Foote indeed knew that better than Dick Merriwell himself. For he knew, what Dick did not, that the door of the car into which he had enticed Jim had been covered by some sticky substance that must have caught the most perfect possible record of his finger prints. The game was up, and he knew it.
“All right!” he said, giving up all at once. “I’ll confess. You’ve got me. What are you going to do about it? Have me arrested?”
“Not if you’ll help us to rescue Phillips,” said Dick. “Have you the number and line of the car?”
Foote took a bit of paper from his pocket.
“Yes,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let him starve to death. I took the number so that I could see that it was opened some time to-morrow. Here it is—number thirty-four thousand five hundred and seventy-six, of the Big Four Road.”
But, even with that clew, it was many hours before Dick Merriwell was able to trace the car. There had, by some freakish mischance, been a mistake in billing several of the cars, and Dick and a railroad official chased it almost to Philadelphia before they found they were on the wrong track, and, retracing their footsteps, finally located it at Kingston, New York, on the West Shore Railroad.
Jim Phillips, exhausted, but happy in his release, reached New York at four o’clock in the morning, to be greeted with delight by Dick Merriwell. The coach had stayed up himself, but had made Brady go to bed, in order that he might be fit for the game.
“Well,” said Dick, “it’s a good thing, after all, that Gray didn’t pitch on Thursday. As it is, he’ll be able to go in to-day.”
“Why can’t I pitch?” asked Jim. “I’m willing enough to give way to Gray, but I’m also ready to go in and pitch.”
“You can’t be in any condition to do that,” said Dick. “I’m delighted to have you back, but I couldn’t ask you to do anything like that in your present shape. That would be altogether too much.”