CHAPTER XXV

FIGHTING FOR THE LEAD

Joe chuckled to himself the next day, as he read the highly-colored stories in the papers bearing on the happening at the Park. The leopard had escaped while it was being transferred from one cage to another, and had afterward been found dead with a broken neck in a side path of the Park. There was a good deal of speculation as to how it had been killed, but apart from the fact that it had been due to a blow nothing was positively known. It was confidently predicted, however, that the whole truth would be uncovered in a day or two.

“Not unless I talk in my sleep, it won’t,” decided Joe.

He had no liking for notoriety, but it was chiefly on Mabel’s account that he kept silent. He knew how deeply she would dread having her name appear in print. She was one of those who believed that a woman’s name should appear in the papers only three times--when she was born, when she married and when she died. And Joe agreed with her. It was astonishing how he was growing to agree with her on everything.

The week of Mabel’s stay passed all too quickly. Joe grudged every hour of it. They went about everywhere when his duties permitted, and he had the satisfaction of winning a game under her approving eyes. When at last he saw her on the train for Goldsboro, she had promised to come to New York to see the wind-up of the season at the Polo Grounds.

“I’m looking for you to win the pennant and get into the World’s Series,” she said at parting. “You won’t disappoint me, will you?”

“We’ve simply got to win it,” he replied. “I need that World’s Series money badly. Why if I had that I could----”

But Reggie blundered along just then, and Joe could not tell what he wanted to do with the money. But perhaps Mabel guessed.

The baseball campaign was waxing hotter and hotter. The teams were so close together that, as they say of racing horses, “one blanket would have covered them.” So far, it was anybody’s race. In the East, Brooklyn was making a great spurt and had drawn up close to the front. Chicago was showing the way to the Western teams, but St. Louis was crowding close at her heels. It was a ding-dong, slam-bang race, with first one and then the other showing in front, and the whole baseball public was in a state of feverish excitement. Great crowds gathered around the bulletin boards in every large city. All agreed that it was the most even race in years. Huge throngs filled the playing grounds and the game was on the topmost wave of prosperity.

When the Western teams finished their first visit East, the Chicagos were leading the league by three full games. Brooklyn was second, and St. Louis was tied with the Giants for third.

That they were not leading at this stage in the season did not greatly worry McRae. He knew what a fearful strain was on the team that went out in front and he was content to let it make the pace, as long as he could trail along within easy striking distance.

Joe, however, was not so philosophical. He had the instinct of the thoroughbred, and hated to see anyone bowling along in front of him.

“I hate to take anyone’s dust,” he said one day to Jim. “It makes me wild to have Chicago showing us the way.”

“They’ll come back to us all right,” said Jim, confidently. “The last few games they’ve just won out and that’s all. They’ve fallen down badly of late in their batting.”

And Jim was right, for, two weeks later, Chicago had resigned the lead to Brooklyn and had fallen to the foot of the first division.

The see-saw persisted until the latter part of August. By that time “class” had begun to tell. Three teams had drawn away from all the others, and it was clear that, barring accidents, the flag would fly in one of three cities, Boston, Chicago or New York.

The Giants on their last trip West had made a runaway campaign of it. They had simply cleaned up everything. They led the league in batting and were third in fielding. But what counted most was that they were out in front ten straight games ahead of the nearest contender. The New York papers were already beginning to speculate what pitchers McRae would pin his faith to in the World’s Series.

“It’s our pitching staff that has carried us through so far,” exulted McRae in one of his talks with Robson. “That is,” he corrected, “it’s the great work of Hughson and Matson. That young Barclay, too, has rounded to in fine shape. If only Markwith had kept up his great work this season, we’d be so far ahead that they couldn’t see us with a telescope.”

“It is too bad the way he’s fallen down,” mused Robson, “and Hartley too has been a big disappointment. I tell you, Mac, you never did a better stroke of work in your life than when you got Matson from St. Louis. That fellow is the biggest sensation of the year. You notice that when he’s announced to pitch the crowds are almost as big as those who come out to see Hughson. I’ll bet,” he chuckled, “that you’re going to lose that thousand dollar bonus before the season is over. He’s already won fifteen games, and the way he is going it’s a dead cinch that he’ll get the other five.”

“I’ll be only too glad to lose it,” grinned McRae. “He’s already brought it in at the box office ten times over. You’re right when you say he’s been a mighty good investment. If we fly the flag in New York, he’ll be responsible for it.”

“It’s lucky you signed him for a three-years’ contract,” went on Robson. “If you hadn’t, every club in the league would have been offering him big money at the end of the season.”

“He won’t lose anything by it,” declared McRae, decidedly. “If he keeps up the way he has begun, I won’t hold him to the figures of his contract. He’ll get a big slice of World’s Series money, and I’ll start him off next season at figures that will make his hair curl.”

“Knock wood, Mac,” counseled Robson, nervously. “I don’t like to hear you talking yet of the World’s Series as though it were a certainty. You’re never in more danger than when you feel surest. We’re not yet out of the woods, and you know as well as I that baseball is the most uncertain game in the world.”

“You’re right, Robbie, old boy,” assented his friend. “I know that there’s always a chance of falling down. I wouldn’t talk this way with anyone but you. But on the dead level, I can’t for the life of me see how we’re going to lose unless our pitching staff goes to pieces.”

Two days later the pitching staff went to pieces.