During the game Joe wondered once or twice what Clara’s sudden interest in McCarney meant. His pretty sister was so deeply in love with Jim that it seemed almost impossible for her even to see another man. Yet here she was, calling attention to McCarney——

At this point a spectacular play elicited a mighty roar from the grandstand, and Joe forgot everything but his interest in the game.

He had been back and forth several times from the bleachers to the grandstand and now, with a murmured word to Mabel, he slipped away again.

He wanted to get closer to the field where he could watch the work of Reddy Hupft, and of McCarney, too. The two men were apparently playing good ball, and yet, to his experienced eye, there was something queer about their game. Even while he reproached himself for letting his imagination run away with him, his eyes narrowed and his mouth grew grim.

If those fellows were trying to pull anything——

So it happened that when the game ended in a smashing victory for the Giants Joe found himself near the clubhouse and allowed himself to be swept along by the rush of his team mates.

He made his way through to Jim, who was surrounded by a group of enthusiastic players, and thumped his chum heartily on the back.

“Pretty work, Jim,” he said. “Didn’t I tell the girls you had that little ball trained?”

“It did come right to papa, didn’t it?” Jim answered, with a grin, submitting to the rub-down gratefully. “But wait till the girls see your work,” he added. “That will be the whole show.”

“Maybe it will be an anticlimax,” protested Joe, at which Jim grunted disdainfully.

“Baseball Joe, an anticlimax!” he jeered, and Joe, smiling good-naturedly, passed on.

Robson and McRae promptly collared him and engaged him in earnest conversation and Jim, being unable to disentangle Joe from the society of the two older men, shouted an “I’ll see you later” to his chum and started across the field to the grandstand where the two girls and Reggie were waiting for him.

As he neared the trio he saw that they were talking excitedly and wondered idly what it was all about. The real thing that engaged his attention, though, was the fact that Clara looked amazingly sweet and animated and that the flush in her cheeks was the prettiest thing he had ever seen.

“Hello, everybody,” he called to them. “Get tired of waiting?”

“Oh, Jim! you were simply wonderful,” said Clara, turning sparkling eyes upon him. “You ought to have heard what people were saying all around us.”

“Perhaps it’s jolly good he didn’t,” broke in Reggie, with a twinkle in the eye behind the monocle. “Might have swelled the old bean, you know, completely ruined him, what?”

“He’s frightfully spoiled already,” said Clara, with a distracting, sidewise glance at Jim. “You’ve no idea how conceited he is.”

“On the contrary,” replied Jim, stretching his long length contentedly in one of the hard-backed seats, “the only time I’m tempted to be conceited, my dear, is when I realize that I have you.”

“Don’t mind us, Jim,” chuckled Mabel delightedly, and Reggie added benevolently:

“Bless you, my children. Mabel and I are looking steadily in the opposite direction. But perhaps, on further reflection, you would enjoy our absence greater than our presence? What say, Mabel, shall we stroll on?”

“You’re all so silly!” Clara protested, her face flaming. “I wish you wouldn’t talk such nonsense, Jim—in public, anyway.”

“I won’t until next time,” promised Jim, then, thinking it about time he changed the subject, he asked what they had been talking about so animatedly when he approached. “You seemed all heated up about something,” he added.

“Jim, where’s Joe?” asked Mabel, her eyes, suddenly anxious, sweeping the field.

“Talking to McRae and Robbie,” answered Jim. “He’ll be along in a minute. But say,” he added, with more interest than he had hitherto shown, “aren’t you going to answer my question?”

“Hold your horses, old chappie,” murmured Reggie. “Patience is a virtue, what?”

Seeing that, even if patience were a virtue, Jim was at the end of it, Clara hastened to explain.

“I don’t suppose you will think it very important, Jim,” she said. “But it seemed rather important to me. I’ll tell you what I know and then you can judge.”

“Sounds like a mystery,” said Jim, sitting up straight and beginning to look interested.

Mabel shuddered.

“I hope it isn’t,” she said, adding plaintively: “I don’t like mysteries.”

“It’s about that man, McCarney, your third baseman,” Clara hastened on, lacing and unlacing her fingers in an agitation she could no longer conceal. “I’ve seen him before, Jim. I saw him just before the season opened.”

“Well, what about it?” asked Jim, interested, but not showing any especial excitement. “It’s a coincidence, of course.”

“It’s a good deal more than a coincidence,” Clara declared impatiently. “Wait till you hear what he said——”

“Yes,” Jim prompted sharply, as she hesitated. “What did he say?”

“It was at the railroad station at Liberty—the second station from Riverside, you know. I had gone over there to take some things to Aunt Lydia——”

“Yes, but what about McCarney?” It was Jim’s turn to be impatient.

“McCarney was there on the station platform,” Clara hurried on. “He was talking to another man. I couldn’t see them at first—I was around a corner of the station, but I could hear their voices.”

“Yes?” Jim said again, as once more Clara hesitated, her glance roving uneasily about the almost-emptied grandstand as though she were afraid of being overheard.

“They were talking in whispers,” she said then, leaning closer to Jim while Mabel and Reggie also came a little nearer. “I didn’t hear what they were saying till suddenly one of them, McCarney, it was, raised his voice and said, quite distinctly, ‘We ought to be able to make fifty thousand out of this, maybe more.’”

“Great Scott!” cried Jim, his startled glance fixing the girl’s. “Are you sure it was McCarney who said that, Clara?”

“Yes,” said the latter, a little frightened at the effect of her revelation. Jim looked suddenly fierce. “When he said that about the fifty thousand dollars I was curious and strolled around the corner to see who it was who expected to make a fortune so easily.”

“Who was the man with him?” Jim’s question came like a pistol shot. “Did you get a good look at him, too?”

“Yes,” answered the girl. “He was a tall, thin man and something about him made me think he was a ball player. Of course I was interested, but that was all. I didn’t think of it again until I saw one of the men, McCarney, on the field to-day.”

“Did you hear anything else?” asked Jim, alert.

Clara shook her head.

“When the two men saw me they strolled off to a more deserted part of the station. They started talking in whispers again, but of course I didn’t follow them. At the time I didn’t see any reason why I should. Only, I had a feeling that neither of the men was straight.”

“Um-m,” said Jim grimly. His forehead was wrinkled and his fingers beat a nervous tattoo on the arm of the seat. “You didn’t happen to recognize the other fellow—the one McCarney was talking to—on the field to-day, did you?”

Clara shook her head. She looked worried.

“No, I looked for him after I recognized the other man,” she said. “But I’m sure he wasn’t on the field to-day.”

“Do you think,” asked Jim, in the same grim tone, “that you could recognize this fellow if I were to show you his picture?”

“Yes, I’m sure of that,” answered Clara quickly. “I was so curious because of what McCarney had said, that I took a good look at both of them. And I’m sure I could easily recognize the other man if I should see him or a picture of him. He was the kind of person,” she added, thoughtfully, “that one doesn’t very easily forget.”

“What do you think of it, old chappie?” asked Reggie. His monocle had fallen from his eye and, in his agitation, he had not even bothered to replace it. “Looks rather like some sort of plot, what? A conspiracy, you might say.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” answered Jim thoughtfully. Then, seeing how agitated the girls were growing, he decided to make as light of the matter as was possible.

“Sounds rather mysterious,” he said, with a reassuring smile; “but the sound is probably the only mysterious thing about it. These things often clear up of themselves and you wonder afterward why you were such a fool as to wonder about them. However, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, and if McCarney and his tall friend are cooking up anything, I’ll soon find it out.”

“I wonder where Joe is?” said Mabel plaintively. “It isn’t like him to stay away so long.”

“I’ll go and look him up,” Jim volunteered, unwinding his great length from the seat. “I’ll make Robbie and McRae loosen their grip on him.”

As Jim started across the field the girls looked after his tall figure thoughtfully.

“I hope,” said Mabel, putting back a lock of hair that the wind had whipped about her face, “that this doesn’t mean more trouble for the boys. Perhaps it’s foolish of me, but I’m always just a wee bit worried about them. And now this McCarney——”

“Stop your crabbin’,” said Reggie, laying an affectionate hand over his sister’s little one. “I’m not particularly impressed with this McCarney chap myself, but from personal observation I have learned that both Joe and Jim can jolly well take care of themselves. Bah Jove, it would take a pretty keen chap to put one over on them! It jolly well can’t be done, you know!”

Meanwhile Jim, not completely sharing Reggie’s optimism, reached the clubhouse just as Joe emerged from it.

“Hello!” said the latter, his eyes brightening at sight of Jim. “Thought I’d never be able to give McRae and Robbie the slip? Did the girls get tired of waiting?”

“Mabel sent me in search of you,” answered Jim, with a grin, then, his face sobering, he swiftly told Joe the main facts about McCarney and his mention of the fifty thousand dollar clean-up.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

“Great Scott!” said Joe, raising a hand to his troubled forehead. “I don’t know yet. Give me a chance to think!”