They got through the repugnant work as soon as possible and then made a careful search of the room.

"That fellow may have had a mate," remarked Joe, "and one experience of this kind is enough for a lifetime. I've always felt a little doubtful about those stories of people whose hair turned gray in a single night, but it's easy enough to believe it now."

"We'll close the window too," said Jim, suiting the action to the word and letting the upper sash down only for an inch or two. "That's the way that fellow must have crawled in. It's pretty hot in here but I'd rather die of heat than snake bites."

They went back to bed but not to sleep, for they were too thoroughly wrought up by their narrow escape.

"You must have hit that fellow an awful crack," said Jim. "You sure batted .300 in the Ceylon League."

"Broke his neck, I guess," responded Joe. "It's lucky it wasn't a missed strike for I wouldn't have had time for another one."

"Don't let's say anything to the girls about it," suggested Jim. "Not until we get away from India anyway. They'd be seeing snakes all the rest of the time we're here."

It was lucky that neither of them was slated to pitch the next day, for they would scarcely have been in condition after their night's experience.

A game had been arranged between the visiting teams at a date three days later. By that time Joe was in his usual superb form and easily carried off the victory for his team. This put the Giants "on velvet," for they now had a clear lead of two over the All-Americans.

But the satisfaction that this would have usually given Joe was lacking now. Victory had ceased to be sweet since the receipt of that newspaper from home.

Perhaps it was because of his sensitive condition that he thought he detected a subtle change in the conduct of his team mates towards him.

While perfectly friendly in their relations with him, they did not "let themselves go" when in his presence, as formerly. There was no boisterous clapping on the back, no jolly sparring or wrestling. There seemed to be a little holding in, a feeling of reserve, a something in the back of their minds that they did not care for him to see.

This joyous freemasonry of sport had always been especially pleasant to Joe and for that reason he felt its absence the more keenly.

But what exasperated him most was that if the old standbys of the club were a trifle cool, Iredell, Curry and Burkett went to the other extreme and were more cordial than ever before. It was as though they were welcoming a newcomer to their ranks. They knew that they were under suspicion of planning to jump their contracts in the spring, and the apparent evidence that so renowned a player as Joe was planning to do the same thing made them hail him as a reinforcement.

Where formerly they had often ceased talking when he approached them and made him feel that he was an intruder, they now greeted him warmly, although they did not yet feel quite sure enough to broach the subject of their own accord.

"All little pals together," hummed Iredell significantly on one occasion with a sidelong glance at Joe.

"Just what do you mean by that?" asked Joe sharply.

"Just what I say," replied Iredell innocently. "What is there wrong about that? Aren't we Giants pals to each other?"

"Of course we are, as long as we stay Giants," replied Joe. "But that wasn't what you meant, Dell, and you know it."

"Now, don't get red-headed, Joe," put in Curry soothingly. "You must have got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. Dell didn't mean any harm."

"Tell me one thing," said Joe. "Do any of you fellows believe for one minute that story in the paper?"

He looked from one to the other, but none of them looked him straight in the eye.

"You know that I've denied it," went on Joe, as they kept silent, "and if after that you still believe the story it's the same as saying that I lie. And no one can call me a liar and get away with it."

He stalked away leaving them dumbfounded.

"Do you think he really has jumped his contract?" asked Burkett.

"I don't know," replied Iredell dubiously.

"He's got me guessing," muttered Curry.

And the trio were still guessing when several weeks later the party reached Egyptian soil, prepared to play the most modern of games before the most ancient of monuments--baseball in the very shadow of the Pyramids!

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SIGNED CONTRACT

"If old Pharaoh could only see us now!" chortled Jim, as the teams lined up for their first game.

"He'd probably throw a fit," grinned Denton.

"Not a bit of it," said Joe. "He'd probably be up in the grandstand, eating peanuts and singing out once in a while to 'kill the umpire.'"

"And he'd do it too," laughed Jim. "I'll bet an umpire in those days would have had a hard job to get life insurance. It would have been good dope to get a tip before the game as to just what team Pharaoh wanted to win."

"I think you men are awfully irreverent," reproved Mabel, who, with Clara, was seated in the first row in the stand right behind the players' bench and had overheard the conversation.

"Not at all," laughed Jim. "It's a big compliment to Pharaoh to suggest that he would have been a baseball fan if he hadn't been born too soon. It puts him on a level with the President of the United States."

The teams were playing on the cricket field used by the English residents, and not far off the Pyramids reared their stately heads toward the sky. It was a strange conjunction of the past and the present, and all were more or less impressed by it.

"Well, I must confess that in my wildest dreams of seasons gone by, I never supposed that I would be pitching here in Egypt in the shadow of the pyramids," remarked Joe.

"It certainly takes a fellow back to ancient days," put in Jim. "Just imagine playing before a crowd of those old Egyptians!"

"Well, they had fun in their day just as well as we have," said McRae.

"Just the same, they didn't know how good baseball is."

"They didn't even know anything about yelling to kill the umpire when a wrong decision was given," remarked Joe, with a grin, and at this there was a general laugh.

There was a big outpouring of Europeans and visiting Americans, and under the inspiration of their interest and applause both teams played brilliantly. It was a hammer-and-tongs contest from start to finish, and resulted in the first tie of the trip, neither team being able to score, although the game went to eleven innings.

"Still two ahead," McRae said to Brennan, as they left the grounds after the game.

"We're gunning for you," retorted Brennan good-naturedly, "and we'll get you yet. You've had all the breaks so far, but our turn has got to come."

"Tell that to the King of Denmark," laughed McRae. "We've got your number, old man."

The party "did" Egypt thoroughly, visiting Cairo, Thebes and Memphis, climbing the Pyramids, sailing on the Nile, viewing the temples of Karnak and Philae, the statue of Memnon, and countless other places of interest in this cradle of the world's civilization. And it was a tired but happy crowd that finally a.s.sembled at Alexandria to take ship for Naples, their first stopping place on the continent of Europe.

Braxton was no longer with the party, having left it at Ceylon, and others had dropped away here and there. But in the main the members were the same as at the beginning. Their health had been excellent, and only a few things had occurred to mar the pleasure of the trip.

The discomfort that Joe had felt had largely worn away with the pa.s.sing of time. Every day was bringing him nearer the time when with the opening of the season he would actually appear on the diamond wearing a Giant uniform, and thus effectually dispose of the slander that had troubled him.

There had just been time enough to receive some of the earliest papers from America that had been published after the receipt of his denial. That denial had evidently produced a great effect, coupled as it was with the offer to give a thousand dollars to charity if the new league could produce any contract signed by him. "Money talks," and the paper intimated that the All-Star League had the next move and that it would be "in bad"