CHAPTER XII

THE QUEER VALISE

"Matson, I hope you didn't misunderstand me," remarked the manager as he walked beside Joe to the dressing rooms. "I mean in regard to that Dutton. He's an intolerable nuisance, and I didn't want you to get mixed up with him. Perhaps I spoke stronger than I should, but I'm exasperated with him. I've tried--and so have lots of us--to get him back on the right road again, but I'm afraid he's hopeless."

"It's too bad!" burst out the young pitcher. "Yes, I thought you were a little severe with him."

"I have to be. I don't want him hanging around here. I haven't seen him for some time. He drifts all about--beating his way like a tramp, I guess, though he's better dressed now than in a long while. What's that he said about you saving his life?"

"Well, I suppose I did, in a way," and Joe told of the freight train episode. "But that happened a long distance from here," he added. "I was surprised to turn around and see him."

"Oh, Pop travels all over. You've probably heard about him. In his day there wasn't a better pitcher in any league. But he got careless--that, bad companions and dissipation spelled ruin for him. He's down and out now, and I'm sure he can never come back. He lives off what he can borrow or beg from those who used to be his friends. Steer clear of him--that's my advice."

Joe did not respond and after a moment Gregory went on with:

"And you mustn't mind, Joe, being taken out of to-day's game."

"Oh, I didn't--after the first."

"It was for your own good, as well as for the good of the team," proceeded the manager. "If I hadn't taken you out you might have gone to pieces, and the crowd would have said mean things that are hard to forget. And I want you to pitch for us to-morrow, Joe."

"You do!" cried the delighted young pitcher, all his bitterness forgotten now. "I thought maybe----"

He paused in confusion.

"Just because you got a little off to-day, did you imagine I was willing to give you your release?" asked Gregory, with a smile.

"Well--something like that," confessed Joe.

The manager laughed.

"Don't take it so seriously," he advised. "You've got lots to learn yet about professional baseball, and I want you to learn it right."

Joe felt a sense of gratitude, and when he reached the hotel that afternoon, he took a refreshing shower bath, attired himself in his "glad rags," and bought a ticket to the theatre.

Then, before supper, he sat down to write home, enclosing some of his salary to be put in a savings bank at Riverside. Joe also wrote a glowing account of the game, even though his part in it was rather negligible. He also wrote to-- But there! I shouldn't tell secrets that way. It's taking too much of an advantage over a fellow.

There was an air of elation about the hotel where the players lived, and on all sides were heard congratulations. The evening papers had big headlines with the victory of the home team displayed prominently. Collin's picture was there, and how much Joe wished that his own was so displayed only he himself knew.

Clevefield played four games with Pittston, and they broke even--each side winning two. Joe was given another chance to pitch, and was mainly responsible for winning the second game for his team.

Joe was fast becoming accustomed to his new life. Of course there was always something different coming up--some new problem to be met. But he got in the way of solving them. It was different from his life at boarding school, and different from his terms at Yale. He missed the pleasant, youthful comradeship of both places, but he found, as he grew to know them better, some sterling men in his own team, and in those of the opposing clubs.

But with all that, at times, Joe felt rather lonesome. Of course the days were busy ones, either at practice or in play. But his nights were his own, and often he had no one with whom he cared to go out.

He and Charlie Hall grew more and more friendly, but it was not a companionship of long enough standing to make it the kind Joe really cared for.

He had much pleasure in writing home, and to Mabel, who in turn, sent interesting letters of her life in the South. One letter in particular made Joe rather eager.

"My brother and I are coming North on a combined business and pleasure trip," she wrote, "and we may see your team play. We expect to be in Newkirk on the twentieth."

Joe dropped everything to look eagerly at the official schedule.

"Well, of all the luck!" he cried. "We play in Newkirk that date. I wonder if she knew it? I wonder----?"

Then for days Joe almost prayed that there would be no rainy days--no upsetting of the schedule that would necessitate double-headers, or anything that would interfere with playing at Newkirk on the date mentioned. That city, as he found by looking at a map, was on a direct railroad line from Goldsboro.

"I hope nothing slips up!" murmured the young pitcher. From then on he lived in a sort of rosy glow.

The ball season of the Central League was well under way now. A number of games had been played, necessitating travel from one city to another. Some of the journeys Joe liked, and some were tiresome. He met all sorts and conditions of men and was growing to be able to take things as he found them.

Joe worked hard, and he took a defeat more to heart than did any of the others. It seemed to be all in the day's work with them. With Joe it was a little more. Not that any of the players were careless, though. They were more sophisticated, rather.

The third week of the season, then, found Pittston third in line for pennant honors, and when the loss of a contest to Buffington had set them at the end of the first division there were some rather glum-looking faces seen in the hotel corridor.

"Boys, we've got to take a brace!" exclaimed Gregory, and the manner in which he said it told his men that he meant it. Joe went to bed that night wildly resolving to do all sorts of impossible things, so it is no wonder he dreamed that he pitched a no-hit no-run game, and was carried in triumph around the diamond on the shoulders of his enthusiastic comrades.

I shall not weary you with an account of the ordinary games. Just so many had to be played in a certain order to fulfill the league conditions. Some of the contests were brilliant affairs, and others dragged themselves out wearily.

Joe had his share in the good and bad, but, through it all, he was gradually acquiring a good working knowledge of professional baseball. He was getting better control of his curves, and he was getting up speed so that it was noticeable.

"I'll have to get Nelson a mitt with a deeper pit in it if you keep on," said Gregory with a laugh, after one exciting contest when Joe had fairly "pitched his head off," and the game had been won for Pittston by a narrow margin.

Gradually Joe's team crept up until it was second, with Clevefield still at the head.

"And our next game is with Newkirk!" exulted Joe one morning as they took the train for that place. They were strictly on schedule, and Joe was eager, for more reasons than one, to reach the city where he hoped a certain girl might be.

"If we win, and Clevefield loses to-morrow," spoke Charlie Hall, as he dropped into a seat beside Joe, "we'll be on top of the heap."

"Yes--if!" exclaimed the young pitcher. "But I'm going to do my best, Charlie!"

"The same here!"

It was raining when the team arrived in Newkirk, and the weather was matched by the glum faces of the players.

"No game to-morrow, very likely," said Charlie, in disappointed tones. "Unless they have rubber grounds here."

"No such luck," returned Joe.

As he walked with the others to the desk to register he saw, amid a pile of luggage, a certain peculiar valise. He knew it instantly.

"Reggie Varley's!" he exclaimed to himself. "There never was another bag like that. And it has his initials on it. Reggie Varley is here--at this hotel, and--and--she--must be here too. Let it rain!"