“Come on, then, they’ll be glad to see you again.”
Joe wondered what was afoot. It was as though he saw a danger signal ahead of Pop Dutton.
[CHAPTER XXII]
VICTORY
Joe hardly knew what to do. He realized that all his efforts toward getting the old ball player back on the right road might go for naught if Pop went off with these loose companions.
And yet would he relish being interfered with by the young pitcher? Pop was much older than Joe, but so far he had shown a strong liking for the younger man, and had, half-humorously, done his bidding. Indeed Pop was under a deep debt not only of gratitude to Joe, but there had been a financial one as well, though most of that was now paid.
“But I don’t want to see him slip back,” mused Joe, as he walked along in the shadows, taking care to keep far enough back from the twain. But Pop never looked around. He seemed engrossed in his companion.
“What shall I do?” Joe asked himself.
He half hoped that some of the other members of the nine might come along, and accost Pop, perhaps taking him off with them, as they had done several times of late. For the old player was becoming more and more liked—he was, in a way, coming into his own again, and he had a fund of baseball stories to which the younger men never tired listening.