CHAPTER XXVI
ADRIFT
"There," said Baseball Joe, coming to a halt at a dark street corner, the stranger close beside him, "if you go up that way, and turn as I told you to, it will take you directly to the Reading Terminal."
"I don't know how to thank you," mumbled the other. He seemed to be fumbling in his pocket. "I'll give you my card," he went on. "If you are ever in San Francisco——"
But it was not a card that he pulled from the inner pocket of his coat. It was a rag, that bore a strange, faint odor. Joe stepped back, but not quickly enough. He suspected something wrong, but he was too late.
An instant later the stranger had thrown one powerful arm about the young pitcher, and, with his other hand he pressed the chloroform-saturated rag to Joe's nose and mouth.
Joe tried to cry out, and struggled to free himself. But his senses seemed leaving him under the influence of the powerful drug.
At that moment, as though it had been timing itself to the movements of the man who had followed Joe, there drove up a large ramshackle cab, and out of it jumped two men.
"Did you get him, Wes?" one asked eagerly.
"I sure did. Here, help me. He's gone off. Get him into the cab."