This was the right word in due season. Walter realized that he had stood the test of a bigger game than this, that he had proved himself in the day's work. As methodically as if he were carrying cases of dynamite across the deck, he turned and sent the ball breaking across the corner of the plate. The Culebra giant swung at it as if he expected to drive a home-run into the Caribbean Sea. "One strike," called the umpire. The next ball floated lazily and so deceived the batter that he made no attempt to hit it. A third ball was batted high in air to fall into the waiting paws of "Bucky" Harrison.
Walter had pitched himself out of the tightest corner of the game against the most formidable team of the Isthmian League. The game was won, for during the last two innings neither side was able to score.
Walter's friends gathered around him as he pressed through the crowd to join his family in the grandstand. Naughton marched at one elbow, Jack Devlin at the other. Mr. Horatio Goodwin was earnestly shaking hands with his wife, nor did he foresee that henceforth he was to be known on the Isthmus, not by his own very respectable name and station, but as "the father of the kid pitcher." Eleanor was confiding to Fernandez Garcia Alfaro:
"He is the most wonderful brother that ever was. I wish I could show you the bust that I made of modelling-clay. The firmly moulded chin was prophetic. I can't understand how they managed to dig so much of the Panama Canal without him."
Alfaro was as delighted over all the good fortune which had come to the Goodwin family as if it had happened to himself.
"I shall go to Washington and be a diplomat with a heart full of the greatest gladness," he shouted to Walter. "Viva everybody!"
Jack Devlin approached rather sheepishly and eyed Mr. Goodwin uneasily as he confessed:
"About that money-order I sneaked to you with the best of intentions. It made you so much worry and false alarm about the boy that I ought to be kicked. Here is where I apologize."
"It was the most brilliant inspiration you ever had," cheerfully replied the father of Walter.
"Your generous impulse was one of the causes that brought us to the Isthmus to live," added Mrs. Goodwin. "You had something to do with reuniting the family. We feel under great obligations to you."