“About a million miles,” assented Joe. “Then my heart was beating like a triphammer. Then the work was all to do. Now it’s done.”
“And well done, too, thanks to you,” returned Jim. “Say, Joe, suppose for a minute—just suppose that the Chicagos had copped that game yesterday.”
“Don’t,” protested Joe. “It gives me the cold shivers just to think of it.”
When they entered the clubhouse, a roar of welcome greeted them from the members of the team who were already there. They crowded round Baseball Joe in jubilation, and the air was filled with a hubbub of exclamations.
“Here’s the man to whom the team owes fifty thousand dollars!” shouted the irrepressible Larry Barrett, the second baseman, who had led the league that year in batting.
“All right,” laughed Joe. “If you owe it to me, hand it over and I’ll put it in the bank.”
In the laugh that ensued, McRae and Robson, the inseparable manager and trainer of the Giants, came hurrying up to Joe. Their faces were beaming and they looked years younger, now that the tremendous strain of the last few weeks of the league race had been taken from their shoulders.
They shook hands warmly.
“You’re the real thing, Joe,” cried Robson.