A shout of appreciative laughter followed this sally, and McCarney glared around at the circle of derisive faces.
“I suppose you fellows are too blamed good to ever make a mistake, ain’t you?” he growled. “If Markwith hadn’t shot the pill at me so doggone fast I wouldn’t have dropped it. There wasn’t any need of putting so much smoke on it.”
“Aw, get out of here before we throw you out,” snapped Mylert disgustedly. “Be a man and admit you made a punk play without trying to blame it on some one else.”
McCarney seemed tempted to throw himself at the big catcher, but then thought better of it and flung out of the clubhouse, slamming the door behind him. A minute later Joe slipped quietly out and glanced quickly about to locate the renegade ball player. McCarney was only half a block away, and Joe set out to follow him.
[CHAPTER XIX]
A FURIOUS FIGHT
It was no easy matter to trail McCarney without himself being discovered, especially as the third baseman had a trick of glancing back over his shoulder from time to time. More than once Joe felt sure that he had been discovered, but fortune favored him, and he successfully evaded detection.
At the first car track that McCarney reached he hesitated, in doubt, apparently, whether to take a car or walk to the subway. Joe slipped into a convenient doorway, where he could see without being seen, and waited for the other to make the next move.
McCarney was still hesitating when a trolley car came into view. This evidently settled the third baseman’s doubts. As the car drew near he signaled it to stop, and then swung to the back platform.