“We’ve done the best we could,” came a sullen voice that caused McRae and Robson to give a violent start, as they recognized it as belonging to McCarney. “We got Lemblow to come on and help us. He was only too glad to do it, for he thought it would give him a chance of breaking into the big league. He nearly got Matson when he pushed that pile of lumber over.”
“And I nearly got his number with a lump of iron on the last Western trip,” came the voice of Reddy Hupft. “It came within an inch of cracking his skull.”
“Excuses! Excuses!” snapped the angry boss. “I didn’t give you fellers ten thousand dollars apiece with a promise of more simply to listen to excuses. You’re a couple of false alarms, and if you don’t get busy it’ll be the worse for you. You can’t double cross me and get away with it.”
“That’s enough,” whispered McRae to the group about him. “We’ve got the goods on them at last. Half of you go to the outside door, and when you hear us break through this door do the same to that.”
They did as directed.
There was a moment of tense expectation, and then with a rush McRae’s party dashed through the inner door. At the same instant the other half of the attacking party burst into the room from the hall.
There were eight men in the room and they leaped to their feet in wild alarm at the sudden interruption. But before they could form any plan for defense the husky young invaders were upon them slugging them without mercy.
The rascals fought back as best they could, but from the first they never had a chance. As Joe had surmised, most of them were the heads of the baseball gambling ring, bloated, overfed, corpulent rascals who could not stand for a moment before trained athletes. Had they anticipated trouble and had their hirelings with them, there might have been a semblance of a fight. But in their physical condition and with the odds two to one against them, they were simply a joke.
Hupft and McCarney were the only ones capable of putting up a real fight, and they did their best. But Joe had singled out McCarney and Jim had tackled Hupft, and they joyously gave them the beating of their lives.
It was a very battered group of rascals that in less than three minutes were huddled into a corner, while their captors crowded so closely about them that escape was impossible.