Moriarty laughed.
“Now don’t get sore,” he counseled. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. You’ll be out of this in a little while now. We’re going to let you go just as soon as the New York train has gone.”
Joe tried to digest this. Why should they keep him from getting the train for New York. Then in a blinding flash his brain woke from its daze.
It was the day of the last game! And he was in Boston! And if he missed the morning train he could not get to New York before the game was over!
His heart turned sick. What would McRae and the rest of the boys say? What would Mabel and the folks think?
He pictured the consternation when he should fail to turn up in time. The team would be demoralized. Whom would they pitch? Only Jim was available and he had pitched two days before. And he would be so full of worry over his friend that he could not be at his best.
Was the World Series then to be lost? Was the splendid fight the boys had put up to go for nothing?
“You only got a little tap on the head,” Moriarty was saying. “It was just enough to make you quiet, and chloroform did the rest. We didn’t figure to be any rougher than we had to be.”
Joe made no reply but he was thinking hard and fast.