“Not yet!” snapped Jim, resolutely. “You’re going to give me a moment more, or I’ll know the reason why.”

Just then McRae entered the room. He gazed upon the tableau in surprise, then his eyes rested on Joe’s street clothes.

“Why the glad rags, Joe?” he asked, trying to mask his growing concern by an air of easy good nature. “Not going to beat up the Bostons in that rig, are you?”

“McRae,” said Joe in the tone of one whose patience is being pushed too far, “I’m sorry this has happened. I can’t even stop to explain now. My wife’s sick and I’ve got to go. Jim will give you all the details you want. Good-by.”

“Just a minute, Joe,” Jim’s voice broke in crisply. “I think you owe it to yourself—to say nothing of McRae and the team—to make one more attempt to get in touch with Mabel.”

“How?” Joe demanded. “The ’phone——”

“We can get Reggie. He’s staying within a short distance of Riverside just now, you know.”

“All right, we’ll try to get Reggie,” Joe broke in impatiently. “Though what he can tell us I’m sure I don’t know,” he added, as he picked up the telephone again and called long distance.

Luckily the chums happened to know that Reggie was staying with some friends in Ridersville, a little town not far from Riverside, while he looked after some business for his father. Reggie had given them not only the address of his friends but the telephone number as well, and the latter had stuck in Joe’s head.

So now, more with the idea of pacifying McRae and Jim than from any hope of help from Reggie, Joe called the number, raging inwardly at the delay. Mabel, his little Mabel, was ill, perhaps seriously ill, and these two stood in the way of his going to her! What was a game, anyway, compared to the fact that his bride needed him? At that, it did not follow that the game would be lost even if he, Joe, were unable to pitch. What was the matter with Jim, with Bradley, with Markwith? But in his heart he knew that it was his, Joe’s, mighty batting arm as much as his prowess in the box that McRae was counting on to turn the tide against the Bostons.

“It isn’t so much what Reggie can tell us as what he can find out for us,” he heard Jim saying. “He’s only a stone’s throw from Riverside.”

Just then the telephone rang.

“Here’s your party,” came from the operator.

Joe’s tall form straightened and his expression became more tense. It was not long before he had Reggie on the line.

“This you, Reggie? Joe speaking. Joe Matson—Joe—J-O-E—Baseball Joe, get me? Yes, that’s right. Say, Reggie, how is Mabel? Have you heard anything of her lately? What’s that? Speak a little louder, will you? I can’t hear you.”

Both McRae and Jim leaned closer as Joe tried to make meaning of the sentences that floated so faintly over the wire, yet unmistakably uttered in Reggie’s familiar drawl.

“What’s that?” Joe cried. “Say that over again, Reggie, and say it slow. You saw her? When? A week ago? Was she well then, perfectly well?... Yes, I got a telegram saying she’s very ill, calling me to Riverside.... Yes, it’s the big game with Boston to-day.... I can’t help it. Mabel needs me.... What’s that you say?”

Reggie’s drawl was hardly noticeable. The urbane, bland Reggie was very much agitated. He spoke so quickly that Joe had hard work to follow him. McRae and Jim, of course, had to guess at the conversation from Joe’s part in it.

“You’ll go right out there?” asked Joe in a relief that was mixed with uncertainty. “That’s fine of you, Reggie, but I think I ought to come back anyway.... What say?... Speak more slowly, old man.... You’ll let us know as soon as you find out?... What’s that?... Provided I stay around and play ball?... Say, what is this anyway, blackmail?... All right, all right, I promise.... All right, I’ll stick around till I hear from you, but make it swift, will you, old man? You know how I feel.... All right.... Thanks.... So long.”

Joe hung up, took out his handkerchief, and wiped beads of perspiration from his face.

“Well?” demanded Jim and McRae together.

“I don’t know that it is well,” groaned Joe. “Here I’ve promised Reggie I’ll wait here till he calls up—a thing I’ll probably spend the rest of my life regretting.”

“He said he would go right up there, didn’t he?” asked Jim, adding, as Joe nodded miserably: “Well, you see, he’ll be there hours before you could hope to. The chances are he’ll find Mabel as fit as a fiddle.”

“But if he doesn’t——”

“Well, then,” said Jim reassuringly, “it will only mean the delay of an hour or so, anyway. Or no delay at all. Through express trains don’t run like trolleys. You can’t get away before to-night at best.”

“And meanwhile I might suggest,” said McRae dryly, “that the hour of battle draws near and that Baseball Joe had better get into something more nearly resembling a uniform. Buck up, Joe,” he added, giving the latter a hearty thump on the shoulder. “You’re not going to turn the Giants down now, are you, when the team needs the best that’s in you?”

Joe made no answer in words but rose and turned toward the locker room.

“Great Scott!” he said to himself, passing a shaking hand through his hair. “How am I going to play ball?”

Now he was out on the field once more with the sun beating down blindingly upon the newly marked diamond and the tremendous crowds in the grandstand and bleachers voicing approval of the husky home team. The bell had rung and McRae had been compelled to start the game with Markwith in the box.

Joe wondered what had become of the confident mood he had felt so short a time before when he had proclaimed that no one could beat him. As he thought of the telegram which had so completely changed everything for him, he spared a fleeting thought to the small messenger boy. He was probably squeezed in somewhere among that tight-packed mass of humanity, the freckles standing out on his snub nose and his shrill voice joyfully murdering the English language in an attempt to make his enthusiasm audible.

Joe smiled fleetingly, but instantly his face was grave again.

Mabel—Mabel lying sick and lonely, wanting him, and he was failing her! He had been a fool to say that he would wait for Reggie to find out what was wrong. He was the one who should be investigating, not Reggie.

Of course there was the chance—his reason told him it was a good chance—that the whole thing was a scheme to get him out of the way. At the thought his fists clenched and his mouth shut in a straight line. If it was a trick and he could find the identity of the player of it, that trick would be the last that fellow would play!

Now as he sat on the bench, he remembered certain small signs and tokens that up to that time had almost entirely escaped his memory.

He remembered having discovered a sort of triumphant hostility in McCarney’s gaze as it was fixed upon him, a look which had surprised and annoyed him only momentarily. He was used to the enmity of McCarney, but it was only at this moment that he remembered that triumph had outweighed hostility in the eyes of the man.

Was that triumph caused by the certainty in McCarney’s mind that he, Joe, would not play in that day’s game? At the thought Joe experienced a sharp thrill of gladness that he had not permitted himself to be tricked into abandoning his team.

Then came back the tormenting uncertainty again. Was it a trick? How could he be sure of that? What was wrong with Reggie? Why didn’t he let him know? Fool that he had been to trust to Reggie! Then he awoke to the unpleasant realization that the Bostons’ half of the first inning was ended and that the visitors had scored two runs.

Markwith had started well by striking out the first man up. The second, however, he had passed to first. The next man laid down a neat sacrifice on which the man on first had got to second. Still there were two out and the chances were against scoring.

But Bradbury, batting in the clean-up position, had caught a low ball that came singing over the plate just where he wanted it and sent it whistling into the bleachers for the prettiest kind of a homer.

The clout rather unnerved Markwith, and he sent the next one to first on a free pass. But the next man hit a sharp grasser to Iredell that the latter handled cleanly and got to first in plenty of time for the out.

“Fine pitching—I don’t think,” grumbled McRae, as Markwith came in rather sheepishly. “You poor boob,” he added to the discomfited pitcher, “don’t you know better than to give Bradbury a low one in the groove? Haven’t you seen often enough that he just eats up that kind?”

Markwith merely grunted.

“I’ll let you start the second in the hope you’ll settle down,” continued McRae. “But at the least sign of faltering, it’s you for the showers.”