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+Project Gutenberg's Baseball Joe of the Silver Stars, by Lester Chadwick
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Baseball Joe of the Silver Stars
+       or The Rivals of Riverside
+
+Author: Lester Chadwick
+
+Release Date: August 12, 2011 [EBook #37056]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: JOE WAS DOING GOOD WORK.]
+
+
+
+
+ Baseball Joe of
+ the Silver Stars
+
+ OR
+
+ _The_ Rivals _of_ Riverside
+
+ _By_ LESTER CHADWICK
+
+ AUTHOR OF
+ "THE RIVAL PITCHERS," "A QUARTERBACK'S
+ PLUCK," "BATTING TO WIN," ETC.
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ NEW YORK
+ CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+ BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
+
+ Copyright, 1912, by
+ Cupples & Leon Company
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+       I A Hot Game                           1
+      II Tieing the Score                    11
+     III Mrs. Matson is Worried              23
+      IV A Row with Sam                      31
+       V Joe Helps the Manager               41
+      VI Joe Has Hopes                       50
+     VII Laughed at                          58
+    VIII A Mean Protest                      66
+      IX Joe in the Game                     73
+       X A Tight Contest                     80
+      XI Joe's Run                           89
+     XII Discontent                          96
+    XIII Scientific Practice                103
+     XIV A Kettle of Apple Sauce            110
+      XV Joe Overhears Something            119
+     XVI Mr. Matson is Alarmed              129
+    XVII A Throwing Contest                 136
+   XVIII Another Defeat                     143
+     XIX Joe is Watched                     151
+      XX "Would You Like to Pitch?"         161
+     XXI To the Rescue                      167
+    XXII A Delayed Pitcher                  174
+   XXIII Joe in the Box                     185
+    XXIV Sam Arrives                        191
+     XXV Joe Foils the Plotters             197
+    XXVI Sam Resigns                        208
+   XXVII Bad News                           215
+  XXVIII The Fight                          221
+    XXIX The Challenge                      228
+     XXX The Winning Throw--Conclusion      233
+
+
+
+
+BASEBALL JOE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A HOT GAME
+
+
+"Come on, Sam, get a move on. I thought you'd be out on the diamond long
+ago. What's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, I had to help dad put in some fence posts. I'm through now,
+Darrell, and I'll be right with you."
+
+"Setting fence posts; eh?" and Darrell Blackney, the young manager of
+the Silver Star baseball nine of Riverside looked critically at Sam
+Morton, the team's pitcher. "Well, Sam, I hope it didn't make you stiff
+so that you can't put some good balls over the plate. It's going to be a
+hot game all right."
+
+"Oh, forget it!" cried Sam, as he finished buttoning his jacket while he
+joined his chum. "We'll beat 'em to a frazzle all right. I'm going to
+pitch my head off to-day."
+
+"You may--if you don't go to pieces the way you once did."
+
+"Say, what you talking about?" demanded Sam, with some warmth. "I can
+pitch all right, and don't you forget it." He seemed unnecessarily
+aroused.
+
+"Oh, I know you can pitch," spoke Darrell easily, "only I don't want you
+to be too sure about it. You know the Resolutes of Rocky Ford have a
+strong team this season, and their pitcher is----"
+
+"Oh, I know what Hen Littell is as well as you," broke in Sam. "He
+thinks he's a whole lot, but you wait. I've got a new drop ball,
+and----"
+
+"Well, then, you'd ought to have been out on the diamond this morning,
+practicing with Bart Ferguson. He's got a new catching glove, and if you
+and he can connect on the curves we may do some good work. But I wish
+you'd had some practice this morning."
+
+"So do I, but dad made me help him, and I couldn't very well get off. I
+tried to sneak away, but he got on to my game and put a stop to it."
+
+"Oh, well, of course if you had to help your father that's different,"
+spoke Darrell, who was a manly young chap, somewhat in contrast to Sam,
+who was not as upright as he might have been. Sam had a boastful and
+confident air that caused many to dislike him, but as he was the best
+pitcher the Silver Stars had had in some seasons his short-comings were
+overlooked.
+
+And certainly Sam had been pitching pretty good ball thus far. True, at
+times, he "went up in the air," but all pitchers are likely to do this
+on occasions. Sam had great belief in his own ability.
+
+There was considerable baseball feeling in the little town of Riverside,
+located on the Appelby River, in one of our New England States. Though
+the nine was an amateur one, and composed of lads ranging from fourteen
+to nineteen years of age, yet many fast games had been seen on the
+village diamond, which was kept in good shape by volunteers. A small
+admission sum was charged to view the contests and from this the boys
+were able to buy their uniforms, balls, bats, and other things. With
+some of the money the grounds were renovated from time to time, and the
+fences, bleachers and grandstand kept in order.
+
+There was a sort of informal county league existing among several nines
+in the towns surrounding Riverside, and perhaps the bitterest rivals of
+the Silver Stars were the Resolutes of Rocky Ford, a place about five
+miles farther up the stream than Riverside. To-day one of the games in
+the series was to take place, and the occasion, being Saturday, was a
+gala one in the home town of the Silver Stars, on whose grounds the
+contest was to take place.
+
+"Well, you'll have a little time for practice before the game begins,"
+remarked Darrell as he and Sam walked toward the diamond. "We've got
+about an hour yet."
+
+"Are the Resolutes here?"
+
+"They hadn't come when I passed the grounds a little while ago on my way
+to see you. I couldn't imagine what kept you."
+
+"Well, it was all dad's fault. Hang it all----"
+
+"Never mind," broke in Darrell quickly. "Dads are all right as a rule."
+He had lost his own father not long since, and his heart was still sore.
+He could not bear to have any one speak disrespectfully of parents. "I
+guess we'll make out all right," he added.
+
+"Oh, sure we will!" exclaimed Sam, full of confidence. "They won't have
+a look in."
+
+"Well, hurry up and get in some practice with Bart," advised the
+manager.
+
+"Who's going to cover first to-day?" inquired Sam, as they hurried along
+the streets, which were already beginning to fill with the crowds making
+their way to the game.
+
+"I think I am for most of the time," answered Darrell. "George Rankin
+and I talked it over and decided that would be a good way to lead off.
+Later, if I find I'm needed on the coaching line, I'll let Tom Davis
+take my place."
+
+"Tom isn't much good."
+
+"Oh, I think he is."
+
+"Didn't he miss two hot throws to first base in the game last Saturday?"
+
+"That was because you put them over his head. You want to be careful,
+Sam, when there are two on the bags, how you throw to first. Lots of
+times I have to jump for your throws, and if I wasn't pretty quick at it
+they'd get by me."
+
+"Oh, well, you won't have any complaint to-day. I'll get 'em there all
+right. But you'd better stay in the whole game yourself."
+
+"I'll see. Hark, what's that?"
+
+The inspiring notes of a coaching horn echoed down the village street.
+
+"Sounds like a tally-ho," remarked Sam.
+
+Just then there swung into view a large stage, drawn by four horses, the
+vehicle filled with a cheering, shouting and laughing crowd of boys.
+
+"That's the Resolute team," said Darrell. "They're coming in style all
+right."
+
+Again there came the thrilling notes of the bugle, blown by some one in
+the stage. Then followed another large vehicle, filled with a throng of
+cheering lads.
+
+"They've brought a crowd along," commented Sam.
+
+"Yes, maybe they're depending on rooters to help them win the game."
+
+"Well, our fellows can root some too," spoke the pitcher. "I'm glad
+there's going to be a big crowd. I can pitch better then."
+
+"Well, do your best," urged the manager. "There's Percy Parnell and Fred
+Newton over there. I thought they were out on the field long ago."
+
+"Maybe they had to set fence posts too."
+
+"Maybe," assented Darrell with a laugh. "And here comes Tom Davis. Who's
+that with him?" and the pitcher and manager glanced at a tall,
+well-formed lad who was walking beside the substitute first baseman.
+"Evidently a stranger in town," went on Darrell.
+
+"Yes, I've seen him before," remarked Sam. "He lives down on our street.
+The family just moved in. His name is Batson, or Hatson, or something
+like that. His father works in the harvester factory."
+
+"Hum," mused Darrell. "He looks like a decent sort of chap," and he
+gazed critically at the stranger. "Maybe he'd like to join our club,"
+for the ball team was a sort of adjunct to a boys' athletic
+organization.
+
+"Oh, we've got enough fellows in now," said Sam quickly.
+
+"Always room for one more," commented the manager, who was ever on the
+lookout for good material for the nine. Perhaps Sam suspected something
+like this, for he glanced quickly at his companion.
+
+"Say, if you think I'm not good enough----" began the pitcher, who was
+noted for his quick temper.
+
+"Now, now, drop that kind of talk," said Darrell soothingly. "You know
+we're all satisfied with your pitching. Don't get on your ear."
+
+"Well, I won't then," and Sam smiled frankly.
+
+By this time Percy Parnell, the second baseman, and Fred Newton, the
+plucky little shortstop, had joined the pitcher and the manager, and
+greetings were exchanged.
+
+"Are we going to wallop 'em?" asked Fred.
+
+"Sure thing," assented Sam.
+
+"It's going to be a hot game all right," was Percy's opinion.
+
+"All the better," commented Darrell. "Say the people are turning out in
+great shape, though. I'm glad to see it. We need a little money in our
+treasury."
+
+They turned in at the players' gate. The Resolute team had preceded
+them, and already several of the members of that nine were in their
+uniforms and out on the diamond. They were lads of the same age as their
+rivals, and had about the same sort of an organization--strictly
+amateur, but with desires to do as nearly as possible as the college and
+professional teams did.
+
+But there was a great difference, of course, and mainly in the rather
+free-and-easy manner in which the rules were interpreted. While it is
+true that in the fundamentals they played baseball according to the
+general regulations, there were many points on which they were at
+variance, and a professional probably would have found much at which to
+laugh and be in despair. But what did it matter as long as the boys, and
+those who watched them, enjoyed it? Not a bit, in my opinion.
+
+As the Silver Star lads proceeded to the improvised dressing rooms under
+the grandstand, several more of the Resolute players hurried out,
+buttoning jackets as they ran.
+
+"Oh, we'll get you fellows to-day all right!" shouted Henry (otherwise
+known as Hen) Littell, pitcher and captain of the Resolutes.
+
+"All right, the game's yours--if you can take it," called back Darrell,
+with a laugh.
+
+The diamond soon presented an animated scene, with many players and a
+few substitutes pitching, catching or batting balls about. The crowds
+were beginning to arrive and occupy seats in the small grandstand or on
+the bleachers. Many preferred to stand along the first and third base
+lines, or seat themselves on the grass.
+
+Approaching the grounds about this time were the two lads of whom Sam
+and Darrell had spoken briefly. One was Tom Davis, the substitute first
+baseman and the other boy whom Sam had referred to as "Batson" or
+"Hatson." Sam had it nearly right. The lad was Joe Matson, and as he is
+to figure largely in this story I will take just a moment to introduce
+him to you.
+
+Joe was the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Matson, and had lately moved to
+Riverside with his parents and his sister Clara, who was a year his
+junior. The family had come from the town of Bentville, about a hundred
+miles away. Mr. Matson had been employed in a machine works there, and
+had invented several useful appliances.
+
+Located in Riverside was the Royal Harvester Works, a large concern. In
+some manner Mr. Isaac Benjamin, the manager, had heard of the appliances
+Mr. Matson had perfected, and, being in need of a capable machinist, he
+had made Mr. Matson an offer to come to Riverside. It had been accepted,
+and the family had moved in shortly before this story opens.
+
+Joe was a tall, well-built lad, with dark hair and brown eyes, and a way
+of walking and swinging his arms that showed he had some athletic
+training. He had made the acquaintance of Tom Davis, who lived in the
+house back of him, and Tom had asked Joe to go to the game that day.
+
+"For it's going to be a good one," said Tom proudly, since he was a
+member of the nine, even though only a substitute.
+
+"Who's going to win?" asked Joe, as they approached the grounds.
+
+"We will, if----" and then Tom stopped suddenly, for there was a yell
+from inside the fence and a moment later a ball came sailing over it,
+straight toward the two lads.
+
+"Look out!" yelled Tom. "That's a hot one! Duck, Joe, duck!"
+
+But Joe did not dodge. Instead, he spread his legs well apart and stood
+ready to catch the swiftly-moving horsehide in his bare hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+TIEING THE SCORE
+
+
+Ping! The ball came in between Joe's palms with a vicious thud, but
+there it stuck, and a moment later the newcomer had tossed it back over
+the fence with certain and strong aim.
+
+"I guess some one will pick it up," he said.
+
+"Sure," assented Tom. "Say, that was a good stop all right. Have you
+played ball before?"
+
+"Oh, just a little," was the modest and rather quiet answer. In fact Joe
+Matson was rather a quiet youth, too quiet, his mother sometimes said,
+but his father used to smile and remark:
+
+"Oh, let Joe alone. He'll make out all right, and some of these days he
+may surprise us."
+
+"Well, that was a pippy stop all right," was Tom's admiring, if slangy,
+compliment. "Let's go in, I may get a chance to play."
+
+Joe turned toward the main entrance gate, and thrust one hand into his
+pocket.
+
+"Where you going?" demanded Tom.
+
+"Into the grounds of course. I want to get a ticket."
+
+"Not much!" exclaimed his companion. "You don't have to pay. Come with
+me. I invited you to this game, and I'm a member of the team, though I
+don't often get a chance to play. Members are allowed to bring in one
+guest free. I'll take you in. We'll use the players' gate."
+
+"Thanks," said Joe briefly, as he followed his new friend.
+
+"Here's a good place to see it from--almost as good as the grandstand,"
+said Tom, as they moved to a spot along the first base line. "Though you
+can go up and sit down if you like. I'm going to put on my things. I may
+get a chance at first."
+
+"No, I'll stay here," said Joe. "Then I can see you make some good
+stops."
+
+"I can if Sam doesn't put 'em away over my head," was the reply.
+
+"Oh, yes, that's so. You started to say that you thought our side--you
+see I'm already a Silver Star rooter--that our side would win, if
+something didn't happen."
+
+"Oh, yes, and then that ball came over the fence. Well, we'll win, I
+think, if Sam doesn't go to pieces."
+
+"Who's Sam?"
+
+"Sam Morton, our pitcher. He's pretty good too, when he doesn't get
+rattled."
+
+"Then we'll hope that he doesn't to-day," said Joe with a smile. "But go
+ahead and dress."
+
+"All right," assented Tom, and he started off on a run to the dressing
+rooms. It was only just in time, too, for at that moment Darrell came
+hastening up to him.
+
+"Why haven't you got your suit on?" the manager asked. "You'll probably
+play some innings anyhow, and I don't want any delay."
+
+"All right--right away," Tom assured him. "I'm on the job."
+
+"Who do you think will win?" asked a youth sitting next to Joe on the
+grass.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," began Joe slowly. "I haven't seen either team play."
+
+"Oh, then you're a stranger here?"
+
+"Yes, just moved in."
+
+"I saw you with Tom Davis. You must be that Matson lad he told me lived
+back of him."
+
+"I am, and I hope Tom's side wins."
+
+"That's the stuff! So do I. But those Resolutes have a good nine."
+
+"Aw, go on!" broke in a lad back of Joe. "They haven't any good batters
+at all."
+
+"What's the matter with Hank Armstrong?" demanded some one.
+
+"Well, he's pretty good, but Ford Lantry or Seth Potter on our team can
+bat all around him."
+
+"How about their pitcher?" asked Joe.
+
+"Well, he's pretty good," admitted the lad who had first addressed Joe.
+
+"But he can't come up to Sam Morton when Sam is at his best," said some
+one else, joining in the conversation.
+
+"Yes--_when_ he's at his best," repeated another lad. "Those Resolutes
+have it in for us, but we're going to wipe up the ground with them
+to-day all right."
+
+"Like fun!" exploded a Resolute sympathizer. "I'll bet you----"
+
+"Play ball!" broke in the voice of the umpire, and the clanging of the
+gong warned the players and others to clear the field.
+
+"We're last at the bat," said Tom, "and that means a whole lot."
+
+"Yes," assented Joe, and then the Silver Star pitcher took his place in
+the box and exchanged a few preliminary balls with the catcher, Bart
+Ferguson.
+
+"Play ball!" yelled the young umpire again, selecting some pebbles with
+which to keep score.
+
+Hank Armstrong, the sturdy left fielder of the Resolutes, was the first
+at the bat for his side, and with a vicious swing he hit the first ball
+which Sam pitched to him. Squarely on the bat he caught it with a
+resounding ping!
+
+Away it sailed straight over Sam's head and over the head of the second
+baseman. Farther and farther it went, until the centre fielder began
+running back to get it.
+
+"Oh, wow! Pretty one! Pretty one!"
+
+"Go on! Go on!"
+
+"Make a three bagger of it!"
+
+"Run, you beggar!"
+
+These and many other cries speeded Armstrong on. He was running fast and
+reached second well in advance of the ball. But he dared not go on to
+third.
+
+"Hum, if they hit Sam like that too often he won't last very long,"
+commented Tom.
+
+"Oh, that was a fluke," declared Rodney Burke, who sat behind Joe.
+
+There was a surprised and disconcerted look on Sam's face as he gazed at
+the next batter. No sooner had the ball left Sam's hand, that Armstrong
+was away for third like a shot, for he was a notorious base stealer.
+Bart threw to third, but the ball went too high and the baseman jumped
+for it in vain. Armstrong came in with the first run.
+
+"Begins to look bad!" yelled Tom in Joe's ear, for the cheers and
+exultant yells of the Resolute crowd made ordinary talking impossible.
+
+But that was all the visiting team got that inning, for Sam struck out
+two men, and the third fouled to Bart.
+
+"Now we'll see what our fellows can do," commented Tom.
+
+Seth Potter, the left fielder, was first up, and he had two strikes and
+three balls called on him in short order. Then he got under a pretty one
+and made first.
+
+"Watch out now, and run down when he throws!" cried Darrell, who was
+coaching.
+
+Seth did run, but was caught at second. Jed McGraw, the centre fielder,
+was next up and knocked a safety, getting to first.
+
+Then came Ford Lantry, who played right field, and he knocked a pretty
+three-bagger which brought in McGraw and the run. At that the Silver
+Star crowd went wild with joy, but it was all they had to crow over as
+the next two men struck out and Lantry died on third.
+
+The next two innings were marked by goose eggs for both sides, and in
+the fourth inning the Silver Stars brought in two runs, while their
+opponents could not seem to connect with the ball.
+
+"Old Sam is doing fine!" cried Tom.
+
+"Yes, he seems to have good control," commented Joe.
+
+"But he lacks speed," said Rodney Burke.
+
+"Oh, cheese it! Do you want to give all our secrets away to these
+fellows?" asked Tom in a low voice, indicating the many Resolute
+sympathizers who were all about.
+
+"Well, it's true," murmured Rodney, and Joe felt a sudden wild hope come
+into his heart.
+
+The game went on enthusiastically, if not correctly from a professional
+or college baseball standpoint. Many errors were made and several rules
+were unconsciously violated. The young umpire's decisions might have
+been questioned several times, and on numerous occasions the game was
+stopped while the respective captains, and some of the players, argued
+among themselves, or with the umpire. But the disputes were finally
+settled, though there was a growing spirit of dissatisfaction on both
+sides.
+
+"Play ball!" yelled the umpire, at the conclusion of an argument in the
+fifth inning.
+
+It was then that the Resolutes did some heavy stick work, and tallied
+three runs to the enthusiastic delight of the team and its supporters.
+
+"We've got to do better than this," murmured Darrell to Captain Rankin
+and Sam when they took the field at the end of that inning, and a big
+circle stared at them from the score board as the result of their
+efforts.
+
+"I'm doing all I can!" snapped Sam. "I'm not getting decent support."
+
+"Aw, cut it out! Of course you are!" asserted Rankin.
+
+A single tally by each side in the sixth, and two for the Silver Stars
+and one for the Resolutes in the seventh, brought the game to that usual
+breathing spot. The score was now a tie, and the excitement was growing.
+
+"For cats' sake beat 'em out, fellows!" pleaded Darrell. "Use your bats.
+They're to hit the ball with, not to fan the air!"
+
+Perhaps his frantic appeal had some effect, for in the next inning the
+Resolutes only got one run, while, when the Silver Stars came to bat to
+close the inning, they hammered out three, putting them well ahead.
+
+But there was trouble brewing. Sam's arm was giving out. He realized it
+himself but he dared not speak of it. Grimly he fought against it, but
+he saw that the other side was aware of it.
+
+"Come on now, we'll get his goat!" yelled the captain of the Resolutes.
+Then began what may be regarded as the cruel practice of yelling
+discouraging remarks at the man in the box. Sam was plainly told that he
+was "rotten" while other and less mild epithets were hurled at him.
+
+These had their effect. He gave two men their base on balls, and he made
+a number of wild throws to first where Tom Davis had replaced Darrell
+Blackney. However, by a strong brace Sam managed to hold his opponents
+runless, though in this saving work he was nobly assisted by his
+fellows, and by the quickness of Tom in not letting the wild balls get
+by him. Tom was a magnificent high jumper, which served him in good
+stead.
+
+The ending of the eighth saw the score nine to seven in favor of the
+Silver Stars, they having brought in three runs.
+
+It began to look, in spite of Sam's trouble, as if the home team would
+win. There was a riot of cheers when the Resolutes went to bat in the
+ninth inning, and despite the fact that they were two runs behind, their
+supporters did not fail them.
+
+"Win! Win! Win!" they yelled.
+
+"Oh, we'll win all right," said Captain Littell grimly.
+
+And he and his men gave good evidence of doing so a few minutes later.
+Sam literally "went to pieces." He lost all control of the ball, and was
+fairly "knocked out of the box." There was a look of despair on the
+faces of his mates.
+
+"What's the matter with him?" demanded Joe, who was surprised at the
+sudden slump.
+
+"Oh, that's what he does every once in a while," said a disgusted Silver
+Star supporter. "You can't depend on him. Wow, that's rotten!" for Sam
+had delivered a ball that was batted over the right-field fence.
+
+Instantly there was a wild scene. Two men were on second and third base
+respectively when this "homer" was knocked and they came racing in. The
+home-run batter followed.
+
+"Ring around the rosey!" yelled the Resolute captain. "If we had more on
+base they'd all come in. Hit at anything, fellows! Hit everything."
+
+It looked as if they were doing it, for they made six runs that inning,
+which brought the score to thirteen to nine in favor of the visitors.
+
+"Five runs to win, and four to tie," murmured Darrell as his men came
+in from the field for their inning. "Can we do it?"
+
+How it was done even he scarcely knew, for so fierce was the rivalry
+between the teams, and so high the excitement, that several times open
+clashes were narrowly averted. But the four runs were secured, and
+though the Silver Stars played their best they could not get another
+one. But even to tie the score after Sam's slump was something worth
+while.
+
+"Ten innings! It gives us another chance for our white alley," murmured
+Tom to Joe, as the first baseman made ready to go on the sack again. "If
+we can get one run, and hold them down to a goose egg it will do."
+
+But the Resolutes seemed to have struck a winning streak. Sam could not
+pull himself together, and got worse. Darrell was in despair, and there
+was gloom in the hearts of the Riverside residents.
+
+"Haven't they another pitcher they can put in?" asked Joe of one of his
+neighbors.
+
+"No, and if they had Sam would raise such a row that it might bust up
+the team. He'll play it out."
+
+In the tenth inning the Resolutes pounded out three more runs, batting
+Sam all over the field, and when the Silver Stars came up the score was
+sixteen to thirteen against them.
+
+"Oh, for a bunch of runs!" pleaded Darrell, as his men went to bat.
+
+But they couldn't get them. The Resolute pitcher with a grin on his
+freckled face sent in curve after curve and struck out two men in short
+order. Then Tom Davis knocked a little pop fly which was easily caught,
+and the game ended in a riot of yells, as a goose egg went up in the
+tenth frame for the Silver Stars. They had lost by a score of sixteen to
+thirteen, and there were bitter feelings in their hearts against their
+rivals.
+
+"Why don't you get a pitcher who can pitch?" demanded one of the
+Resolutes.
+
+"Don't you insult me!" cried Sam striding forward. "I can pitch as good
+as your man."
+
+"Aw, listen to him! He's dreaming!" some one yelled, laughingly.
+
+"I am; eh? Well, I'll show you!" cried Sam angrily, and the next
+instant, in spite of the effort of Darrell to hold him back, he had
+leaped for the lad who had mocked him, and had struck him a heavy blow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MRS. MATSON IS WORRIED
+
+
+"What do you mean by that?" demanded the lad whom Sam had struck.
+
+"That's what I mean by it. I mean you can't insult me!"
+
+"I can't, eh? Well, I can whip you all right," and with those words Sam
+was nearly knocked off his feet by a return blow.
+
+"Here, cut that out!" yelled Darrell.
+
+"Aw, what's eating you?" demanded another of the Resolute crowd. "If you
+fellows are looking for a fight you can have it; eh boys?"
+
+"Sure thing!" came in a chorus, as the players crowded up, with bats in
+their hands.
+
+"This may be serious," murmured Darrell to Tom. "See if you can't stop
+Sam from fighting."
+
+But it was too late, as Sam and his opponent were at each other hammer
+and tongs.
+
+"Do you want to fight?" sneered the lad who had accosted the manager.
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Afraid?"
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"Then come on," and the lad, half in fun perhaps, gave Darrell a shove.
+
+Now Darrell, though disliking fistic encounters, was no coward and he
+promptly retaliated with a blow that knocked his enemy down.
+
+"Wow! It's a fight all right!" yelled another lad, and then Darrell and
+his antagonist were at it.
+
+The crowd from the stands and bleachers now began thronging about the
+enraged players. There had always been more or less bad blood between
+the two rival nines and now, when the Resolutes had taken a game that
+was almost won away from the Silver Stars, the feeling broke out anew.
+
+On all sides there were impromptu battles going on. Some of the lads
+were good-natured about it, and only indulged in wrestling contests, but
+others were striking viciously at each other and soon there were some
+bloody noses and blackened eyes in evidence.
+
+"I'll show you whether I can pitch or not!" yelled Sam, as he aimed a
+hard blow at the lad with whom he had first had an encounter. He missed
+his aim, and went whirling to one side, to be met by a blow as he turned
+about, and almost sent down.
+
+"Do you want anything?" suddenly demanded a lad stopping in front of
+Joe, who was standing near Tom. Joe recognized his questioner as the
+Resolute shortstop.
+
+"No, he's a stranger here--he isn't on the nine," said Tom quickly.
+
+"Well, can't he fight?" was the sneering demand.
+
+"Yes, if I want to, but I don't want to," and Joe answered for himself.
+
+"I'll make you want to," was the retort, and Joe was struck in the
+chest. He was not a lad to stand for that and he retaliated with such
+good effect that his opponent went down in a heap on the grass, and did
+not arise for some seconds. When he did stagger up, and saw Joe calmly
+waiting for him, the lad moved off.
+
+"You can fight all right," he mumbled. "I've had enough."
+
+Meanwhile Darrell had disposed of his lad, and Tom, who was engaged with
+a small lad who made a sneering remark, grabbed hold of the chap and
+shook him until the lad begged for mercy.
+
+Sam and his opponent were still at it hot and heavy when there arose a
+cry:
+
+"Cheese it--here come the cops!"
+
+Riverside boasted of a small police force, and while it was not very
+formidable, most of the lads came from homes where a report of their
+arrest for fighting would meet with severe punishment. Their ardor
+suddenly cooled and, almost as soon as it had started, the impromptu
+battle was over. The victorious nine gathered up their belongings and
+moved off the diamond, jeering at their defeated rivals.
+
+"It was their fault--they started the fights," declared Tom Davis.
+
+"Yes, I guess it was," admitted Darrell. "Well come on, fellows. They
+beat us, and though I think it wasn't exactly square on some of the
+decisions, we can take our medicine. We'll do better next time."
+
+"Do you mean me?" demanded Sam half fiercely.
+
+"I mean--all of us," spoke Darrell slowly, "including myself."
+
+"Some excitement; eh?" asked Tom, as he linked his arm in that of Joe
+Matson and walked along with him.
+
+"Yes, but it was a good game just the same."
+
+"You play, don't you?"
+
+"I used to, at Bentville, where we moved from," answered Joe.
+
+"Have a good team?"
+
+"Pretty good."
+
+"Where'd you play?"
+
+"Well, mostly at pitching. I like that better than anything else."
+
+"Hum!" mused Tom. "It takes a pretty good one to pitch these days. It
+isn't like it used to be. Pitching is a gift, like poetry I guess. You
+can't go in and pitch right off the reel."
+
+"I know it," answered Joe quietly. "But it's my one ambition. I want to
+go to a good boarding school and get on the team as pitcher."
+
+"Well, I hope you do," and Tom laughed frankly. "I wouldn't mind that
+myself, though I don't know as I care so much for pitching."
+
+"It's the best part of the game!" cried Joe, and his eyes shone and he
+seemed to lose some of his usual quiet manner. "I'd like it above
+everything else!"
+
+"Got any curves?" asked the practical Tom.
+
+"Well, I don't know as I have--yet. I'm practicing though."
+
+"Got any speed?"
+
+"They used to say I had, back there in Bentville."
+
+"Hum! Well, I don't believe there's much chance for you here. Sam has
+the Silver Stars cinched. But he was rotten the last half of to-day's
+game. That's what made us lose it. Yes, it takes some pumpkins to pitch
+now-a-days."
+
+The boys walked on down the street after Tom had discarded his suit.
+Before them and behind them were other players and spectators, talking
+of nothing but the game and the fight that had followed. The Resolutes,
+cheering and singing triumphantly, had departed in their big stages, and
+in the hearts of the Silver Stars was gloom and despair.
+
+"Well, come over and see me sometime," invited Tom, as he parted from
+Joe.
+
+"I will. You come over and see me."
+
+The boys went their respective ways--Joe walking rather slowly and
+thinking of what had just taken place.
+
+"How I would like to pitch--and go to boarding school!" he mused as he
+walked toward his house. As he entered the side door he saw his mother
+sitting at the dining room table. Something about her attracted his
+attention--aroused his fears. The cloth had been spread, and though it
+was supper time, for the game had lasted until late, there were no
+dishes on the table.
+
+"Why mother!" exclaimed Joe, struck by a queer look on her face. "What
+is the matter? Has anything happened?"
+
+"Oh Joe!" she exclaimed starting up, as though she had not heard him
+come in. "Oh, no, nothing is the matter," she went on, and she tried to
+smile, but it was only an attempt. "I forgot it was so late. Your father
+was home, but he went out again."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I don't know. He said he had some business to attend to. But I must
+hurry with the supper. Where were you?"
+
+"At the ball game. There was a fight. Our side lost. Oh, how I wish I
+had been pitching! If ever I go to that boarding school I'm going to try
+for the nine, first thing!"
+
+"Oh yes, you're always talking about a boarding school, Joe. Well, I--I
+hope you can go."
+
+"Mother, I'm sure something has happened!" exclaimed Joe, putting his
+arms around her and patting her on the shoulder, for she was a little
+woman.
+
+"No, really," she assured him. "I'm just a little worried, that's all.
+Now you can help me set the table if you will. Clara has gone to take
+her music lesson and isn't back yet."
+
+"Of course I will!" exclaimed Joe. "But what are you worried about,
+mother? I wish you'd tell me."
+
+"I can't now, Joe. Perhaps I will some time. It isn't anything
+serious--yet," and with that Mrs. Matson hurried out of the room.
+
+She smiled as she left her son, but when she reached the kitchen the
+same serious look came over her face again.
+
+"I hope what he fears doesn't come to pass," she remarked to herself.
+"Poor Joe! it would be too bad if he couldn't go to a boarding school
+when his heart is so set on it. And to become a pitcher! I wish he had
+some higher ambition in life, though I suppose all boys are alike at his
+age," and she sighed.
+
+"Hum," mused Joe as he went about setting the table, for the Matsons
+kept no girl and Joe and his sister often helped their mother with the
+housework when their school duties permitted. "Something is worrying
+mother," the lad went on. "I hope it isn't anything about father's
+business in the harvester works. He took a risk when he gave up his
+position in Bentville and took a new one here. But that was an exciting
+game all right," and Joe smiled at the recollection as he went on
+putting the plates around at their places.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A ROW WITH SAM
+
+
+"What are you thinking about, Joe?"
+
+It was his sister Clara who asked the question, and she had noticed that
+her brother was rather dreaming over his books than studying. It was the
+Monday night after the Saturday when the memorable game with the
+Resolutes had taken place.
+
+"Oh, nothing much," and Joe roused himself from a reverie and began to
+pour over his books.
+
+"Well, for 'nothing much' I should say that it was a pretty deep
+subject," went on Clara with a laugh, as she finished doing her
+examples. "It isn't one of the girls here, is it Joe? There are a lot of
+pretty ones in our class."
+
+"Oh--bother!" exclaimed Joe. "Let a fellow alone, can't you, when he's
+studying? We have some pretty stiff work I tell you!" and he ruffled up
+his hair, as if that would make his lessons come easier. "It's a heap
+worse than it was back in Bentville."
+
+"I think so too, but I like it, Joe. We have a real nice teacher, and
+I've met a lot of pleasant girls. Do you know any of the boys?"
+
+"Hu! I guess you want me to give you an introduction to them!" exclaimed
+Joe.
+
+"No more than you do to the girls I know," retorted his sister, "so
+there!"
+
+"Now, now," gently remonstrated Mrs. Matson, looking up from her sewing,
+"you young folks keep on with your lessons. Your father can't go on
+reading his paper if you dispute so."
+
+Involuntarily Joe and his sister glanced to where Mr. Matson sat in his
+easy chair. But he did not seem to be reading, though he held the paper
+up in front of him. Joe fancied he saw a look of worriment on his
+father's face, and he wondered if he was vexed over some problem in
+inventive work, or whether he was troubled over business matters
+concerning his new position.
+
+Then there came to the lad's mind a memory of his mother's anxiety the
+night he had come in from the game, and he wondered if the two had any
+connection. But he knew it would not do to ask, for his father seldom
+talked over business matters at home.
+
+Finally, seeming to feel Joe's look, Mr. Matson, after a quick glance at
+his son, began to scan the paper.
+
+"Go on with your studying, Joe and Clara," commanded Mrs. Matson with a
+smile. "Don't dispute any more."
+
+"I was only asking Joe if he knew any nice boys," spoke Clara in
+vindication. "I know how fond he was of playing baseball back in
+Bentville, and I was wondering if he was going to play here."
+
+"Guess I haven't much chance," murmured Joe half gloomily, as he drew
+idle circles on the back blank leaf of his book.
+
+"Why not?" asked Clara quickly. "The girls say the boys have a good nine
+here, even if they were beaten last Saturday. There's going to be
+another game this Saturday, and Helen Rutherford is going to take me."
+
+"Oh, yes, there's a good enough team here," admitted Joe. "In fact the
+Silver Stars are all right, but every position is filled. I _would_ like
+to play--I'd like to pitch. I want to get all the practice I can on
+these small teams, so when I go to boarding school I'll have something
+to talk about."
+
+"And you're still set on going to boarding school?" asked Mrs. Matson,
+sighing gently as she looked at her son.
+
+"I certainly am--if it can be managed," replied Joe quickly.
+
+Mr. Matson started so suddenly that the paper rattled loudly, and his
+wife asked:
+
+"What's the matter, John, did something in the news startle you?"
+
+"Oh--no," he said slowly. "I--I guess I'm a bit nervous. I've been
+working rather hard lately on an improvement in a corn reaper and
+binder. It doesn't seem to come just right. I believe I'll go to bed.
+I'm tired," and with "good-nights" that were not as cheerful as usual he
+left the room. Mrs. Matson sighed but said nothing, and Joe wondered
+more than ever if any trouble was brewing. He hoped not. As for Clara
+she was again bent over her lessons.
+
+The Silver Star nine was variously made up. A number of lads worked in
+different town industries, one even being employed in the harvester
+works where Mr. Matson was employed. Others attended school.
+
+Joe Matson had attended the academy in the town of Bentville whence they
+moved to Riverside, and on arriving in the latter place had at once
+sought admission to the high school. He was given a brief examination,
+and placed in the junior class, though in some of the studies the pupils
+there were a little ahead of him, consequently he had to do some hard
+studying.
+
+The ambition to attend a boarding school had been in Joe's mind for a
+long while, and as his father was in moderate circumstances, and soon
+hoped to make considerable from his patents, Joe reasoned that his
+parents could then afford to send him.
+
+Among others on the nine who attended the high school were Darrell
+Blackney and Sam Morton, who were in the senior class, and Tom Davis,
+whose acquaintance Joe had made soon after coming to Riverside. There
+was a school nine, but it was made up of the smaller boys and Joe had no
+desire to join this. In fact none of the lads who were on the Silver
+Stars belonged to the school team.
+
+"Well, I'm through, thank goodness!" finally exclaimed Clara, as she
+closed her books.
+
+"And I am too," added Joe, a moment later. "Hope I don't flunk
+to-morrow."
+
+"Are you going to the game Saturday?" asked Clara.
+
+"Oh, I guess so. Wish I was going _in_ it, but that's too much to hope
+for."
+
+"Don't you know any one on the nine?"
+
+"Yes, Tom Davis."
+
+"He's the boy back of us, isn't he? His sister Mabel is in my class."
+
+"Yes," assented Joe, "but Tom is only a substitute."
+
+"Maybe you could be that at first, and then get a regular place,"
+suggested Clara.
+
+"Um!" murmured Joe. He didn't have a very high opinion of girls'
+knowledge of baseball, even his sister's.
+
+When Joe reached home from school the following afternoon he saw his
+mother standing on the front steps with a letter in her hand.
+
+"Oh, Joe!" she exclaimed, "I was just waiting for you. Your father----"
+
+"Is there anything the matter with father?" the lad gasped, his thoughts
+going with a rush to one or two little scenes that had alarmed him
+lately.
+
+"No, nothing at all," answered his mother with a smile. "But he just
+hurried home from the factory with this note and he wanted you, as soon
+as you came home, to take it to Moorville. It's for a Mr. Rufus Holdney
+there. The address is on it, and I guess you can find him all right.
+You're to wait for an answer. Go on your wheel. It's only a few miles to
+Moorville, and a straight road, so your father says."
+
+"I know where it is," answered Joe. "Tom Davis has relatives there. He
+pointed out the road to me one day. I'll go right away. Here, catch
+hold of my books, mother, and I'll get my wheel out of the barn," for a
+barn went with the house Mr. Matson had rented.
+
+A little later the lad was speeding down the country road that pleasant
+spring afternoon. Joe was a good rider and was using considerable
+strength on the pedals when suddenly, as he turned a sharp curve, he saw
+coming toward him another cyclist. He had barely time to note that it
+was Sam Morton, the pitcher of the Silver Stars, and to utter a warning
+shout when he crashed full into the other lad.
+
+In a moment there was a mix-up of wheels, legs and arms, while a cloud
+of dust momentarily hid everything from sight. At first Joe did not know
+whether or not he was hurt, or whether Sam was injured. Fortunately Joe
+had instinctively put on the brake with all his strength, and he
+supposed the other lad had done likewise.
+
+Then, as the dust cleared away, and Joe began to pull his arms and legs
+out of the tangle, and arise, he saw that Sam was doing the same thing.
+
+"Hope you're not hurt much!" was Joe's first greeting.
+
+"Humph! It isn't your fault if I'm not," was the ungracious answer, as
+Sam felt of his pitching arm. "What do you mean by crashing into a
+fellow that way for, anyhow?"
+
+"I didn't mean to. I didn't know that curve was so sharp. I'd never
+ridden on this road before."
+
+"Well, why didn't you blow your horn or ring your bell or--or
+something?"
+
+"Why didn't you?" demanded Joe with equal right.
+
+"Never mind. Don't give me any of your talk. You're one of the fresh
+juniors at school, aren't you?"
+
+"I don't know that I'm 'fresh,'" replied Joe quietly, "but I am a
+junior. I'm sorry if I hurt you, but I couldn't help it."
+
+"Yes you could, if you knew anything about riding a wheel."
+
+"I tell you I couldn't," and Joe spoke a bit sharply. "I was into you
+before I knew it. And besides, you ran into me as much as I did into
+you."
+
+"I did not. If you don't know enough to ride a wheel, keep off the
+roads!" snarled the pitcher. "If I'm stiff for Saturday's game it will
+be your fault."
+
+"I hope you won't be stiff," spoke Joe, and he said it sincerely.
+
+"And if my wheel is broken you'll have to pay for it," went on Sam.
+
+"I don't think that's right," said Joe firmly. "It was as much your
+fault as mine, and my wheel may be broken too. I'm going to look," he
+added as he lifted his bicycle from where it was entangled with Sam's.
+
+A bent pedal, which would not interfere with its use, was all the damage
+Joe's wheel had sustained and beyond a few bent spokes and a punctured
+tire Sam's seemed to have suffered no great harm.
+
+"I'll help you straighten those spokes," said Joe cheerfully. "It won't
+take but a minute. I can have my father straighten my pedal at the
+factory. And I'll help you mend and pump up your tire. I'm sorry----"
+
+"Look here!" burst out Sam in a rage, "I don't want any of your help.
+You're too fresh. You come banging into a fellow, knocking him all over
+and then you think you can square things by offering to help him. I
+don't want any of your help!"
+
+"Oh, very well," replied Joe quietly. "Then I'll be going on. I've got
+an errand to do. But I'd like to help you."
+
+"Mind your own business!" snapped Sam, still rubbing his pitching arm.
+He made no motion to pick up his wheel.
+
+Joe was half minded to make an angry retort but he thought better of it.
+He wheeled his bicycle to the hard side-path of the road, and,
+ascertaining that his letter was safe, prepared to mount and ride away.
+
+"And mind you, if my arm is stiff, and I can't pitch Saturday it will be
+your fault, and I'll tell the fellows so," called Sam as he leaned over
+to pick up his wheel.
+
+"All right, only you know it isn't so," replied Joe quietly.
+
+As he pedaled on he looked back and saw Sam straightening some of the
+bent spokes. The pitcher scowled at him.
+
+"Hum," mused Joe as he speeded up. "Not a very good beginning for
+getting on the nine--a run-in with the pitcher. Well, I guess I wouldn't
+be in it anyhow. I guess they think I'm not in their class. But I will
+be--some day!" and with a grim tightening of his lips Joe Matson rode
+on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+JOE HELPS THE MANAGER
+
+
+"Well now, I'm real sorry," said Mrs. Holdney when, a little later, Joe
+dismounted at her door, and held out the letter for her husband. "Rufus
+isn't home. You can leave the letter for him, though."
+
+"No, I have to have an answer," replied Joe. "I think perhaps I'd better
+wait."
+
+"Well, maybe you had, though I don't know when Rufus will be back. Is it
+anything of importance?"
+
+"I guess it must be," spoke the lad, for, though he did not know the
+contents of his father's letter, he reasoned that it would be on no
+unimportant errand that he would be sent to Moorville.
+
+"Hum," mused Mrs. Holdney. "Well, if you want to wait all right, though
+as I said I don't know when my husband will be back."
+
+"Do you know where he's gone? Could I go after him?" asked Joe eagerly.
+He was anxious to deliver the letter, get an answer, and return home
+before dark.
+
+"Well, now, I never thought of that!" exclaimed Mrs. Holdney. "Of course
+you might do that. Rufus has gone down town, and most likely you'll find
+him in the hardware store of Mr. Jackson. He said he had some business
+to transact with him, and he'll likely be there for some time."
+
+"Then I'll ride down there on my wheel. I guess I can find the place. Is
+it on the main street?"
+
+"Yes, turn off this road when you get to the big granite horse-drinking
+trough and swing in to your right. Then turn to your left when you get
+to the post-office and that's Main Street. Mr. Jackson's store is about
+a block in."
+
+The lad repeated the woman's directions over in his mind as he rode
+along, and he had no difficulty in picking out the hardware store. He
+was wondering how he would know Mr. Holdney, but concluded that one of
+the clerks could point him out.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Holdney is here," said a man behind the counter to whom Joe
+applied. "He's in the office with Mr. Jackson."
+
+"I wonder if I could send a letter in to him," ventured the lad, for he
+did not want to wait any longer than he had to.
+
+"I'm afraid not," answered the clerk. "Mr. Jackson is very strict about
+being disturbed when he's talking business."
+
+"Then I guess I'll have to wait," said Joe with a sigh. "I wonder if
+he'll be in there long?"
+
+"I wouldn't want to say for sure," spoke the clerk, leaning over the
+counter in a confidential manner and speaking in a whisper. "I wouldn't
+even dare to guess," he went on with a look toward the private office
+whence came the murmur of voices, "but I'll venture to state that it
+will be some time. Mr. Jackson never does anything in a hurry."
+
+"Does Mr. Holdney?"
+
+"Yes, he's just the opposite. He's as quick as a steel trap. Too quick,
+that's the trouble. He and Mr. Jackson are good friends, but when Mr.
+Holdney springs something sudden on my boss, why Mr. Jackson is slower
+than ever, thinking it over. I guess you'll have to wait some time. Is
+there anything you'd like to buy?"
+
+"No, I think not," said Joe with a smile, and then he sat down on one of
+the stools near the counter while the clerk went off to wait on a
+customer. The lad was getting impatient after nearly an hour had passed
+and there was no sign of Mr. Holdney coming out. The murmur of voices
+continued to come from the private office--one voice quick and snappy,
+and the other slow and drawling--an indication of the character of the
+two men.
+
+"I wish they'd hurry!" thought Joe. He began to pace back and forth the
+length of the store, and he was just thinking he would have to ride home
+in the darkness, and was wondering whether there was oil in his bicycle
+lamp, when the door of the private office opened and two men came out.
+
+"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Joe to himself. The men were still talking,
+but Joe concluded that their business was about over so he chanced going
+up to them.
+
+"Excuse me," he said, "but I have a letter for Mr. Holdney. It's from my
+father, Mr. Matson."
+
+"Eh, what's--that--son?" asked the older of the two men, in drawling
+tones.
+
+"It's for me. I'm Mr. Holdney!" exclaimed the other quickly. "From Mr.
+Matson, eh? Well tell him I can't help him any more. I haven't any
+spare--but wait a minute, I'll write my answer."
+
+"Hadn't--you--better--read--the--letter--first," mildly and slowly
+suggested Mr. Jackson.
+
+"Humph! I know what it is all right!" exclaimed the other quickly. "But
+I'll read it. Let's have it!" He almost snapped it from the lad's hand
+and Joe wondered what could be the business relations between his father
+and this man.
+
+With a flourish and a quick motion Mr. Holdney tore open the envelope
+and read the letter almost at a glance.
+
+"Hum!" he exclaimed. "Just as I expected. No, I'm done with that
+business. I can't do any more. You may tell your father--hold on,
+though, I'll write it," and, whipping out a lead pencil Mr. Holdney
+scribbled something on the back of Mr. Matson's note.
+
+"So you're John Matson's son; eh?" he asked of Joe.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Hum! Go to school?"
+
+"Yes, the Riverside High."
+
+"Hum! Ever invent anything?"
+
+"No, not yet," answered Joe with a smile.
+
+"That's right--never do it. It's a poor business. Play ball?"
+
+"I did in Bentville where we lived, but I haven't had a chance here
+yet."
+
+"Hum! Yes, Bentville. That's where I met your father. Here's the
+answer. There you are. Now don't lose it," and quickly handing the
+communication to Joe, Mr. Holdney turned and resumed his talk with the
+hardware merchant.
+
+Joe was a little dazed by the quickness of it all, and there were many
+questions running through his mind. Somehow the manner of Mr.
+Holdney--the message he had started to ask Joe to deliver by word of
+mouth, his apparent refusal of something Mr. Matson had evidently asked
+him to do--all made Joe vaguely uneasy. He connected it with his
+father's nervousness the night before and with his mother's anxiety.
+
+"But there's no use worrying until I have to," concluded Joe with a
+boy's philosophy as he left the hardware store, and truth to tell, he
+was thinking more of his chances of going to boarding school in the fall
+perhaps, and whether or not he would get an opportunity to play ball,
+than he was of any possible trouble.
+
+On leaving the hardware store Joe was surprised to find it growing dusk.
+Gathering clouds added to the gloom and he made up his mind that the
+last part of his homeward journey would be made in darkness.
+
+"Guess I'll see if I have any oil in the lamp," he remarked as he was
+about to mount his wheel. "If I haven't I can get some here." But he
+found, on shaking the lantern, that it was filled enough to carry him to
+Riverside, and he was soon pedaling along that country road.
+
+The clouds continued to gather, and as the journey back was partly up
+hill, and as the bent pedal did not permit of fast riding, Joe soon
+found it necessary to alight and set the lamp aglow.
+
+He was riding on, looking carefully ahead of him, to avoid stones and
+ruts that the gleam of light revealed, when, as he came to rather a
+lonely spot on the road, he heard, just ahead of him, a commotion.
+
+There was a sound of carriage wheels scraping on the iron body guards,
+the tramping of a horse's feet, and then a voice called out:
+
+"Whoa now! Stand still, can't you, until I see what's the matter? Whoa!
+Something's broken, that's evident, worse luck! And I'm two miles from
+nowhere. Whoa, now!"
+
+"Where have I heard that voice before?" mused Joe as he rode more slowly
+so as not to have another collision in the darkness.
+
+He could hear some one jump to the ground and then the restless horse
+quieted down under the soothing words of the driver.
+
+"Yes, it's broken all right," the voice went on. "And how in the
+mischief am I going to mend it? Whoa, now!"
+
+Then Joe rode up, and in the glow of his light he saw Darrell Blackney,
+the manager of the Silver Stars, who was standing beside a carriage one
+side of the shafts of which hung down from the axle. The bolt had
+evidently broken.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Joe, dismounting.
+
+"Who's that?" quickly asked Darrell.
+
+"I'm Joe Matson," was the answer. "I know you. I'm in the junior high
+class."
+
+"Oh, yes. Matson, I think I heard Tom Davis speak of you. Well, I've had
+an accident. I was out driving when all at once one side of the shafts
+fell down. It's a bad break I'm afraid; bolt sheared off."
+
+"It's a wonder your horse didn't run away."
+
+"Oh, Prince is pretty steady; aren't you Prince old fellow?" and Darrell
+patted the animal's nose. "But what the mischief am I to do? It's too
+far to go to the next town and leave Prince here, and I can't ride him,
+for he isn't used to it and might throw me off."
+
+"Can I help you?" asked Joe. "I might ride to the nearest place and get
+a bolt, if you told me what kind."
+
+"All the places would be closed by this time I guess," was the rueful
+answer. "Much obliged to you just the same. I certainly am in a pickle!
+Next time I go out driving I'll bring part of a hardware store along."
+
+"What sort of a bolt is it?" asked Joe.
+
+"Oh, just an ordinary carriage one, flat headed. Bring your light here,
+if you don't mind, and I'll take a look at it. I could only tell it was
+broken by feeling in the dark."
+
+In the glow of the bicycle lamp it could be seen that the bolt had
+broken squarely in two in the middle, and could not be used again. But
+at the sight of it, as Darrell held the two parts in his hand, Joe
+uttered an exclamation.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked the manager of the Silver Stars.
+
+"I think I have the very thing!" said Joe quickly. "I've got some spare
+bolts in my tool bag. They may not be the same size, but they'll hold
+the shaft in until you get home I think. I'll take a look."
+
+"Good for you!" cried Darrell. "Most anything will do in a pinch. Even a
+piece of wire, but I can't find any along the road in the dark. I hope
+you have something," and while Joe opened his tool bag Darrell patted
+the somewhat restive horse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+JOE HAS HOPES
+
+
+"Yes, here's the very thing, I guess!" said Joe, after rummaging about
+in his leather tool case. He produced a short but heavy bolt with a nut.
+
+"It isn't exactly the same thing," remarked Darrell, after looking at it
+carefully, "but it will do, if it's long enough. Would you mind holding
+Prince's head while I try it? He might start up, just as I got the shaft
+in place, and hurt my fingers, if he didn't make me drop the bolt. Then
+we'd have a sweet time hunting for it in the dark."
+
+Joe went to the animal's head and patted the cold, velvety nose while
+the other lad lifted up the dropped shaft and fitted it in place. He was
+fumbling about in the flickering light of the bicycle lantern which he
+had temporarily fastened to the dashboard.
+
+"Will it do?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yes, it's just the cheese. Lucky I met you, or, rather that you met me,
+or I don't know what I would have done. The bolt is just long enough.
+Now if I can get the nut on----"
+
+"There's a wrench in my tool bag," interrupted Joe. "Shall I get it for
+you?"
+
+"No, thanks, you stay by Prince. I can find it. You haven't been in town
+long, have you?" asked Darrell, as he was working away over the nut,
+which was a little tight.
+
+"No, about a week. I was at the Resolute ball game though."
+
+"You were? It was a shame it broke up the way it did, but I don't think
+it was our fault, though Sam Morton is pretty quick tempered."
+
+Joe had good reason to know that.
+
+"No," he answered from the darkness near the horse's head, "it was the
+fault of the Resolutes all right. They ought to have been satisfied
+after pulling the game out of the fire the way they did."
+
+"I should say so! They never ought to have won it, and they wouldn't
+have, only Sam sort of--well they got his 'goat' I guess."
+
+"Yes," assented Joe, while Darrell went on fumbling with the wrench and
+nut.
+
+"Do you play at all?" came the manager's voice from the vicinity of the
+flickering light.
+
+"Oh, yes," and Joe's tone was eager while his heart was strangely
+beating. It was a chance he had never dared hope for, to have the
+manager of the Silver Stars ask him that.
+
+"Where?" came the next inquiry.
+
+"In Bentville, where I used to live."
+
+"Oh. Have a good team?"
+
+"Pretty fair."
+
+"Where'd you play?"
+
+"I used to pitch." There was a pause and then, emboldened by what had
+happened, Joe went on. "I don't suppose there's a vacancy in your nine,
+is there?" and he laughed half whimsically.
+
+"No, hardly, that is, not in the box," said Darrell slowly. "Sam has his
+faults, but he's the best pitcher we've had in a long time and I guess
+we'll keep him. There, that's fixed," he went on, tapping the bolt to
+see that it was firmly in place. "Now I can go on, I guess. I'm a
+thousand times obliged to you. I don't know what I'd have done only for
+you. After this I'm going to carry a light, and some spare bolts."
+
+He handed Joe back the wrench and took the lamp off the dashboard.
+
+"I'll give you a bolt in place of this the next time I see you," the
+manager went on, as he held the lamp out to our hero.
+
+"Oh, it isn't necessary. I don't need it for my wheel. It was just one
+of some odds and ends that I carry with me."
+
+Darrell stood looking at Joe, whose face was illuminated brightly by the
+full focus of the lamp. The manager seemed struck by something.
+
+"I say!" he exclaimed, "you look as if you were built to play ball. Were
+you at it long?"
+
+"Oh, a couple of years."
+
+"Pitch all that time?"
+
+"Oh, no, only just the last few months of the season. Our regular
+pitcher left and I filled in."
+
+"I see. Hum, well, as I said we haven't any vacancy in the box, but by
+Jove! come to think of it I might give you a chance!"
+
+Joe's heart leaped wildly and he could hardly answer.
+
+"Can you, really?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, but not as a regular, of course--at least that is not right off
+the bat. But if you'd like to try for place at centre field I believe I
+can manage it."
+
+Joe's heart was a little despondent. Centre field was not a very
+brilliant place in which to shine with the Stars, but it was a start and
+he realized that.
+
+"I'd be glad of the chance," he managed to say.
+
+"All right, I'll keep you in mind. You see our regular centre fielder,
+Jed McGraw, is going to leave. His folks are moving out west and we'll
+have to have some one in his place. I don't know when he's going, but
+it's this week or next. I'd like to do something for you, to sort of pay
+you for what you did for me to-night, and----"
+
+"Oh, I don't want anything for this!" exclaimed Joe.
+
+"I know you don't, but it just happened so. I might not have known you
+except for this accident, and as I said we will need some one to fill in
+at centre field. Len Oswald is the regular substitute, but he doesn't
+practice much, and he's got a job over at Fordham so he can't always be
+sure of getting off Saturday afternoons, which is when we mostly play.
+So I'll put you down as sub now and perhaps as regular--it depends on
+Len."
+
+"Thanks!" Joe managed to say and he found himself hoping that Len would
+have to work every Saturday during the season.
+
+"We need some one with experience," went on Darrell, "and I'm glad I
+could give you the chance. Tom Davis was saying you got mixed up in the
+row the other day."
+
+"Yes. I seem to be getting the habit," replied Joe with a laugh. "I had
+one with Sam Morton on this road a little while ago."
+
+"You don't say so! How did it happen?"
+
+Joe gave all the details.
+
+"Hum! Well, Sam sure has a quick temper," went on the young manager.
+"But he's all right soon after it," he added in extenuation. "He'll be
+friendly with you in a few days and forget all about it. I wouldn't hold
+a grudge against him, if I were you."
+
+"Oh, I shan't. It was both our faults."
+
+"Well, I'll be getting on," remarked Darrell, after a pause. "Come and
+see me sometime. I'll see you at school to-morrow, and if there's
+anything doing I'll let you know."
+
+The two boys' hands met in a friendly clasp and then the manager,
+getting into his carriage, drove off. A little later, his heart filled
+with hope, Joe, having put back his lantern and tool bag pedaled toward
+home.
+
+"This was a lucky day for me, even if it did look bad after that crash
+with Sam Morton," he said to himself. "I'm going to play ball, after
+all!"
+
+There was rather a grave look on Mr. Matson's face when Joe handed him
+the reply from Mr. Holdney, and told of his interview.
+
+"So he can't help me--Oh, well, never mind," and Mr. Matson turned aside
+and went into the room where he kept a desk. Mrs. Matson followed,
+closing the door after her, and for some time the voices of the two
+could be heard in low but earnest conversation.
+
+"What's the matter; nothing wrong I hope?" asked Clara.
+
+"Oh, I guess not," answered Joe, though he was vaguely uneasy himself.
+Then came the thought of his talk with the baseball manager and his
+heart was light again.
+
+Supper was rather a quiet affair that night, and Mr. Matson spoke but
+little, quite in contrast to his usual cheerful flow of conversation.
+Mrs. Matson, too, seemed preoccupied.
+
+"I think I'm going to get on the Stars!" exclaimed Joe, when he got a
+chance to tell of his experiences that day.
+
+"That's good," said Mr. Matson heartily. "There's no game like
+baseball."
+
+"But it doesn't fit a boy for anything," complained Mrs. Matson. "It
+doesn't help in any of the professions."
+
+"It's a profession in itself!" declared Joe stoutly.
+
+"I hope you don't intend to adopt it," spoke his sister.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I might do worse. Look at some of those big New York
+players getting thousands of dollars a year."
+
+"But look how long it takes them to get to that place," objected Clara,
+who liked to argue.
+
+"Oh, well, I'm young yet," laughed Joe.
+
+In his room that night, while preparing for bed Joe got to thinking of
+the possibility mentioned by Darrell Blackney.
+
+"I'm going to play my head off in centre field," said Joe, "and I'm
+going to practice batting, too. Stick work counts. I'm going to practice
+pitching, also. Who knows, maybe I'll get a chance in the box if Sam
+ever slumps.
+
+"Wow! If I ever do!" and standing before an imaginary batter Joe flung
+out his arm as if delivering a swift curve. With a crash his fist hit a
+picture on the wall and brought it clattering down to the floor.
+
+"What's that?" called Clara sharply from the next room.
+
+"Oh, I was just practicing pitching," answered Joe sheepishly, as he
+picked up the picture, the glass of which had fortunately not broken.
+
+"Well, you'd better practice going to sleep," responded his sister with
+a laugh.
+
+Joe smiled. He had great hopes for the future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+LAUGHED AT
+
+
+"What's that in your pocket, Joe?"
+
+"Which pocket?"
+
+"Your coat. I declare, you've got something in both pockets," and Clara
+approached her brother as if with the intention of making a personal
+inspection of two big bulges on either side of his coat. "What are
+they?" she persisted, as Joe backed away. Brother and sister had just
+gotten up from the breakfast table, and were about to start to school.
+
+"Oh, never mind!" exclaimed Joe hastily, as he looked for his cap. "Got
+your lessons, Clara?"
+
+"Of course I have. But I'm curious to know what makes your pockets bulge
+out so. Don't you know it will spoil your coat?"
+
+"I don't care," and Joe made another hasty move to get out of reach of
+Clara's outstretched hand. But he was not successful, and, with a laugh,
+his sister caught hold of the bulging pocket on his left side.
+
+"A ball!" she declared. "A baseball upon my word! Two of them! Oh, Joe,
+are you really going to play on the nine Saturday?"
+
+"I don't know. Maybe I'll get a chance if Jed McGraw leaves in time. But
+I'm taking a couple of old balls to practice throwing this afternoon
+when I come from school."
+
+"You're starting in early," commented Clara. "I hope you don't sleep
+with a baseball under your pillow the way we girls do with pieces of
+wedding cake," and she laughed merrily.
+
+"I'd be willing to sleep with a ball and a bat under my pillow if I
+thought I'd get in the game by it," admitted Joe frankly. "But I'm not
+hoping too much. Well, I'm going. Good-bye momsey," and he stopped to
+kiss his mother before he hastened away to school. He looked at her
+closely to discover whether there was any trace of worry, but she smiled
+at him.
+
+"I may not be home early," he told her. "I'm going down to the
+fairgrounds."
+
+"What for?" she asked quickly. "There isn't a show there, is there?"
+
+"No, but I want to do a little baseball practicing, and that place is
+well out of the way."
+
+"Baseball practice on the fairgrounds. How----"
+
+But she did not wait to finish her question for she exclaimed:
+
+"My cake is burning in the oven. Good-bye, Joe!" and she ran to the
+kitchen.
+
+"I wonder what Sam Morton will say?" Joe reflected as he walked along.
+"I certainly hope his arm isn't lame, even if it was as much his fault
+as mine. I don't want him to tell the fellows I'm to blame for him
+losing a game--if he should."
+
+Fearing that the same thing might happen to him as when Clara laughed at
+him for having the two baseballs in his pockets, Joe slipped to his desk
+as soon as he reached the school, and hid the balls away back among his
+books. The balls were two old ones he had used when on the Bentville
+nine, and they were still in fair condition.
+
+"I'm not going to let the fellows get on to the fact that I'm
+practicing, until there's more of a chance for me than there is now,"
+thought our hero, as he went out on the school grounds to watch the lads
+at play.
+
+An impromptu game was going on, but Joe did not join. Darrell Blackney
+passed him, and in answer to Joe's nod of greeting asked:
+
+"Did you get home all right?"
+
+"Oh, yes. How about you?"
+
+"Fine. The bolt was all right. I haven't forgotten. I'll see McGraw
+to-day and find out when he's going to leave. Then if Oswald can't say
+for sure whether he'll be with us, you'll go in at centre field."
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Joe, his eyes bright with anticipation.
+
+As Darrell passed on, Joe saw Sam Morton approaching. At first he had a
+notion of turning away and avoiding what he felt would be an unpleasant
+scene. But Joe was nothing of a coward and he realized that, sooner or
+later, he would have to meet the pitcher with whom he had had the
+collision. So he stood his ground.
+
+"How's your arm?" he asked pleasantly, as Sam approached.
+
+"Hu! None the better for what you did to it."
+
+"What _I_ did?" and Joe's voice took on a surprised tone. "Do you still
+insist it was my fault?"
+
+"Pretty near," went on Sam, but Joe noticed that he was not quite so
+vindictive as before. "It isn't as stiff as I thought it would be,
+though."
+
+"I hope you can pitch all right Saturday," went on Joe. He wanted very
+much to hint at the fact that he, too, might be in the game, but Sam was
+not a lad to invite confidences, especially after what had taken place.
+Joe liked comradeship. He liked the company of boys of his own age and
+he was just "hungry" to talk baseball. But, aside from Tom Davis, as
+yet he had no chums with whom he could gossip about the great pastime.
+
+In Bentville he was looked up to as one of the nine, and, though the
+team was not as good a one as was the Silver Stars, still it was a team,
+and Joe was one of the principal players. Coming to a strange town, and
+being distinctly out of the game, made him feel like a "cat in a strange
+garret," as he said afterward.
+
+But with a grim tightening of his lips he made up his mind not to give
+way to gloomy thoughts, and he determined that he would be on the town
+team and one of the best players.
+
+As the warning bell rang, Tom Davis came hurrying across the school
+campus.
+
+"I called for you!" he shouted to Joe who, with a crowd of other lads,
+was going in the building, "but you'd gone."
+
+"Thanks," replied Joe, grateful for the friendly spirit shown. "I'll
+wait next time." He liked Tom, and was glad to have him for a chum.
+
+Joe thought lessons would never be finished that day, but the classes
+were finally dismissed and then, without waiting for Tom, though he
+thought this might be construed as rather unfriendly, our hero hastened
+off in the direction of the fairgrounds. There was a high wooden fence
+around this plot, and it gave Joe just the chance he wanted, for he was
+going to practice pitching, and he didn't want any witnesses.
+
+"I wish I had half a dozen balls," he murmured as he went in through one
+of the gates which was unlocked. "I wouldn't have to chase back and
+forth so often. But two will do for a while."
+
+He laid his books down on the grass, took out the horsehide spheres and,
+measuring a distance from the fence about equal to the space from the
+pitcher's box to home plate, he began to pitch the balls.
+
+With dull thuds the balls struck the fence, one after the other, and
+fell to the ground. Joe picked them up, took his place again in the
+imaginary box, and repeated the performance.
+
+His arm, that was a bit stiff at first, from lack of practice since
+coming to Riverside, gradually became limber. He knew that his speed,
+too, was increasing. He could not judge of his curves, and, truth to
+tell he did not have very good ones as yet, for he had only recently
+learned the knack. But he had the right ideas and a veteran professional
+pitcher, who was a friend of one of the Bentville nine's members, had
+showed Joe the proper manner to hold and deliver the ball.
+
+"I wish I had some one back there to give me a line on myself," thought
+Joe, as he pitched away, a solitary figure on the grounds. "I don't know
+whether I'm getting them over the plate, or a mile beyond," for he had
+laid down a flat stone to serve as "home."
+
+"Anyhow this will improve my speed," he reasoned, "and speed is needed
+now-a-days as much as curves."
+
+Time and again he pitched his two horsehides, ran to pick them up as
+they dropped at the foot of the fence, and then he raced back to his
+"box" to repeat the performance. He was rather tiring of it, and his arm
+was beginning to feel numb in spite of his enthusiasm, when he heard
+some one laughing. The sound came from behind him, and, turning quickly,
+Joe saw Sam Morton standing leaning up against his wheel, and
+contemplating him with mirth showing on his face.
+
+"Well, well!" exclaimed Sam. "This is pretty good. What are you trying
+to do, Matson, knock the fence down? If you are, why don't you take a
+hammer or some stones instead of baseballs? This is rich! Ha! Ha!"
+
+For a moment Joe was tempted to make an angry answer, for the hot blood
+of shame mounted to his cheeks. Then he said quietly, and with as much
+good-nature as he could summon on the spur of the moment:
+
+"I'm practicing, that's all. I came here as I didn't want to lose the
+balls, and the fence makes a good backstop."
+
+"Practicing, eh? What for?" and once more Sam laughed in an insulting
+manner.
+
+"To improve my pitching. There may be a chance to get on the team, I
+understand."
+
+"What team; the Silver Stars?"
+
+Sam's voice had a harsh note in it.
+
+"Yes." And Joe nodded.
+
+"So you're practicing pitching, eh? And you hope to get on our nine.
+Well let me tell you one thing, Matson; you won't pitch on the Silver
+Stars as long as I'm on deck, and I intend to remain for quite a while
+yet. Pitching practice, eh? Ho! That's pretty good! What you'd better
+practice is running bases. We may let you run for some of the fellows,
+if you're real good. Or how would you like to carry the bats or be the
+water boy? I understand there's a vacancy there. Pitcher! Ha! Ha!" and
+Sam doubled up in mirth. Joe's face flushed, but he said nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A MEAN PROTEST
+
+
+Finally Sam ceased his laughter, straightened up and prepared to ride
+out of the fairgrounds on his wheel.
+
+"I was just going past," he said, in needless explanation, "when I heard
+something banging against the fence. First I thought it might be one of
+the cattle left over from the last show, but when I saw it was you,
+Matson--Oh, my! It's too rich! I'll have to tell the boys."
+
+"Look here!" exclaimed Joe, who disliked as much as any one being
+laughed at, "what have you got against me, anyhow? Are you afraid I'll
+displace you as pitcher?"
+
+"What's that? Not much. You couldn't do that you know," and Sam laughed
+again.
+
+"Then what do you want to be so mean for?" asked Joe.
+
+"None of your business, if you want to know," snapped Sam. "But if you
+think you're going to get on our team you've got another think coming.
+Look out, now, don't break the fence with those balls, or the fair
+committee might make you pay for it," and with this parting insult Sam
+rode out of the grounds.
+
+Joe's heart was beating fast, and he clenched his hands. He would liked
+to have gone after Sam and given him a well deserved thrashing, but he
+knew that would never do.
+
+"I've just got to grin and bear it!" murmured Joe through his clenched
+teeth. "If the fellows laugh at me I'll have to let 'em laugh. After all
+I can stand it, and I _do_ want to get on the team.
+
+"Queer why Sam Morton should be so down on me. I don't see his reason
+unless it's jealousy, or because he's mad at me for running into him.
+Maybe it's both.
+
+"Well, there's no use practicing any longer. My arm is tired, and
+besides he might be hiding behind the fence to laugh some more. I'll
+have to find a different place if I want to practice getting up my speed
+and curves."
+
+Picking up the balls and his books Joe slowly made his way out of the
+grounds. Sam Morton was nowhere in sight, for which the young ball
+player was glad.
+
+"Maybe this will end it," thought Joe. "He just wanted to amuse himself
+at my expense." But our hero was soon to find that the vindictive
+spirit of the pitcher was not quelled.
+
+"Coming out to see us practice this afternoon?" asked Tom Davis of Joe
+several days later. "We're getting ready to play the Red Stockings of
+Rutherford, Saturday."
+
+"Sure I'll come," answered Joe. "Will it be a good game?"
+
+"It ought to. The Red Stockings used to have a good nine but they struck
+a slump and lately we've been beating them. But I hear they have a new
+pitcher and they may make it hard for us. Say, what's this yarn Sam is
+telling about you practicing down on the fairgrounds."
+
+"Oh, it's true enough," answered Joe with a flush. "I thought I'd get up
+some speed. I've got a chance to get on the nine."
+
+"Is that so; I hadn't heard it. Gee! I hope you do. How you going to
+manage it?"
+
+"Well, I don't know as Darrell wants it known," was the answer, "but
+I'll tell you," and Joe proceeded to relate his talk with the manager,
+about the prospective leaving of McGraw.
+
+"That's so, Jed is going away," admitted Tom. "I had forgotten about
+that. Say, I hope he leaves before Saturday and then you can get a
+chance to play."
+
+"What about Len Oswald, the substitute centre fielder?"
+
+"Oh, Len is practically out of it. He can't get off Saturday afternoons
+any more. Too much business in that Fordham grocery where he works.
+That's a good thing for you. I'm real glad of it, Joe. But say, if you
+want to practice pitching, why didn't you ask me to catch for you?"
+
+"I didn't want to bother you?"
+
+"Aw, get out. I'd be glad to do it. Next time you want to try it tip me
+off and we'll go some place where Sam can't bother us. He's a mean chap
+sometimes. I don't like him, but some of the fellows think he's all
+there. He sure can pitch, and I guess that's why we keep him. But come
+on, let's go to practice. There may be a scrub game and you can get in
+on it."
+
+Joe and Tom found quite a crowd assembled on the Riverside diamond when
+they arrived. The nine and the substitutes were in uniforms, and Darrell
+Blackney and George Rankin were talking to the team, giving them some
+points about the coming game with the Red Stockings.
+
+"I guess we've got enough for a scrub game," announced the captain, as
+Joe and Tom strolled up. "Tom, you play first on the scrub. And let's
+see--what's your name?" and he turned to Joe, who introduced himself.
+
+"He's a friend of mine," added Tom, "so treat him right."
+
+"Good!" exclaimed the captain. "Well, he can play on the scrub if he
+wants to. Out in the field," he added.
+
+"Oh, yes, that's Matson, whom I was telling you about," put in the
+manager, and then he added something in a low voice which Joe could not
+catch.
+
+"Play ball!" called the umpire, and the impromptu contest was underway.
+Joe narrowly watched Sam's pitching and even though he regarded the lad
+as unfriendly to him, our hero could not but admit that his rival in the
+box was doing good work.
+
+"But I think I can equal him if I have a chance," thought Joe, and he
+was not given to idle boasting, either. "Oh, if I only get the chance!"
+he exclaimed in a whisper.
+
+Then a high fly came his way and he had to get down to business and stop
+his day-dreaming. He ran back to get under the ball, and made a pretty
+one-handed catch. There was some applause from the little group of
+spectators.
+
+"Good eye!" yelled Tom Davis.
+
+"That's the stuff!" cried some one else, and Joe felt a warm thrill of
+pleasure as he threw the ball in.
+
+Of course the first team won, for the scrub was composed of odds and
+ends, with some substitutes from the Silver Stars, but Joe had done his
+best to hold down the score.
+
+"Good work, Matson," complimented Darrell, when the contest was over.
+"By the way, I've about decided in your case. You can get ready to play
+centre field Saturday. McGraw can't be with us, and we can't count on
+Oswald. Have you a uniform?"
+
+"Yes," said Joe eagerly.
+
+"A uniform; what for?" asked Sam Morton quickly. He had come up behind
+Joe and Darrell, and had heard the last part of the conversation.
+
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you fellows that Matson is our new member of the
+team," went on the manager. "Shake hands with him, boys. I've been
+watching him play to-day and I think with a little practice he'll make
+good."
+
+"Where's he going to play?" demanded Sam roughly, while the lads crowded
+around Joe, congratulating him, asking him questions as to where he had
+played ball before, and shaking hands with him. "Where's he going to
+play?" and Sam pointed what seemed like an accusing finger at Joe.
+
+"Centre field--McGraw's place," answered the manager briefly.
+
+"Regular or substitute?" demanded Sam.
+
+"Practically a regular," replied Darrell. "We can't count on Oswald any
+more, now that his busy season has begun."
+
+Every member of the Silver Stars save Sam had shaken hands with Joe. The
+pitcher now stood facing our hero.
+
+"I want to protest!" suddenly exclaimed Sam, looking Joe full in the
+face.
+
+"Why?" asked Darrell.
+
+"What business is it of yours, anyhow, Sam?" asked the captain. "Darrell
+and I have settled this. Matson plays."
+
+"Then I want my protest noted!" went on Sam angrily. "We're supposed to
+be a local team--every one on it belongs in town."
+
+"So does Joe Matson!" broke in Tom Davis.
+
+"Well, he's only just moved in, and how do we know but what he'll move
+out again?" demanded Sam. "I protest against him being a regular, or
+even a substitute, member of the Silver Stars!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JOE IN THE GAME
+
+
+There was a period of silence following Sam's unfair protest. Then could
+be heard a low murmur from some of his mates.
+
+"Oh, what's eating him, anyhow?"
+
+"What's he got against Matson?"
+
+"Something has Sam by the ear all right."
+
+"Yes, guess he didn't like the way the scrub batted him around."
+
+These were some of the comments made, not loud enough for Sam to hear,
+for he was a power in the nine, and none of the lads wanted to get on
+bad terms with him.
+
+For a moment all eyes were turned on Sam and then toward Joe who, it can
+easily be imagined, was much embarrassed.
+
+"I don't think your protest is a fair one," said Darrell at length.
+
+"I don't think so either," added Captain George Rankin. "Just because
+Matson is a newcomer in town is no reason why he can't play with us."
+
+"Sure, that's right!" put in Seth Potter. "You weren't born here
+yourself, Sam, and neither were lots of us. We moved here."
+
+"I've lived in Riverside nearly all my life," snapped the pitcher, "and
+I like to see a representative team. If we need a new member why not
+pick one who has been living here longer than a couple of weeks?"
+
+"Look here!" exclaimed Darrell. "I don't think this is fair to me."
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Sam, for the manager had spoken with some
+warmth.
+
+"Just this much. You elected me manager and the captain and I were to
+select the players. Now, when we make our choice, there comes a kick. It
+isn't right. Rankin and I decided to give Matson a chance, and he gets
+it. That goes, too!" and the manager looked straight at Sam.
+
+"Oh, well, if you put it that way I suppose I might as well keep still
+about it," and Sam, shrugging his shoulders, turned away. He had not yet
+shaken hands with Joe.
+
+"As for there being other players just as good and who have lived here
+longer, that may be true," went on Darrell. "I'm not saying Matson is
+the only fellow I could pick for centre field, and I'm not saying
+anything against any of the fellows on the scrub when I don't take them.
+We want the best team we can get to represent the Silver Stars and
+Matson is my choice for the place. If you want to go over my head----"
+
+"No! No!" came a chorus of objections. "It's all right!"
+
+"Then Matson plays Saturday," concluded the manager. "All of you be out
+for practice to-morrow afternoon again. Matson, report in uniform."
+
+"All right," and Joe's heart was fairly thumping under his coat. The
+chance he had longed for had come at last.
+
+As Sam was walking away Joe resolved on a bold stroke, rather a
+grandstand play as he confessed to himself afterward, but he could not
+forego it. Striding up to the disgruntled pitcher Joe held out his hand
+and asked:
+
+"Won't you shake?"
+
+Sam turned and faced him. For several seconds he stood staring Joe
+straight in the eyes while the crowd of boys looked on. Then with a
+sneer, and ignoring the proffered hand, Sam said:
+
+"I prefer to pick my own friends. I don't want them made for me."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off.
+
+There was another period of silence like that following his protest.
+Then some one said:
+
+"Well, I'm glad I haven't got _his_ disposition."
+
+"What's that?" cried Sam angrily, and turning back he seemed about to
+rush at the throng he faced.
+
+"There now, that'll do!" exclaimed Darrell, who was anxious to avoid a
+scene. "Forget it, fellows. Sam, you get your arm good and limber for
+Saturday. We want to beat the Red Stockings by a big score to make up
+for what the Resolutes did to us last Saturday. I'm going to arrange for
+another game with them soon, and maybe we can turn the tables."
+
+"Sure we can!" cried several.
+
+"So limber up, Sam," the manager went on, "and have your arm in good
+shape."
+
+"It will be in bad shape if I get run down by any more amateur
+cyclists," sneered Sam as he looked meaningly at Joe, but no one made
+any further reference to the recent collision.
+
+At practice the next day Joe took his place with the regular Silver Star
+team, and he showed up well in the impromptu contest against the scrubs.
+He made several good catches, and though his stick work might have been
+improved, still it was pretty good, for the scrub pitcher was not to be
+despised.
+
+"I guess you'll do," complimented Darrell, at the close of the contest.
+"Keep it up, don't get rattled, and you'll be all right. I can see
+you've played before."
+
+"I guess I've got lots to learn yet," admitted Joe cheerfully.
+
+"Oh, we all have," assented the manager with a laugh.
+
+On the Saturday of the game with the Red Stockings, Joe was up early. He
+had overhauled his old uniform and gotten Clara to put a few needed
+stitches in it. He had it out on the clothes line in the back yard,
+beating some of the dust and dirt from it to freshen it up, when Tom
+hailed him from over the fence.
+
+"I say, Joe, what sort of a shirt have you got?"
+
+"Same one I used on the Bentville Boosters; that was the name of our
+nine."
+
+"I see. A good name all right, but it will look funny to see that in
+among the uniforms of the Silver Stars. Your stockings and pants will
+do, but the shirt----" and Tom paused suggestively.
+
+"That's so," admitted Joe. "I didn't think about that. It's a different
+color from yours, and I haven't time to get another."
+
+"Never mind!" called Tom. "I tell you what you can do. Use my shirt.
+It's the regular Star one, with the name on."
+
+"Won't you want it?"
+
+"No, I don't think I'm going to get a chance to play. Darrell will
+probably hold down first all through the game. If I have to go in I can
+borrow some other fellow's. But I want you to look right from the
+start."
+
+"Thanks," called Joe as Tom disappeared in the house to get his shirt.
+It fitted Joe well, and he arranged to get his own in time for the next
+game.
+
+"Say, there's a big crowd here all right!" exclaimed Joe, as he and Tom
+neared the enclosed diamond that afternoon, and saw the stands well
+filled.
+
+"Yes, so much the better. The Red Stockings always draw well. I hope we
+beat. Do your prettiest."
+
+"Sure I will. There's Sam warming up."
+
+"Yes, I hope he doesn't go up in the air. Better hurry up and get in
+practice."
+
+Joe ran out on the diamond, which was thronged with the home team and
+visiting players. Balls were being caught and batted about, and the new
+player was soon doing his share.
+
+"Now keep cool," Darrell advised him, "and above all don't have a row
+with Sam. I can't understand why he has such a grudge against you, but
+he has and there's no use letting it be known any more than it is."
+
+"I won't do or say anything if he doesn't," promised Joe. "But I'm not
+going to let him knock me down and then wipe his feet on me."
+
+"Of course not. I'll see that he's decent, anyhow. Well, I guess it's
+time we started. I see they have some new players. Maybe we won't beat
+them as easily as I hoped."
+
+The practice balls were called in, players were selecting their sticks,
+the batting order had been decided on, and the final arrangements made.
+
+"Play ball!" called the umpire, and the Silver Stars took the field. Joe
+walked out to centre. His heart was beating high. It was his first
+chance to show what he could do in a match game with his new team and he
+wanted to make good. But oh! how he longed to be in the pitching box
+occupied by Sam Morton!
+
+"Play ball!" called the umpire again, and Sam, "winding up," let fly a
+swift white ball toward the expectant batter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A TIGHT CONTEST
+
+
+"Strike one!" yelled the young umpire, as the ball landed with a
+resounding thud in Bart Ferguson's big mitt.
+
+"That's the stuff!" called several in the crowd.
+
+"Send back the Reds with a whitewash brush," added another enthusiast.
+
+"I guess Sam's in form to-day," remarked Tom Davis to Rodney Burke near
+whom he sat. Tom was not playing, for Darrell was holding down the
+initial bag.
+
+"Wait a bit and see what happens along about the seventh inning," said
+Rodney. "Sam generally falls down then if he's going to."
+
+"Well, I hope he doesn't, that's all," said Tom, and then he gave all
+his attention to watching the game.
+
+"Ball one," was the next decision of the umpire.
+
+"Aw what's the matter with you?" cried Sam, starting toward home where
+Bart stood holding the ball. "That clipped the plate as good as any one
+would want. You'd better get a pair of glasses, Kern. You can't see
+straight."
+
+"I can see as well as you!" retorted Frank Kern, the umpire.
+
+"It wasn't anywhere near over the plate," retorted Jack King, the
+batter.
+
+"Aw, you don't know a good ball when you get one," snapped Sam. "I
+guess----"
+
+"That'll do now!" called Darrell sharply from first. "This isn't a kid
+game. Play ball. Don't be always kicking, Sam."
+
+"Who is always kicking?" demanded the pitcher, and it was evident to all
+that he was in unusually bad temper.
+
+"I hope it isn't on my account," thought Joe who, from his position in
+deep centre, was waiting for anything that might come his way. He had
+been told to play far out, for King was known as a heavy hitter.
+
+Sam received the ball from Bart with a scowl and wound up for the next
+delivery. Sam was a natural pitcher. That is, he had good control, as a
+rule, and he made his shoulder and back do most of the work of the
+pitching arm, as all professionals do. Still his unpleasant temper often
+made his efforts go to waste.
+
+"Strike two!" called the umpire this time, and there was no doubt about
+it for King had swung viciously at the ball. But Sam had sent in a
+puzzling little drop, and the knowledge that he had fooled a good batter
+brought a smile to his otherwise scowling face.
+
+"Here's where I get you!" he predicted.
+
+But alas for his hopes! The bat met the ball squarely and Sam had made
+the mistake of sending a fast ball to a heavy hitter enabling King to
+knock out a pretty three bagger. Far back as Joe had stationed himself
+he was not far enough and he had to turn and run after the horsehide.
+And how he did run! He was thinking desperately what would happen if he
+missed it! He made up his mind that he would not, yet it was not within
+the power of any one to get to the spot before the ball fell.
+
+Joe felt it graze the tips of his fingers as it rushed downward but that
+was all. He heard himself groan involuntarily in anguish as the ball hit
+the ground with a thud. He lost no time in idle regrets however, but
+picked it up and made a throw to third in time to hold King there, for
+the doughty player had a notion of continuing on home.
+
+"Good try old man!" yelled some spectators on the benches nearest Joe.
+He felt that his effort was somewhat appreciated but he wondered what
+Darrell would think of it. Sam was scowling again, whether at Joe's
+perfectly natural miss, or the fact that he was hit for three bases was
+impossible to guess.
+
+"Try for the next one," called Darrell cheerfully, and Sam did with such
+success that Bigney, who was second up for the Red Stockings, only
+pounded out a little drizzler that Sam quickly gathered in and threw to
+first. King was still held on third. Smart fanned out, and then came
+Steel, who, after knocking a couple of fouls, was fooled on a little
+in-shoot which made three out, King dying on third and the side being
+retired with no runs.
+
+"Oh, not so bad," said Sam as he walked in to the bench.
+
+"I guess we've got their number all right," assented Darrell. He saw Joe
+coming in from centre and the manager stopped to speak to him.
+
+"Nobody could have gotten that ball," he said, for he realized that the
+new player might blame himself unjustly. "I didn't think King had it in
+him, or I'd have told you to play out to the limit. He won't get you
+that way again."
+
+"I guess not!" exclaimed Joe heartily.
+
+The make up and batting order of the Silver Stars was the same as in
+the game with the Resolutes save that Joe was in Jed McGraw's place, and
+this brought him second to the bat. Potter was up first and managed to
+get a single.
+
+"Now, bring him in," commanded Darrell with a smile at Joe, as the
+latter picked out a bat. He was very nervous, as any lad would have
+been, playing his first game with a new team. He did want to make good!
+
+"I'll try," he said simply.
+
+Painter, the Red Stocking pitcher, had no phenomenal speed and his
+curves could not be depended on to break at the right places. Still he
+was a good "bluffer" and he made many a batter think that he was getting
+a very swift ball. Often it would look as though it was going to hit the
+man at the plate and he would instinctively step back, disconcerting his
+own aim.
+
+Joe let the first ball pass, and was somewhat surprised to have a strike
+called on him. But he did not kick, for, as a matter of fact, the
+horsehide had clipped the plate.
+
+"I'll get the next one," thought Joe grimly. Then Painter worked his
+usual trick, of throwing a ball close in, and Joe bent his body like a
+bow.
+
+"Strike two!" yelled the umpire and Joe felt a flash of anger. But he
+said nothing, and when the next ball came he swung viciously at it. He
+heard the heart-stirring ping! and, dropping his bat, he legged it for
+first as Potter darted to second.
+
+But Joe had not hit the ball nearly as hard as he thought he had, and
+the result was that the shortstop gathered it in, and, by a quick throw
+to first, caught our hero there.
+
+"Quick, to second!" yelled the coacher, but Potter dropped and slid,
+being counted safe.
+
+"One down, only two more!" yelled Murphy, captain and catcher of the
+"Reds," as they were called for short.
+
+Joe felt his face burning with shame as he walked back to the bench.
+
+"Humph! I thought we were going to see some wonders!" murmured Sam
+Morton sarcastically.
+
+"It's all right, Matson--it was an even chance, and you found the ball,"
+said Darrell quickly. He knew the danger of a new player becoming
+discouraged.
+
+"Thanks," said Joe quietly.
+
+Lantry got a single which sent Potter to third, but the next two men
+struck out and with two men left on bases the Silver Stars had to take
+the field again with only a goose egg to their credit.
+
+The game ran along to the ending of the third inning with neither side
+getting a run. Each team made some scattering hits but the fielding was
+evenly good, and no one crossed the home plate. Joe made one fine catch
+in the beginning of the third and received a round of applause that did
+his heart good.
+
+Sam was pitching pretty good ball, occasionally being found for a two
+bagger, but any short-comings in this line were more than made up in the
+support he received from his mates.
+
+"It's going to be a tighter game than I thought it was," murmured
+Darrell, at the close of the fourth inning, when his side had managed to
+get in one run to tie the tally which the Reds had secured. "They've got
+a better team than I gave them credit for."
+
+"You don't think they're going to beat us, do you?" asked Sam anxiously.
+
+"I--well--I hope not," was the hesitating answer.
+
+"Does that mean you don't think I'm doing all I ought to?" demanded the
+pitcher defiantly.
+
+"Of course not. I know you wouldn't throw the game. Only I wish we could
+strike more of them out," and the manager looked anxiously over the
+field as his players were stationing themselves.
+
+"Wait and see what I do this inning," invited Sam. "Perhaps you want
+that new fellow to go in the box in my place." His voice was sneering
+now.
+
+"Who, Joe Matson?" asked Darrell quickly.
+
+"That's who I mean," replied Sam surlily.
+
+"Don't be foolish," was the manager's quiet answer. "You know he hasn't
+had any experience in the box--or at least enough to play on our team,
+though I think he'll make a good fielder. Now do your prettiest Sam. You
+can, you know."
+
+"All right," assented the pitcher, and once more the game was underway.
+
+The fifth inning was productive of one run for the Silver Stars and this
+after they had retired their rivals hitless, for Sam did some excellent
+pitching. There was a howl of delight as the first tally came in, making
+the score two to one in favor of our friends. And there was none out.
+
+"Now we ought to walk away from them," called Darrell to his players.
+Joe came up to bat and to his delight he got a single. He was advanced
+to second when the next player connected with the ball, and then
+followed some see-sawing on the part of the pitcher and the second
+baseman, in an endeavor to catch Joe napping.
+
+Once our hero thought he saw a good chance to steal third and he was
+about to take it when something warned him to come back. He did, and
+only just in time, for the pitcher threw to second. It was a close
+shave.
+
+Joe slid head foremost and as his fingers touched the bag the second
+baseman leaped up in the air to catch the ball which the pitcher had
+wildly thrown high.
+
+When the baseman came down, making a wild effort to touch Joe, the iron
+cleat of one shoe caught the little finger of Joe's left hand and cut it
+cruelly.
+
+The plucky centre fielder tried to stifle the groan of anguish that rose
+to his lips, but it was impossible. The baseman was aware of the
+accident.
+
+Dropping the ball he knelt over Joe.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry, old man!" he exclaimed. "Are you hurt much?"
+
+"No--no. I--I guess not," murmured Joe, and then all got black before
+his eyes, and there was a curious roaring in his ears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+JOE'S RUN
+
+
+"Water here! Bring some water!" yelled Smart, who was holding down
+second base for the Reds. "He's fainted I guess."
+
+There was a rush of players toward Joe, and Darrell was the first to
+reach him.
+
+"What's the matter, old man?" he asked sympathetically.
+
+"I'm afraid I spiked him," answered Smart, ruefully. "I jumped for the
+ball, and came down on his hand I guess."
+
+"Too bad," murmured Darrell.
+
+They turned Joe over, for he was lying on his face, and saw his left
+hand covered with blood.
+
+"Where's that first-aid kit?" called Tom Davis, who had rushed on the
+field on seeing his friend hurt.
+
+"Here it is," answered Rodney Burke, who acted as the amateur surgeon on
+the few times his services had been required. "I'll bandage it up. Had
+we better get a doctor?"
+
+Meanwhile some water had been sprinkled in Joe's face and some forced
+between his lips. He opened his eyes as the others were washing the
+blood from his hand.
+
+"I--I'm all right," he murmured, as he strove to rise.
+
+"Now that's all right--you just lie still," commanded Darrell. "Look at
+it Rod, and see how bad it is."
+
+Fortunately the wound was not as serious as had at first seemed and when
+cleansed of dirt and blood it was seen to be a long cut, lengthwise of
+the finger.
+
+"I'll have that done up in a jiffy," remarked Rodney, who was not a
+little proud of his skill. His father was a physician, and had shown the
+son how to make simple bandages. The wound was cleansed with an
+antiseptic solution and wrapped in the long narrow strips of bandage
+cloth. Joe got to his feet while this was being done, and, after a
+little water containing aromatic spirits of ammonia had been given to
+him, he declared that he was all right.
+
+"Are you sure?" asked Darrell anxiously.
+
+"Sure, I'll bring in a run yet if some one knocks the ball far enough,"
+said Joe with a smile, though it was rather a feeble one.
+
+"Nonsense, you can't run after that," exclaimed Murphy, the Red captain.
+"Give him a man," he added generously to his rival. "We don't care."
+
+"I think I had better send Newton down to run for you," said Captain
+Rankin.
+
+"But I'm going to play," insisted Joe.
+
+"Yes, next inning," he was assured, and the game went on.
+
+However, even the substitution of a runner in Joe's place availed
+nothing, as the side was soon afterward retired with the men expiring on
+bases, and the one run was all the Silver Stars could gather in. Still
+that made the score two to one in their favor.
+
+There was a big surprise in the next inning. The Reds came to bat full
+of confidence, and the first man up rapped out as pretty a three bagger
+as had been pulled off that day. It went to deep right field, for which
+Joe was thankful, as even with his finger protected by a bandage and a
+heavy glove on his hand, he felt that he would wince at catching a swift
+ball, and might possibly muff it. That was what the right fielder did,
+though he managed to pick it up quickly enough to prevent the player
+from going on in to home.
+
+Whether the fact of being hit for a long poke made Sam lose his temper,
+or the knowledge that part of his support consisted of a wounded player
+made him nervous, was not manifest, but the fact remains that the
+pitcher "went up in the air" after that. He gave one man his base on
+balls, and when the next player came up, and rapped out a two bagger the
+man at third went on in, and there was a man holding down third while
+one on second nearly made the bases full.
+
+"Easy now," cautioned Darrell to Sam. "Hold 'em down."
+
+"Um!" grunted Sam, and what he meant by it might be imagined, but he
+_did_ strike out the next two men. Then came a single which resulted in
+a tally being made, being the second run of the inning. Sam shut his
+teeth grimly. There were now two out and two men on bases and Sam felt
+his nerve leaving him. But by a strong effort he braced himself, and did
+the trick to the next man, stopping the winning streak of the Reds just
+in time.
+
+"Three to two against us," murmured Darrell as he looked at the score
+board when he and his mates came in for their turn at the bat. "That
+isn't going as I'd like to see it. Say, fellows, we've got to knuckle
+down if we want to pull this game out of the fire."
+
+"That's what," murmured George Rankin, and, perhaps involuntarily, he
+glanced at Sam.
+
+"Oh, I know what you fellows mean without you saying so!" snapped the
+pitcher. "I wish you'd keep your remarks to yourselves. I can pitch all
+right."
+
+"No one said you couldn't," declared Darrell gently.
+
+But it was very little that the Silver Stars could accomplish. Two men
+went down to inglorious defeat. The third knocked a nice single but died
+on first when the Red pitcher with seeming ease struck out the fourth
+batter. And it was not due so much that the visiting boxman had speed or
+curves, as to the fact that he could fool the batters with easy balls.
+
+"We seem to have struck a hoodoo," said Darrell in despairing tones as
+they took the field again. "Sam, our only hope is in you. Not a run for
+us this inning and they got two."
+
+"They won't get any more!" declared Sam savagely.
+
+He made good his boast, for not a man got beyond second, and of those
+who performed this feat there was but one. A big circle went up in the
+Red's frame for the ending of the first half of the seventh inning.
+
+But the Silver Stars fared no better, and for the next inning the result
+was the same, neither side being able to score. The tally was three runs
+to two in favor of the visitors when the ninth inning opened.
+
+The Silver Stars didn't like to think of that inning afterward. There
+were numerous errors, wild throws and muffs. Joe let a ball slip through
+his fingers when by holding it he might have prevented a run, but it
+happened to hit on the cut place, and the agony was such that he let out
+an exclamation of pain.
+
+But he was not the only one who sinned. Sam was "rotten," to quote Tom
+Davis, and "issued a number of passes." One man got to first by virtue
+of being hit and when the inning was over there were three runs in the
+Red's box.
+
+"Six to two against us," murmured Darrell. "It looks bad, fellows--it
+looks bad."
+
+Joe was first up to the bat.
+
+"Do you think you can hit?" asked the captain anxiously.
+
+"Oh, yes. I can hold my little finger away from the bat and I'll be all
+right."
+
+"Then hit for all you're worth," begged Darrell. "We need all we can
+get."
+
+Joe clenched his teeth grimly and made up his mind he would not be
+fooled as he had been several times before.
+
+The Red pitcher was smiling in a tantalizing way and Joe felt himself
+almost hating him for it.
+
+"I'm going to hit you! I'm going to hit you!" he found himself murmuring
+over and over again in his mind.
+
+And hit Joe did. The first delivery was a ball, but the second Joe knew
+was just where he wanted it. With all his force he swung at it and as he
+sped away toward first, with all the power of his legs he saw the
+horsehide sailing on a clean hit in a long, low drive over the centre
+fielder's head.
+
+Joe heard the ball strike the farther fence and a wild hope came into
+his heart that he might make a home run.
+
+"I'm going to do it! I'm going to do!" he whispered to himself as he
+turned first and sped like the wind for second base. Could he beat the
+ball in? That was what he was asking himself. That was what hundreds of
+frantic fans were asking themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+DISCONTENT
+
+
+"Leg it, Joe! Leg it!"
+
+"Keep on! Keep on!"
+
+"He can't get you in time!"
+
+"A home run! A homer, old man!"
+
+"Keep a-going! Keep a-going!"
+
+These and other frantic appeals and bits of advice were hurled at Joe as
+he dashed madly on. He had a glimpse of the centre fielder racing madly
+after the ball, and then he felt for the first time that he really had a
+chance to make a home run. Still he knew that the ball travels fast when
+once thrown, and it might be relayed in, for he saw the second baseman
+running back to assist the centre fielder.
+
+"But I'm going to beat it!" panted Joe to himself.
+
+The grandstand and bleachers were now a mass of yelling excited
+spectators. There was a good attendance at the game, many women and
+girls being present, and Joe could hear their shrill voices mingling
+with the hoarser shouts of the men and boys.
+
+"Keep on! Keep on!" he heard yelled encouragingly at him.
+
+"That's the stuff, old man!" shouted Darrell, who was coaching at the
+third base line.
+
+"Shall I go in?" cried Joe as he turned the last bag.
+
+Darrell took a swift glance toward the field. He saw what Joe could not.
+The centre fielder instead of relaying in the ball by the second baseman
+(for the throw was too far for him), had attempted to get it to third
+alone. Darrell knew it would fall short.
+
+"Yes! Yes!" he howled. "Go on in, Joe! Go on in!"
+
+And Joe went.
+
+Just as the manager had anticipated, the ball fell short, and the
+pitcher who had run down to cover second had to run out of the diamond
+to get it. It was an error in judgment, and helped Joe to make his
+sensational run.
+
+He was well on his way home now, but the pitcher had the ball and was
+throwing it to the catcher.
+
+"Slide, Joe! Slide!" yelled Darrell above the wild tumult of the other
+players and the spectators.
+
+Joe kept on until he knew a slide would be effective and then, dropping
+like a shot, he fairly tore through the dust, feet first, toward home
+plate. His shoes covered it as the ball came with a thud into the
+outstretched hands of the catcher.
+
+"Safe!" yelled the umpire, and there was no questioning his decision.
+
+"Good play!" yelled the crowd.
+
+"That's the stuff, old man!" exclaimed Darrell, rushing up and clapping
+Joe on the back.
+
+"A few more like that and the game will either go ten innings or we'll
+have it in the ice-box for ourselves," commented Captain Rankin
+gleefully.
+
+But the hopes of the Silver Stars were doomed to disappointment. Try as
+the succeeding men did to connect with the ball, the best that could be
+knocked out was a single, and that was not effective, for the man who
+did it was caught attempting to steal second and two others were struck
+out.
+
+That ended the game, Joe's solitary run being the only one tallied up,
+and the final score was three to six in favor of the Red Stockings.
+
+"Three cheers for the Silver Stars!" called the captain of the
+successful nine and they were given with right good feeling.
+
+"Three cheers for the Red Stockings," responded Darrell. "They were too
+much for us," and the cheers of the losers were none less hearty than
+those of their rivals.
+
+"And three cheers for the fellow who made the home run!" added a Red
+Stocking player, and our hero could not help blushing as he was thus
+honored.
+
+"It was all to the pepper-castor, old man," complimented Darrell. "We
+didn't put up a very good game, but you sort of stand out among the
+other Stars."
+
+"And I suppose the rest of us did rotten!" snarled Sam Morton as he
+walked past.
+
+"Well, to be frank, I think we _all_ did," spoke Darrell. "I'm not
+saying that Joe didn't make any errors, for he did. But he made the only
+home run of the game, and that's a lot."
+
+"Oh, yes, I suppose so," sneered the disgruntled pitcher. "You'll be
+blaming me next for the loss of the game."
+
+"Nothing of the sort!" exclaimed Darrell quickly. "I think we've all got
+to bear our share of the defeat. We ought to have played better, and
+we've got to, if we don't want to be at the tail end of the county
+league."
+
+"And that means that I've got to do better pitching, I suppose?" sneered
+Sam.
+
+"It means we've _all_ got to do better work," put in Captain Rankin.
+"You along with the rest of us, Sam. You know you were pretty well
+batted to-day."
+
+"Any fellow is likely to be swatted once in a while. Look at some of the
+professionals."
+
+"I'm not saying they're not," admitted the captain. "What I do say is
+that we've all got to perk up. We've got to take a brace, and I'm not
+sparing myself. We're not doing well."
+
+"No, that's right," admitted several other players. In fact there was a
+general feeling of discontent manifested, and it was very noticeable.
+Darrell Blackney was aware of it, and he hoped it would not spread, for
+nothing is so sure to make a team slump as discontent or
+dissatisfaction.
+
+"Oh, Joe!" exclaimed a girl's voice, and he turned to see his sister
+walking toward him over the field. "That was a fine run you made." She
+had two other girls with her and Joe, who was a bit bashful, turned to
+execute a retreat.
+
+"I believe you never met my brother," went on Clara, and there was a
+trace of pride in her tone. "Miss Mabel Davis," said Clara, presenting
+her to Joe, "and Miss Helen Rutherford."
+
+"I've heard my sister speak of you," murmured the young centre fielder.
+
+"And I've heard my brother speak of _you_," said Mabel, and Joe was
+conscious that he was blushing.
+
+"I've got to wash up now," he said, not knowing what to talk about when
+two pretty girls, to say nothing of his own sister, were staring at him.
+
+"Does your hand hurt you much?" asked Mabel.
+
+"No--it's only a scratch," said Joe, not with a strict regard for the
+truth.
+
+"Oh, I thought I'd faint when I saw you lying there so still," spoke
+Clara with a little shudder.
+
+"So did I," added Helen, and then Joe made his escape before they could
+"fuss" over him any more.
+
+There was considerable talk going on in the dressing room when Joe
+entered. He could hear the voice of Sam Morton raised in high and
+seemingly angry tones.
+
+"Well, I'm not going to stand for it!" the pitcher said.
+
+"Stand for what?" asked Darrell in surprise.
+
+"Being accused of the cause for the loss of this game!"
+
+"No one accuses you," put in the captain.
+
+"You might as well say it as look it," retorted Sam. "I tell you I won't
+stand for it. Just because that new fellow made a home run you're all up
+in the air about him, and for all the hard work I do, what do I get for
+it? Eh? Nothing, that's what!"
+
+"Now, look here," said Darrell soothingly, "you know you're talking
+foolishly, Sam."
+
+"I am not!" cried the pitcher petulantly. "Either Joe Matson leaves the
+team or I do, and you can have my resignation any time you want it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE
+
+
+There was a period of silence following Sam's offer of his resignation,
+and no one seemed to know just what to say. Several of the lads glanced
+at Joe, as if expecting him to say something in his own defense. In fact
+the young centre fielder was about to speak but he did not get the
+chance, for Sam exclaimed again:
+
+"Well, do you want my resignation, Darrell?"
+
+"You know I don't!" declared the manager.
+
+"Then things have got to be changed!"
+
+"Look here!" burst out Darrell. "I've stood about all I'm going to from
+you, Sam Morton. There has got to be a change in this team."
+
+"That's just what I'm giving you a chance to make," the pitcher fairly
+sneered. "You can fill my place any time you like."
+
+"But I'm not going to," and though Darrell spoke pleasantly there was a
+sternness in his words. "Fellows, it's like this," he went on. "The
+Silver Stars are a good team and you know it. So does every one in this
+town, but the last two games we've played in hard luck, and----"
+
+"Do you mean to say it was my pitching?" demanded Sam.
+
+"No more than it was the way we all played. As I said, we've got to take
+a brace. I don't know what's gotten into you, Sam, to say you'll resign
+if Joe Matson plays. What have you against him?"
+
+"Well, I hate to see a newcomer made so much of. Here we fellows have
+worked hard all season, and----"
+
+"And you're going to work hard the _rest_ of the season!" exclaimed
+Darrell. "Let me tell you that! I'm not going to hear any more talk of
+resignations, and this bickering has got to stop. Otherwise we'll be the
+laughing stock of the county. You all played pretty well to-day, but you
+all need to do better."
+
+"All but Matson; I suppose he's the star," sneered Sam.
+
+"Look here," burst out Joe, unable to stand the taunts of the pitcher
+any longer, "if you think----"
+
+"Now, go easy," advised Darrell with a smile. "I'm giving this little
+lecture. I give Matson due credit for one of the three runs we got," he
+went on, "but that's not saying that he didn't make errors. We all did.
+
+"Oh, fellows!" he pleaded and they could see that he was very much in
+earnest, "let's get together and wallop every nine we play against from
+now on! Take a brace. Forget all this feeling and get together. Matson
+and Morton, I want you to shake hands, will you?"
+
+"I'm willing," assented Joe eagerly, advancing toward Sam.
+
+The latter hesitated a moment and then, feeling the eyes of all in the
+dressing room on him, he mumbled:
+
+"Well, as long as you don't think he's the star of the Stars, I'll
+shake. Maybe I was a bit hasty," he went on, and this was a great deal
+for Sam Morton to admit. He and Joe shook hands, though it cannot be
+said that there was any warmth on the part of the pitcher. Still it was
+better than open enmity, though Joe wondered if Sam would be really
+friendly.
+
+"That's better," commented the manager with something like a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"And don't let this go any further," suggested the captain. "We don't
+want it known that there came near being a break in the Stars. Now get
+together, fellows. Show up at practice strong next time, and we'll win
+our next game!"
+
+"That's the way to talk!" cried Tom Davis, and the crisis was
+passed--for a time.
+
+And, to the delight of Joe, he found that he had made many new friends,
+chiefly because of his sensational run. The members of the team, of
+course, crowded around him congratulating him, and asking him how he did
+it. But, in addition, there now flocked into the dressing room a crowd
+of lads who had witnessed the game. Some of them were high school pupils
+who knew Joe, at least by sight, but they now came up and spoke to him.
+Other town lads did the same thing.
+
+"Gee! It's great to be popular!" exclaimed Tom, with a mock sigh. "Why
+wasn't I born a home-run hitter instead of good looking, I wonder?"
+
+"Get out!" laughed Joe. "Don't make me get a swelled head."
+
+"No danger, I guess," retorted Tom.
+
+Darrell and the captain strolled up to Joe, who had finished dressing.
+
+"Well, that's over, for a while," said Darrell in a low voice, evidently
+referring to the unpleasant little incident. "I want to ask you to do
+some practicing, Matson. You need to try throwing a bit, for it's a long
+heave in from centre field and, to be frank, you aren't any too good at
+it."
+
+"I'll practice every day," exclaimed our hero eagerly.
+
+"And I'll coach him," added Tom.
+
+"Get out, you lobster, you need coaching yourself," said the captain
+with a laugh. "You'll get rusty if Darrell doesn't get off first and
+give you a chance."
+
+"I'll do it more often now," said the manager. "I want to be more on the
+coaching line. Two wallops in two weeks is more than the Stars can
+stand."
+
+"Who do we play next week?" asked Tom.
+
+"The Denville Whizzers, but I don't imagine we'll have much trouble with
+them," said the manager. "However, it won't do to take any chances.
+Practice hard, fellows," and with that he left the dressing room.
+
+Sam Morton had gone out some time before and Joe and Tom soon followed.
+As they strolled down the street toward their homes Tom said:
+
+"Say Joe, I was in earnest in saying I'd coach you. I believe you do
+need practice in throwing, and if you haven't given up the idea of
+pitching some day----"
+
+"I'll never give up the idea until I'm knocked out of the box," declared
+Joe.
+
+"Good! Then I'll help coach you. I was going to say it wasn't much fun
+practicing alone, and as a matter of fact it doesn't do much good."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, I've been reading up about baseball lately. I got a book on
+pitching, and----"
+
+"Say, will you lend it to me?" asked Joe eagerly. "Or tell me where I
+can buy one?"
+
+"Sure I will. I was going to say that it has articles in it by star
+professional pitchers and a lot of them agree that it isn't much use
+just to go out and throw a ball at a spot on the backstop or the fence."
+
+"What's the best way then?" asked Joe, who had supposed from his limited
+knowledge that to practice at hitting a certain spot with the ball was
+about the best he could do.
+
+"Why, they say the best is to get something like a home plate--a flat
+stone say--and pitch over it with some one to catch for you."
+
+"I suppose that would be a good way," began Joe doubtfully, "but who's
+going to catch for me?"
+
+"I am!" exclaimed Tom quickly. "I said just now that I'd coach you. I'll
+do more than that, I'll catch for you. And the book I spoke of has other
+tricks of practice, so a fellow can get good control of a ball. That's
+the thing pitchers need it says--control. Say, we'll have some fun, you
+and I, down in a vacant lot practicing. When can you come?"
+
+"How about Monday afternoon?"
+
+"Suits me first rate."
+
+"All right, we'll make it then, and we'll get in some scientific
+practice for you. Maybe after all, you'll pitch in Sam's place before
+the season is over."
+
+"I wouldn't want to do it, if it's going to make a row in the team."
+
+"Oh, don't let that worry you. Lots of the fellows don't like Sam any
+too well. They'd as soon have some one else in the box if he could
+deliver the goods. Well, so long; see you Monday, if not before."
+
+"I guess I'm glad dad moved to Riverside after all," mused Joe as he
+walked toward home. "I was afraid I wouldn't like it at first, but now
+I'm on the team it's all right. I hope dad doesn't have any business
+troubles though. I wonder what is wrong for I'm sure something is. I
+hope it doesn't prevent me from going to boarding school next year," and
+with this reflection Joe went in the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A KETTLE OF APPLE SAUCE
+
+
+"Well, Joe, are you all ready?" It was Tom Davis, and he had called at
+Joe's house on his way from school, as Tom had to remain in physics
+class to finish an experiment, and Joe had gone on ahead.
+
+"I sure am, Tom. Where are we going to practice? Over on the
+fairgrounds?"
+
+"No, that's too far. We'll go down in the vacant lots back of Mrs.
+Peterkin's house. There's a high fence back of her house and that will
+be a good backstop, in case I can't hold your hot ones."
+
+"Oh, I guess you can all right," replied Joe with a laugh, "though I
+wish I did have lots of speed."
+
+"Say now, don't make that mistake," said Tom earnestly, as Joe came out
+to join him, having picked up some old balls and a pitcher's glove.
+
+"What mistake?"
+
+"Trying for speed before you have control. I saw an article about that
+in the pitching book last night. I brought it along. Here it is," and
+both boys looked eagerly over the book as they walked along.
+
+As Tom had said, some of the best authorities on pitching did advocate
+the trying for control before a prospective boxman endeavored to get
+either speed or curves.
+
+"The thing seems to be," remarked Joe, "to get a ball just where you
+want it, ten times out of ten if you can, and then when you can do that,
+try for the in and out shoots and the drop."
+
+"That's it," agreed Tom. "Are you any good at throwing stones?"
+
+"I don't know. Why?"
+
+"Well, one fellow says that the lad who can throw a stone straight can
+generally throw a ball straight. We'll have a contest when we get down
+to the lots. Nobody will see us there."
+
+"I hope not," remarked Joe. "I don't want to be laughed at the way I was
+when Sam caught me down at the fairgrounds. I guess he thought I was
+trying for his place then, and that's what made him mad."
+
+The two friends were soon down behind the high board fence that marked
+the boundaries of the Peterkin property. It was rather a large
+place--the Peterkin one--and was occupied by an aged couple. Mrs.
+Alvirah Peterkin was quite a housewife, always engaged in some kitchen
+or other household duties, while Ebenezer, her husband "puttered" around
+the garden, as the folks of Riverside expressed it.
+
+"Well, I guess we're all ready," remarked Tom, when he had picked out a
+large flat stone to represent home plate. He took his position behind
+it, with his back to the fence, so that if any balls got by him they
+would hit the barrier and bound back.
+
+Joe began to pitch, endeavoring to bear in mind what the book had said
+about getting the balls where he wanted them.
+
+"That was pretty far out from the plate," called Tom dubiously, after
+one effort on the part of his chum.
+
+"I know it was. Here's a better one."
+
+"Good! That's the stuff. It was a strike all right--right over the
+middle. Keep it up."
+
+For a time Joe kept this up, pitching at moderate speed, and then the
+temptation to "cut loose" could not be resisted. He "wound up" as he had
+seen professional pitchers do and let the ball go. With considerable
+force it went right through Tom's hands and crashed up against the fence
+with a resounding bang. It was the first ball Tom had let get past him.
+
+"That was a hot one all right!" the catcher called, "but it was away
+out."
+
+"All right, I'll slow down again," said Joe. He was a little
+disappointed that he could not combine speed and accuracy.
+
+The boys were about to resume their practice when a face, fringed with a
+shock of white hair on top, and a little ring of whiskers encircling it
+below, was raised over the edge of the fence, and a mild voice demanded:
+
+"What you boys up to now--tryin' to knock down my fence?"
+
+"Oh, hello, Mr. Peterkin," called Tom. "We're just playing
+baseball--that's all."
+
+"Where's the rest of ye?" the old man wanted to know.
+
+"This is all there are of us," replied Tom, waving his hand toward Joe.
+
+"Humph! Fust time I ever heard of two boys playin' a ball game all by
+themselves," commented the aged man with a chuckle. "But I s'pose it's
+one of them new-fangled kind. Land sakes, what th' world a-comin' t'
+anyhow, I'd like t' know? Wa'al, keep on, only don't knock any boards
+offen my fence," he stipulated as he resumed the making of his garden.
+
+The boys laughingly promised and resumed their practice. Tom was a good
+catcher and he had an accurate eye. He did not hesitate to tell Joe when
+the balls were bad and he was a severe critic, for he had taken an
+honest liking to the newcomer, and wanted to see him succeed.
+
+"Just try for control," was the gist of his advice. "The rest if it will
+take care of itself."
+
+"Don't you want to pitch and let me catch for you?" asked Joe after a
+bit, fearing that he was somewhat selfish.
+
+"No, I don't specially need any practice at throwing," said Tom. "First
+is my position. I like it better than any other, and catching is the
+best practice I can have for that. Keep it up."
+
+So Joe kept on, using moderate speed after the warning of Mr. Peterkin,
+so that no more balls struck the fence. But then again came the almost
+irresistible desire to put on "steam," and indulging in this Joe sent in
+another "hot one."
+
+Almost the instant it left his hand Joe realized that he had lost
+control of the ball and that it was going wild. He instinctively reached
+out to pull it back, but it was too late.
+
+"Grab it!" he yelled to Tom.
+
+The plucky little first baseman made a magnificent jump up in the air,
+but the ball merely grazed the tip of his up-stretched glove. Then it
+went on over the fence at undiminished speed. An instant later there
+was the cry of alarm.
+
+"Who did that?" demanded the voice--a voice full of anger. "Who threw
+that ball? Oh! Oh! Of all things! I demand to know who did it?"
+
+Joe and Tom were silent--looking blankly one at the other. Up over the
+fence rose the mild and bewhiskered face of Mr. Peterkin.
+
+"Boys," asked the aged man gently. "Did anything happen? It sounds like
+it to me."
+
+"I--I threw the ball over the fence," admitted Joe.
+
+"Hum! Then I'm afraid something _did_ happen," went on Mr. Peterkin
+still more gently. "Yes, I'm _sure_ of it," he added as the sound of
+some one coming down the garden path could be heard. "Here comes
+Alvirah. Something has happened. Do--do you want to run?" he asked, for
+rumor had it that Mrs. Peterkin was possessed of no gentle temper and
+Mr. Peterkin--well, he was a very mild-mannered man, every one knew
+that. "Do you want to run?" he asked again.
+
+"No," said Tom.
+
+"Of course not," added Joe. "If we broke a window we'll pay for it--I'll
+pay for it," he corrected himself, for he had thrown the ball.
+
+Mrs. Peterkin advanced to where her husband was working in the garden.
+The boys could not see the lady but they could hear her.
+
+"You didn't throw that ball, did you, Ebenezer?" she asked. "If you
+did--at your age--cutting up such foolish tricks as playing
+baseball--I--I'll----"
+
+"No, Alvirah, I didn't do it, of course not," Mr. Peterkin hastened to
+say. "It was a couple of boys. Tom Davis and a friend of his. They were
+playing ball back of the fence and----"
+
+"And they've run off now, I'll venture!" exclaimed the rasping voice of
+Mrs. Peterkin.
+
+"No--no, I don't think so, Alvirah," said Mr. Peterkin mildly. "I--I
+rather think they're there yet. I asked 'em if they didn't want to run
+and----"
+
+"You--asked them--if--they--didn't--want--to--run?" gasped Mrs.
+Peterkin, as if unable to believe his words. "Why, the very--idea!"
+
+"Oh, I knew they'd pay for any damage they did," said her husband
+quickly, "and I--er--I sort of thought--well, anyhow they're over
+there," and he pointed to the fence.
+
+"Let me see them! Let me talk to them!" demanded Mrs. Peterkin.
+
+"Stand on that soap box an' ye kin see over the fence," said Mr.
+Peterkin. "But look out. The bottom is sort of soft an' ye may----"
+
+He did not finish his sentence. The very accident he feared had
+happened. Mrs. Peterkin, being a large and heavy woman, had stepped in
+the middle of the box. The bottom boards, being old, had given way and
+there she was--stuck with both feet in the soap box.
+
+"Ebenezer!" she cried. "Help me! Don't you know any better than to stand
+there staring at me? Haven't you got any senses?"
+
+"Of course I'll help you, Alvirah," he said. "I rather thought you'd go
+through that box."
+
+"Then you'd no business to let me use it!" she snapped.
+
+"It allers held _me_ up when I wanted to look over the fence," he said
+mildly. "But then of course I never stepped in the middle of it," he
+added as he helped his wife pull aside the broken boards so she could
+step out. "I kept on the edges."
+
+"Have those boys gone?" she demanded when free.
+
+"I don't think so. I'll look," he volunteered as he turned the soap box
+up on edge and peered over the fence. "No, they're here yet," he
+answered as he saw Joe and Tom standing there, trying their best not to
+laugh. "Was you wantin' to speak with 'em, Alvirah?"
+
+"Speak with them! Of course I do!" she cried. "Tell them to come around
+to the side gate. I'll _speak_ to them," and she drew herself up like an
+angry hen.
+
+"Did--did they smash a window?" asked Mr. Peterkin.
+
+"Smash a window? I only wish it was no worse than that!" cried his wife.
+"They threw their nasty baseball into a kettle of apple sauce that was
+stewing on the stove, and the sauce splashed all over my clean kitchen.
+Tell them to come around. I'll _speak_ to them!"
+
+"I--I guess you'd better come in, boys," said Mr. Peterkin softly, as
+he delivered the message over the fence. Then he added--but to
+himself--"Maybe you might better have run while you had the chance."
+
+"We're in for it I guess," murmured Tom, as he and Joe went around to
+the side gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+JOE OVERHEARS SOMETHING
+
+
+"Are you the boys who threw the baseball through my kitchen window into
+my kettle of apple sauce?" demanded Mrs. Peterkin, as she confronted the
+two culprits.
+
+"I threw it," admitted Joe.
+
+"But we didn't know it went into the apple sauce," added Tom.
+
+"Nor through the window," spoke Joe for want of something better to say.
+"It was a wild throw."
+
+"Humph!" exclaimed the irate lady. "I don't know what kind of a throw it
+was but I know _I_ was wild when I saw my kitchen. I never saw such a
+sight in all my born days--never! You come and look at it."
+
+"If--if you please I'd rather not," said Joe quickly. "I'll pay you
+whatever damages you say, but I--I----"
+
+"I just want you to see that kitchen!" insisted Mrs. Peterkin. "It's
+surprising how mischievous boys can be when they try."
+
+"But we didn't try," put in Tom. "This was an accident."
+
+"Come and see my kitchen!" repeated Mrs. Peterkin firmly and she seemed
+capable of taking them each by an ear and leading them in.
+
+"You--you'd better go," advised Mr. Peterkin gently.
+
+So they went, and truly the sight that met their eyes showed them that
+Mrs. Peterkin had some excuse for being angry. On the stove there had
+been cooking a large kettle of sauce made from early apples. The window
+near the stove had been left open and through the casement the ball,
+thrown with all Joe's strength, had flown, landing fairly into the
+middle of the soft sauce.
+
+The result may easily be imagined. It splattered all over the floor,
+half way up on the side walls, and there were even spots of the sauce on
+the ceiling. The top of the stove was covered with it, and as the lids
+were hot they had burned the sugar to charcoal, while the kitchen was
+filled with smoke and fumes.
+
+"There!" cried Mrs. Peterkin, as she waved her hand at the scene of
+ruin. "Did you ever see such a kitchen as that? And it was clean
+scrubbed only this morning! Did you ever see anything like that? Tell
+me!"
+
+Joe and Tom were both forced to murmur that they had never beheld such a
+sight before. And they added with equal but unexpressed truth that they
+hoped they never would again.
+
+"I'm willing to pay for the damage," said Joe once more, and his hand
+went toward his pocket. "It was an accident."
+
+"Maybe it was," sniffed Mrs. Peterkin. "I won't say that it wasn't, but
+that won't clean my kitchen."
+
+Joe caught at these words.
+
+"I'm willing to help you clean up!" he exclaimed eagerly. "I often help
+at home when my mother is sick. Let me do it, and I'll pay for the apple
+sauce I spoiled."
+
+"I'll help," put in Tom eagerly.
+
+"Who is your mother?" asked Mrs. Peterkin, looking at Joe.
+
+"Mrs. Matson," he replied.
+
+"Oh, you're the new family that moved into town?" and there was
+something of a change in the irate lady's manner.
+
+"Yes, we live in the big yellow house near----"
+
+"It's right back of our place, Mrs. Peterkin," put in Tom eagerly.
+
+"Hum! I've been intending to call on your mother," went on Mrs.
+Peterkin, ignoring Tom. "I always call on all the new arrivals in town,
+but I've been so busy with my housework and Spring cleaning----"
+
+She paused and gazed about the kitchen. _That_, at least, would need
+cleaning over again.
+
+"Yes," she resumed, "I always call and invite them to join our Sewing
+and Dorcas Societies."
+
+"My mother belonged to both!" exclaimed Joe eagerly. "That is in
+Bentville where we lived. I heard her saying she wondered if there was a
+society here."
+
+"There is," answered Mrs. Peterkin majestically, "and I think I shall
+call soon, and ask her to join. You may tell her I said so," she added
+as if it was a great honor.
+
+"I will," answered Joe. "And now if you'll tell me where I can get some
+old cloths I'll help clean up this muss."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Peterkin slowly. Clearly her manner had
+undergone a great change. "I suppose boys must have their fun," she said
+with something like a sigh. "I know you didn't mean to do it, but my
+apple sauce is spoiled."
+
+"I'll pay for it," offered Joe eagerly. He was beginning to see a rift
+in the trouble clouds.
+
+"No," said Mrs. Peterkin, "it's all right. I have plenty more apples."
+
+"Then let us help clean the place?" asked Tom.
+
+"No, indeed!" she exclaimed, with as near a laugh as she ever indulged.
+"I don't want any men folks traipsing around my kitchen. I'll clean it
+myself."
+
+"Well, let us black the stove for you," offered Tom.
+
+"That's it, Alvirah," put in Mr. Peterkin quickly. He rather sided with
+the boys, and he was glad that the mention of Joe's mother, and the
+possibility of Mrs. Peterkin getting a new member for the societies, of
+both of which she was president, had taken her mind off her desire for
+revenge. "Let the boys black the stove. You know you always hate that
+work."
+
+"Well, I suppose they could do _that_," she admitted somewhat
+reluctantly. "But don't splatter it all over, though the land knows
+this kitchen can't be worse."
+
+Behold then, a little later, two of the members of the Silver Star nine
+industriously cleaning hardened apple sauce off the Peterkin kitchen
+stove, and blackening it until it shone brightly.
+
+"I'm glad Sam Morton can't see us," spoke Tom in a whisper.
+
+"Yes; we'd never hear the last of it," agreed Joe.
+
+They finished the work and even Mrs. Peterkin, careful housekeeper that
+she was, admitted that the stove "looked fairly good."
+
+"And be sure and tell your mother that I'm coming to call on her," she
+added, as Joe and Tom were about to leave.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," answered the centre fielder, and then he paused on the
+threshold of the kitchen.
+
+"Have you forgotten something?" asked Mrs. Peterkin, who was preparing
+to give the place a thorough scrubbing.
+
+"We--er--that is----" stammered Joe.
+
+"It's their baseball, I guess," put in Mr. Peterkin. "It is in the
+kettle of apple sass, Alvirah."
+
+"Oh, yes; so it is," she agreed, and this time she really laughed.
+"Well, you may have it," she added. "I don't want it." With a dipper she
+fished it up from the bottom of the kettle, put it under the water
+faucet to clean it, and held it out to Joe.
+
+"Thanks," he said as he took it and hurried off with Tom, before
+anything more could be said.
+
+"Whew!" exclaimed Tom, when they were out in the lots again. "That was a
+hot time while it lasted. And we got out of it mighty lucky, thanks to
+your mother. Mrs. Peterkin is great on the society business, and I guess
+she thought if she gave it to us too hot your mother wouldn't call on
+her. Yes, we were lucky all right. Want to practice some more?"
+
+"Not to-day," replied Joe with a smile. "I've had enough. Besides, this
+ball is all wet and slippery. Anyhow there's lots more time, and I guess
+the next day we do it we'll go down to the fairgrounds."
+
+"Yes, there's more room there, and no kettles of apple sauce," agreed
+Tom, with a laugh.
+
+As Tom had an errand to do down town for his father he did not accompany
+Joe back to their respective homes.
+
+"I'll see you to-night," he called to his chum, as they parted, "and
+we'll arrange for some more practice. I think it's doing you good."
+
+"I know my arm is a bit sore," complained Joe.
+
+"Then you want to take good care of it," said Tom quickly. "All the
+authorities in the book say that a pitching arm is too valuable to let
+anything get the matter with it. Bathe it with witch hazel to-night."
+
+"I will. So long."
+
+As Joe had not many lessons to prepare that night, and as it was still
+rather early and he did not want to go home, he decided to take a
+little walk out in the country for a short distance. As he trudged along
+he was thinking of many things, but chief of all was his chances for
+becoming at least a substitute pitcher on the Silver Stars.
+
+"If I could get in the box, and was sure of going to boarding school, I
+wouldn't ask anything else in this world," said Joe to himself. Like all
+boys he had his ambitions, and he little realized how such ambitions
+would change as he became older. But they were sufficient for him now.
+
+Before he knew it he had covered several miles, for the day was a fine
+Spring one, just right for walking, and his thoughts, being subject to
+quick changes, his feet kept pace with them.
+
+As he made a turn in the road he saw, just ahead of him, an old building
+that had once, so some of the boys had told him, been used as a
+spring-house for cooling the butter and milk of the farm to which it
+belonged. But it had now fallen into disuse, though the spring was there
+yet.
+
+The main part of it was covered by the shed, but the water ran out into
+a hollowed-out tree trunk where a cocoanut shell hung as a dipper.
+
+"Guess I'll have a drink," mused Joe. "I'm as dry as a fish and that's
+fine water." He had once taken some when he and Tom Davis took a
+country stroll.
+
+As he was sipping the cool beverage he heard inside the old shed the
+murmur of voices.
+
+"Hum! Tramps I guess," reasoned Joe to himself. But a moment later he
+knew it could not be tramps for the words he heard were these:
+
+"And do you think you can get control of the patents?"
+
+"I'm sure of it," was the answer. "He doesn't know about the reverting
+clause in his contract, and he's working on a big improvement in a
+corn----"
+
+Then the voice died away, though Joe strained his ears in vain to catch
+the other words. Somehow he felt vaguely uneasy.
+
+"Where have I heard that first voice before?" he murmured, racking his
+brains. Then like a flash it came to him. The quick, incisive tones were
+those of Mr. Rufus Holdney, of Moorville, to whom he had once gone with
+a letter from Mr. Matson.
+
+"And if you can get the patents," went on Mr. Holdney, "then it means a
+large sum of money."
+
+"For both of us," came the eager answer, and Joe wondered whom the other
+man could be.
+
+"You are sure there won't be any slip-up?" asked Mr. Holdney.
+
+"Positively. But come on. We've been here long enough and people might
+talk if they saw us here together. Yet I wanted to have a talk with you
+in a quiet place, and this was the best one I could think of. I own this
+old farm."
+
+"Very well, then I'll be getting back to Moorville. Be sure to keep me
+informed how the thing goes."
+
+"I will."
+
+There was a movement inside the shed as if the men were coming out.
+
+"I'd better make myself scarce," thought Joe.
+
+He had just time to drop down behind a screen of bushes when the two men
+did emerge. Joe had no need to look to tell who one was, but he was
+curious in regard to the other. Cautiously he peered up, and his heart
+almost stopped beating as he recognized Mr. Isaac Benjamin, the manager
+of the Royal Harvester Works where the boy's father was employed.
+
+"There's some crooked work on hand, I'll bet a cookie!" murmured Joe, as
+he crouched down again while the two men walked off up the country
+road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MR. MATSON IS ALARMED
+
+
+Joe Matson did not know what to do. He wanted to rush away from where he
+was concealed, get home as quickly as possible, and tell his father what
+he had overheard. While Mr. Matson's name had not been mentioned,
+knowing, as Joe did, that his parent was engaged on some patents, seeing
+Mr. Benjamin, manager of the Harvester works, and having heard the
+conversation between him and Mr. Holdney, the lad was almost certain
+that some danger threatened his father.
+
+"And yet I can't get away from here until they're well out of sight,"
+reasoned Joe. "If I go now they'll see or hear me, and they'll be bound
+to suspect something. Yet I'd like to warn dad as soon as I can. There's
+no telling when they may put up some job against him."
+
+But Joe could only crouch down there and wait.
+
+At length he could stand it no longer. He reasoned that the men must be
+far enough away by this time to make it safe for him to emerge.
+
+"They're on the road to Riverside," thought Joe, "and I may run into
+them, but if I see them I can slip into the fields and go around. Mr.
+Benjamin doesn't know me, for he's hardly ever noticed me when I've been
+to the Harvester works to see dad. But Mr. Holdney might remember me. I
+can't take any chances."
+
+Cautiously he emerged from the bushes, and looked as far down the road
+as he could. There was no one in sight, and he started off. A little
+distance farther on, the road made a sharp turn and, just at the angle
+stood an old barn which hid the rest of the highway from sight until one
+was right at the turn. It was a dangerous place for vehicles, but the
+owner of the barn had refused to set it back.
+
+No sooner had Joe turned this corner than he came full upon Mr. Benjamin
+and Mr. Holdney standing just around the barn, apparently in deep
+conversation. At the sight of Joe they looked up quickly, and Mr.
+Benjamin exclaimed:
+
+"Ha! Perhaps this lad can tell us. We want to hire a carriage. Do you
+know any one around here who would let us take one for a short time?"
+
+Joe, who had started back at the unexpected sight of the two men, took
+courage on hearing this, and realizing that he had not yet been
+recognized.
+
+"I don't know any one around here," he said. "I'm pretty much of a
+stranger myself, but have you tried at this farmhouse?" and he pointed
+toward the one where the owner of the barn lived.
+
+"Oh, we don't want a farm horse!" exclaimed Mr. Holdney. "We want
+something that has some speed." Then, as he looked more fully at Joe he
+exclaimed: "Haven't I seen you somewhere before, my lad? I'm sure I
+have!"
+
+He took a step toward our hero, and Joe's heart gave a flutter. He was
+almost certain that Mr. Holdney would recognize him and then the next
+step would be to ask where he had been. The men might at once suspect
+that he had at least come past the place where they had been talking in
+secret, and they might even suspect that he had listened to them. Joe
+was in a predicament.
+
+"I'm sure I've met you somewhere before," went on Mr. Holdney, in his
+quick, nervous tones. "Do you live around here?"
+
+"Yes," answered Joe vaguely. "But I don't know where you could get a
+fast horse unless it's in town--in Riverside."
+
+He was about to pass on, hoping the men would not further bother him,
+when Mr. Holdney, coming a step nearer, said with great firmness:
+
+"I'm sure I've seen you before. What's your name?"
+
+Like a flash a way out of it came to Joe, and that without telling an
+untruth.
+
+"I play on the Silver Stars," he said quickly. "You may have seen me at
+some of the games," which was perfectly possible.
+
+"That's it!" exclaimed Mr. Holdney. "I knew it was somewhere. Now----"
+
+"I'm going into Riverside," went on Joe quickly. "If you like I'll stop
+at the livery stable and tell them to send out a rig for you if you want
+to wait here for it."
+
+"The very thing!" exclaimed Mr. Benjamin. "Let him do that, Rufus.
+Here's a quarter to pay for your trouble, my lad."
+
+"No, thank you!" exclaimed Joe with a laugh. "I'm glad to do you a
+favor."
+
+"All right," assented Mr. Benjamin. "If you'll send out a two-seated
+carriage and a man to drive it we'll be obliged to you. Then we can
+drive over and see Duncan," he added to Mr. Holdney. "We'll fix this
+thing all up now."
+
+"Yes, and if it's my father you're trying to 'fix,'" mused Joe, "I'll do
+my best to put a stop to it. Now, it's up to me to hurry home," and
+telling the men that he would do the errand for them, the lad hastened
+off down the road, leaving the two conspirators in earnest conversation.
+
+The livery stable keeper readily agreed to send out the carriage, and
+then Joe lost no time in hurrying to his house.
+
+"Has father come home yet?" he asked of his mother, for sometimes Mr.
+Matson came from the harvester works earlier than the regular stopping
+time.
+
+"No," answered Mrs. Matson, "why, what is the matter, Joe? Has anything
+happened?" for she noticed by his face that something out of the usual
+had occurred.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," he answered slowly. He was revolving in his mind
+whether or not he ought to tell his mother. Then, as he recollected that
+his father always consulted her on business matters, he decided that he
+would relate his experience.
+
+"Mother," he said, "isn't father interested in some sort of a patent
+about corn?"
+
+"About corn? Oh, I know what you mean. Yes, he is working on an
+improvement to a corn reaper and binder. It is a machine partly owned by
+the harvester people, but he expects to make considerable money by
+perfecting the machine. It is very crude now, and doesn't do good work."
+
+"And if he does perfect it, and some one gets the patents away from
+him, he _won't_ make the money!" exclaimed Joe.
+
+"Joe, what do you mean?" cried his mother in alarm. "I am sure something
+has happened. What is it?"
+
+"It hasn't happened yet, but it may any time," answered the lad, and
+then he told of what he had overheard, and his ideas of what was
+pending.
+
+"That's why I wanted to see father in a hurry, to warn him," he
+concluded.
+
+"Joe, I believe you're right!" exclaimed Mrs. Matson. "Your father ought
+to be told at once. I don't know what he can do--if anything--to prevent
+these men getting ahead of him. Oh, it's too bad! I know he always
+suspected Mr. Benjamin of not being strictly honest, but Mr. Holdney
+used to be his friend and on several occasions has loaned your father
+money. Oh, this is too bad, but perhaps it isn't too late. If I were you
+I'd go down toward the harvester works and you may meet father coming
+home. Then you can tell him all about it, and he may want to go back and
+get some of his papers, or parts of the machine, from his office so
+those men can't take them."
+
+"That's the very thing, mother!" cried Joe. "You ought to have been a
+man--or a boy and a baseball player! You can think so quickly. That
+reminds me; I had quite an experience to-day. Just say 'apple sauce' to
+me when I get back, and I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"It can't be possible!" exclaimed Mr. Matson, when Joe, having met him
+just outside the harvester works, told him of what he had heard. "It
+hardly seems possible that they would do such a thing. But I'm glad you
+told me, Joe."
+
+"Do you think they meant you, dad? I didn't hear them mention your
+name."
+
+"Of course they meant me!" declared Mr. Matson. "The warning came just
+in time, too, for only to-day I finished an important part of the
+machinery and the pattern of it is in my office now. I must go back and
+get it. Wait here for me."
+
+As Joe stood at the outer gate of the big harvester plant he heard the
+sound of a carriage approaching, and turning around he saw Mr. Benjamin
+and Mr. Holdney coming along in the rig Joe had had sent out to them
+only a little while before.
+
+"I thought better to drive back here first, and go see Duncan later,"
+Mr. Benjamin was saying, and then both men caught sight of our hero.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A THROWING CONTEST
+
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Benjamin. "There's that same lad again!"
+
+"What lad?" quickly demanded Mr. Holdney. "Oh, the one who sent us out
+this rig. I wonder----"
+
+"Did you want to see any one around the works?" interrupted Mr.
+Benjamin. "I don't want to seem impolite, after the service you
+rendered, but we don't allow loiterers here."
+
+A number of thoughts passed rapidly through Joe's mind. He realized that
+his father might come out at any moment and be seen by the manager
+carrying off the valuable patterns. Mr. Matson ought to be warned, for
+Joe realized that if they were to frustrate the conspiracy it would be
+best that the men did not know that they were on the verge of discovery.
+
+"I want to take a message to Mr. Matson," said Joe boldly, for this was
+the truth. He had quickly formed a plan in his mind, and he hoped that
+it would not be discovered that he was Mr. Matson's son. It was this
+very trick of quick thinking that afterward became of so much service to
+Joe in his notable career on the diamond.
+
+"Oh, then it's all right," said Mr. Benjamin. "You may go in. You'll
+find Mr. Matson in his office, I dare say." He smiled at Joe in what he
+doubtless meant to be a friendly fashion, but the young baseball player
+could not help but see the hypocrisy in it.
+
+Not pausing to exchange any other talk, Joe slipped in through the big
+iron gate and made his way to his father's office. He had been there
+before.
+
+Just as he reached it the heavy whistle blew, announcing closing time,
+and hundreds of hands began pouring from the various machine and casting
+shops.
+
+"Hello, Joe!" called Seth Potter, who played left field for the Silver
+Stars. "What you doing here, looking for a job?" Seth was employed in
+one of the offices, and was considered a valuable young man.
+
+"Yes, I want to learn how to make a machine so I don't miss any flies
+that come my way," laughed Joe.
+
+"That's right! Going to play with us Saturday?"
+
+"I hope so," and then, with a few other pleasant words, Seth hurried on,
+and Joe sought his father. He found Mr. Matson wrapping up some models.
+
+"Quick dad!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Holdney are out at the
+gate. They just drove up. I slipped in to warn you!"
+
+"Good, Joe! I'm glad you did. I wouldn't want them to see me taking
+these things away, for it would tell them that their game was
+discovered, and I want to find out more of what their plans are before
+they are aware of it."
+
+"But how you going to get out?" asked his son. "They're there yet," he
+added, for he could look from a window and see the carriage still at the
+gate.
+
+"Oh, you and I can slip out the back way. It's lucky you told me. There,
+I'm ready," and having locked his desk, Mr. Matson took his package and
+with Joe went out of a rear exit, going home by a roundabout way so that
+the conspirators did not see them.
+
+"My! I wish this thing hadn't happened, or that it was postponed for a
+while," said Mr. Matson thoughtfully as he walked along.
+
+"Why, is it likely to be serious, dad?"
+
+"I'm afraid so. You see I have a peculiar arrangement with the harvester
+concern in regard to things that I might invent. It is too complicated
+to go into all the details, but I have to trust to their honor to give
+me my rights in certain matters. If they wanted to they could deprive me
+of the benefits of my patents and the law could not help me. So I have
+to be very careful. Up to now I have trusted Mr. Benjamin implicitly,
+but now--now I will be on my guard. It is a lucky thing you overheard
+that talk."
+
+There was an earnest consultation between Mr. and Mrs. Matson that
+night, to which Joe and his sister were not admitted, for it was
+business they would not have understood. But at the close they were told
+to say nothing of what had happened that day.
+
+"I will keep right on at the harvester works as if nothing had
+occurred," said Mr. Matson, "and then they will not get suspicious. But
+I will do the most important and secret work on my invention here at
+home."
+
+"Now that it is all settled," said Clara, "I'm going to say 'apple
+sauce' to you, Joe. What does it mean?"
+
+"Oh, yes," and the young baseball player laughed. "Well I guess you've
+got to join the Dorcas and Sewing societies, mother, to keep me out of a
+scrape," and with many funny touches Joe told about his wild throw that
+day, making an amusing story of it.
+
+"Oh, I would have given anything if some of the girls and I could have
+been there when you and Tom were blacking the stove!" exclaimed Clara
+with a laugh.
+
+"I'm glad you weren't," declared Joe, "though it's lucky we didn't have
+to mop up the floor. After this I'm going to go a mile away from her
+house when I want to practice throwing."
+
+"I should think you would," agreed Mr. Matson.
+
+"But you'll join those societies; won't you mother?" asked Joe.
+
+"Oh, I suppose I'll have to, in order to keep you out of prison," she
+agreed with a laugh. "But please don't make any more engagements for me,
+as my time is pretty well occupied."
+
+It was two days after this when Tom Davis, coming out of school, caught
+up with Joe who was a little in advance of him.
+
+"Got anything special to do?" asked the substitute first baseman.
+
+"No, why?"
+
+"I thought maybe you'd like to go out in the lot again, and have some
+more practice."
+
+"Back of Mrs. Peterkin's house?" asked Joe with a smile.
+
+"I should say not! But I've got a new scheme. I read about it in that
+baseball book. We'll have a contest for long distance throwing and
+accuracy."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why you and I'll go down in the same lots but we'll throw in the other
+direction. Then we can't hit anything. We'll see who can throw the
+farthest. You'll need to practice that if you are to play centre field."
+
+"What's the other contest?"
+
+"For straight aim. I'll get an old basket, and we'll see who can land
+the most balls in it. Want to try?"
+
+"Sure. Anything to improve myself," said Joe earnestly.
+
+A little later he and his chum were on their way to the vacant lots. As
+they walked along they met several other lads, some of whom played on
+the regular team, a few from the High School nine, and some from the
+Silver Star scrub.
+
+"What's doing?" demanded Rodney Burke.
+
+"We're going to see who is the best thrower," answered Tom.
+
+"Give us a show at it?" requested Ford Wilson.
+
+"Sure," assented Joe. "The more, the merrier."
+
+Soon a jolly crowd of youngsters were taking turns at the long distance
+throwing. After several tries the record lay between Joe and Rodney
+Burke, and they played off a tie, Joe winning by about seven feet.
+
+"That's a good throw all right," complimented the loser.
+
+"A fellow who's playing centre field needs to have a pretty good heave,"
+said Joe. "Especially if he's up against a heavy-hitting team."
+
+"And that's been our luck for some time past," spoke Tom. "Well, now for
+the basket test."
+
+This was more difficult than straight throwing for distance and several
+of the lads dropped out, being disqualified by failures. But Tom, Joe
+and Rodney remained in, and for a time it was pretty even between them.
+Finally it narrowed down to Tom and Joe, and they were just ready to
+throw the deciding round when a new voice called out:
+
+"Any objections to me joining?"
+
+Joe and the others turned, to see the half-mocking face of Sam Morton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ANOTHER DEFEAT
+
+
+For a moment there was some embarrassment, as Sam was not in the habit
+of mingling with this crowd of boys. He had his own friends, not very
+many, to tell the truth, but he was usually with them. The lads did not
+know exactly how to take his request, but Joe came to the rescue.
+
+"Sure you can come in," he said heartily. "We're just seeing who can put
+the most balls in the basket."
+
+"What good do you think that does?" asked Sam.
+
+"Well, doesn't it help a fellow to get a straight aim?" asked Tom, half
+defiantly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," was the rather sneering answer. "It might, if you
+kept at it long enough."
+
+"Let's see you try it," suggested Rodney Burke, who did not hold Sam in
+much awe.
+
+Carelessly the Silver Star pitcher accepted a ball that Joe obligingly
+held out. He threw quickly and the ball landed squarely in the basket.
+Then he did the trick again, and there was a little murmur of applause,
+for only a few of the boys had "two straight" to their credit.
+
+"Joe did three straight a while ago," said Tom proudly. "He and I are
+playing off a tie."
+
+Sam did not answer but threw again, and the ball went wide of the basket
+by two feet at least. Rodney laughed.
+
+"You're not such a much, even if you are the pitcher," he declared.
+
+"Who asked you anything about it?" demanded Sam savagely.
+
+He darted a look of anger at the lad, but as Rodney was well built and
+had a reputation for "scrappiness" Sam concluded not to tackle him just
+then.
+
+"I'll show you how to throw!" he exclaimed the next moment, and two
+balls went squarely in the basket. "Now, let's see you and Matson play
+it off," commanded Sam to Tom as though he was in the habit of having
+his wishes complied with.
+
+Whether it was nervousness or not, or whether he wanted to see his chum
+do well when Sam was present, was not made manifest, but Tom did not
+come up to his previous record, and Joe easily won. In fact Joe made a
+much better score than Sam, and there were several curious glances
+directed at the pitcher.
+
+"Don't you want to try it some more?" asked Rodney Burke, and there was
+mockery in his voice.
+
+"No!" half-growled Sam. "I've got to save my arm for the next game.
+We're going to win that sure. So long," and with that he turned and
+strode away.
+
+"As cheerful as a bear with a sore nose," remarked Rodney.
+
+Ordinarily but little importance would have been attached to the coming
+game with the Denville Whizzers, but on account of two previous defeats,
+Darrell Blackney and George Rankin had several conferences concerning
+it. The captain and manager were plainly worried.
+
+"Do you wish you had some one else to put in the box?" asked Rankin.
+
+"Well, not exactly," was the answer. "I haven't lost faith in Sam, but I
+do wish we could depend more on him. He'll pitch fine for several
+innings and then go to pieces. He tries to use too much speed and too
+many varieties of curves, I think."
+
+"By the way, what do you think of young Matson?" asked the captain.
+
+"I think a good deal of him. He doesn't amount to much as yet, but he's
+in earnest and he's got grit. In time I think he'll make a player."
+
+"He wants to pitch."
+
+"I know he does, but it's out of the question yet. Have you any line on
+him?"
+
+"Not yet," answered Rankin, "but I'll keep my eyes open. He's a good
+fielder all right, now that he isn't so nervous. He wants to play his
+head off. But Sam--well, we can't do any better right away, and--well, I
+guess we'll win this game."
+
+"We've got to!" insisted the manager earnestly, "if we want the people
+of Riverside to support us. They won't come to see a losing home team
+all the while."
+
+The game with the Whizzers was to take place on their grounds, and early
+on that morning the Silver Stars, some substitutes, and a crowd of
+"rooters" got ready for the trip. Denville was about seven miles from
+Riverside, back from the stream, and could be reached by trolley. A
+special car had been engaged for the team.
+
+The game started off well, and the Silver Stars got three runs in their
+half of the first inning. The home team was blanked and for a time it
+looked as if there would be an easy victory for the visitors.
+
+Sam was pitching in good form, and had struck several men out. For three
+innings the home team did not get a run, and there was only one to their
+credit in the fourth. There was gloom and despair among their supporters
+while the "rooters" of the visiting team were happy singing songs and
+yelling.
+
+Joe played well and had two outs to his credit on long flies, with no
+errors to mar his record. But he noticed that as the home team came to
+the bat in their half of the fifth, in which the Silver Stars had made
+two runs, that Darrell and the captain were in earnest consultation with
+Sam. They seemed to be remonstrating with him, and Joe heard the manager
+say:
+
+"Take it easy now; we have the game on ice."
+
+"Oh, I know how to play ball," retorted the pitcher.
+
+Then began a series of happenings. With a lead of four runs when the
+last half of the fifth started it would have seemed that the Stars might
+have won out. But Sam fell a prey to the applause of the crowd and began
+to do "grandstand" work. He contorted his body unnecessarily in winding
+up for a delivery. He hopped about before pitching the ball and he
+failed to study the batters, though he had had plenty of chance to do
+so.
+
+The result was that he went to pieces through sheer weariness and began
+giving balls. Then the home team, realizing what was happening, began to
+pound him, and to steal bases. In their half of the fifth the home team
+made six runs, putting them two ahead.
+
+"We've got to stop that!" said Darrell, with a shake of his head.
+
+"We sure have," agreed the captain.
+
+There was somewhat of a brace on the part of the Stars and they made one
+run in their part of the sixth. But the Whizzers kept pace with them.
+The seventh inning resulted in one run for the visitors and none for the
+home team and that made only a lead of one for the home nine.
+
+Joe brought in a run in the eighth, but as if it had been prearranged
+the home team duplicated so the score at the beginning of the ninth
+stood eight to nine in favor of the home team.
+
+"We need two runs to win, if we can serve them goose eggs for lunch,"
+said the Silver Star captain grimly. "Go to it, boys; beat 'em out."
+
+"Sure we will," said Sam airily, and he brought in one of the needed
+two runs. Darrell contributed the other, and when the visiting team took
+the field they were one ahead.
+
+"Don't let a man get to first!" cried Captain Rankin.
+
+But it was not to be. Sam gave the first man his base on balls and there
+was a groan of anguish from his fellows and the Riverside crowd. Then
+the second man whacked out what appeared to be a pretty three bagger,
+scoring the runner from first. The batter slipped on his way from second
+to third, however, and was put out when Joe made a magnificent throw in
+from deep centre.
+
+With one out Sam gathered himself together and struck out the next man.
+Then came to the bat the mightiest walloper of the rival team.
+
+"Wait for a good one. Make him give you what you want," advised the
+coacher to the batter.
+
+And the latter did wait, for when he got what he wanted he "slammed it"
+away out in centre field.
+
+"A home run! A home run!" yelled the frantic crowd.
+
+"And win the game!" shouted a score of the players' friends. "Come on,
+baby-mine!"
+
+Joe was madly racing after the ball, which had gone away beyond him. He
+got it and hurled it to second for a relay home, as a quick glance had
+shown him the man rounding third.
+
+Straight and true the ball went and the baseman had it. Then he sent it
+to Catcher Ferguson as the runner was racing in. Sam had run from his
+box and stood watching and expectant near home plate.
+
+The runner dropped and slid and Bart Ferguson, as the ball landed in his
+mitt, reached over to touch him.
+
+"Safe!" howled the umpire, and it meant the defeat of the Silver Stars.
+
+For a moment there was silence and then Sam, stepping up to the umpire,
+a lad smaller than himself, said:
+
+"Safe, eh? Not in a thousand years! You don't know how to umpire a game.
+Safe! I guess not!" and drawing back his fist Sam sent it crashing into
+the face of the other lad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+JOE IS WATCHED
+
+
+There was an uproar in an instant. Players started for Sam and the
+unoffending lad whom he had struck. There were savage yells, calling for
+vengeance. Even Sam's mates, used as they were to his fits of temper,
+were not prepared for this. The Whizzer players were wild to get at him,
+but, instinctively Darrell, Joe, Rankin, and some of the others of the
+Silver Stars formed a protecting cordon about their pitcher.
+
+"Are you crazy, Sam? What in the world did you do that for?" demanded
+the manager.
+
+"He made a rank decision, an unfair one!" cried Sam, "and when I called
+him down he was going to hit me. I got in ahead of him--that's all."
+
+"That's not so!" cried the Whizzer captain. "I saw it all."
+
+"That's right!" chimed in some of his mates.
+
+"Farson never raised his hand to him!" declared another lad, who had
+been standing near the umpire. "You're a big coward to hit a chap
+smaller than you are!" he called tauntingly to Sam.
+
+"Well, I'm not afraid to hit you!" cried the pitcher, who seemed to have
+lost control of himself. "And if you want anything you know how to get
+it."
+
+"Yes, and I'm willing to take it right now," yelled the other, stepping
+up to Sam.
+
+There might have been another fight then and there, for both lads were
+unreasonable with anger, but Darrell quickly stepped in between them.
+
+"Look here!" burst out the Stars' manager, in what he tried to make a
+good-natured and reasoning voice, "this has got to stop. We didn't come
+here to fight, we came to play baseball and you trimmed us properly."
+
+"Then why don't you fellows take your medicine?" demanded the home
+captain. "What right has he got to tackle our umpire?"
+
+"No right at all," admitted Darrell. "Sam was in the wrong and he'll
+apologize. He probably thought the man was out."
+
+"And he _was_ out!" exploded the unreasonable pitcher. "I'll not
+apologize, either."
+
+"Wipe up the field with 'em!" came in murmurs from the home players.
+Several of the lads had grasped their bats.
+
+It was a critical moment and Darrell felt it. He pulled Sam to one side
+and whispered rapidly and tensely in his ear:
+
+"Sam, you've got to apologize, and you've got to admit that the runner
+was safe. There's no other way out of it."
+
+"Suppose I won't?"
+
+There was defiance in Sam's air. Darrell took a quick decision.
+
+"Then I'll put you out of the team!" was his instant rejoinder, and it
+came so promptly that Sam winced.
+
+Now it is one thing to resign, but quite another to be read out of an
+organization, whether it be a baseball team or a political society. Sam
+realized this. He might have, in his anger, refused to belong to the
+Silver Stars and, later on he could boast of having gotten out of his
+own accord. But to be "fired" carried no glory with it, and Sam was ever
+on the lookout for glory.
+
+"Do you mean that?" he asked of Darrell. "Won't you fellows stick up for
+me?"
+
+He looked a vain appeal to his mates.
+
+"I mean every word of it," replied the manager firmly. "We fellows would
+stick up for you if you were in the right, but you're dead wrong this
+time. It's apologize or get out of the team!"
+
+Once more Sam paused. He could hear the angry murmurs of the home
+players as they watched him, waiting for his decision. Even some of his
+own mates were regarding him with unfriendly eyes. He must make a virtue
+of necessity.
+
+"All right--I--I apologize," said Sam in a low voice. "The runner was
+safe I guess."
+
+"You'd better be sure about it," said the captain of the Whizzers, in a
+peculiar tone as he looked at Sam.
+
+"Oh, I'm sure all right."
+
+"And you're sorry you hit our umpire?" persisted the captain, for Sam's
+apology had not been very satisfactory.
+
+"Yes. You needn't rub it in," growled the pitcher.
+
+"Then why don't you shake hands with him, and tell him so like a man?"
+went on the home captain.
+
+"I won't shake hands with him!" exclaimed the small umpire. "I don't
+shake hands with cowards!"
+
+There was another murmur, and the trouble that had been so nearly
+adjusted threatened to break out again. But Darrell was wise in his
+day.
+
+"That's all right!" he called, more cheerily than he felt. "You fellows
+beat us fairly and on the level. We haven't a kick coming, but we may
+treat you to a dose of the same medicine when we have a return game; eh,
+old man?" and he made his way to the opposing captain and the manager
+and cordially shook hands with them. There was a half cheer from the
+Whizzers. They liked a good loser.
+
+"Yes, maybe you can turn the tables on us," admitted the other manager,
+"but I hope when we do come to Riverside you'll have a different
+pitcher," and he glanced significantly at Sam.
+
+"No telling," replied Darrell with a laugh. "Come on, fellows. We'll
+give three cheers for the team that beat us and then we'll beat it for
+home."
+
+It was rather a silent crowd of the Silver Stars that rode in the
+special trolley. Following them was another car containing some of the
+"rooters." They made up in liveliness what the team members lacked in
+spirits, for there were a number of girls with the lads, Joe's sister
+and Tom's being among them, and they started some school songs.
+
+And the gloom that seemed to hang over the Stars was not altogether
+because of their defeat. It was the remembrance of Sam's unsportsmanlike
+act, and it rankled deep.
+
+On his part it is doubtful if Sam felt any remorse. He was a
+hot-tempered lad, used to having his own way, and probably he thought he
+had done just right in chastising the umpire for what he regarded as a
+rank decision.
+
+Darrell, Rankin and some of the others tried to be jolly and start a
+line of talk that would make the lads forget the unpleasant incident,
+but it is doubtful if they succeeded to any great extent.
+
+The manager was seriously considering the future of the team. Was it
+wise to go on with such a pitcher as Sam who, though talented, could not
+be relied upon and who was likely to make "breaks" at unexpected times?
+
+"Yet what can we do?" asked Darrell of the captain. "Is there another
+man we could put in or get from some other team?"
+
+"I don't believe any other team would part with a good pitcher at this
+time of the season," replied Rankin. "Surely not if he was a real good
+one, and we want one that _is_ good. As for using some of the other
+fellows in Sam's place, I don't know of any one that's anywhere near as
+good as he is."
+
+"How about Percy Parnell? He's pitched some, hasn't he?"
+
+"Yes, but you know what happened. He was knocked out of the box and we
+were whitewashed that game."
+
+"Say!" exclaimed Darrell. "I just happened to think of it. That
+new fellow--Joe Matson. He told me he used to pitch in his home
+town--Bentville I think it was. I wonder if he'd be any good?"
+
+"Hard telling," replied the captain, somewhat indifferently. "We ought
+to do something, anyhow."
+
+"I tell you what I'm going to do," went on Darrell. "I'm going to write
+to some one in Bentville. I think I know an old baseball friend there,
+and I'll ask him what Matson's record was. If he made good at all we
+might give him a tryout."
+
+"And have Sam get on his ear?"
+
+"I don't care whether he does or not. Things can't be much worse; can
+they?"
+
+"No, I guess not. Go ahead. I'm with you in anything you do. Three
+straight wallops in three weeks have taken the heart out of me."
+
+"Same here. Well, we'll see what we can do."
+
+Joe reached home that night rather tired and discouraged. He felt the
+defeat of his team keenly, and the more so as the nine he had played
+with in Bentville had had a much better record than that of the Silver
+Stars--at least so far, though the Silver Stars were an older and
+stronger team.
+
+"I wonder if I'm the hoodoo?" mused Joe. "They lost the first game I saw
+them play, and the next one I played in they lost, and here's this one.
+I hope I'm not a jinx."
+
+Then he reviewed his own playing in the two games where he had had a
+chance to show what he could do, and he had no fault to find with his
+efforts. True, he had made errors; but who had not?
+
+"I'm going to keep on practicing," mused Joe. "If I can work up in speed
+and accuracy, and keep what curving power I have already, I may get a
+chance to pitch. Things are coming to a head with Sam, and, though I
+don't wish him any bad luck, if he _does_ get out I hope I get a chance
+to go in."
+
+Following this plan, Joe went off by himself one afternoon several days
+later to practice throwing in the empty lot. He used a basket to hold
+the balls he pitched and he was glad to find that he had not gone back
+any from the time when he and Tom, with the other lads, had had their
+contest.
+
+"If I can only keep this up," mused the lad, "I'll get there some day.
+Jove! If ever I should become one of the big league players! Think of
+taking part in the World's series! Cracky! I'd rather be in the box,
+facing the champions, than to be almost anything else I can think of.
+Forty thousand people watching you as you wind up and send in a swift
+one like this!"
+
+And with that Joe let fly a ball with all his speed toward the basket.
+He was not so much intent on accuracy then as he was in letting off some
+surplus "steam," and he was not a little surprised when the ball not
+only went _into_ the basket but _through_ it, ripping out the bottom.
+
+"Wow!" exclaimed Joe. "I'm throwing faster than I thought I was. That
+basket is on the fritz. But if I'd been sending a ball over the plate it
+would have had some speed back of it, and it would have gone to the
+right spot."
+
+As Joe went to pick up the ball and examine the broken basket more
+closely a figure peered out from a little clump of trees on the edge of
+the field where the lad was practicing. The figure watched the would-be
+pitcher closely and then murmured:
+
+"He certainly has _speed_ all right. I'd like to be back of the plate
+and watch him throw them in. I wonder if he has anything in him after
+all? It's worth taking a chance on. I'll wait a bit longer."
+
+The figure dodged behind the trees again as Joe once more took his
+position. He had stuffed some grass in the hole in the peach basket he
+was using, and again he threw in it.
+
+He was just as accurate as before, and, now and then, when he cut
+loose, he sent the ball with unerring aim and with great force into the
+receptacle, several times knocking it down off the stake on which it
+was fastened.
+
+"I don't know as there's much use in writing to Bentville to find out
+about him," mused the figure hidden by the trees. "If he's got that
+speed, and continues to show the control he has to-day, even without any
+curves he'd be a help to us. I'm going to speak to Rankin about it," and
+with that the figure turned away.
+
+Had Joe looked he would have seen Darrell Blackney, manager of the
+Silver Stars, who had been playing the innocent spy on him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"WOULD YOU LIKE TO PITCH?"
+
+
+"Come now, fellows, let's get into practice. Are all the scrub here?"
+
+Darrell Blackney looked around over the diamond, where about twenty lads
+were assembled one fine afternoon.
+
+"I don't know about the scrub, but all our fellows are on hand," replied
+Rankin. "Is it all arranged about the game Saturday?"
+
+"Yes, we're to play the Fayetteville Academy lads on their grounds."
+
+"A trip out of town, eh? That's two in two weeks."
+
+"Well it gives our fellows experience in playing on some other diamond
+than their own."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't much matter. The Fayettevilles will be easy fruit for
+us."
+
+"Don't be too sure. They're a younger team, that's true, and they
+haven't been doing well this season, but neither have we of late."
+
+"Oh, we'll beat 'em," declared the captain confidently.
+
+"I think so myself, but I don't want you to take too many chances. Here
+comes Sam. You and he get in for some warm-up work, Bart, and I'll get
+the scrub together."
+
+Darrell went about the diamond, calling to the various members of the
+"scrub," or second team.
+
+"We haven't any pitcher," remarked Blake Carrington, who acted as
+captain of the scrub organization.
+
+"What's the matter with Slater?"
+
+"He hasn't showed up, and none of the other fellows feel like getting in
+the box against you boys. You'll have to find us a pitcher before we can
+play."
+
+A sudden idea came to Darrell.
+
+"All right," he answered. "I guess I can. Wait a minute."
+
+He ran over to where Rankin was talking to some of his players.
+
+"Can you play Tom Davis in centre field for to-day?" asked the manager.
+
+"Yes, I guess so. Why?"
+
+"I'm going to have Joe Matson pitch on the scrub. It will be a good time
+to get a line on him, and I'll see if he shapes up as well as the day
+he did when I watched him practice."
+
+"All right; maybe it will be a good idea."
+
+Joe hardly knew what to say when Darrell, as calmly as if he had done it
+several times before, asked him to go in the box for the scrub and pitch
+against the Silver Stars.
+
+"And do your best," added Darrell. "I don't care how many of our fellows
+you strike out. Every one, if you can."
+
+Joe's heart gave a bound of delight. It might be the beginning of the
+very chance he had been waiting for so long. He calmed himself with an
+effort for he did not want to get "rattled."
+
+"All right," he answered as though he had been used to such sudden
+emergency calls all season. "I'll see what I can do. I'd like a chance
+to warm up, though."
+
+"Sure. You and Jake Bender go over there and practice for five minutes.
+Then we'll play a five-inning game."
+
+The Stars were to bat first, and there was a mocking smile on the face
+of Sam Morton as he watched his rival go to the box.
+
+"Don't strike us all out," called Sam. "We've had hard luck enough
+lately."
+
+The game began, and it was for "blood" from the very start. Joe was a
+trifle nervous, especially when he had two balls called on his first two
+efforts. Then he braced himself, and, not trying for speed, sent in a
+slow, easy ball that completely fooled the batter, who eventually struck
+out.
+
+"Pretty good for a starter," complimented Darrell. Sam Morton scowled.
+
+The next batter hit an easy fly which was so promptly gathered in by the
+shortstop that there was little use in the player starting for first.
+Then Joe struck out the next lad after he had hit a couple of fouls.
+
+"That's the stuff!" cried Tom Davis, as he patted his chum on the back.
+"You'll be in the box for the Stars yet."
+
+"Don't get me all excited," begged Joe with a smile. Yet he could not
+help feeling elated.
+
+There was a viciousness in the pitching of Sam when he toed the plate
+that showed how his feelings had been stirred. He was evidently going to
+show how much superior he was.
+
+He did strike out two men, and then came Joe's turn at the bat. Our hero
+thought he detected a gleam of anger in Sam's eyes.
+
+"He'd just as soon hit me with a ball as not," thought Joe, "and if he
+does it will hurt some. And he may be trying to bluff me so that I
+won't stand up to the plate. I'll see what I can do to him."
+
+Consequently, instead of waiting for the ball to get to him Joe stepped
+up and out to meet it before the curve "broke." He "walked right into
+it," as the baseball term has it, and the result was that he whacked out
+a pretty two-bagger that brought his mates to their feet with yells. Sam
+bit his lips in anger, but he kept his temper by an effort and struck
+out the next man so that Joe's effort resulted in nothing.
+
+The game went on, and when Sam at bat faced Joe, our hero could not help
+feeling a trifle nervous. He had sized up Sam's style of batting,
+however, and was prepared.
+
+"I'm going to give him a slow ball with an in-shoot to it," decided Joe.
+"He keeps back from the plate and this will make him get still farther
+back. I'm going to strike him out."
+
+And strike him out Joe did, though not until after Sam had hit one foul
+that was within a shade of being fair. But when on his next two strikes
+he fanned the wind, there was a look of wonder and gratification on the
+face of Darrell.
+
+"I believe Joe is going to make good," he said to Rankin.
+
+"It sure looks so. What about it?"
+
+"You'll see in a minute. I'm going to give him a chance to pitch part of
+the game against the Fayetteville Academy nine--that is if you agree to
+it."
+
+"Sure, go as far as you like."
+
+At the close of the game, which was won by the Stars, though by a small
+margin, Darrell approached Joe.
+
+"Well?" asked the new pitcher diffidently.
+
+"You did first rate. How would you like to pitch part of the game
+Saturday?"
+
+"Do you mean it?" was the eager question.
+
+"Certainly. I'll put you in for a few innings toward the end, after
+we've cinched it, for I think it will be easy for us."
+
+It was not the highest honor that could have come to Joe, but he
+realized what it meant.
+
+"I'd like it immensely," he said, "but won't Sam--what about him?"
+
+"I don't care anything about him," said Darrell quickly. "I'm running
+this team. Will you pitch?"
+
+"I sure will!" and Joe's heart beat high with hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+Joe Matson felt as though he was walking in the air when he went home
+that afternoon following the scrub game. That his ambition was about to
+be realized, and so soon after joining the team, was almost
+unbelievable.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Joe?" asked Clara, as her brother fairly
+pranced into the house, caught her around the waist and swung her in the
+start of a waltz.
+
+"Matter? Plenty's the matter! I'm going to pitch on the Stars Saturday.
+Hurray!"
+
+"My! Any one would think you were going to pitch up _to_ the stars the
+way you're going on. Let go of me; you'll have my hair all mussed up!"
+
+"That's easily fixed. Yes, I'm going to pitch."
+
+"Against whom?"
+
+"The Fayetteville Academy, on their grounds. It won't be much of a game,
+and I'm not to go in until it's in the ice box----"
+
+"In the ice box?"
+
+"Yes, the refrigerator you know--safe. Then I'm to try my hand at
+putting 'em over. Of course I'd like to go the whole nine innings but I
+can't have everything at the start. It's mighty decent of Darrell to
+give me this chance. Aren't you glad, sis?"
+
+"Yes, of course I am. I'd like to see the game, but I've used up all of
+my allowance for this week, and----"
+
+"Here!" and Joe held out a dollar. "Blow yourself, sis."
+
+"Oh, what horrid slang!"
+
+"I mean go to the game on me. I'll stand treat. Take a girl if you want
+to and see yours truly do himself proud."
+
+Joe hunted up his mother to tell her the good news. He found her in the
+room which his father had fitted up as a workshop since the suspicious
+actions of Mr. Benjamin at the harvester factory. Mrs. Matson was
+looking over some papers, and there was on her face the same worried
+look Joe had seen there before.
+
+"Has anything happened, mother?" he asked quickly, his own good news
+fading away as he thought of the trouble that might menace his father.
+
+"No, only the same trouble about the patent," she said. "There is
+nothing new, but your father thinks from the recent actions of Mr.
+Benjamin that the manager suspects something. Your father is getting
+some papers ready to go to Washington, and I was looking them over for
+him. I used to work in a lawyer's office when I was a girl," she went on
+with a smile, "and I know a little about the patent business so I
+thought I would help your father if I could."
+
+"Then there's nothing wrong?"
+
+"Not exactly, and if all goes right he will soon have his patent
+granted, and then those men can not harm him. But you look as though you
+had good news."
+
+"I have," and the lad fairly bubbled over in telling his mother of the
+chance that had so unexpectedly come to him.
+
+Mr. Matson was quite enthusiastic about Joe's chance when he came home
+from work, and together they talked about it after supper.
+
+"I wish I could go see the game," said Mr. Matson, "but I am too busy."
+
+"How is the patent coming on?" asked Joe.
+
+"Oh, pretty good. Thanks to you I was warned in time. If I had left my
+drawings, patterns and other things in the shop I'm afraid it wouldn't
+be going so well. Mr. Benjamin evidently suspects something. Only to-day
+he asked me how I was coming on with it, and he wanted to know why I
+wasn't working on it any more. I had to put him off with some excuse and
+he acted very queer. Right after that I heard him calling up Mr. Holdney
+on the telephone."
+
+"But your worry will be over when your application is allowed,"
+suggested Mrs. Matson.
+
+Joe went to his baseball practice with a vim in the days that intervened
+before the game that was to be so important to him. Tom Davis helped
+him, and several times cautioned his chum about overdoing himself.
+
+"If your arm gets stiff--it's good-night for you," he declared, in his
+usual blunt way. "You've got to take care of yourself, Joe."
+
+"I know it, but I want to get up more speed."
+
+"That's all right. Speed isn't everything. Practice for control, and
+that won't be so hard on you."
+
+And, as the days went on, Joe realized that he was perfecting himself,
+though he still had much to learn about the great game.
+
+It was the day before the contest when our hero was to occupy the box
+for the first time for the Stars. He and Tom had practiced hard and Joe
+knew that he was "fit."
+
+Joe wondered how Sam Morton had taken the news of his rival's advance,
+but if Sam knew he said nothing about it, and in the practice with the
+scrub he was unusually friendly to Joe. For Darrell decided not to have
+the new pitcher go into the box for the Stars until the last moment. He
+did not want word of it to get out, and Joe and the catcher did some
+practice in private with signals.
+
+The last practice had been held on the afternoon prior to the game, and
+arrangements completed for the team going to Fayetteville. Joe was on
+his way home on a car with Tom Davis, for Riverside boasted of a trolley
+system.
+
+"How do you feel?" asked Tom of his chum.
+
+"Fine as a fiddle."
+
+"Your arm isn't lame or sore?"
+
+"Not a bit, I can----"
+
+Joe was interrupted by a cry from two ladies who sat in front of them,
+the only other occupants of the vehicle save themselves. The car was
+going down hill and had acquired considerable speed--dangerous speed Joe
+thought--and the motorman did not seem to have it well under control.
+
+But what had caused the cry of alarm was this. Driving along the street,
+parallel with the tracks, and about three hundred feet ahead of the car,
+was a boy in an open delivery wagon. He was going in the same direction
+as was the electric vehicle.
+
+Suddenly his horse stumbled and fell almost on the tracks, the wagon
+sliding half over the animal while the boy on the seat was hemmed in and
+pinned down by a number of boxes and baskets that slid forward from the
+rear of the wagon.
+
+"Put on your brakes! Put on your brakes!" yelled the conductor to the
+motorman. "You'll run him down!"
+
+The motorman ground at the handle, and the brake shoes whined as they
+gripped the wheels, but the car came nearer and nearer the wagon. The
+conductor on the rear platform was also putting on the brakes there.
+
+Suddenly the horse kicked himself around so that he was free of the
+tracks, lying alongside them, and far enough to one side so that the car
+would safely pass him. There was a sigh of relief from the two women
+passengers, but a moment later it changed to a cry of alarm, for the boy
+on the seat suddenly fell to one side, and hung there with his head so
+far over that the car would hit him as it rushed past. The lad was
+evidently pinned down by the boxes and baskets on his legs.
+
+"Stop! Stop the car!" begged one of the ladies. The other had covered
+her eyes with her hands.
+
+"I--I can't!" cried the motorman. "It's got too much speed! I can't stop
+it."
+
+Joe sprang to his feet and made his way along the seat past Tom, to the
+running board of the car, for the vehicle was an open one.
+
+"Where are you going?" cried Tom.
+
+"To save that lad! He'll be killed if the car strikes him!"
+
+"Let the motorman do it!"
+
+"He can't! He's grinding on the brakes as hard as he can and so is the
+conductor. I've got to save him--these ladies can't! I can lean over and
+pull him aboard the car."
+
+"But your arm! You'll strain your arm and you can't pitch to-morrow."
+
+For an instant Joe hesitated, but only for an instant. He realized that
+what Tom said was true. He saw a vision of himself sitting idly on the
+bench, unable to twirl the ball because of a sprained arm. Then Joe made
+up his mind.
+
+"I'm going to save him!" he cried as he hurried to the front end of the
+running board. Then, clinging to the upright of the car with his left
+arm, he stretched out his other to save the lad from almost certain
+death, the conductor and motorman unable to lend aid and the women
+incapable. There was not room on the running board for Tom to help Joe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A DELAYED PITCHER
+
+
+The motorman was grinding away at the brakes but the heavy car continued
+to slide on, for the hill was steep. The horse lay quiet now, for a man
+had managed to get to him and sit on his head, so the animal could not
+kick and thresh about with the consequent danger of getting his legs
+under the trolley. The car would pass the horse and the wagon by a good
+margin, but the boy, leaning far over, was sure to be hit unless Joe
+saved him, and no one in the street seemed to think of the boy's danger.
+He said later that he did not realize it himself.
+
+The lad was struggling to free himself but could not, and he did not
+seem to be able to raise himself to an upright position on the seat, in
+which case he would have been safe.
+
+"Steady now!" called Joe, and he braced himself for the shock he knew
+would come.
+
+The next instant, as the car kept on, Joe found himself opposite the lad
+and reaching forward his right hand he grasped him by the collar,
+shoving him away so the car would not strike him. Then, holding on in
+grim despair Joe pulled the youth toward him, aided by the momentum of
+the vehicle. His idea was to get him aboard the car to prevent his being
+struck by it, and in this he succeeded.
+
+There was a ripping sound, for some part of the lad's clothing was
+caught on the seat and tore loose. A shower of boxes and baskets
+followed the body as it slid forward, and a moment later Joe had the lad
+on the foot board beside him, safe and sound, but very much astonished
+by his sudden descent from the wagon seat.
+
+Joe felt an excruciating pain shoot through his arm--his pitching arm.
+It was numb from the shock but even yet he did not dare let go, for the
+lad was on uncertain footing. The pain increased. It was like being
+kicked by the back-fire of an auto or motor boat. For a moment there was
+a dull sensation and then the outraged nerves and muscles seemed to cry
+out in agony.
+
+"There--there!" murmured Joe between his clenched teeth to the lad he
+had saved. "You're all right I guess. Will--will somebody----"
+
+He did not finish, but turned to the conductor, who had rushed toward
+him on the running board, ready to relieve him of the lad's weight. But
+the boy was able to look after himself now, for the vehicle was almost
+at a standstill, and the motorman had it under control.
+
+"Much--much obliged to you," the boy stammered his thanks to Joe who was
+slowly making his way back to where Tom awaited him. Joe did not know
+whether he could get there or not, passing himself along by clinging
+with his left hand to the successive car uprights.
+
+"He saved your life all right," said the conductor, who had hold of the
+delivery wagon lad.
+
+"That's what!" chimed in several other men from the street, as they
+crowded up around the car.
+
+By this time the motorman had succeeded in bringing the vehicle to a
+full stop and Joe, fearing he might fall, for the pain was very severe,
+got off. Tom hurried up to him.
+
+"Did it strain you much?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"A little--yes; considerable I guess," admitted Joe, making a wry face.
+"But it will be all right--I guess." His right arm--the arm he hoped to
+use in the game on the morrow--the first game with him in the box--hung
+limp at his side.
+
+Tom Davis saw and knew at once that something serious was the matter. He
+realized what it meant to Joe, and he lost no time in useless talk.
+
+"You come with me!" he commanded, taking hold of Joe's left arm.
+
+"Where are you going?" demanded our hero.
+
+"To our old family doctor. That arm of yours will need attention if
+you're going to pitch to-morrow."
+
+"I don't know that I can pitch, Tom."
+
+"Yes you can--you've _got_ to. Dr. Pickett will give you something to
+fix it up. You can't let this chance slip. I was afraid this would
+happen when I saw what you were going to do."
+
+"Yes," said Joe simply, "but I couldn't let him be hit by the car."
+
+"No, I suppose not, and yet--well, we'll see what Dr. Pickett says. Come
+on," and Tom quickly improvised a sling from his own and Joe's
+handkerchiefs, and was about to lead his chum away.
+
+"Oh, are you hurt? I'm sorry!" exclaimed the lad whom Joe had saved.
+
+"It's only a strain," said the pitcher, but he did not add what it might
+mean to him.
+
+The lad thanked Joe again, earnestly, for his brave act and then
+hastened to look after his horse, that had been gotten to its feet. The
+motorman, too, thanked Joe for, though had an accident resulted it
+would not have been his fault, yet he was grateful.
+
+"Oh, come on!" exclaimed Tom impatiently as several others crowded up
+around Joe. "Every minute's delay makes it worse. Let's get a move on,"
+and he almost dragged his chum to the doctor's office.
+
+Dr. Pickett looked grave when told of the cause of the injury.
+
+"Well, let's have a look at the arm," he suggested, and when he saw a
+slight swelling he shook his head. "I'm afraid you can't pitch
+to-morrow," he said.
+
+"I've _got_ to," replied Joe simply.
+
+"Can't you give him some liniment to rub on to take the stiffness out,
+doctor?" asked Joe.
+
+"Hum! Nature is something that doesn't like to be hurried, young man,"
+responded the physician. "However, it might be worse, and perhaps if
+that arm is massaged half the night and up to the time of the game
+to-morrow, he might pitch a few innings."
+
+"That's good!" exclaimed Joe.
+
+"And it's me for the massage!" cried Tom. "Now give us some stuff to rub
+on, doctor."
+
+Dr. Pickett showed Tom how to rub the arm, and how to knead the muscles
+to take out the soreness, and gave the boys a prescription to get
+filled at the drug store.
+
+"Come on!" cried Tom again. He seemed to have taken charge of Joe as a
+trainer might have done. "I must get you home and begin work on you."
+
+And Tom did. He installed himself as rubber-in-chief in Joe's room, and
+for several hours thereafter there was the smell of arnica and pungent
+liniment throughout the house. Tom was a faithful massage artist, and
+soon some of the soreness began to get out of the wrenched arm.
+
+"Let me try to throw a ball across the room," the pitcher begged of Tom
+about nine o'clock. "I want to see if I can move it."
+
+"Not a move!" sternly forbade the nurse. "You just keep quiet. If you
+can pitch in the morning you'll be lucky."
+
+At intervals until nearly midnight Tom rubbed the arm and then, knowing
+that Joe must have rest, he installed himself on a couch in his chum's
+room, and let Joe go to sleep, with his arm wrapped in hot towels
+saturated with witch hazel, a warm flat iron keeping the heat up.
+
+"Well, how goes it?" Joe heard some one say, as he opened his eyes to
+find the sun streaming in his room. The young pitcher tried to raise
+his arm but could not. It seemed as heavy as lead and a look of alarm
+came over his face.
+
+"That's all right," explained Tom. "Wait until I get off some of the
+towels. It looks like an Egyptian mummy now."
+
+Tom loosed the wrappings and then, to Joe's delight, he found that he
+could move his arm with only a little pain resulting. He was about to
+swing it, as he did when pitching, but Tom called out:
+
+"Hold on now! Wait until I rub it a bit and get up the circulation." The
+rubbing did good, and Joe found that he had nearly full control of the
+hand and arm. They were a bit stiff to be sure, but much better.
+
+"Now for a good breakfast, some more rubbing, then some more, and a
+little light practice," decided Tom, and Joe smiled, but he gave in and
+ate a hearty meal.
+
+Once more faithful Tom massaged the arm, and rubbed in a salve designed
+to make the sore muscles and tendons limber. Not until then would he
+allow Joe to go down in the yard and throw a few balls.
+
+The delivery of the first one brought a look of agony on the pitcher's
+face, but he kept at it until he was nearly himself again. Then came
+more rubbing and another application of salve and liniment, until Joe
+declared that there wouldn't be any skin left on his arm, and that he'd
+smell like a walking drug store for a week.
+
+"Don't you care, as long as you can pitch," said Clara. "I'm going to
+the game and I'm going to take Mabel Davis and Helen Rutherford. They
+both want to see you pitch, Joe."
+
+"That's good," said her brother with a smile.
+
+"Now we'll take another trip to the doctor's and see what he says," was
+Tom's next order. The physician looked gratified when he saw the arm.
+
+"Either it wasn't as badly strained as I thought it," he said, "or that
+medicine worked wonders."
+
+"It was my rubbing," explained Tom, puffing out his chest in pretended
+pride.
+
+"Well, that certainly completed the cure," admitted the physician.
+
+"And I can pitch?" asked Joe anxiously.
+
+"Yes, a few innings. Have your arm rubbed at intervals in the game, and
+wear a wrist strap. Good luck and I hope you'll win," and with a smile
+he dismissed them.
+
+Wearing a wrist strap helped greatly, and when it was nearly time to
+leave for Fayetteville Joe found that his arm was much better.
+
+"I don't know how long I can last," he said to Darrell, "and maybe I'll
+be batted out of the box."
+
+"It's too bad, of course," replied the manager, when the accident had
+been explained to him, "but we won't work you very hard. I want you to
+get your chance, though."
+
+And Joe felt his heart beat faster as he thought how nearly he had lost
+his chance. Yet he could not have done otherwise, he reflected.
+
+"I don't see what's keeping Sam Morton," mused Captain Rankin, as the
+team prepared to take the special trolley car. "He met me a little while
+ago and said he'd be on hand."
+
+"It's early yet," commented the manager. "I guess he'll be on hand. I
+told him Joe was going to pitch a few innings."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Well, he didn't cut up nearly as much as I thought he would. He said it
+was only fair to give him a show, but I know Sam is jealous and he won't
+take any chances on not being there."
+
+All of the players, save the regular pitcher, were on hand now and they
+were anxiously waiting for Sam. One of the inspectors of the trolley
+line came up to where the boys stood about the special car that was on a
+siding.
+
+"Say," began the inspector, "I'll have to send you boys on your way
+now."
+
+"But our special isn't due to leave for half an hour," complained
+Darrell. "We're waiting for Sam Morton."
+
+"Can't help that. I've got to start you off sooner than I expected.
+There's been a change in the schedule that I didn't expect, and if I
+don't get you off now I can't for another hour, as the line to
+Fayetteville will be blocked."
+
+"That means we'll be half an hour later than we expected," said Darrell.
+"Well, I suppose we'd better go on. Sam can come by the regular trolley,
+I guess."
+
+"Sure, he'll be in Fayetteville in plenty of time," suggested the
+inspector. "I'll be here and tell him about it."
+
+There was no other way out of it, and soon the team and the substitutes,
+with the exception of Sam, were on their way. There was quite a crowd
+already gathered on the Academy grounds when they arrived and they were
+noisily greeted by their opponents as well as by some of their own
+"rooters." The Academy lads were at practice.
+
+"They're a snappy lot of youngsters," commented Darrell, as he watched
+them.
+
+"Yes, we won't have any walk-over," said the captain.
+
+The Silver Star lads lost no time in getting into their uniforms. Tom
+gave Joe's arm a good rubbing and then he caught for him for a while
+until Joe announced that, aside from a little soreness, he was all
+right.
+
+"Try it with Ferguson now," ordered Darrell, motioning to the regular
+catcher, and Joe did so, receiving compliments from the backstop for his
+accuracy.
+
+"A little more speed and you'll have 'em guessing," said the catcher
+genially. "But don't strain yourself."
+
+The minutes ticked on. Several of the regular cars had come in from
+Riverside but there was no sign of Sam Morton. Darrell and Captain
+Rankin held an earnest conversation.
+
+"What do you suppose is keeping him?" asked the manager.
+
+"I can't imagine. Unless he is deliberately staying away to throw the
+game."
+
+"Oh, Sam wouldn't do that. He's too anxious to pitch. We'll wait a few
+more cars."
+
+"And if he doesn't come?"
+
+Darrell shrugged his shoulders and looked over to where Joe was
+practicing with Bart Ferguson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+JOE IN THE BOX
+
+
+"Well, when are you fellows going to start?" asked Tony Johnson, captain
+of the Academy nine, as he ceased his catching practice with Ed. Wilson,
+the pitcher. "The game ought to have been called ten minutes ago."
+
+"Our pitcher isn't here," said Darrell anxiously. "We're expecting him
+every minute. If you could wait a little longer----"
+
+"Haven't you any one else you can put in?" asked Ferd Backus, the
+manager. "I saw some one practicing a while ago."
+
+"He isn't our regular pitcher," said George Rankin, "but if Sam doesn't
+come we'll have to lead off with him."
+
+Joe had been aware that Sam was not on hand. He looked up as car after
+car passed the grounds, thinking to see Sam enter, for the electric
+vehicles from Riverside ran close to the Academy diamond.
+
+"I suppose they'll put Parnell in at the start," Joe mused, naming the
+second baseman who sometimes acted as pitcher for the Stars. Joe did not
+dare hope that he himself would be chosen.
+
+"Well, how much longer?" demanded Johnson, when two more cars had passed
+and Sam was on neither of them. "We want to finish this game before
+dark."
+
+"All right," assented Darrell briskly. "Get your men ready, Rankin."
+
+"But who will pitch?"
+
+"Joe Matson, of course. It's the only thing we can do. Take the field,
+fellows. Joe, take your place in the box!"
+
+"Who--me?" gasped our hero, unable to believe the words.
+
+"Yes, you," and Darrell smiled. "Do your prettiest now. You're going in
+at the beginning instead of at the end. It's different from what I
+planned, but I guess I can depend on you. Hold 'em down!"
+
+"I will!" cried Joe fiercely and he forgot his injured arm.
+
+"Play ball!" ordered the umpire and Joe took his place as pitcher for
+the Silver Stars for the first time. No wonder his heart beat faster
+than usual. The Stars were to bat last, Rankin having won the toss. It
+must be remembered that these boys were amateur players and did not
+always follow league rules of having the home team up last.
+
+The usual number of practice balls were allowed between Joe and the
+catcher at the plate and Bart noted with satisfaction that Joe was cool
+and steady and that he did not try for speed.
+
+Then the first man for the Academy--their best hitter--faced our hero.
+Bart gave the signal for a slow straight ball over the plate at an
+angle. It was the beginning of a cross-fire which he and Joe had quickly
+agreed upon, and, as is well known, the ability of a pitcher to deliver
+a good cross-fire wins many games. Cross-firing is merely sending the
+ball first over one side of the plate then the other and then right over
+centre. Joe had done it in practice. Could he do it in the game?
+
+"Strike one!" called the umpire, when the first ball found lodgment in
+Bart's big glove. There was a little gasp of protest from the Academy
+crowd, but they said nothing. Their man had not struck at the ball, but
+it had been in the right place and Joe knew he had a fair umpire with
+whom to deal.
+
+His next delivery was a ball, but the third was a strike though the man
+had not moved his bat.
+
+"Hit it--hit it!" pleaded his friends.
+
+The batter swung fiercely at the next ball and knocked a little pop fly
+which Bart gathered in and one man was down.
+
+"Do it again!" called Darrell to his pitcher, and Joe smiled. His arm
+pained him a little, but he gritted his teeth and delivered the next man
+a strike, for the batter missed it cleanly. He was not so lucky in his
+following trial, for the batter got to first mainly because of an error
+in the play of Fred Newton, at short, who fumbled the pick-up and
+delayed in getting the ball to Darrell.
+
+Joe succeeded in striking out the third man up, though the one who had
+gone to first managed to steal second. There were now two out and a man
+on the middle bag when Joe faced his fourth opponent. He tried for a
+slow out but something went wrong and the man hit for two sacks,
+bringing in the run. But that was all, for the next batter fell for some
+slow, easy balls and fanned the air.
+
+The Academys had one run and it looked a trifle disheartening to the
+Silver Stars until they came up and found that the pitcher opposed to
+them was very weak. They hammered him pretty badly in the last half of
+the first, and three runs were credited to them ere they had to take the
+field again.
+
+"Not so bad; eh?" asked Rankin of Darrell.
+
+"Fine, if Joe can only keep it up. How's your arm?" he asked him.
+
+"Fine!" exclaimed our hero, but in truth it pained him considerably in
+spite of the treatment Tom Davis gave it.
+
+The Academy team didn't get a run in the second inning though Joe was
+found for some short, scattering hits. A man got to second and one to
+third, mainly through errors in the outfield force, one bad one being
+furnished by Tom, who was at centre in Joe's place.
+
+"But we'll forgive you for getting Joe's arm in shape," said the manager
+with a smile.
+
+In their half of the second the Stars got two runs, and succeeded in
+forcing another goose egg on their opponents in the home team's half of
+the third. Joe did not do so well this time, for he was beginning to
+tire and only a brace on the part of his supporting players saved him
+from having a number of runs come in on his errors.
+
+One run for the Stars marked their efforts in the third and when the
+fourth inning began it looked as if it was a foregone conclusion that
+the visiting team would go home with the scalp of their enemy. But Joe
+could not keep up the pace he had set for himself. No young and
+inexperienced pitcher could, much less one with a sore arm.
+
+The muscles ached very much in spite of all Tom could do with rubbing in
+the liniment, but Joe gritted his teeth and keep his place in the
+pitcher's box. He knew he dared not give in. Only two runs were earned,
+however, though he was pretty badly pounded, and this only made the
+score three to six in favor of the Stars, when their half of the fourth
+came. But they were unable to better it for the Academy lads took a
+brace after an earnest appeal by their captain and manager.
+
+"Make 'em take a goose egg!" yelled the student lads to their friends,
+and the Stars were forced to be content with this.
+
+In the fifth inning neither side scored, Joe holding his own well, and
+only allowing one hit, which amounted to nothing. And in the sixth when,
+with only three scattered hits, not a run was chalked up for the home
+team, Darrell ran over to Joe and cried:
+
+"Fine, old man! Can you keep it up?"
+
+"I--I'm going to!" burst out Joe, though he had to grit his teeth to
+keep back an expression of pain when he moved his pitching arm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+SAM ARRIVES
+
+
+Whether the Stars were determined to show their opponents what they
+could do when they tried or whether it was because they wanted to show
+their confidence in Joe, or even whether it was due to a slump in the
+playing of the Academy team, was not made manifest, but at any rate in
+their half of the sixth inning our friends gathered in four runs, making
+the score ten to three in their favor.
+
+"Oh, it's a walk-over," boasted Tom Davis as he did an impromptu war
+dance.
+
+"Yes, we've got 'em beat a mile," added Seth Potter.
+
+"Don't be too sure," commented the Academy captain. "No game is won
+until it's over and we've got three more innings yet. The seventh is
+always our lucky number."
+
+"You're welcome to all you can get," rejoined Captain Rankin with a
+laugh. "Seven is where we always eat pie, too."
+
+The Stars were about to take the field for the beginning of the seventh
+when there was a commotion over at one entrance gate. A lad came running
+through the crowd.
+
+"Hold on!" he cried. "Wait! I'm going to play. Let me pitch!"
+
+"Sam Morton!" burst out Tom Davis. "Why couldn't he stay away until we
+had the game won? I'll bet we slump as soon as he goes in the box."
+
+Sam came on running. He was panting and out of breath.
+
+"What's the matter? Where were you?" demanded Darrell.
+
+"I got on--the wrong car. I thought it--came here. They--took me off--in
+the woods--somewhere. I've had an awful time--getting here. Is the
+game--over?"
+
+"No, we're just starting the seventh."
+
+"Can't I pitch?"
+
+Darrell hesitated. It was a perfectly natural request for Sam and yet
+Joe had been doing so well that both the manager and the captain
+disliked to take him off the mound.
+
+"Can't I pitch?" again demanded Sam. "You don't mean to tell me that Joe
+Matson has----"
+
+"Joe hasn't done anything but what we wanted him to," put in Rankin
+quickly, "and he's made a good record."
+
+"Oh, I suppose so," sneered Sam. "Well, if you don't want me to----"
+
+"Of course you can pitch," said Darrell quietly. It was unquestioningly
+Sam's right and though he was in rather an exhausted condition still the
+manager and captain knew that he was at his best early in his game.
+
+"What are you going to do; change pitchers?" demanded the manager of the
+Academy team, striding up to Darrell and Captain Rankin.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You can't do it now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It's against the rules. You've got to have some one bat for him first.
+You can't change until next inning."
+
+There was quite a mix-up, and rules were quoted and mis-quoted back and
+forth, for, as I have said, the lads were far from being professional or
+even college players. The upshot of it was that Sam was allowed to go
+in, whether or not in accordance with the rules the boys did not decide,
+and the little feeling that had been raised soon subsided, for they were
+all true sportsmen.
+
+As for Joe, at first he felt humiliated that he was displaced but he
+realized that he had had more honor that he had at first expected, and
+his arm was beginning to pain him very much. So, on the whole, he was
+glad Sam had arrived when he did.
+
+Not so the captain, manager and other Star players, however, for Sam
+allowed two runs while he occupied the box, and the Academy team and
+their friends were jubilant.
+
+The Stars managed to get two runs in their half of the seventh. Joe did
+not play, his place at centre field continuing to be filled by Tom. Joe
+was glad of the rest and he watched the efforts of his rival closely.
+
+In the eighth Sam did not seem able to pull himself together and three
+runs were due to his poor pitching.
+
+"Say, if we play innings enough we'll beat 'em even with their new
+pitcher!" called some one in the crowd, anxious to get Sam's "goat," or
+nerve.
+
+And this seemed likely. In their half of the eighth the Stars only got
+one run, and when the ninth inning opened there were some anxious hearts
+among the members of the visiting team.
+
+And then came a terrible slump. Sam grew wild, allowed bases on balls,
+struck one man and muffed an easy fly. When the route and riot were over
+there were five runs to the credit of the schoolboy players and they had
+tied the score, pulling up from a long way in the rear. The crowd went
+wild for them.
+
+"Fellows, we've got to make our half of this inning count," said Darrell
+earnestly. "They're making fools of us and they're not in our class at
+all. We've got to beat them! Sam, wake up!" he said sharply.
+
+"I'm not asleep!" retorted the pitcher. "If you think I am why don't you
+send that Matson in again?"
+
+"Easy now, easy," spoke Rankin. "You can pitch if you pull yourself
+together, and if we can't make a run this inning and it goes to the
+tenth you'll have to unwind some curves."
+
+"I will, but it won't go to the tenth."
+
+It didn't, for the Stars took a brace and pulled off one run, winning
+the game by a score of fourteen to thirteen. But it had been a close
+call.
+
+"Well, you beat us," acknowledged the Academy manager as the winning run
+came in. "But it took two pitchers to do it, and you'd have done better
+if you'd stuck to the first one."
+
+"Perhaps," admitted Darrell. "You played better than I gave you credit
+for."
+
+"Why don't you use that first pitcher regularly?" the home captain
+wanted to know.
+
+"Oh, maybe----" began Darrell, and then he saw Sam standing close
+beside him, and he did not finish.
+
+"What were you going to say?" demanded Sam roughly.
+
+"Nothing," answered the manager in some confusion. He was saved a
+further reply by the approach of a boy who held a note in his hand.
+
+"Is Joe Matson here?" the lad asked.
+
+"Right over there," said Darrell, pointing to where the young pitcher
+was talking to Tom Davis.
+
+"I've got a letter for him," the messenger went on.
+
+Joe rapidly tore open the envelope and read the few words the note
+contained.
+
+"I've got to leave here," he said to Tom.
+
+"Why? What's the matter? Nothing wrong I hope."
+
+"I don't know," answered Joe. "The note says I'm to come home at once.
+They've sent a carriage for me. I hope nothing has happened to--to
+anybody," and gulping down a suspicious lump in his throat Joe followed
+the lad off the diamond.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+JOE FOILS THE PLOTTERS
+
+
+There was a carriage waiting just outside the ball grounds, a carriage
+drawn by one horse. A man whom Joe had never seen before, so far as he
+knew, held the reins.
+
+"There's the man who wants you," explained the lad who had acted as
+messenger.
+
+"Who is he?" asked the young pitcher quickly. "I don't know him. Where
+did he come from? Where did you meet him?"
+
+"I guess he'll tell you all you want to know," said the lad. "All I know
+is that I was standing outside the ball grounds after the game, and he
+give me that note to bring in to you. I didn't come with him."
+
+"Oh, I see," replied Joe, but he was wondering who the man was, and how
+the fellow came to know that he was in Fayetteville.
+
+"Hope I didn't take you away from the game," began the man with what he
+evidently meant for a pleasant smile. Yet, somehow Joe did not like
+that smile. The man seemed to have a shifty glance and Joe mistrusted
+him.
+
+"Oh, the game is over," answered the young pitcher. "I didn't play in
+the last part. But what is the matter? Is my mother or father ill?"
+
+"It's nothing serious," spoke the man. "No one is ill. I came to get you
+about your father's patents."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Joe. He felt a sensation of relief until he realized the
+danger that threatened his father's inventions. Then he asked: "What's
+wrong? Is Mr.----" Then he stopped for he did not know whether or not to
+mention names to this stranger.
+
+"I can't give you any particulars," said the man with another smile.
+"All I can say is that they engaged me to come and get you to save
+time."
+
+"Who engaged you?" asked Joe.
+
+"Your father," replied the man. "He sent me off in a hurry and said I'd
+find you at this game. I sent you in the note by the lad. Your father
+had no time to write one, but you are to go to him at once. He wants you
+to help him about the patent models I think. We'd better hurry."
+
+Joe's suspicions vanished at once. He knew his father was preparing to
+send on some models to Washington and now probably some need of haste
+had arisen necessitating his aid. He climbed up into the carriage, and
+though he noted at the time that the rig did not seem to be from the
+local livery stable, which had only a few, he thought nothing of it
+then.
+
+The man flicked the horse with the whip and the animal started off on
+the jump. Just outside the ball grounds there was a private road leading
+into the main one. On reaching the chief thoroughfare the man turned
+north whereas, to reach Riverside, he should have gone south.
+
+"Hold on!" cried Joe, "you're going the wrong way."
+
+"Be easy. It's all right," answered the man with a smile. "Your father
+has taken all his things to a little shop in Denville. He had to have
+some changes made in the models I believe, and he wanted to be in a
+machine shop where he could work quietly. He told me to bring you
+there."
+
+Joe remembered that on one or two occasions Mr. Matson had had some work
+done in Denville, and once more the suspicions that had arisen were
+lulled. Joe sank back on the cushions and began thinking of the game
+just played. His arm was getting quite stiff.
+
+"I'll have to attend to it as soon as I get home," he mused. "It won't
+do to have it go back on me just when things are in such good shape. If
+they keep on I may become the regular pitcher. Sam certainly did poorly
+in his part of the game, and I'm not getting a swelled head, either,
+when I say that." Joe knew he had done good work, considering his sore
+arm, and he made up his mind to do still better.
+
+The man drove along rapidly, and in about an hour had reached the
+outskirts of Denville. He turned down a road that was evidently little
+used, to judge by the grass growing in it, and halted the horse in front
+of a small building. It did not look like a place where inventors'
+models would be made. In fact the shack had a forlorn and forsaken air
+about it, and Joe looked curiously at it. His suspicions were coming
+back.
+
+"Where is my father?" he demanded. "I don't see him."
+
+"It's all right now--it's all right," said the man quickly. "Hello in
+there!" he called.
+
+The next instant Joe saw a face at the window. Then it disappeared, but
+that momentary glance had showed him it was the face of Mr. Isaac
+Benjamin. In a second it was all clear to him. He had been trapped. He
+attempted to spring from the carriage seat.
+
+"I'm on to your game!" he exclaimed to the man.
+
+"Oh, are you? Well, you're not going to get away!" and with that the man
+grabbed Joe around the waist, pinning his arms to his sides. Then from
+the little building came running Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Holdney.
+
+"Did you get him all right?" asked the manager of the harvester works
+eagerly.
+
+"I certainly did," panted the other man, for Joe was struggling to get
+loose. "Didn't give me any trouble either, until just now."
+
+"Well, I'll make lots of trouble for you, if you don't let me go!" cried
+Joe.
+
+"Now, young man, take it easy," advised Mr. Benjamin. "We don't intend
+to do you a bit of harm, and we only brought you to this place to have a
+quiet talk with you. It's in your father's interest and I hope you'll
+overlook the unconventional way we took to get you here. Bring him in,"
+he added to the man in the carriage and, despite Joe's struggles he was
+lifted out and carried into the little building. The door was shut and
+locked, and he was alone with his three captors.
+
+"What do you want of me?" hotly demanded the lad.
+
+"Now don't get excited and we'll tell you," said Mr. Benjamin. "It's
+about your father's patents."
+
+"Yes," broke in Mr. Holdney, "we want to know where they are. He had no
+right to take the papers and models away from the harvester works. Those
+inventions are the property of the company and aren't your father's at
+all. We want----"
+
+"Better let me talk to him," advised Mr. Benjamin. "Now Joe, you can't
+understand all the ins and outs of this business, for it's very
+complicated. You know that your father is working on certain patents
+about a corn reaper and binder; don't you?"
+
+"Yes," admitted Joe cautiously, "but I'm not going to tell you anything
+about it."
+
+"Perhaps you will after you hear all I have to say," went on Mr.
+Benjamin. "Now, it's like this: Your father is unduly alarmed about the
+safety of his rights in the patents, and I will admit that he has some
+rights. For some reason he saw fit to take his models and papers away
+from the shop at the harvester works where he was engaged on them."
+
+Joe smiled--well he knew why his father had removed the valuable models
+and papers.
+
+"What we want," said Mr. Benjamin, "is to get access to those models. We
+want to see them for a short time, and also look over the papers. Now
+you can fix that for us if you will."
+
+"Why don't _you_ ask my father?" inquired Joe.
+
+"We have, but----" began Mr. Holdney.
+
+"He won't listen to reason," put in Mr. Benjamin. "He thinks we would
+deprive him of his rights." Joe thought so too, but he said nothing.
+"Now if you can quietly get those models and papers and let us have a
+look at them they will be returned to you without fail," said the
+manager. "Your father's rights will be fully protected. It may seem
+strange to you for us to make this proposition in this way, and bring
+you here as we have done, but it was necessary."
+
+"Suppose I refuse?" asked Joe.
+
+"Then we'll----" began Mr. Holdney, in blustering tones.
+
+"Now, now, easy," cautioned Mr. Benjamin. "The consequences may be
+disastrous for your father," he said quietly. "I am doing this for his
+own good. He will not hear of showing the models, but if you can get
+them for us it will save much trouble and annoyance for--well, for all
+of us. If you don't, your father may lose all he possesses and be
+without a position. I know what inventors are. They can only see one
+thing at a time. It is a simple thing that we ask of you. Will you do
+it? Now, you needn't answer at once. Take a little time to think it
+over. Go in that room there and wait. We'll give you half an hour. If by
+that time you don't decide to help us we'll----"
+
+"We'll _make_ you!" exclaimed Mr. Holdney. "I've got too much money tied
+up in this to see it lost by the obstinacy of a boy."
+
+"Well, if you refuse, we will have to take other measures," said Mr.
+Benjamin, with a shrug of his shoulders.
+
+Joe's heart was beating fast. He did not know what to do. Being
+practically kidnapped after he had worked so hard in the game, his fears
+for his father aroused, it is no wonder that he could not think clearly.
+He welcomed the chance to go off quietly by himself, but never for a
+moment did he think of betraying his father. Only for an instant did he
+place any confidence in what the wily manager had said. Then he knew
+there must be a trick in it all.
+
+"But if I let them trap me it's my own fault," thought Joe. "I've got to
+think up some way of escape."
+
+"Well?" asked the manager as Joe hesitated.
+
+"I--I'll think it over," answered the young pitcher.
+
+"All right. You can go in that room," and Mr. Benjamin opened the door
+of an apartment leading out of the main one.
+
+Joe cast a quick glance about it as the door closed behind him. He noted
+that it was not locked, but that with three men in the outer room the
+boy knew he could not escape that way.
+
+"And I'm going to escape if I can," he told himself. "I don't need any
+more time to think over what I'm going to do. They shan't have a glance
+at dad's models and papers."
+
+A rapid survey of the room showed him that it had but one window and
+that was heavily barred. He raised the sash softly and tried the bars.
+They were rusty but held firmly in the wood.
+
+"No use trying that way," murmured Joe. He heard the hum of voices in
+the outer room and listened at the keyhole.
+
+"Don't you think he can get away?" he heard the man who had brought him
+to the place ask the others.
+
+"I don't believe he'll try," was the answer from Mr. Benjamin. "After
+all, we couldn't hope to keep him a prisoner long. There would be too
+much hue and cry over it. All I expect is that he'll be so worried and
+frightened that he'll tell us what we want to know."
+
+"Oh, you've got another think coming," whispered Joe.
+
+He walked back to the window once more and, as he crossed the room he
+saw what looked like a trap door in the floor. Kneeling down he applied
+his nose to the crack. There came up the damp, musty smell of a cellar.
+
+"That's it!" cried Joe. "If I can get that door up I can drop into the
+cellar even if there aren't any stairs, and I guess I can get out of the
+cellar. But can I get that door up?"
+
+There was no ring to lift it by, and no handle, but Joe was a
+resourceful lad and in an instant his knife was out. With the big blade
+inserted in the crack he managed to raised the door a trifle. He
+endeavored to hold the advantage he had gained until he could take out
+the knife blade and insert it again farther down, but the door slipped
+through his fingers.
+
+"I've got to get some way of holding it up after each time I pry," he
+thought. A hurried search through his pockets brought to light part of a
+broken toe plate. He had had a new one put on for the Academy game, and
+had thrust the broken piece in the pocket of his trousers.
+
+"This ought to do it," he reasoned, and it did, for with the aid of that
+Joe was able to hold up and raise the trap door. The damp, musty smell
+was stronger now, and Joe was glad to see, in the dim darkness of the
+cellar, a flight of steps. "They're pretty rotten, but I guess they'll
+hold me," he murmured.
+
+The next instant he was going down them, and he let the trap door fall
+softly into place over his head. It was so dark in the cellar now that
+he could see nothing, but when his eyes became accustomed to the
+blackness he saw the dim light of an outer window.
+
+It was the work of but a moment to scramble through it, and a few
+seconds later Joe was running away from the place of his brief
+captivity.
+
+"I guess I won't give you an answer to-day," he murmured as he looked
+back.
+
+He heard a shout and saw Mr. Benjamin rush out. Then our hero caught
+sight of the horse and carriage and like a flash he made for it. Jumping
+in he called to the animal and was soon galloping down the road while
+the shouts behind him became fainter and fainter.
+
+"This is the time I fooled you!" cried Joe exultantly, as he urged on
+the horse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+SAM RESIGNS
+
+
+"Those desperate men! You must have them arrested at once!" exclaimed
+Mrs. Matson when Joe, a little later, had reached home, having left the
+horse and carriage at the local livery stable to be claimed. "You ought
+to go to the police at once, John! Why think of what might have happened
+to Joe," for the boy had told the whole story.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't so bad," said Joe who, now that the excitement was over,
+and he had so completely turned the tables on the plotters, was rather
+inclined to laugh at the experience.
+
+"There are worse things than that done to get possession of valuable
+patents," said Mr. Matson. "Those men are evidently desperate, though
+why Mr. Holdney should turn against me I cannot understand. But I would
+rather wait, and take no action right away. My work is almost finished
+and if all goes well I shall soon be independent of the harvester
+people. If, however, there is a slip-up I will be dependent on my
+position for a living. I think I will wait and see what develops."
+
+But in the morning there was a new turn to affairs. It was announced at
+the harvester factory that Mr. Benjamin had gone away for an indefinite
+stay, and a new manager had his place. This made it unnecessary for Mr.
+Matson to say anything. He wrote a strong letter of protest to Mr.
+Holdney, and then worked harder than ever to get his patents in shape so
+he would be fully protected in them.
+
+As for Joe he said nothing to any of his chums about his experience. The
+rig was claimed later by a man who would not give his name, and who
+drove off hurriedly, as if he feared arrest.
+
+"And now I'm going to get back to baseball," announced the young
+pitcher.
+
+His arm got better rapidly after the Academy game, and he was soon
+pitching in practice with his former vim and vigor. He was now regarded
+as the regular substitute twirler for the Silver Stars.
+
+Sam Morton, too, was regular in his practice, and there seemed to be
+something different about him. He was more careful in his conduct, and
+not as surly as he had been. He accepted criticism in a better spirit,
+and in one game against the scrub he did such unusually excellent work
+that the manager complimented him.
+
+"Just keep that up on Saturday," said Darrell, "and we won't let the
+Fairdale Blues have a run."
+
+"Oh, I'll be there with the goods all right," boasted Sam. He glanced at
+Joe as he said this as much as to intimate that his rival would not get
+a chance in the box.
+
+The Fairdale Blues were a strong team, and, as they had beaten the Stars
+several times, and had also won from the Resolutes, who were considered
+the strongest team in the county, more than the usual interest attached
+to the coming contest.
+
+It was to be played on the Stars' grounds, and early on the day of the
+game the grandstand and bleachers began to fill. The Blues arrived in
+several big carryalls with a noisy crowd of "rooters" carrying horns,
+bells and clappers--anything with which to make a racket.
+
+"They'll get Sam's goat if he isn't careful," observed Rodney Burke,
+when the Stars went out to practice.
+
+"Don't you fool yourself," retorted Sam. "I'm going to pitch a no-hit
+no-run game to-day."
+
+"That's like Sam--boasting as usual," commented Rodney.
+
+"Well, I think he'll make good," said an admirer of the pitcher.
+
+"Wait until you see what kind of hitters the Blues have," cautioned
+Rodney. "They may knock Sam out of the box. Then if Joe goes in----"
+
+"Aw, Joe won't get a chance to-day," was the retort. "He hasn't had
+enough practice."
+
+"Look what he did to the Academy team," reminded Rodney.
+
+And then further talk was stopped, for the gong rang to clear the
+diamond. The game was about to begin.
+
+The Stars took the field, for they were to bat last, and Sam faced his
+first opponent with a smile of confidence on his face. It faded away a
+moment later, however, as the lad knocked as pretty a three bagger as
+had been seen on the grounds in many a day.
+
+"That's the stuff!"
+
+"Line 'em out!"
+
+"Oh, we're on to his curves all right!" yelled the crowd. Joe, who was
+on the bench as a reserve pitcher, jumped to his feet and watched the
+ball roll past Tom who was playing centre. It looked almost as if the
+batter would come on home, but he held third and the fears of the Stars
+subsided.
+
+"Fool him now, Sam," called Darrell to the pitcher.
+
+"Make him give you a nice one," was the advice the next batter got from
+his friends. And he did, though it was only good for one bag. However,
+the run came in, and there were gloomy hearts in the camp of the Silver
+Stars.
+
+Sam managed to strike out the next man, and his confidence came back.
+But it was only for a short time. The crowd of Blue "rooters" was making
+a terrific racket and this may have gotten on Sam's nerves, at any rate
+he gave the next man his base on balls and was later hit for two two
+baggers.
+
+"Oh, we've got his goat! We've got 'em going! Everybody take a run!"
+yelled the visiting captain, jumping up and down at the third base
+coaching line.
+
+Darrell ran over to Sam.
+
+"You've got to pull yourself together," he said quickly. "We can't
+afford to lose this game."
+
+"I'm doing the best I can," retorted Sam. "The ball slips."
+
+"Don't let it slip--slips are dangerous," said the manager sharply.
+"You've got to do better or----"
+
+"Play ball!" yelled the umpire and Darrell ran back to his place at
+first base. Sam scowled at him, and then wound up for his next delivery.
+
+Somehow they managed to get three out, but there were five runs in the
+Blue frame when that inning ended, and only two for the Stars.
+
+"We can't stand this," said Rankin to the manager.
+
+"No, if Sam doesn't improve this inning I'm going to put in Joe."
+
+"Sam will raise a row."
+
+"I don't care if he does. Why doesn't he pitch decent ball if he wants
+to hold his place? They're laughing at the Stars now, and they didn't
+used to."
+
+"I know it. Well, maybe he'll improve."
+
+But Sam didn't. He could not seem to control the ball, his curves broke
+just about where the batters wanted them and they knocked out three runs
+that inning.
+
+"Matson bats for Morton!" announced the umpire when it came the turn of
+the Stars and the change had been mentioned to the score keepers by
+Darrell.
+
+"What does that mean?" cried Sam, striding to where the captain and
+manager sat.
+
+"It means that Joe is going to pitch the rest of this game," was the
+quiet answer.
+
+"He is?" Sam's voice rose high in anger.
+
+"He certainly is. You can't seem to do it, Sam. I'm sorry, but we can't
+afford to lose. We're near the tail end of the league now."
+
+Sam shot a look at the captain. Rankin nodded his head to confirm what
+the manager had said. Then the deposed pitcher strode over to where the
+score keepers sat. Taking up a piece of paper and a pencil he rapidly
+wrote something and handed it to Darrell.
+
+"What's this?" asked the manager.
+
+"My resignation from the Silver Star Baseball Club," snapped Sam. "I'm
+done pitching for you. It was all a put-up job to get me out, and that
+Matson lad in. I'm through," and he turned aside.
+
+"Very well," assented Darrell quietly. "If you feel that way about it
+perhaps it is better that you quit. But I'm sorry."
+
+"Play ball!" yelled the umpire.
+
+"Joe, bat for Sam and then take the box," said the manager, and there
+was a little subdued applause from the other Star players on the bench.
+It was their way of congratulating Joe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+BAD NEWS
+
+
+Joe was plainly nervous. Being called on so suddenly had its effect as
+did the unexpected action of Sam in resigning because Joe had supplanted
+him. But the young pitcher knew that he must pull himself together.
+
+The game was slipping away from the Stars and the crowd of shouters that
+accompanied the Blues would redouble their efforts to get Joe's "goat"
+as soon as he got in the box.
+
+He had a foretaste of what they would do when he got up to bat in Sam's
+place and struck out. It was no discredit to Joe, for the Blues had a
+fine pitcher, still it added to his nervousness.
+
+"If that's a sample of what your new pitcher can do we'll take a few
+more runs!" yelled a Blue sympathizer.
+
+"Oh, he only did that for fun!" yelled Rodney.
+
+"Yes," added Tom Davis. "He's saving his arm to strike you fellows out.
+Go to it, Joe! Don't let 'em rattle you."
+
+The Stars took a brace, whether it was the knowledge that Joe was to
+pitch or not, but they certainly braced, and in that inning got enough
+runs to make the score six to eight in favor of the visiting team.
+
+"Now, Joe, hold 'em down!" pleaded Darrell, "and we can do the rest, I
+think."
+
+"I'll try," answered our hero.
+
+It would be too much to expect Joe to do wonders, but he did very well.
+He only allowed two hits in the inning when he first pitched and only
+one run came in, chiefly through an error on the part of the third
+baseman.
+
+"I guess we've got their number now," exulted Darrell, when it came the
+turn of the Stars to bat. "Keep up the good work, boys. We've got 'em
+going."
+
+The Stars managed to knock out two runs in their half of the third
+inning and that made the score eight to nine--one extra tally only
+against them.
+
+And then began what was really a remarkable game for one played between
+amateur nines. For the next four innings neither side got a run. Talk of
+a "pitchers' battle" began to be whispered, and for the credit of the
+visitors be it said that they no longer tried to get Joe's "goat."
+
+Both pitchers were on their mettle. Of course they were not perfect and
+probably some deliveries that the umpire called strikes were balls, just
+as some that he designated as balls were good strikes. But it was all in
+the game. Joe was doing good work. There were only a few scattered hits
+off him and these were easily taken care of by the in or out fielders.
+In this the Blues rather excelled, however, there being more errors
+charged up against the home team than to them.
+
+But the Stars had this in their favor; that, while there were a number
+of good stick men among the visitors, they were not speedy base-runners
+and thus a number of men were nabbed on the sacks, through playing off
+too far, or not connecting in time, who otherwise might have brought in
+runs.
+
+"Oh, fellows, we've got to do something!" cried the captain at the close
+of the usual lucky seventh, when no runs had been registered for either
+side. "Can't some of you pull off a run?"
+
+But it was the Blue team who scored first, getting one run on a ball hit
+by the first man up. It was manifestly a foul, but the umpire called it
+fair and the man held his base. Then Joe's arm gave him a twinge and he
+was hit for a three bagger by the next man up, scoring the player
+preceding him. But that was all.
+
+With grimly tightened lips Joe faced his next opponent and after that
+not a man got to first, and the player on third dared not steal home, so
+keenly was he watched.
+
+With the score eight to ten against them the Stars came in more
+confidently than might have been expected. And when they had hammered
+out two runs, tieing the score, there was wild enthusiasm.
+
+"Here's where we walk away from them!" yelled Rodney, as the second run
+came in, and with only one man out. But there came a slump and the
+opposing pitcher braced up, striking out two men in succession.
+
+The ninth inning saw a single run tallied up for the visitors, and in
+this connection Joe did some great work, pulling down a fly that was
+well over his head and receiving a round of applause for his pluck, for
+it was a "hot" one.
+
+The unexpected happened in the ending of the ninth, when the visitors
+were one ahead. Seth Potter, never reckoned as a heavy hitter brought in
+a home run, and the score was once more a tie for no one else crossed
+home plate.
+
+"Ten innings!" was the cry and the spectators began "sitting up and
+taking notice" as Rodney Burke said.
+
+"Now, Joe, it's up to you to shut them out," advised the captain. The
+young pitcher nodded and then he cut loose.
+
+His arm was paining him very much for by a sudden twist he had wrenched
+the muscles injured in saving the lad from the trolley car. But Joe
+would not give up, and he struck out three men neatly, only one, the
+second up, getting any kind of a hit, and that only good for the initial
+bag.
+
+"A goose egg!" yelled Rodney Burke. "Now one run will do the trick!"
+
+"Snow 'em under!" cried Darrell.
+
+And the Stars did, for they rapped out the necessary run amid a jubilant
+riot of cheers, making the final score twelve to eleven.
+
+"Oh, I knew you could do it! I knew you could!" cried the captain,
+trying to embrace all his lads at once. They had won handily though at
+one time it looked like defeat.
+
+"Good work, Joe," complimented Darrell. "You're the regular pitcher from
+now on."
+
+"But if Sam reconsiders his resignation?"
+
+"He can't," rejoined the manager. "He's out for good."
+
+Joe could hardly wait to get home and tell the good news. He fairly
+raced into the house, but he stopped short at the sight of his father
+and mother in the dining room. They were seated at the table and a look
+of anxiety was on their faces.
+
+"What's the matter?" gasped Joe, all his joy in the victory and his new
+position leaving him as he looked at his parents. On the table between
+them lay a number of papers.
+
+"I've been served with a summons from the court," said Mr. Matson
+slowly. "It's a move on the part of Benjamin and Holdney. The court has
+taken my patent models and documents away from me, and I may lose
+everything. It's hard, just as I was about to succeed--very hard."
+
+"And you may lose everything, dad?" asked Joe huskily.
+
+"Yes--everything son--I may have to start all over again. I'm out of the
+harvester works now."
+
+For a moment one disappointing thought came to Joe. He would not be able
+to go to a boarding school as he had hoped. Then the look of trouble on
+his father's face drove all other thoughts from his mind.
+
+"Don't you care, dad!" he exclaimed stepping close to him. "You can beat
+those fellows yet. We whipped the Blues to-day, and I'm the regular
+pitcher for the Stars!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE FIGHT
+
+
+There was a moment of silence following Joe's remark about being made
+regular pitcher. Then Clara laughed and it was almost a laugh of relief,
+for she had been under quite a strain since she came in and heard the
+bad news.
+
+"Oh, you silly boy!" cried Clara. "Just as if your being made pitcher
+was going to help. I suppose you'll turn all your salary in to help out
+now; won't you?" but there was no sting intended in her words and,
+fearing there might have been just the touch of it, she crossed the room
+and tried to slip her arm up around Joe's neck.
+
+"No, you don't!" he cried as gaily as possible under the circumstances,
+"fen on kissing. But say, dad, is it as bad as all that? Have Benjamin
+and his crowd beaten you?"
+
+"I'm afraid so, son. At least they've won the first skirmish in the
+battle. Now it's up to the courts, and it may take a year or more to
+settle the question of whether or not I have any rights in the
+inventions I originated. But don't let that worry you," he went on more
+cheerfully. "We'll make out somehow. I'm glad you got the place you
+wanted. How was the game?"
+
+"Pretty good. It was so tight we had to play ten innings. But can't I do
+something to help you, dad?"
+
+"We can't do anything right away," rejoined Mr. Matson. "We can only
+wait. I shall have to see a lawyer, and have him look after my
+interests. I never thought that Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Holdney would treat
+me this way.
+
+"But don't worry. Perhaps we shall come out all right, and in the end
+this may be a good thing. It will teach me a lesson never again to trust
+any one where patents are concerned. I should have had a written
+contract and not taken their mere word that they would treat me right."
+
+"And you are out of the harvester works?" asked Joe.
+
+"Out completely," and Mr. Matson smiled. "I have a holiday, Joe, and I'm
+coming to see you pitch some day."
+
+"But--but," ventured Clara, "if you haven't any work, dad, you won't get
+any money and----"
+
+"Oh, so that's what is worrying you!" cried her father with a laugh as
+he placed his arm around her. "Well, have no fears. There are still a
+few shots in the locker, and we're not going to the poorhouse right
+away. Now, Joe, tell us all about the ball game."
+
+Which the young pitcher did with great enthusiasm.
+
+"But won't this Sam Morton be angry with you?" asked Mrs. Matson, who
+was a gentle woman, always in fear of violence.
+
+"Oh, I don't suppose he'll be very _friendly_ toward me," replied Joe.
+
+"Then he may do you some injury."
+
+"Well, I guess I can take care of myself. I'm not afraid of him, mother,
+and if it comes to a fight----"
+
+"Oh, you horrid boys--always thinking about fighting!" interrupted
+Clara. "Don't you fight, Joe!"
+
+"I won't if I can help it, sis."
+
+Next morning, Joe was in two states of mind. He was delighted at being
+the regular pitcher for the Stars, but he was downcast when he thought
+that to go to the boarding school was now out of the question. And that
+it would be impossible for him to think of it under the present
+financial state of the family was made plain to him when he spoke of the
+matter to his mother.
+
+"I'm sorry, Joe," she said, "but you'll have to give up the idea."
+
+"All right," he answered, as cheerfully as he could, but he went out of
+the house quickly for there was a suspicious moisture in his eyes, and a
+lump in his throat that would not seem to go down, no matter how hard he
+swallowed.
+
+"Oh, I'm a chump!" he finally exclaimed. "I shouldn't want to go to an
+expensive boarding school when dad is in such trouble. And yet--and
+yet--Oh! I _do_ want to get on a big team and pitch!"
+
+In the days that followed Joe saw little of his father, for Mr. Matson
+was out of town trying to get matters in shape for the court
+proceedings. But Joe was kept busy at practice with the Stars, and in
+playing games.
+
+The season was in full swing and the Silver Stars seemed to have struck
+a streak of winning luck. Some said it was Joe's pitching, for really he
+was doing very well. Others laid it just to luck and talked darkly of a
+"slump."
+
+"There won't be any slump if you fellows keep your eyes open, and hit
+and run," said the manager.
+
+The county league season was drawing to a close, and as it stood now the
+championship practically lay between the Stars and their old enemies
+the Resolutes. There was some talk of playing off a tie, if it should
+come to that, but when Darrell mentioned this to the Resolute manager he
+was told that the latter team had all dates filled to the end of the
+season.
+
+"We can't give you a game," he announced.
+
+"It's too bad," said Darrell, "for we ought to decide which is the best
+team."
+
+"Oh, ours is, of course. Didn't we wallop you once?"
+
+"Well, you can't do it again," was the quick retort.
+
+It was several days after this when Joe was coming home from afternoon
+practice in preparation for a game Saturday with the Red Stockings. As
+he took a short cut over the fields to get home more quickly, he was
+aware of a figure coming toward him. When too late to turn back he saw
+it was Sam Morton. Sam saw Joe and came to a halt.
+
+"Well," asked Sam with a sneer, "how is the high-and-mighty pitcher? I
+suppose you've been doing nothing else but handing out no-hit and no-run
+games?"
+
+"Not quite as good as that," admitted Joe with what he meant for a
+friendly smile.
+
+"Who you laughing at?" demanded Sam fiercely.
+
+"I wasn't laughing," replied Joe.
+
+"Yes, you were! You were laughing at me and I won't stand it. You worked
+and schemed to get me out of the nine so you could go in, and now you're
+making fun of me, I won't stand it, I tell you. You think you're a
+pitcher! Well you're not, and you'll never be. I won't be made fun of!"
+All the pent-up anger--unreasoning as it was,--all the hate that had
+been accumulating for weeks in Sam, burst out at once.
+
+He made a spring for Joe, but the pitcher stepped back. Not in time,
+however, for he received a blow on the chest.
+
+Now I am not defending Joe for what he did. I am only telling of what
+happened. Joe was a manly lad yet he had all the instincts and passions
+that normal lads have. When he was hit his first instinct was to hit
+back, and he did it in this case.
+
+His left fist shot forward and clipped Sam on the chin. The blow was a
+staggering one and for a moment the former pitcher reeled. Then with a
+roar of rage he came back at Joe, and the pair were at it hammer and
+tongs.
+
+"I'll show you that you can't come sneaking around here and steal my
+place!" blubbered Sam, as he aimed a blow at Joe's face.
+
+"I didn't sneak!" retorted Joe, as he dodged the blow and got a
+right-hander near Sam's solar plexus.
+
+Both lads were evenly matched and the fight might have gone on for some
+time but for Sam's rage which made him reckless. He left unguarded
+openings of which Joe took quick advantage, and finally, with a straight
+left, he sent Sam to the grass.
+
+"I--I'll fix you for that!" yelled the former pitcher as he rushed at
+Joe. It was easy to step aside and avoid the clumsy blow, and once more
+Sam went down. This time he did not get up so quickly, and there was a
+dazed look on his face.
+
+"See here!" cried Joe, stepping over to him. "This has gone far enough.
+I didn't want to fight, but you made me. I can beat you and you know it.
+If you don't stop now I'll knock you down every time you get up until
+you've had enough."
+
+It was brutal talk, perhaps, but it was well meant. For a moment Sam
+looked up at his antagonist. Then he murmured:
+
+"I've had enough--for the present."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE CHALLENGE
+
+
+The fight was over. Sam arose and started away. Joe called after him:
+
+"Won't you shake hands? I'm sorry this happened, but can't we be friends
+after this?"
+
+"No!" snarled Sam. "I don't want anything to do with you."
+
+There was nothing more to be said, and Joe walked away. He was somewhat
+stiff and sore, for a number of Sam's blows had landed with telling
+effect. One in particular, on the muscles of his right forearm, made
+that member a bit stiff and numb.
+
+"I've got to take care of that," thought Joe, "or I can't pitch
+Saturday." He had only a few marks of the fight on his face and he was
+glad of it, for he did not want his mother or sister to know.
+
+Joe's mother did not ask embarrassing questions. In fact she was
+thinking of other things, for she had received a letter from her
+husband that day, sent from a distant city. Matters it appeared were not
+going as well as they might, but Mr. Matson had hopes that all would
+come out right in the end.
+
+Joe rubbed his sore arm well that night, and when Saturday came he
+pitched a great game against the Red Stockings, allowing only a few
+scattered hits. The Stars took the contest by a big margin.
+
+"Now, if we could wind up with a game against the Resolutes and wallop
+them we'd finish out the season in great shape," commented Captain
+Rankin, as he followed his lads off the diamond.
+
+"I'm going to make another try to get them to play us," said Darrell.
+"I'm going to send a challenge, and intimate that they're afraid to
+tackle us since we've got our new pitcher."
+
+It was several days later when the nine was at practice and Darrell had
+not come out. Tom Davis was in his place at first and Rodney Burke was
+in centre field.
+
+"I wonder what's keeping Darrell?" said the captain. "He hardly ever
+misses practice."
+
+"Here he comes now," announced Joe, "and he's got a letter," for Darrell
+was waving a paper as he ran across the field.
+
+"Good news, boys!" he cried. "The Resolutes will play us. I just got
+word in a special delivery letter. That's what kept me. Hurray! Now
+we'll show 'em what's what. It will be a grand wind-up for the season
+and will practically decide the county championship."
+
+"That's the stuff!" cried the lads.
+
+"When do we play?" asked Joe.
+
+"This coming Saturday."
+
+"I thought they said all their dates were filled," commented Tom Davis.
+
+"They were, but some team they counted on busted up and that left an
+opening. Then, too, I fancy that little dig I gave them about being
+afraid had its effect. Joe, it's up to you now."
+
+"All right!" and our hero accepted the responsibility with a smile.
+
+There was considerable excitement among the Silver Stars over the
+prospective game. They were almost too excited to keep on with the
+practice against the scrub, but Darrell talked like a "Dutch uncle" to
+them, to quote Rodney Burke, and they went at their work with renewed
+vigor.
+
+When Joe got home that evening after some hard practice there was
+another letter from his father. It was brief, merely saying:
+
+"In a few days I will know all. My next will contain good news--or bad."
+
+"Oh, this suspense is terrible," complained Mrs. Matson.
+
+The day of the game between the Silver Stars and their old enemies drew
+nearer. Joe had practiced hard and he knew he was in good shape to
+pitch. In fact the Stars were much improved by their season's work, and
+they were as good an amateur nine in their class as could be found in
+the country.
+
+Word came to them, however, that the Resolutes were trained to the
+minute, and were going to put up a stiff fight for the county
+championship.
+
+"Let 'em," said Darrell briefly. "We don't want a walk-over."
+
+"Well," remarked Clara to her brother, on the Saturday of the game,
+"isn't it almost time for you to start if you're going to Rocky Ford?"
+
+"Yes, I guess I had better be going," answered Joe. "I want to put a few
+stitches in my glove. It's ripped."
+
+"I'll do it," offered Clara and she had just finished when the door bell
+rang.
+
+"I'll go," volunteered Joe, and when he saw a messenger boy standing
+there, with a yellow envelope in his hands somehow the heart of the
+young pitcher sank.
+
+Quickly he took the telegram to his mother, to whom it was addressed.
+
+"You open it, Joe," she said. "I can't. I'm afraid it's bad news. My
+hand trembles so."
+
+Joe tore open the telegram. It was from his father.
+
+"I'm afraid it's all up," the message read. "I have practically lost my
+case, and it looks as if I'd have to start all over again. But don't
+worry. I'm coming home."
+
+A silence followed Joe's reading of the few words aloud. Then indeed it
+was all over. He could not go to boarding school after all. He looked at
+his mother. There were tears in her eyes but she bore the shock bravely.
+Clara was very pale.
+
+"Well, it might be worse!" said Joe philosophically. "There is just a
+bare chance--but it's mighty slim."
+
+And then from outside came the hail of Tom Davis:
+
+"Come on, Joe! Come on! It's time you started for Rocky Ford. We're
+going to wallop the Resolutes!" and with the freedom of an old friend,
+Joe's chum burst into the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE WINNING THROW--CONCLUSION
+
+
+For a moment Tom stood there a bit embarrassed, for he saw that
+something unusual had happened.
+
+"I--I hope I'm not intruding," he stammered. "I didn't think--I came
+right in as I always do. Has anything----"
+
+"It's all right!" exclaimed Joe quickly. "We just got word that dad has
+lost his patent case."
+
+"Gee! That's too bad!" exclaimed Tom, who knew something of the affair.
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going to pitch against the Resolutes, the first thing I do!" cried
+Joe. "After that I'll decide what's next. But is my glove mended, Clara?
+Come on, Tom, we mustn't be late. We're going to wallop them--just as
+you said."
+
+"I hope you do!" burst out Clara.
+
+"Play a good game and--and--don't worry," whispered Mrs. Matson to her
+son as he kissed her good-bye.
+
+The team and substitutes were to go to Rocky Ford in two big stages, in
+time to get in some practice on the grounds that were none too familiar
+to them. A crowd of Silver Star "rooters" were to follow on the trolley.
+The captain and managers of the rival teams watched their opponents
+practice with sharp eyes.
+
+"They're snappier than when they beat us before," was Darrell's
+conclusion.
+
+"They've got a heap sight better pitcher in Joe than Sam Morton ever
+was," concluded Captain Hen Littell of the Resolutes, who twirled for
+his team. "I shouldn't wonder but what we'd have a mighty close game."
+
+The last practice was over. The scattered balls had been collected, the
+batting list made out and final details arranged. Once more came the
+thrilling cry of the umpire:
+
+"Play ball!"
+
+The Resolutes were to bat last, and Seth Potter went up to bat first for
+the Stars.
+
+"Swat it," pleaded the crowd, and Seth smiled. But he fanned the air
+successively as well as successfully and soon went back to the bench.
+Then came Fred Newton's turn and he knocked a little pop fly that was
+easily caught before he reached first. Captain Rankin himself was up
+next and managed to get to first on a swift grounder that got past the
+shortstop. But he died on second, for the next man up fanned. No runs
+for the Stars.
+
+The Resolutes were jubilant, thinking this augured well for them, but
+they looked a little blank when Joe retired their first two men hitless.
+For Joe had started off in good form. With the first ball he delivered
+he knew that he was master of the horsehide--at least for a time.
+
+"But oh! I hope I don't slump!" and he almost found himself praying that
+such a thing would not happen.
+
+He was in an agony of fear when he heard the crack of the bat on the
+ball when the third man came up. The spheroid went shooting off in
+centre field, but by a magnificent stop Percy Parnell gathered it in and
+the side was retired runless. Things were not so bad for the Stars.
+
+For the next two innings neither side got a run, though there were some
+scattered hits. Again was there talk of a pitchers' battle, though in
+the strict sense of the word this was not so, as both Joe and Hen
+Littell were hit occasionally, and for what would have been runs only
+for the efficient fielding on both sides.
+
+"See if we can't do something this inning!" pleaded Rankin when his side
+came up in their half of the fourth. The lads all tried hard and Joe
+knocked a pretty one that was muffed by the second baseman. However, he
+quickly picked it up and hurled it to first. Joe got there about the
+same time as the ball did, and to many he seemed safe, but he was called
+out.
+
+"Aw, that's rotten!" cried Tom Davis.
+
+"Let it go!" said Darrell sharply, and Tom subsided.
+
+The Stars got another goose egg--four straight--and in their half of the
+fourth the Resolutes got their first run. The crowd went wild and Joe
+found himself clenching his hands, for the run came in because he had
+given a man his base on balls. The runner had successively stolen second
+and third, and went home on a nice fly.
+
+"I hope I'm not going to slump!" thought Joe and there was a lump in his
+throat. For an instant he found himself thinking of his father's
+troubles, and then he firmly dismissed them from his mind. "I've got to
+pitch!" he told himself fiercely.
+
+"We've got him going!" chanted the Resolute "rooters." Joe shut his
+teeth grimly and struck out the next man. Then he nipped the runner
+stealing second and threw him out with lightning speed. That somewhat
+silenced the jubilant cries and when Joe managed to retire one of the
+Resolute's heaviest hitters without even a bunt a big crowd rose up and
+cheered him.
+
+"They're only one ahead," said Rankin as his lads came in to bat. "Let's
+double it now."
+
+And double it they did, the Star boys playing like mad and getting
+enough hits off Littell to make two runs.
+
+"That's the way to wallop 'em!" sang some one in the visiting crowd and
+the song composed for the occasion was rendered with vim.
+
+Desperately as the Resolutes tried in their half of the fifth to catch
+up to their rivals, they could not do it. Joe was at his best and in
+that half inning did not allow a hit. He had almost perfect control, and
+his speed was good. Only once or twice did he pitch at all wild and then
+it did no harm as there was no one on base.
+
+The sixth inning saw a run chalked up for each team, making the score
+three to two in favor of the Stars.
+
+"Oh, if we can only keep this up!" exclaimed Darrell, "we'll have them.
+Can you do it, Joe?"
+
+"I guess so--yes, I can!" he said with conviction.
+
+Then came the lucky seventh, in which the Stars pounded out three runs,
+setting the big crowd wild with joy, and casting corresponding gloom
+over the cohorts of the Resolutes. The Stars now had six runs and their
+rivals were desperate. They even adopted unfair tactics, and several
+decisions of the umpire were manifestly in their favor. The crowd hooted
+and yelled, but the young fellow who was calling strikes and balls held
+to his opinion, and the Resolutes closed their half of the seventh with
+two runs.
+
+"Six to four in our favor," murmured the Stars' manager. "If we can only
+keep this lead the game is ours."
+
+"That word 'if' is a big one for only two letters," spoke Captain Rankin
+grimly. "But maybe we can."
+
+Neither side scored in the eighth and then came the final trial of the
+Stars unless there should be a tie, which would necessitate ten innings.
+
+Joe was to the bat in this inning, and oh! how hard he tried for a run!
+He knocked a two bagger and stole third. There was one out when Bart
+Ferguson came up, and Bart was a heavy hitter. But somehow he did not
+make good this time. He managed to connect with the ball, however, and
+as soon as Joe heard the crack he started for home.
+
+But there was brilliant playing on the part of the Resolutes. With a
+quick throw to home the shortstop nipped Joe at the plate, and then the
+catcher, hurling the ball to first, got the horsehide into the baseman's
+hands before Bart arrived. It was a pretty double play and retired the
+Stars with a goose egg.
+
+Still they had a lead of two runs and they might be able to hold their
+rivals down. It was a critical point in the game. As Joe took his place
+and faced the batter he felt his heart wildly throbbing. He knew he must
+hold himself well in hand or he would go to pieces. The crowd of
+Resolute sympathizers was hooting and yelling at him. Darrell saw how
+things might go and ran out to the pitcher.
+
+"Hold hard!" he whispered. "Just take it easy. Pitch a few balls to Bart
+and your nerve will come back. We've _got_ to win."
+
+"And we will!" exclaimed Joe. The delivery of a few balls, while the
+batter stepped away from the plate, showed Joe that he still had his
+speed and control. He was going to be wary what kind of curves he
+delivered.
+
+He struck out the first man up with an ease that at first caused him
+wild elation, and then he calmed himself.
+
+"There are two more," he reasoned. "I've got to get two more--two
+more."
+
+He was almost in despair when he was hit for a two bagger by the next
+player, and he was in a nervous perspiration about the man stealing to
+third. Then Darrell signalled him to play for the batter, and Joe did,
+getting him out with an easy fly.
+
+Then there was a mix-up when the next man hit, and by an error of the
+left fielder the man on second, who had stolen to third, went home with
+a run, while the man who had brought him in got to the last bag.
+
+"That's the stuff!" yelled the crowd. "Now one more to make it a tie and
+another to win!"
+
+"Steady, boys! Steady!" called Darrell, as he saw his team on the verge
+of a breakdown. "We can beat 'em!"
+
+There were now two out, one run was in, a man was on third and a heavy
+batter was up--one of the best of the Resolutes.
+
+"Swat it, Armstrong! Swat it!" cried the crowd, and the big left fielder
+smiled confidently.
+
+"Ball one!" cried the umpire, after Joe's first delivery.
+
+There was a gasp of protest from Bart behind the plate, for the sphere
+had come over cleanly. Darrell signalled to the catcher to make no
+protest. Joe felt a wave of anger, but he endeavored to keep cool. But
+when the second ball was called on him he wanted to run up and thrash
+the umpire. The latter was grinning derisively.
+
+"Here's a strike!" cried Joe, in desperation and he was gratified when
+Armstrong struck at it and missed.
+
+"Why didn't you call that a ball?" asked Bart of the umpire. The latter
+did not answer.
+
+Another ball was called and then a strike. Now came the supreme moment.
+Two men out, a man on third waiting to rush in with the tieing run, a
+heavy hitter at bat and three balls and two strikes called on him. No
+wonder Joe's hand trembled a little.
+
+"Easy, old man!" called Darrell to him. "You can make him fan."
+
+Joe thought rapidly. He had studied the batter and he thought that by
+delivering a swift in-shoot he could fool Armstrong. It was his last
+chance, for another ball meant that the batter would walk, and there was
+even a better stick-man to follow.
+
+Joe wound up, and sent in a swift one. His heart was fluttering, he
+could hardly see, there was a roaring in his ears. And then he dimly saw
+Armstrong strike at the ball desperately. Almost at the same moment Joe
+knew he would miss it.
+
+The ball landed in the centre of Bart's big glove with a resounding
+whack. He held it exactly where he had caught it. Joe had delivered the
+winning throw.
+
+"Strike three--batter's out!" howled the umpire, and then his voice was
+drowned in a yell of joy from the sympathizers of the Stars.
+
+For their team had won! The Resolutes were retired with but one run in
+the ninth and the final score was five to six in favor of our friends.
+They had beaten their old rivals on their own grounds and they had won
+the county championship!
+
+"Great work, old man! Great!" yelled Darrell in Joe's ear. "You saved
+the day for us."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Joe modestly.
+
+"Three cheers for Baseball Joe!" yelled Tom Davis, and how those cheers
+did ring out.
+
+"Three cheers for the Stars--they beat us fair and square!" called
+Captain Littell, and this was quite a different ending than that which
+had marked the previous game.
+
+Some wanted to carry Joe around on their shoulders but he slipped away,
+and got off his uniform. Soon the team was on its way back to Riverside.
+
+"You ought to be in a bigger team," Darrell told Joe. "You've got the
+making of a great pitcher in you."
+
+"Well, I guess I'll have to stick around here for a while yet," replied
+our hero, as he thought of the fallen finances of his father. Never in
+all his life had he so longed for the chance to go to boarding school,
+and thence to college. But he knew it could not be, chiefly through the
+treachery of Benjamin and Holdney. Joe felt a wave of resentment against
+them sweep over him, and his thoughts were black and bitter.
+
+Tom walked as far as Joe's street with him. He had a silent sympathy
+that spoke more than mere words could have done.
+
+"So long," he said softly as they parted. "It was a great game, Joe, and
+I'm almost glad you've got to stay with the Stars."
+
+"Well, did you win?" asked his mother, as Joe entered the house--entered
+it more listlessly than winning a big game would seem to warrant. "Did
+you beat the Resolutes, Joe?"
+
+"Yes, we did--why, mother, what's the matter?" cried the young pitcher,
+for there was a look of joy and happiness on her face, a look entirely
+different than when he had left her after the bad news. "Has
+anything--anything good happened?" he asked.
+
+"Yes!" she exclaimed, "there has. I just had another telegram from your
+father. Everything is all right. He gets back his patents."
+
+"No!" cried Joe, as if unable to believe the news.
+
+"But I tell you yes!" repeated Mrs. Matson, and there was joy in her
+voice. "At first your father believed that all was lost, just as he
+wired us. Then, most unexpectedly he tells me, they were able to obtain
+some evidence from outside parties which they had long tried for in
+vain.
+
+"It seems that a witness for Mr. Benjamin and his side, on whom they
+very much depended, deserted them, and went over to your father and his
+lawyer, and----"
+
+"Hurray for that witness, whoever he was!" cried Joe.
+
+"Be quiet," begged Clara, "and let mother tell."
+
+"There isn't much to tell," went on Mrs. Matson. "With the unexpected
+evidence of this witness your father's lawyer won the case, almost at
+the last moment. In fact your father had given up, and was about ready
+to leave the court when the man sent in word that he would testify for
+them. That was after your father sent the telegram that came just before
+you went off to the game, Joe."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Clara.
+
+"Now it's your turn to be quiet and listen," admonished Joe, with a
+smile at his sister.
+
+"I have about finished," went on their mother. "The judge decided in
+your father's favor, and he doesn't even have to share the profits of
+the invention with the harvester company or with Mr. Rufus Holdney, as
+he at one time thought he would, for they have violated their contract.
+So we won't be poor, after all, children. Aren't you glad?"
+
+"You bet!" exploded Joe, throwing his arms around his mother's neck.
+
+"And we won't have to leave this nice house," added Clara, looking
+around the comfortable abode.
+
+"Then I can go to boarding school--and pitch on the school nine; can't I
+mother?" cried Joe, throwing his arms around her.
+
+"Oh, yes; I suppose so," she answered, with half a sigh. "But I do wish
+you'd do something else besides play baseball."
+
+"Something else besides baseball, mother! Why, there's nothing to be
+compared to it. Hurray! I'm going to boarding school! I'm going to
+boarding school!" and Joe, catching Clara around the waist, waltzed her
+around the room. Then he caught his mother on his other arm--the arm
+that won the victory for the Stars that day--and her, too, he whirled
+about until she cried for mercy.
+
+"Oh, but this is great!" Joe cried when he stopped for breath. "Simply
+great! I must go and tell Tom. Maybe he can go to boarding school with
+me."
+
+And whether Tom did or not, and what were our hero's further fortunes on
+the diamond, will be related in the next volume, to be called: "Baseball
+Joe on the School Nine; or, Pitching for the Blue Banner."
+
+There was an impromptu feast that night for the victorious Silver Stars
+and Joe was the hero of the occasion. He was toasted again and again,
+and called upon to make some remarks, which he did in great confusion.
+But his chums thought it the best speech they had ever heard.
+
+"Three cheers for Baseball Joe!" called Tom Davis, and the room rang
+with them, while Joe tried to hide his blushes by drinking glass after
+glass of lemonade.
+
+And now, for a time, we will take leave of him, crying as his chums did
+after the great victory on the diamond: "Hurrah for Baseball Joe!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+     _Dear Reader_:
+
+     If you enjoyed Baseball Joe and wish to follow his further
+     adventures see the books listed on the following page.
+
+
+
+
+THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES
+
+By LESTER CHADWICK
+
+_12mo. Illustrated. Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents
+additional._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  1. BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
+     _or The Rivals of Riverside_
+
+  2. BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE
+     _or Pitching for the Blue Banner_
+
+  3. BASEBALL JOE AT YALE
+     _or Pitching for the College Championship_
+
+  4. BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUE
+     _or Making Good as a Professional Pitcher_
+
+  5. BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE
+     _or A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles_
+
+  6. BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS
+     _or Making Good as a Twirler in the Metropolis_
+
+  7. BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES
+     _or Pitching for the Championship_
+
+  8. BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD
+     _or Pitching on a Grand Tour_
+
+  9. BASEBALL JOE: HOME RUN KING
+     _or The Greatest Pitcher and Batter on Record_
+
+  10. BASEBALL JOE SAVING THE LEAGUE
+      _or Breaking Up a Great Conspiracy_
+
+  11. BASEBALL JOE CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM
+      _or Bitter Struggles on the Diamond_
+
+  12. BASEBALL JOE CHAMPION OF THE LEAGUE
+      _or The Record that was Worth While_
+
+  13. BASEBALL JOE CLUB OWNER
+      _or Putting the Home Town on the Map_
+
+  14. BASEBALL JOE PITCHING WIZARD
+      _or Triumphs Off and On the Diamond_
+
+
+_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York
+
+
+
+
+THE BOMBA BOOKS
+
+By ROY ROCKWOOD
+
+_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. With Colored jacket._
+
+_Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+_Bomba lived far back in the jungles of the Amazon with a half-demented
+naturalist who told the lad nothing of his past. The jungle boy was a
+lover of birds, and hunted animals with a bow and arrow and his trusty
+machete. He had only a primitive education, and his daring adventures
+will be followed with breathless interest by thousands._
+
+  1. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY
+  2. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE MOVING MOUNTAIN
+  3. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE GIANT CATARACT
+  4. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY ON JAGUAR ISLAND
+  5. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY IN THE ABANDONED CITY
+  6. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY ON TERROR TRAIL
+  7. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY IN THE SWAMP OF DEATH
+  8. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AMONG THE SLAVES
+  9. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY ON THE UNDERGROUND RIVER
+  10. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AND THE LOST EXPLORERS
+  11. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY IN A STRANGE LAND
+  12. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AMONG THE PYGMIES
+  13. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AND THE CANNIBALS
+  14. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AND THE PAINTED HUNTERS
+  15. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AND THE RIVER DEMONS
+  16. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AND THE HOSTILE CHIEFTAIN
+
+These books may be purchased wherever books are sold
+
+_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York
+
+
+
+
+CHAMPION SPORTS STORIES
+
+By NOEL SAINSBURY, JR.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Every boy enjoys sport stories. Here we present three crackerjack
+stories of baseball, football, and basketball, written in the vernacular
+of the boy of to-day, full of action, suspense and thrills, in language
+every boy will understand, and which we know will be enthusiastically
+endorsed by all boys._
+
+_Large 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in color. Price 50 cents per
+volume._
+
+_Postage 10 cents additional._
+
+
+  1. CRACKER STANTON
+     _Or The Making of a Batsman_
+
+Ralph Stanton, big, rawboned and serious, is a product of the backwoods
+and a crack rifle shot. Quick thinking and pluck bring him a scholarship
+to Clarkville School where he is branded "grind" and "dub" by
+classmates. How his batting brings them first place in the League and
+how he secures his appointment to West Point make CRACKER STANTON an
+up-to-the-minute baseball story no lover of the game will want to put
+down until the last word is read.
+
+  2. GRIDIRON GRIT
+     _Or The Making of a Fullback_
+
+A corking story of football packed full of exciting action and good,
+clean competitive rivalry. Shorty Fiske is six-foot-four and the product
+of too much money and indulgence at home. How Clarkville School and
+football develop Shorty's real character and how he eventually stars on
+the gridiron brings this thrilling tale of school life and football to a
+grandstand finish.
+
+  3. THE FIGHTING FIVE
+     _Or the Kidnapping of Clarkville's Basketball Team_
+
+Clarkville School's basketball team is kidnapped during the game for the
+State Scholastic Championship. The team's subsequent adventures under
+the leadership of Captain Charlie Minor as he brings them back to the
+State College Gymnasium where the two last quarters of the Championship
+game are played next evening, climaxes twenty-four pulsating hours of
+adventure and basketball in the FIGHTING FIVE....
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York
+
+
+
+
+SORAK JUNGLE SERIES
+
+By HARVEY D. RICHARDS
+
+_The name Sorak means War Cry in the Malay country. He grows up among
+the most primitive of the Malay aborigines, and learns to combat all
+the terrors of the jungle with safety. The constant battle with
+nature's forces develop Sorak's abilities to such an extent that he is
+acknowledged the chief warrior in all his section of the jungle._
+
+_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in color. Price 50 cents per volume._
+
+_Postage 10 cents additional._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+  1. SORAK OF THE MALAY JUNGLE
+     _or How Two Young Americans Face Death and Win a Friend_
+
+Two boys, Dick and Jack Preston are shipwrecked off the Malay Peninsula
+and are rescued by Sorak. Their adventures in trying to get back to
+civilization make an absorbing story.
+
+  2. SORAK AND THE CLOUDED TIGER
+     _or How the Terrible Ruler of the North Is Hunted and Destroyed_
+
+A huge clouded tiger, almost human, leads a pack of red dholes into
+Sorak's country, and it takes all of Sorak's ingenuity, and the aid of
+his friends to exterminate the pack.
+
+  3. SORAK AND THE SULTAN'S ANKUS
+     _or How a Perilous Journey Leads to a Kingdom of Giants_
+
+Sorak and his friends are trapped by a herd of elephants, and finally
+run away with by the leader to an unknown valley where a remnant of
+Cro-Magnon race still exists. Their exciting adventures will hold the
+reader enthralled until the last word.
+
+  4. SORAK AND THE TREE-MEN
+     _or the Rescue of the Prisoner Queen_
+
+Captured by a band of Malay slavers, Sorak and his friends are wrecked
+on an island off the coast of Burma in the Mergui Archipelago. Their
+escape from the island with the Prisoner Queen after a successful
+revolution brings the fourth book of this series to an exciting and
+unusual conclusion.
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York
+
+
+
+
+TOP NOTCH DETECTIVE STORIES
+
+By WILLIAM HALL
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Each story complete in itself_
+
+_A new group of detective stories carefully written, with corking plots;
+modern, exciting, full of adventure, good police and detective work._
+
+_Large 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in color. Price 50 cents per
+volume._
+
+_Postage 10 cents additional._
+
+
+  1. SLOW VENGEANCE
+     _or the Mystery of Pete Shine_
+
+A young newspaper man, whose brother is on the police force, becomes
+strangely involved in the mysterious killing of an Italian bootblack.
+Suspicion points to a well-known politician but he proves that it was
+impossible for him to have done the deed. Then the reporter, who for a
+time turns detective, gets a clue revolving about a startling, ancient
+method of combat. He follows this up, watches a masked duelist and, with
+the help of a girl, catches the murderer who justifies his deed on the
+plea of Slow Vengeance. You will be interested in reading how the
+reporter got out of a tight corner.
+
+  2. GREEN FIRE
+     _or Mystery of the Indian Diamond_
+
+A golf caddy who has a leaning toward amateur detective work, together
+with his younger cousin, are accidentally mixed up in the strange loss,
+or theft, of a valuable diamond, known as Green Fire. It was once the
+eye of an East Indian idol. To clear his young cousin of suspicion, the
+older boy undertakes to solve the mystery which deepens when one man
+disappears and another is found murdered on the golf course. But, by a
+series of clever moves on the part of the young sleuth, the crime is
+solved and the diamond found in a most unusual hiding place. A rapidly
+moving, exciting tale. You will like it.
+
+  3. HIDDEN DANGER
+     _or The Secret of the Bank Vault_
+
+A young detective, who, in his private capacity, has solved several
+mysteries, decides to open an office in another city. He meets a young
+bank clerk and they become partners just when the clerk's bank is
+mysteriously bombed and the cashier is reported missing. It is not until
+next day that it is discovered that the bank vault has been entered in
+some secret manner and a large sum stolen. The regular detectives
+declared "spirits" must have robbed the bank but the two young
+detectives prove that a clever gang did it and also kidnapped the aged
+cashier. Not a dull page from first to last. A clever story.
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York
+
+
+
+
+NORTHWEST STORIES
+
+By LeROY W. SNELL
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_A new group of stories laid in the Canadian Northwest by Mr. Snell, a
+master writer of the glories and the thrilling adventures of the
+Canadian Northwest Mounted Police. Each book is an individual story,
+well written, beautifully bound, and contains a story that all boys will
+enjoy._
+
+_Large 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in color. Price 50 cents per
+volume._
+
+_Postage 10 cents additional._
+
+
+1. THE LEAD DISK
+
+Tom Baley, leaving college goes north into Canada, hoping to join the
+Northwest Mounted Police. His application is turned down by his own
+uncle, an officer on the force, but after many thrilling adventures and
+encounters with the Disk Gang he is able to win the coveted uniform.
+
+2. SHADOW PATROL
+
+Luke Myers is sent into the Caribou Mountains to solve the mystery of
+The Shadow, about whom many conflicting stories are told. There are
+struggles with the outlaws, and finally a great running battle down the
+fog-obscured mountain trails ... at the end of which the outlaws are
+captured and the mystery of The Shadow is solved.
+
+3. THE WOLF CRY
+
+Donald Pierce is sent to solve the mystery of his father's disappearance,
+into the unmapped barrens where King Stively weaves his web of
+wickedness, and rules a territory the size of a small empire with a
+ruthlessness and cunning that baffles the best of the Mounted Police.
+Behind all is the dread Wolf Cry which causes brave men to shudder....
+
+4. THE SPELL OF THE NORTH
+
+Sergeant David Stanlaw, stationed at Spirit River, is puzzled by a local
+killing, the disappearance of the body, the finding of a code message,
+and by the mystery of the "Listening Forest," which casts a shadow of
+dread over the little town of Wiggin's Creek. With the help of Jerry
+Bartlett they capture the leaders of the gang and solve the mystery of
+the "Listening Forest."
+
+5. THE CHALLENGE OF THE YUKON
+
+Robert Wade whose patrol runs from Skagway on Chattam Strait north into
+the Yukon country follows in the wake of a stampede to a new gold
+strike. With the aid of his friend, Jim MacPhail, Wade frustrates the
+outlaws, who try to trap the whole town behind the "Pass of the Closing
+Door," and then races them to and across the breaking ice floes of the
+Yukon. A strong adventure story all boys will enjoy.
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York
+
+
+
+
+ Transcriber's Notes:
+
+ --Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
+
+ --Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
+
+ --Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
+
+ --Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Baseball Joe of the Silver Stars, by 
+Lester Chadwick
+
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