As for Joe, at first he felt humiliated that he was displaced but he realized that he had had more honor that he had at first expected, and his arm was beginning to pain him very much. So, on the whole, he was glad Sam had arrived when he did.

Not so the captain, manager and other Star players, however, for Sam allowed two runs while he occupied the box, and the Academy team and their friends were jubilant.

The Stars managed to get two runs in their half of the seventh. Joe did not play, his place at centre field continuing to be filled by Tom. Joe was glad of the rest and he watched the efforts of his rival closely.

In the eighth Sam did not seem able to pull himself together and three runs were due to his poor pitching.

"Say, if we play innings enough we'll beat 'em even with their new pitcher!" called some one in the crowd, anxious to get Sam's "goat," or nerve.

And this seemed likely. In their half of the eighth the Stars only got one run, and when the ninth inning opened there were some anxious hearts among the members of the visiting team.

And then came a terrible slump. Sam grew wild, allowed bases on b.a.l.l.s, struck one man and m.u.f.fed an easy fly. When the route and riot were over there were five runs to the credit of the schoolboy players and they had tied the score, pulling up from a long way in the rear. The crowd went wild for them.

"Fellows, we've got to make our half of this inning count," said Darrell earnestly. "They're making fools of us and they're not in our cla.s.s at all. We've got to beat them! Sam, wake up!" he said sharply.

"I'm not asleep!" retorted the pitcher. "If you think I am why don't you send that Matson in again?"

"Easy now, easy," spoke Rankin. "You can pitch if you pull yourself together, and if we can't make a run this inning and it goes to the tenth you'll have to unwind some curves."

"I will, but it won't go to the tenth."

It didn't, for the Stars took a brace and pulled off one run, winning the game by a score of fourteen to thirteen. But it had been a close call.

"Well, you beat us," acknowledged the Academy manager as the winning run came in. "But it took two pitchers to do it, and you'd have done better if you'd stuck to the first one."

"Perhaps," admitted Darrell. "You played better than I gave you credit for."

"Why don't you use that first pitcher regularly?" the home captain wanted to know.

"Oh, maybe----" began Darrell, and then he saw Sam standing close beside him, and he did not finish.

"What were you going to say?" demanded Sam roughly.

"Nothing," answered the manager in some confusion. He was saved a further reply by the approach of a boy who held a note in his hand.

"Is Joe Matson here?" the lad asked.

"Right over there," said Darrell, pointing to where the young pitcher was talking to Tom Davis.

"I've got a letter for him," the messenger went on.

Joe rapidly tore open the envelope and read the few words the note contained.

"I've got to leave here," he said to Tom.

"Why? What's the matter? Nothing wrong I hope."

"I don't know," answered Joe. "The note says I'm to come home at once.

They've sent a carriage for me. I hope nothing has happened to--to anybody," and gulping down a suspicious lump in his throat Joe followed the lad off the diamond.

CHAPTER XXV

JOE FOILS THE PLOTTERS

There was a carriage waiting just outside the ball grounds, a carriage drawn by one horse. A man whom Joe had never seen before, so far as he knew, held the reins.

"There's the man who wants you," explained the lad who had acted as messenger.

"Who is he?" asked the young pitcher quickly. "I don't know him. Where did he come from? Where did you meet him?"

"I guess he'll tell you all you want to know," said the lad. "All I know is that I was standing outside the ball grounds after the game, and he give me that note to bring in to you. I didn't come with him."

"Oh, I see," replied Joe, but he was wondering who the man was, and how the fellow came to know that he was in Fayetteville.

"Hope I didn't take you away from the game," began the man with what he evidently meant for a pleasant smile. Yet, somehow Joe did not like that smile. The man seemed to have a shifty glance and Joe mistrusted him.

"Oh, the game is over," answered the young pitcher. "I didn't play in the last part. But what is the matter? Is my mother or father ill?"

"It's nothing serious," spoke the man. "No one is ill. I came to get you about your father's patents."

"Oh!" exclaimed Joe. He felt a sensation of relief until he realized the danger that threatened his father's inventions. Then he asked: "What's wrong? Is Mr.----" Then he stopped for he did not know whether or not to mention names to this stranger.

"I can't give you any particulars," said the man with another smile.

"All I can say is that they engaged me to come and get you to save time."

"Who engaged you?" asked Joe.

"Your father," replied the man. "He sent me off in a hurry and said I'd find you at this game. I sent you in the note by the lad. Your father had no time to write one, but you are to go to him at once. He wants you to help him about the patent models I think. We'd better hurry."

Joe's suspicions vanished at once. He knew his father was preparing to send on some models to Washington and now probably some need of haste had arisen necessitating his aid. He climbed up into the carriage, and though he noted at the time that the rig did not seem to be from the local livery stable, which had only a few, he thought nothing of it then.

The man flicked the horse with the whip and the animal started off on the jump. Just outside the ball grounds there was a private road leading into the main one. On reaching the chief thoroughfare the man turned north whereas, to reach Riverside, he should have gone south.

"Hold on!" cried Joe, "you're going the wrong way."

"Be easy. It's all right," answered the man with a smile. "Your father has taken all his things to a little shop in Denville. He had to have some changes made in the models I believe, and he wanted to be in a machine shop where he could work quietly. He told me to bring you there."

Joe remembered that on one or two occasions Mr. Matson had had some work done in Denville, and once more the suspicions that had arisen were lulled. Joe sank back on the cushions and began thinking of the game just played. His arm was getting quite stiff.

"I'll have to attend to it as soon as I get home," he mused. "It won't do to have it go back on me just when things are in such good shape. If they keep on I may become the regular pitcher. Sam certainly did poorly in his part of the game, and I'm not getting a swelled head, either, when I say that." Joe knew he had done good work, considering his sore arm, and he made up his mind to do still better.

The man drove along rapidly, and in about an hour had reached the outskirts of Denville. He turned down a road that was evidently little used, to judge by the gra.s.s growing in it, and halted the horse in front of a small building. It did not look like a place where inventors'

models would be made. In fact the shack had a forlorn and forsaken air about it, and Joe looked curiously at it. His suspicions were coming back.