checked the bombardment, but a safe drive and a two-base hit went whizzing through beyond the finger tips of the diving infielders, and there were runners on second and third bases, one out and a hit needed to turn the tide in favor of the Maroons again.

The infield was drawn close in the hope of cutting off the runner from the home plate. It was desperate baseball, and, as the infielders advanced to the edge of the gra.s.s, each man knew that a line smash, a hard-driven bounder between them, or even a fumble, probably meant the destruction of their pennant hopes.

The ball was. .h.i.t with terrific force straight at McCarthy, who threw up his hands and blocked desperately. The ball tore through his hands, struck his knee with numbing force and rolled a few feet away. He pounced upon it and like a flash hurled it to Kennedy at the plate, so far ahead of the runner who was trying to score that he turned back toward third, with Kennedy in pursuit. Swanson had come up to cover third, and the runner from second base stood at the third bag watching the play, ready to dash back if the runner, trapped between third and the plate, managed to elude the pursuers and regain third base.

Kennedy pa.s.sed the ball to Swanson, and as the runner turned back, Swanson threw to McCarthy, who had fallen in behind Kennedy, leaving the pitcher to cover the plate if the runner broke through in that direction. The runner started to dodge, but McCarthy, without an instant's hesitation, leaped after him and drove him hard back toward third base, so hard that the runner went on over the bag and ten feet beyond before he could stop. Like a flash McCarthy leaped sideways, touched the other runner who was starting back to second base, and, with a fierce dive, he threw his body between the base and the runner who had overslid it and tagged him.

Before he could scramble to his feet to claim the double play he heard Clancy, excited in spite of his long experience, shouting: "Good boy--nice work." As the umpire waved both runners out the crowd, bewildered for an instant by the rapidity with which McCarthy had executed the coup, commenced to understand and broke into a thundering round of applause as he limped toward the bench.

With that attack staved off, the Bears held the Maroons safe in the ninth and closed the final Western trip of the team with a hard-earned victory. They started homeward that evening with confidence renewed and the men hopeful.

The Bears were scheduled to stop en route to the home grounds to play a series of three games against the Travelers, a team low in the standing of the clubs, but one of the most dangerous of all. It was a slow but heavy-hitting aggregation, and at times more dreaded than were the stronger clubs. The series was a critical one for the Bears as, after that, they would return to the home grounds to play all the other games, with the exception of two against the Blues.

McCarthy was happier and more interested than he had been since he joined the Bears. Restlessly he awaited an opportunity to talk with Betty Tabor. Since his interview with Helen Baldwin he had been strangely jubilant for a young man who had just been discarded by the girl to whom he was engaged. He wondered how much of the conversation Betty Tabor had overheard, and worried about it. He wanted to explain to her who Miss Baldwin was and how he had happened to be talking with her, yet he knew it would seem presumptuous for him to broach the subject. Why should Betty Tabor think enough of him to be jealous?

Yet, in spite of this, he decided that, at the first opportunity, he would mention meeting Helen Baldwin.

He went to bed annoyed and with an odd sense of being wronged. He determined to see the girl at breakfast and almost decided to confide in her the secret of his past life. But he did not see her at breakfast. After a restless night he was among the first in the dining car and he loitered, but the girl, usually one of the earliest risers, slept late, and when the train reached the city of the Travelers she went with Manager Clancy and his wife in a taxicab, while McCarthy was bundled with the other players into the big auto 'bus. He failed to catch a glimpse of her during luncheon and was in a bad humor when the team made an early start for the ball park.

The game was a runaway for the Bears. They piled up such a large score during the early innings that Manager Clancy was able to take out Morgan in the sixth and send Shelby, a second-string pitcher, to finish the game, saving up more strength and skill to use at the finish.

It was a jubilant crowd of players that returned to the hotel after the game. They sang and laughed and were happy again. They had won, and during the afternoon the Panthers, overconfident, had suffered two defeats by the Maroons, leaving the teams again practically tied for the lead.

McCarthy spent the evening loitering around the hotel lobbies, still hoping for an opportunity to see Miss Tabor, and she failed to appear at dinner and was not with Mr. and Mrs. Clancy when they started out for a car ride. He wandered aimlessly around until, abandoning his quest, he went to his room disconsolately. It was not yet eleven o'clock, but Swanson was preparing for sleep. As McCarthy came into the room he stopped to laugh. The giant shortstop was in his pajamas, on his back in the bed. With one bare foot he was holding a sheet of paper against the head board, and with a pencil grasped between the toes of the other foot he was laboriously striving to write.

"What was you trying to do, Silent?" asked McCarthy, laughing harder.

"Figuring my share of the World's Series receipts," responded Swanson, laboring harder. "Clancy said he'd fine any one of us caught with a pencil in his hand doping out these statistics," said Swanson, "and I just had to know."

They were ready to settle down for the night when the telephone rang in the connecting room. The door between the rooms was ajar, and Swanson sprang from bed to respond to the call.

"h.e.l.lo!" he said. "h.e.l.lo! Yes, this is Williams's room, but he isn't in just now. What? Oh, yes, I understand. I'll tell him.

h.e.l.lo--hold a minute, here he is now."

"Hey, Adonis," Swanson called to the pitcher, who was just entering the room from the hallway. "Someone wants you."