CHAPTER XXI

DROPPING BACK

“I suppose you are right, Joe,” assented Jim, regretfully. “But it makes me boil not to be able to put the scoundrels behind prison bars. Those human snakes ought to have some punishment meted out to them.”

“They surely ought,” agreed Baseball Joe. “But we’ll have to postpone their punishment. Everything will have to wait till the end of the season. Apart from anything else, if we found them out now and had them arrested, see how it would break into our work. We’d have to leave the team to come here to testify at the trial and perhaps stay away for weeks, and that would cost the Giants the pennant. But speaking of this fellow here in the box, what are we going to do with him? We can’t leave him here.”

“It’s rather awkward,” remarked Jim. “I suppose we could take him down to the cellar and have him burned in the furnace.”

“Not without arousing the curiosity of the furnace man and leading to talk,” objected Joe. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We leave town to-morrow night. We’ll wrap the snake up in a compact package and carry it along in a suitcase. Then at night while the train is speeding along, we’ll open a window and drop him out.”

They agreed on this as the best solution.

“I suppose there’s no question that the snake is dead,” remarked Jim, with an inflection of uncertainty in his voice. “It would be mighty awkward to have him come to life again in the suitcase.”

“I guess he’s drowned all right,” returned Joe. “He was a long time under water. But just to make assurance doubly sure, I’ll cut off his head.”

He took out his heavy jackknife and severed the reptile’s head from his body. Handling the grisly creature was a repugnant task, and they were glad when it was finished.

“Guess I’ll keep this head,” remarked Joe, as a thought came to him. “I’ll slip it into a jar of alcohol and that will preserve it indefinitely.”

“What on earth do you want it for?” queried Jim. “I shouldn’t think you’d care for that kind of souvenir.”

“I have a hunch it may come in handy some time,” answered Joe. “Now let’s wrap up this body and get it out of our sight.”

Their dreams that night were featured by wriggling, writhing forms.

“I’m glad I’m not scheduled to pitch to-day,” remarked Jim, at breakfast. “I’m afraid the Pirates would bat me all over the lot. I never felt less fit.”

“Such an experience isn’t exactly the best kind of preparation for box work,” replied Joe, with a ghost of a smile. “I guess Bradley will start, while I’ll stand ready to relieve him if he gets in a jam. I’m hoping, though, that he’ll pull through all right.”

After lunch they took a taxicab to the grounds, but the vehicle got in a traffic jam, and it was later than they expected when they finally reached Forbes Field.

They hurried over to the clubhouse and were entering the door when they met Iredell, who was coming out.

Iredell gave a sharp ejaculation and started back, while his face went as white as chalk.

“Why, what’s the matter, Iredell?” asked Joe.

“N--nothing,” stammered Iredell, by a mighty effort regaining control of himself and walking away.

Their wondering glances followed him, and they noticed that his gait was wavering.

“What do you suppose was the reason for that?” asked Jim.

“I’m afraid he’s been drinking again,” conjectured Joe, regretfully. “His nerves seem to be all unstrung. When he looked at me, you might think that he saw a ghost.”

“Perhaps he did,” said Jim, slowly but significantly.

“What do you mean?” asked Joe, quickly.

“Just what I say,” answered Jim. “Perhaps he thought that you were--well, in the doctor’s hands, and that what he saw must be a ghost.”

“You don’t mean----”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Joe, in horror. “Lemblow, Hupft, McCarney? Yes! But Iredell! A man on our own team! A man we’ve played with for years! No, Jim, I can’t believe it possible.”

“Perhaps not,” admitted Jim. “I hate even to think of it. I hope I’m wrong. But drink, you know, will weaken a man’s moral fiber until he’s capable of anything. Iredell’s been steadily going to the dogs of late. Perhaps he’s fallen in with McCarney’s gang. He knows all of them, and a drinking man isn’t particular about his company. Let a man hate you and then let him drink, and you have a mighty bad combination. Just suppose Iredell was in the plot. Suppose he knew that rattler was sent to you yesterday. Wouldn’t he act just as he did when he saw you turn up safe and sound to-day?”

“It certainly was queer,” admitted Joe, half-convinced. “I can only hope you’re wrong. At any rate, it won’t hurt to keep our eyes on him and be doubly on our guard.”

Bradley showed more form that afternoon than he had before that season, and took the Pirates into camp in first class fashion by a score of 5 to 3. Apart from victory itself, it was gratifying to McRae and Robbie to note that Bradley was improving rapidly and furnishing a reinforcement to Joe and Jim, who, in a pitching sense, had been carrying the team on their backs.

Three out of four from so strong a team as the Pittsburghs was a good beginning for the swing around the Western circuit, and the Giants were in high feather when they arrived in Cincinnati.

“Hate to do it, old boy,” declared the grinning McRae, as he shook hands with Hughson, “but we’ll have to take the whole four from you this time.”

“Threatened men live long, Mac,” retorted Hughson. “Just for being so sassy about it, I don’t think we’ll give you one. Just remember the walloping we gave you the last time you were here. That wasn’t a circumstance compared to what’s coming to you now.”

As it turned out, both were false prophets, for each team took two games.

“Five out of eight aren’t so bad for a team away from home,” Jim remarked.

“Better than a black eye,” admitted Joe. “But still not good enough. We want twelve games out of the sixteen before we start back home.”

It was an ambitious goal, but the Giants reached it, taking three out of four from the Chicagos and making a clean sweep in St. Louis. It was the best road record that the Giants had made for a long time past, and it was a jubilant crowd of athletes that swung on board the train for New York.

“I’m already spending my World Series money,” crowed Larry, the irrepressible, to his comrades gathered about him in the smoker.

“Better go slow, Larry,” laughed Joe. “There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. We haven’t got the pennant clinched yet, by any means. And even if we win the pennant, there’s the World Series, and that’s something else again. It looks as though the Yankees would repeat in the American, and you know what tough customers they proved last time. And when Kid Rose gets going with that old wagon-tongue of his----”

“Kid Rose!” interrupted Larry, with infinite scorn. “Who gives a hoot for Kid Rose? What’s Kid Rose compared with Baseball Joe?”

Joe’s caution was justified by what followed after the Giants’ return home. Suddenly, without warning, came one of the mysterious slumps that no baseball man can explain. If they had gone up like a rocket, they came down like the stick. They fielded raggedly, batted weakly, and fell off in all departments of the game. Perhaps it was the reaction after the strain of the Western trip. Whatever the cause, the slump was there.

McRae raged, Joe pleaded. They shook up the batting order, they benched some of the regulars temporarily, and put the reserve men in their places. Nothing seemed to avail. The “jinx” was on the job. The Phillies and Boston trampled them underfoot. In three weeks they had lost the lead, and the Chicagos and Pittsburghs had crowded in ahead of them.

Still Joe kept his nerve and struggled desperately to turn the tide. He himself had never pitched or batted better, and what occasional victories were turned in were chiefly due to him. But he was only one man--not nine--and the Giants kept on steadily losing.

Only one ray of light illumined the darkness for Baseball Joe. Mabel had come to him.