Baseball Joe In The Big League Part 2

"I hope they will not freeze before I get to them," thought Joe, as he staggered through the blinding snow. "They can't, though, for there'll be sure to be steam for some hours yet. I guess I'll stop home, and get something to eat for them, and a bottle of coffee. I'll put it in one of those vacuum flasks, and it will keep hot."

So intent was Joe on his rescue that, for the time, he gave no more thought to the matter of joining the St. Louis nine, important as that matter was to him.

"I'd better get a team of horses, and a light sled," he mused, as he turned in the direction of the livery stable. "There will be some heavy going between here and Deep Rock Cut, and I'll need a good team to pull through."

A little later he was leaving his order with the proprietor.

"I'll fix you up, Joe," said the stable boss, who was a baseball "fan,"

and a great admirer of our hero. "I'll give you the best team in the place, and they'll get you through, if any horses can. I expect I'll have other calls, if, as you say, the train is stalled, for there'll likely be other folks in town who have friends aboard her. But you've got the first call, and I'm glad of it."

"I'll be back in a little while," called Joe, as he hurried off. "I'm going around to my house to put up some lunch and coffee."

"Good idea! I'll have everything ready for you when you come back."

On Joe hurried once more, through the swirl of white flakes that cut into his face, blown on the wings of a bitter wind. He bent his head to the blast, and b.u.t.toned his overcoat more closely about him, as he fought his way through the drifts.

It had been snowing since early morning, and there were no signs to indicate that the storm was going to stop. It was growing colder, too, and the wind seemed to increase in violence each hour. Though it was only a little after one o'clock in the afternoon, it was unusually dark, and Joe realized that night would soon be at hand, hastened by the clouds overhead.

"But the snow will make it light enough to see, I guess," reasoned Joe.

"I hope I can keep to the road. It wouldn't be much of a joke to get Reggie and Mabel out of the train, into the comfortable sled, and then lose them on the way home."

Quickly explaining to his mother and sister his plan of going for the two friends in the stalled train, Joe hastily put up some sandwiches, while Clara made coffee and poured it into the vacuum bottle.

"Perhaps you'd better bring them here, Joe, instead of taking them to the hotel," suggested his mother. "Mabel will be wet and cold, perhaps, and I could make her more comfortable here than she would be at the hotel. We have room enough."

"She can share my room," proposed Clara.

"That's good of you," and Joe flashed a grateful look at his sister. "I hope you will like Mabel," he added, softly.

"I guess I will; if you do," laughed Clara.

"Well, I sure do," and Joe smiled.

Then, with a big scarf to wrap about his neck, and carrying the basket of food and coffee, Joe set out for the livery stable, to start to the rescue.

CHAPTER III

AN UPSET

"Here you are, Joe. Best team in the stable. I could have hired 'em out twice over since you went; but I wouldn't do it. Other folks have got the scare, too, about friends on the stalled train," and the livery boss handed Joe the reins of a pair of prancing horses, hitched to a light, but strong cutter.

"Thanks, Mr. Bla.s.ser," said Joe. "I'll take good care of 'em."

"And hold 'em in a bit at the start," advised the man. "They haven't been out for a couple of days, and they're a bit frisky. But they'll calm down after a while."

With a jingle of bells, and a scattering of the snow from their hoofs, the horses leaped forward when Joe gave them their heads, and down the whitened street they trotted, on the way to Deep Rock Cut.

This was a place where the railroad went through a rocky defile, about a mile long. It had been the scene of more than one wreck, for there was a dangerous curve in it, and in the Winter it was a source of worry to the railroad men, for the snow piled high in it when there was a storm of more than usual severity. In the Summer a nearby river sometimes rose above its banks, and filled the cut with water, washing out the track.

Altogether Deep Rock Cut was a cause of much anxiety to the railroad management, but it was not practical to run the line on either side of it, so its use had been continued.

"And very likely it's living up to its reputation right now," mused Joe, as he drove down the main street, and then turned to another that would take him out of the town, and to a highway that led near Deep Rock Cut.

"It sure must be living up to its reputation right now, though, of course, the storm is to blame.

"Whew! It certainly does blow!" he commented, as he held the reins in one hand, and drew more closely about his throat the m.u.f.fler he had brought with him. "Stand to it, ponies!" Joe called to the st.u.r.dy steeds. They had started off at a lively pace, but the snow soon slowed them down. They started up again, however, at the sound of Joe's voice, and settled down into a steady pull that took them over the ground at a good pace.

Now that he was actually on the way to the rescue Joe allowed his thoughts to go back to the baseball letter that was in his pocket, next to the one from Mabel.

"I wonder how they came to pick me out?" he mused, as he recalled the possibility that he would go to St. Louis. "They must have had a scout at some of the Central League games, though generally the news of that is tipped off beforehand.

"That must have been the way of it, though," he went on, still communing with himself. "I don't know that I played so extra well, except maybe at the last, and then--then I just _had_ to--to make good. Well, I'm glad they picked me out. Wonder if any other members of the Pittston team are slated to go? Can't be, though, or Gregory would have told me of it.

"And I wonder how much more salary I'll get? Of course I oughtn't to think too much about money, for, after all, it's the game I like. But, then, I have to live, and, since I'm in organized baseball, I want to be at the top of the heap, the same as I would if I were a lawyer, or a doctor. That's it--the top of the heap--the New York Giants for mine--if I can reach 'em," and he smiled quizzically.

"Yes, I guess lots of the fellows would give their eye teeth to have my chance. Of course, it isn't settled yet," Joe told himself, "but there must have been a good foundation for it, or Gregory wouldn't have taken the trouble to write to me about it."

Joe found the road to Deep Rock Cut fully as bad, in the matter of snowdrifts, as he had expected. It was rather slow going when he got to the open country, where the wind had full sweep, and progress, even on the part of the willing horses, was slower.

Joe picked out the best, and easiest, route possible, but that was not saying much, and it was not until nearly three o'clock, and growing quite dark, that he came within sight of the cut. Then the storm was so thick that he could not see the stalled train.

"I'll have to leave the team as near to it as I can get, and walk in to tell Reggie and Mabel that I've come for them," Joe decided.

The highway crossed the railroad track a short distance from the end of the cut nearest Riverside, and Joe, halting a moment to listen, and to make sure no trains were approaching, drove over the rails.

"Though there isn't much danger, now, of a train getting through that,"

he said to himself, as he saw the big drift of snow that blocked the cut. Behind that drift was the stalled train, he reflected, and then, as he looked at the white mound, he realized that he had made a mistake.

"I can never get through that drift myself," he said. "I'll have to drive up to the other end of the cut, by which the engine and cars entered. Stupid of me not to have thought of that at first."

He turned his horses, and again sought the highway that led along the cut, parallel to it, and about a quarter of a mile distant. Joe listened, again hoping he could hear the whistle of the approaching rescue-train, for at the station he had been told one was being fitted out, and would carry a gang of snow shovelers. But the howl of the wind was all that came to his ears.

"This means another mile of travel," Joe thought, as he urged on the horses. "It will be pitch dark by the time I get back to town with them.

I hope Mabel doesn't take cold. It sure is bitter."

Joe found the going even harder as he kept on, but he would not give up now.

"There's one consolation," he reasoned, "the wind will be at our backs going home. That will make it easier."

The road that crossed the track at the other end of Deep Rock Cut was farther from the beginning of the defile, and Joe, leaving the horses in a sheltering clump of trees, struggled down the track, the rails of which were out of sight under the snow.

"I wonder if Mabel can walk back?" he said aloud. "If not I guess Reggie and I can carry her. It's pretty deep. I didn't get here any too soon."

Something dark loomed up before him, amid the wall of white, swirling flakes.