CHAPTER XIV

DEEPENING MYSTERY

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, “come right 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 the bases. 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 to see 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.”