“Well, we’ve done all that we can do just now, and we might as well get a night’s sleep,” said Robson. “Don’t forget that both Matson and Barclay are resourceful lads and know how to handle themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them both turn up in time for to-morrow’s game.”
“If they don’t we’ll lose,” predicted McRae gloomily. “The team can’t pull together when things like this are going on. It’s getting so that nobody trusts anybody else on the team, and I never yet saw an aggregation of ball players win a pennant under those conditions.”
The game next day proved the truth of this assertion. Both Joe and Jim were still missing, and while Bradley pitched a game that would ordinarily have been good enough to win, his team mates failed to support him in their usual masterly style, and the game was a walkover for their opponents, the score being 7 to 0 against them. Suspicion was rife on the team and the outlook for winning the pennant seemed gloomy indeed.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE
The interest and speculation caused by the disappearance of the two crack pitchers of the Giants was at fever pitch. The sporting pages of all the papers were filled with special articles and the story in many was featured on the first page. Fans collected on every street corner and discussed the many strange features of the occurrence. Many were the ingenious solutions proposed, and McRae’s mail in the morning was flooded with advice from amateur sportsmen and detectives.
All this, however, was of little service to either Joe or Jim. After the former had been finally overborne by sheer weight of numbers in the dark hallway of the gamblers’ house, he was conveyed to a dark room in the basement of the old building. The place was as dark as pitch, and was infested with rats and other vermin. For several hours they were his only company, and he had ample leisure for some bitter reflections on the hard fate that had brought him to this pass. Too late he wished that he had summoned aid before entering the house. He thought of the team waiting for him and counting on him for the game the following day, and a feeling of hot resentment and rage against his captors welled up in him. Following this came a resolve to outwit his enemies and escape, and with this idea in mind he made a careful exploration of the place in which he was confined.
The walls were of stone or cement, and were clammy and dripping with water. The air was cold and damp, and although in the world outside it was a lovely summer evening, Joe shivered in the dark atmosphere of his prison.
The hours dragged slowly by, for what seemed an interminable time, and Joe was preparing to make a bed on the floor and get what sleep he could under the circumstances, when he heard the sound of a key being turned in a lock. The door of the place opened on complaining hinges, and the big, flashily dressed man who had directed his capture in the hallway entered, carrying a lantern. At his back came two rough looking men, each carrying a club.