CHAPTER XXIX

QUICK WORK

Joe’s father and mother, together with Mabel and Reggie, had reached the station a few minutes before train time, and Clara and Jim, who might be excused for tarrying, had joined them a little later. They were somewhat puzzled at not finding Joe on the platform.

“You folks get on anyway,” suggested Jim. “Probably Joe is up in the car with the team. McRae may have nabbed him to have a talk with him.”

After they were safely in their coach, Jim hurried forward to the Giants’ cars. He went through both of them, but before he had finished his search the gong rang and the train started.

“Seen anything of Joe?” he asked McRae.

“No,” was the answer. “I suppose he’s in the car behind with his folks.”

“But he isn’t,” replied Jim. “I thought I’d find him here.”

“What?” fairly yelled McRae, springing to his feet. “You don’t mean to say he’s missed the train?”

In an instant all was agitation.

The smoker was first searched, then every car in the train from end to end, but, of course, Joe was not to be found.

McRae and Robson were wild and the rest of the team were glum.

“Of course, he can get that eight o’clock train in the morning,” was the only comfort McRae would allow himself. “That will get him to the grounds in time, but he won’t be in good shape to pitch right after the trip.”

But Jim had reasons of his own for fear, and a cold sweat broke out on him as he thought of Fleming. But he put on as good a face as possible in order to reassure the girls and the rest of Joe’s party, who were torn with anxiety and apprehension.

It was broad daylight when Joe woke to a sense of his surroundings. His head swam and it was some time before he could recall the events of the preceding night.

He was in a shabby room, sitting on the floor against the wall with his hands tied behind him. As his brain cleared he was conscious of a face looking at him curiously. There was a sweet sickly odor in the room.

“Waking up, eh?” asked Moriarty with a grin.

“You’ll pay for this,” said Joe, thickly.

Moriarty laughed.

“Now don’t get sore,” he counseled. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. You’ll be out of this in a little while now. We’re going to let you go just as soon as the New York train has gone.”

Joe tried to digest this. Why should they keep him from getting the train for New York. Then in a blinding flash his brain woke from its daze.

It was the day of the last game! And he was in Boston! And if he missed the morning train he could not get to New York before the game was over!

His heart turned sick. What would McRae and the rest of the boys say? What would Mabel and the folks think?

He pictured the consternation when he should fail to turn up in time. The team would be demoralized. Whom would they pitch? Only Jim was available and he had pitched two days before. And he would be so full of worry over his friend that he could not be at his best.

Was the World Series then to be lost? Was the splendid fight the boys had put up to go for nothing?

“You only got a little tap on the head,” Moriarty was saying. “It was just enough to make you quiet, and chloroform did the rest. We didn’t figure to be any rougher than we had to be.”

Joe made no reply but he was thinking hard and fast.

He tested the bonds that held his hands behind him. They seemed tight but not excessively so. Probably his captors had put most of their faith in the chloroform.

With as little apparent exertion as possible, he began to stretch and strain at them. His powerful wrists and hands seemed endowed with double their ordinary strength and to his delight he could feel the cords give.

Moriarty was alone with him, but Joe could hear low voices in an adjoining room. One of them he thought he recognized as Fleming’s, and his teeth gritted with rage.

At last he wriggled one hand free, although he had rasped his wrist till he felt it was bleeding. A moment more and he had freed his other hand, though he still kept both behind him.

Moriarty was yawning after his night’s vigil.

“What time is it now?” Joe muttered sleepily.

“Just a little after eight,” Moriarty answered. “The train’s just about started now, but we’ll let you cool your heels here for another hour or so. Then you can walk the ties if you want to.”

“You’ve got me pretty well trussed up here,” said Joe. “The fellow who tied these knots knew his business.”

“Yes,” said Moriarty, complacently, strolling over to look at them. “He’s a dandy when it comes to doing----”

But he got no further.

As he bent down, Joe’s muscular hands darted out and clutched him by the throat. The yell he started to give was stifled at its birth. In a moment Joe was on top of him with his knee on his chest.

Moriarty struggled as hard as he could, but his liquor-soaked frame speedily collapsed before Joe’s onslaught, and in a moment he lay limp and senseless. Then Joe flung him aside and rose to his feet.

He rubbed his legs vigorously to restore the circulation until he felt the strength coming back into them.

There was but one door leading from the room. Joe went to it on tiptoe. He could still hear the murmur of voices. He flung the door open suddenly and burst into the adjoining room.

Fleming and Connelly sprang to their feet in consternation. With a powerful uppercut, Joe sent Fleming crashing to the floor. Connelly retreated and Joe had no time to bother with him.

He flung himself down the stairs and out into the street. Half a block away he saw a taxicab coming toward him. He rushed toward it.

“To the South Station!” he gasped. “Quick! Quick! Quick!”

In an amazingly short time, the taxicab, running at high speed, landed him at the depot. Joe saw by the station clock that it was a quarter to nine.

Frantically, he sought out the traffic manager and ordered a special.

“I must be in New York by one o’clock,” he cried. “I must, I tell you. Never mind the price. Get me a special.”

The official hummed and hawed. “It would take a little time to make it up, to get a car. It would----”

“Don’t wait for a car,” interrupted Joe, in frenzy. “I’ll ride on the locomotive.”

In ten minutes the train despatcher had arranged for the right of way, and one of the road’s fastest locomotives puffed up. Joe sprang into the cab, the engineer flung the throttle open and they were off.

“Can you make it?” questioned our hero, anxiously.

“We’ll make it or bust,” was the grim response of the engineer.

He was one of the oldest and most reliable men on the road and as Joe looked at him he felt his confidence rising.

Yet a good many miles lay between our hero and New York City.

And a hundred things might happen to delay the special.

On and on they went, humming over the steel rails at such a rate of speed that Joe could scarcely see the telegraph poles.

Suddenly the engineer pulled on a lever and the big locomotive slackened speed so quickly that our hero was all but thrown to the floor of the cab.

“Wh--what’s the matter?” he gasped, when he could catch his breath.

“Signal against us,” was the short reply. “It’s O. K. now;” and once more the locomotive sped on its way.

“Phew! you have to have your eyes open, don’t you?”

“That’s it--just like you do, when you are pitching,” answered the old engineer.

“Some work, running a locomotive,” mused the young baseball player. “I guess an engineer earns all the money he gets.”

Half an hour later came another scare. Again the locomotive pulled up, this time to allow an automobile full of people to pass over the tracks. An instant sooner and the big engine would have ground the “joy riders” to death.

“Meet such fools almost every trip,” said the engineer. “Seems as if they wanted to be killed.”

“Why don’t you have gates at such crossings?”

“It would cost too much money to have a gate at every crossing,” was the explanation. “We do have ’em on the main roads. That was only a little dirt road--I don’t know why the auto was on it. I wasn’t looking for anything faster than a farm wagon or a buggy.”

“You must have some accidents?”

“Oh, yes, but not many, considering the risks we run. But we wouldn’t have hardly any accidents if the folks were a bit more careful. But some of ’em don’t heed the warnings. They will read a ‘Safety First’ sign and then run right into danger, just as if they were blind,” went on the old engineer, with a grimace.

They were now on an upgrade, but presently they gained the top of the rise and down they streaked on the other side, at a rate of speed that fairly took Joe’s breath away.

“Some running, and no mistake!” he gasped. “You must be making a mile a minute, or better!”

“Running at the rate of seventy-five miles an hour. But we can’t keep it up. Here is where we slow down,” and they did so, as a long curve appeared in the tracks.

“I don’t know as I want to be a locomotive engineer. You run too fast.”

“And I don’t want to be a baseball player--you pitch too fast,” chuckled the old engineer.

“Well, everyone to his own calling, I suppose.”

On they plunged in the wildest ride Baseball Joe had ever known. Under arches and over bridges, thundering through towns with scarcely a lessening of speed, past waiting trains drawn up on side tracks to give the special the right of way, on, on, lurching, swaying, tearing along, until at ten minutes before one the panting engine drew up in the yards at New York City.

The game was to begin at two.

Baseball Joe leaped into a taxicab with orders to scorch up the pavements in a mad dash to the Polo Grounds. Then the clubhouse, into which Joe tumbled, covered with grime and cinders, amid the frantic exclamations of the rubbers and attendants. Then the cooling shower and a quick shift into his uniform, after which Joe, cool, collected, thoroughly master of himself, strolled out on the field where the whole Giant team forgot their practice and made a wild rush for him.

He had fought a good fight. He had kept the faith.