By twos and threes the party drifted toward Davendorp’s resort. It had at various times been a dance hall, a hotel, a police headquarters, and at all times a resort for crooked gamblers. It had an evil notoriety, but though it had been frequently raided in the attempt to put it out of business, it had always bobbed up again under a new proprietor but with the same old shady clientele.

It was a rambling sort of structure, to which wings had been added at various times. The main floor was devoted to pool and billiards, and there were a large number of tables, for the place did a thriving business. There were few of the underworld who did not at some time or other frequent it.

The second floor was a shabby restaurant and saloon, with scores of tables for drinkers and card-players. On the third floor was a dance hall, and the fourth was reserved for the use of the proprietor and the inner ring of the gambling clique where they could lay their plots in comparative seclusion.

In the corner of this floor the largest room was located. There were several other rooms strung out in shambling fashion and more or less connected with each other, so as to afford facility for flight on the occasion of a raid.

On the night in question the large room held an assortment of men of hard faces that would have graced any Rogues’ Gallery. Many of them in fact had already achieved that undesirable fame, and there were others whose admission had only been deferred.

Joe and Jim were too well known to almost everybody in New York to venture into the place in their ordinary clothing and with their faces in full view. They would have been noticed at once, and their plans would have failed right then and there. They had secured, therefore, through one of the party who was an actor, some rough clothing and had had their faces touched up by his hand, so that, as he proudly said when he stood off and viewed his handiwork, their own mothers wouldn’t know them.

The rest of the party were not so likely to attract attention among the large crowd with which they mingled, most of the members of which were so intent on their own amusements that they gave but fleeting attention to anything or any one else.

For an hour or so the members of the volunteer posse mingled with the company, taking at times a part in the various activities of the resort, but always keeping within reach and sight of each other. Gradually they moved to the second floor and then to the third. Joe kept a sharp lookout to see if he could recognize any of the fellows who had held him in captivity.

For some time his search was fruitless, but at last he caught a glimpse of one of the rascals slipping up to the fourth floor. He watched his opportunity, and as silently as a ghost made his way to the same floor.

A hum of voices, rising so high at times that it seemed as if an altercation were going on, came from the corner room. On tiptoe Joe moved to the room adjoining. There was no light or sound coming from it, and after a moment Joe ventured to try the door. It opened, and, slipping in, he found that it had another door communicating with that in which the excited discussion was going on.

In a moment Joe slipped down the stairs again. Going from one to the other of his party, he gave them the information he had gained and arranged for them to follow him as soon as possible and without attracting attention. Then he again moved up the stairs and took his post in the adjoining room, where he was soon joined by the others.

Luck had favored them, for if there had been any lookout originally posted by the baseball gamblers he had been drawn into the room again to take part in the excited discussion.

Scarcely daring to draw their breaths, the invaders listened to the debate.

“You spilled the beans when you let Matson get away from you,” an angry voice was saying. “Why didn’t you make sure of him when you had him?”

“Aw, cut out the beefing,” growled a sulky voice that Joe recognized as that of the fat leader of the gang. “I thought he might cave in and sign that paper and save us all further trouble.”

“You thought!” sneered the other. “You might have known he wouldn’t. Now the two hundred thousand our gang have bet against the Giants is as good as lost. How about you other fellows?” he snarled. “You ought to have had a raft of chances to put him out of the game. What do you suppose we’re paying you for?”

“We’ve done the best we could,” came a sullen voice that caused McRae and Robson to give a violent start, as they recognized it as belonging to McCarney. “We got Lemblow to come on and help us. He was only too glad to do it, for he thought it would give him a chance of breaking into the big league. He nearly got Matson when he pushed that pile of lumber over.”

“And I nearly got his number with a lump of iron on the last Western trip,” came the voice of Reddy Hupft. “It came within an inch of cracking his skull.”

“Excuses! Excuses!” snapped the angry boss. “I didn’t give you fellers ten thousand dollars apiece with a promise of more simply to listen to excuses. You’re a couple of false alarms, and if you don’t get busy it’ll be the worse for you. You can’t double cross me and get away with it.”

“That’s enough,” whispered McRae to the group about him. “We’ve got the goods on them at last. Half of you go to the outside door, and when you hear us break through this door do the same to that.”

They did as directed.

There was a moment of tense expectation, and then with a rush McRae’s party dashed through the inner door. At the same instant the other half of the attacking party burst into the room from the hall.

There were eight men in the room and they leaped to their feet in wild alarm at the sudden interruption. But before they could form any plan for defense the husky young invaders were upon them slugging them without mercy.

The rascals fought back as best they could, but from the first they never had a chance. As Joe had surmised, most of them were the heads of the baseball gambling ring, bloated, overfed, corpulent rascals who could not stand for a moment before trained athletes. Had they anticipated trouble and had their hirelings with them, there might have been a semblance of a fight. But in their physical condition and with the odds two to one against them, they were simply a joke.

Hupft and McCarney were the only ones capable of putting up a real fight, and they did their best. But Joe had singled out McCarney and Jim had tackled Hupft, and they joyously gave them the beating of their lives.

It was a very battered group of rascals that in less than three minutes were huddled into a corner, while their captors crowded so closely about them that escape was impossible.

“Now,” said McRae, whose own knuckles had done valiant work in the scrap, “we’ve got you fellows exactly where we want you. All of you ought to be sent up the river and put behind bars where the dogs can’t bite you. But I’m not going to turn you over to the police.”

There was a stir of relief among the prisoners at this.

“I’m going to stop your dirty schemes for once and for all where baseball is concerned,” went on McRae, producing a paper. “I got this ready this afternoon on the chance of copping you scoundrels to-night. And every one of you is going to sign it, or I’ll have you beaten to a frazzle on the spot.”

While the rascals glared at him sullenly he read the paper. It acknowledged that the signers had kidnaped Joe and Jim; that they had hired thugs to do them great harm; that they had paid ball players to throw games; and that they had done these things to win large sums of money that they had bet against the Giants.

The fat man who had been Joe’s captor started forward with a yell to protest, but Larry smashed him straight between the eyes and he staggered back, cowed and wilted.

The object lesson was effective, and all of the rascals signed, except Hupft and McCarney, who were not required to affix their names.

“Now,” said McRae, as he folded the signed document and put it in his pocket, “that puts a brand on the whole lot of you. The least move on your part and I’ll make this public and you’ll be in jail within twenty-four hours.

“As for you traitors,” he added, turning to Hupft and McCarney, a look of utter contempt in his eyes, “there’s no need of telling you you’re fired. Your names are a stench in the nostrils of decent ball players, and I’ll see that you never play in the ranks of organized baseball again. You’re on the blacklist forever. And I’ll see that Lemblow gets the same medicine. Now go while the going’s good.”

They slunk out, and none of the Giants ever saw their faces again.

“Now we’ve done our work and we’re going,” concluded McRae, as he turned to the crooked baseball gamblers. “Remember, one word from you, one dirty trick, and it will be curtains for you.”

They left the debased and discomfited rascals and filed out into the night.

“A good night’s work, boys,” were McRae’s last words, as he bade good-night to the party. “We’ve saved the league!”

It was a jubilant, rejuvenated Joe that occupied the box the next day and pitched the Giants to victory over the Brooklyns. Not only did he shut out the boys from over the bridge, but clouted two of the longest homers that had ever come from his bat. The rest of the Giant team, with two rookies in place of Hupft and McCarney, played behind him like the stars they were, and the newcomers more than held their own. Altogether it was a great day for the Giants and started them anew on the road to the championship which they were destined to win that year as they had the year before.

But it was a still greater day for Joe, for in a box as witness of his glorious victory was Mabel—Mabel who had come on with Reggie that morning to surprise him. The applause of the crowds was dear to him; the congratulations of his team mates were dearer still. But none of these compared with the joy that thrilled him at the words that fell from the lips of Mabel as he approached the box where she sat, flushed and sweet as a rose, looking at him with all her soul in her eyes.

“I am so proud of you, Joe,” she said. “So proud!”

THE END