Although his heart was with Mabel, Joe’s mind was once more thoroughly alert. Two runs at the very beginning of a game is not much, to be sure, under ordinary circumstances. But it did not take him long to see that the team was not running right. Something was decidedly wrong even though he could not put his finger on just what that something was.

From the way the second inning began it looked as though the Giants were going to have their work cut out for them simply to keep the opposing team from scoring further, let alone the making up of those two runs.

Joe felt something of the old fighting spirit rising within him again and then, at thought of Mabel, his heart sank. He wondered, as he had wondered before, how, with every moment a torment of apprehension to him, he was going to play ball.

“Go to it, Joe,” McRae ordered brusquely. “Get out there and see if you can’t pull this team together. Looks as if this game was lost before it began. Go in and give ’em a sample of pitching that’ll open their eyes.”

Joe tried his best to smile his old joyful smile as he started for the box, but it was hard work. His muscles felt drawn and tight and the best he could manage was a rather sickly grin.

Then his gaze met Reddy Hupft’s and he was suddenly conscious of a wave of dislike and disgust that made his former resentment of the fellow seem a lukewarm emotion. There was more than malice in Reddy’s eyes too—this time Joe was sure of it. Instinctively he threw back his shoulders and his head went up.

“If Hupft and McCarney think they can put one over on me they’ll soon find out their mistake.”

He wound up deliberately, then sent over a ball so swift that it seemed but the barest second from the time it left his hand till it dropped with a thud in the catcher’s glove. Three men he struck out in swift succession and the crowd was in an uproar.

“At a boy, Joe, don’t let ’em sass you!” shrilled a voice Joe thought he recognized, and he grinned in the direction of the grandstand.

Thereafter followed some of the most brilliant work Joe had ever given the fans to marvel at, and though the Giants failed to score, he at least kept the opposing team from scoring.

But that was not enough. Joe knew it, and every member of the team, as well as the clamoring crowd in grandstand and bleachers, knew it too.

Three, four, five innings passed without changing the score. Then in the first part of the sixth Neale of the Bostons knocked a homer that made wild men of their little band of supporters.

Three to nothing the score stood now, in the first half of the sixth, and the Giants were in the throes of what promised to be a first-class slump.

“Looks as if you had to carry the whole team on your shoulders, Joe,” said Robbie, adding, with a comprehensive glance: “They look broad enough to stand it, at that. Listen, Joe, pretty soon you’re going behind that bat and you’re going to smash that score into little bits and make a brand new one, understand?”

And Joe did. He waited till he was sure of his ball, and then with all the weight of his shoulders behind it he caught the ball squarely on the end of his bat, sent it winging skyward as though its ambition were to see just how far up in the clouds it could go and manage to get back to earth at all.

At the crack of the bat Joe started and reached home without sliding just as the ball connected with the catcher’s glove.

The crowd went mad. There was a storm of cheering and stamping and frantic yells, but Joe took no notice of them. He was thinking of Mabel. Was his little wife waiting for him, wondering why he did not come, perhaps reproaching him?

At the end of the sixth the score stood as Joe had made it: 3 to 1 in favor of Boston. In various innings there had been men on first and second and, at one time, on all three, but, somehow, they fell just short of scoring.

“It’s just what I tell you, Joe,” growled Robbie. “You have to carry the whole team. You give them an opening and they don’t even see it.”

“That was great work, Joe,” Jim told him a few moments later. “I’d give anything to be able to bat as you do. It sure is a privilege to see you knock out one of those home runs.”

“Say, Jim,” Joe broke in with an abruptness that showed he had not heard one word of Jim’s tribute, “what do you suppose is the matter with Reggie? Why don’t we hear from him?”

“I wish you’d give me an easy one,” answered Jim anxiously. “I’ve been wondering that same thing myself. However,” he added, “I suppose no news is good news.”

“That’s pretty thin comfort for me,” growled Joe, adding quickly, the feverish light in his eyes showing plainly the strain he had been under: “I tell you I can’t stand this any longer, Jim. I’m going up there and try to get in touch with Riverside again, and if I can’t get them, I’ll try Reggie. Then, if that fails, I’m going to Mabel!”

“You can’t do that, Joe,” Jim protested. “Why, you’re the only one who has a ghost of a show to pull this game out of the fire. Look at the score!”

“Hang the score!” cried Joe explosively, as he got up. “I can’t stand this any longer, I tell you! I’ve got to find out!”

As he started toward the clubhouse he found himself face to face with McRae. The game had evidently fretted the manager, and he was in a bad temper.

“’Phone call for you, Joe,” he snapped. “And say, hurry back, will you? Something tells me I’m going to need you.”

But the last words failed entirely to reach Joe. He was already half way to the clubhouse.

At last he was going to know! He was eager, yet fearful. He did not know what awful news awaited him at the other end of that wire.

Somehow he found his way to McRae’s office, and with shaking fingers lifted the receiver to his ear. He did not notice Jim, who had followed him in and now stood close beside him.

“Hello,” said Joe, surprised that his voice sounded so nearly normal. “This you, Reggie? Confound it, why didn’t you ’phone long ago? How is she?”

“Joe!” came the voice that was the sweetest music in the world to his ears. Just now it was eager and a little breathless. “Is this you, Joe dear? What in the world is the matter?”

“Mabel——” for a minute Joe could not go on. Then he cleared his throat noisily and demanded to know, in a voice from which all anxiety had not yet disappeared, if she was all right. “You’re sure you’re not sick?” he insisted, and Mabel’s reassuring little laugh floated back to him.

“Of course I’m not sick, silly boy,” she said, adding with a sudden swift realization of what he must have suffered: “I’m so sorry you have been worried, honey. Who do you suppose could have done such a wicked thing as to send you that telegram? What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know,” said Joe, feeling as though a thousand-ton weight had been lifted from his heart. “We’ll find out about that later. The important thing to me just now is that you’re well. But tell me,” he added, “why didn’t Reggie call me as soon as he found you were all right?”

“He did,” said Mabel. “You see, a neighbor of Mother Matson’s bought himself a new car and he insisted on our going out riding with him. Poor Reggie had nearly collapsed with worry when we finally got back. Thought we had been abducted or something, I suppose.” Then followed a bit of conversation that would not have been a bit interesting to any one but Joe and Mabel but which they seemed to find eminently satisfactory.

When Joe finally hung up the receiver and faced about to find Jim there, his face was beaming.

“Hello, Jim, you old shadow!” he cried. “Have you been here long?”

“Long enough to learn the glad news,” returned Jim, and he could not quite resist adding: “Didn’t I tell you not to go off half-cocked, especially when Reddy Hupft and McCarney are on the same lot with you?”

“You did,” admitted Joe, adding with a frown as they turned to leave the place together: “You think the responsibility for this contemptible trick can be traced to Hupft or McCarney then?”

“Who else?” returned Jim. “It was somebody else who actually sent the telegram, of course, but I’d be willing to stake my hat that the scheme originated with one or the other of them.”

“Well,” drawled Joe, with a glint in his eye that boded no good for either McCarney or Hupft or any of their gang, “it seems to me it’s time there was some housecleaning done on this lot.

“And now,” he added, as his gaze traveled joyfully out to the field, “we’re going to show those Bostonians how ball should be played!”

To say that Joe made good his boast would be to understate the facts in the case.

From that time on he set the side down with the ease and precision of a machine. The Bostons came up to the bat like so many automatons, made futile swings at the ball, and went back growling to the bench. And in the eighth, when, the score still stood 3 to 1 in favor of Boston, Joe lammed out a mighty three-bagger that brought home three of his comrades who had filled the bases. That made the score 4 to 3 in the Giants’ favor, and so it remained when Joe struck out the last Boston batsman in the ninth.

It was a glorious triumph for Joe—two triumphs in fact, for he had not only beaten the Bostons, he had thwarted the dastardly plot of his enemies.