Now they were upon the wagons—and through! A vision of rearing horses, excited, gesticulating drivers—and they were through, with a scant half foot to spare on either side.
A deep sigh went up from the passengers in the car, and tense muscles were relaxed. Gradually, little by little, Bert reduced the speed until they were traveling at a mere forty miles an hour, which seemed quiet, safe and slow, after their recent hair-raising pace. Reddy pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead, which was beaded with perspiration.
“We looked death in the face that time,” he declared, gravely. “I never expected to get out of that corner alive. If we had hit one of those wagons, it would have been all up with us. For heaven’s sake, Wilson, take it a little easier in the future, will you? I don’t want to decorate a marble slab in the morgue just yet awhile.”
Tom pulled out his watch, and found that it was after two o’clock. “We can’t be far from the town now,” he declared. “I’ll bet that’s it, where you see the steeple over there in the distance.”
“That’s what it is,” chimed in several of the others, who had been to the town before; “we’ll get there with time to spare.”
The intervening mile or so was covered in a jiffy, and the car entered the town. Almost immediately they were recognized by some in the crowd, and were greeted with cheers. A couple of young fellows whom they knew jumped up on the running-board as Bert slowed down for them.
“Gee,” said one, “there’s some class to you fellows, all right, all right. It isn’t every baseball team that can travel around the country in a giddy buzz wagon like the one you have there. Who belongs to it, anyway?”
“Oh, it’s too long a story to tell now,” said the trainer. “We’ll tell you all about it after the game. It’s about time we were starting in to practise a little.”
They soon arrived at the grounds, and were greeted by an ovation. The news of the wreck had just been telegraphed in, and the spectators had been a sorely disappointed lot until the arrival of the car bearing the Blues. The news had spread over the field, and some of the spectators had started to leave, thinking that, of course, there would be no game.