Mabel, starry-eyed, slipped a hand within his arm and the pressure was eloquent. Jim almost wrenched his arm from the shoulder, and Clara hugged her brother openly.
Naturally, Joe’s great feat appealed especially to the baseball players of the party. They felt that he had honored the craft to which they belonged. He had justified his reputation as the star pitcher of the country, and they felt that they shared in the reflected glory.
“Great Scott, Joe!” beamed Larry. “You put it all over his sharklet that time.”
“Straight over the plate!” chuckled Burkett.
“Against the rules, though,” grinned Denton. “You know that the ‘bean ball’ is barred.” 156
The rescued man had now been brought on board. He had been too excited and confused to understand how he had been snatched from the jaws of death—and such a death!
He proved to be a member of the crew, a Lascar, whose knowledge of the English language was limited, and whose ignorance of the great national game was fathomless.
But when he had recovered and had learned the name of his rescuer, he sought Joe out and thanked him in accents that were none the less sincere because broken and imperfect, and from that time on throughout the trip he was almost doglike in his devotion.
A few days more and the ship reached Hawaii, that far-flung outpost of Uncle Sam’s dominions, which breaks the long ocean journey between America and Japan.
The hearts of the tourists leaped as the ship drew near the harbor and they caught sight of the Stars and Stripes, floating proudly in the breeze.