Baseball Joe In The Big League Part 8

"Fire ahead."

"Do you know a fellow named Shalleg?"

Charlie Hall started.

"It's queer you should ask me that," he responded, slowly.

"Why?" Joe wanted to know.

"Because that's one of the reasons I stopped up to talk to you. I want to warn you against Shalleg."

"Warn me! What do you mean?" and Joe thought of the threats the man had made.

"Why, you know he's out of the Clevefield team; don't you?"

"No, I didn't know it," replied Joe. "But go on. I'll tell you something pretty soon."

"Yes, he's been given his unconditional release," went on Charlie. "He got to gambling, and doing other things no good ball player can expect to do, and keep in the game, and he was let go. And I heard something that made me come here to warn you, Joe. There may be nothing in it, but Shalleg----"

There came a knock at the door of the parlor, and Joe held up a warning hand.

"Wait a minute," he whispered.

CHAPTER VII

BASEBALL TALK

There was silence for a moment, following Joe's warning, and then the voice of his mother was heard:

"Joe, you're wanted on the telephone."

"Oh, all right," he answered in a relieved tone. "I didn't want her to hear about Shalleg," he added in a whisper to Charlie. "She and father would worry, and, with his recent sickness, that wouldn't be a good thing for him."

"I should say not," agreed the other ball player.

"I'll be right there, Mother," went on Joe, in louder tones and then he went to the hall, where the telephone stood. It was only a message from a local sporting goods dealer, saying that he had secured for Joe a certain glove he had had made to order.

Joe went back to his chum, and the baseball talk was renewed.

"What were you going to say that Shalleg was up to?" asked Joe.

"As I was saying," resumed Charlie, "there may be nothing in the rumor, but it's the talk, in baseball circles, that Shalleg has been trying his best, since being released, to get a place with the Cardinals."

"You don't mean it!" cried Joe. "That accounts for his surprise, and perhaps for his bitter feeling against me when I told him there was a chance that I would go to St. Louis."

"Probably," agreed Charlie. "So, having heard this, and knowing that Shalleg is a hard character, I thought I'd warn you."

"I'm glad you did," returned Joe warmly. "It was very good of you to go to that trouble. And, after the experience I had with Shalleg, I shouldn't wonder but what there was something in it. Though why he should be vindictive toward me is more than I can fathom. I certainly never did anything to him, except to refuse to lend him money, and I actually had to do that."

"Of course," agreed Charlie. "But I guess, from his bad habits, his mind is warped. He is abnormal, and your refusal, coupled with the fact that you are probably going to a team that he has tried his best to make, and can't, simply made him wild. So, if I were you, I should be on the lookout, Joe."

"I certainly will. It's queer that I met Shalleg the way I did--in the storm. It was quite an unusual coincidence. It seems he had been to Rocky Ford, a town near here, to see if he could borrow money from somebody there--at least so he said. Then he heard I lived here, and he started for Riverside, and got lost on the way, in the storm. Altogether it was rather queer. I never was so surprised in my life as when, after riding with me for some time, the man said he was looking for me."

"It _was_ queer," agreed Charlie. "Well, the only thing to do, after this, is to steer clear of him. And, after all, it may only be talk."

"Yes," a.s.sented Joe, "and now let's talk about something pleasant. How are you, anyhow? What are your plans for the coming season? And how are all the boys since we played the last pennant game?"

"Gracious!" exclaimed Charlie with a laugh. "You fire almost as many questions at a fellow as a lawyer would."

Then the two plunged into baseball talk, which, as it has no special interest for my readers, I shall omit.

"Have you anything special to do?" asked Joe, as Charlie and he came to a pause in recalling scenes and incidents, many of which you will find set down in the previous book of this series.

"No. After I clean up all the orders I can here I will have a few days'

vacation," replied Hall.

"Good!" cried Joe. "Then spend them with me. Reggie Varley and his sister are here for a while--you remember Reggie; don't you, Charlie?"

"As well as you remember his sister, I reckon," was the laughing rejoinder.

"Never mind that. Then I'll count on you. I'll introduce you to a nice girl, and we'll get up a little sleigh-riding party. There'll be a fine moon in a couple of nights."

"Go as far as you like with me," invited Charlie. "I'm not in training yet, and I guess a late oyster supper, after a long ride, won't do me any particular harm."

Charlie departed for the hotel, to get his baggage, for he was going to finish out the rest of his stay in Riverside as Joe's guest, and the young pitcher went to get the new glove, about which he had received the telephone message.

It was a little later that day that, as Clara was pa.s.sing her brother's room, she heard a curious, thumping noise.

"I wonder what that is?" she murmured. "Sounds as though Joe were working at a punching bag. Joe, what in the world are you doing?" she asked, pausing outside his door.

"Making a pocket in my new glove," he answered. "Come on in, Sis. I'm all covered with olive oil, or I'd open the door for you."

"Olive oil! The idea! Are you making a salad, as well?" she asked laughingly, as she pushed open the portal.

She saw her brother, attired in old clothes, alternately pouring a few drops of olive oil on his new pitcher's glove, and then, with an old baseball pounding a hollow place in the palm.

"What does it mean?" asked Clara.

"Oh, I'm just limbering up my new glove," answered Joe. "If I'm to play with a big team, like the St. Louis Cardinals, I want to have the best sort of an outfit. You know a ball will often slip out of a new glove, so I'm making a sort of 'pocket' in this one, only not as deep as in a catcher's mitt, so it will hold the ball better."

"But why the olive oil?"

"Oh, well, of course any good oil would do, but this was the handiest.

The oil softens the leather, and makes it pliable. And say, if you haven't anything else to do, there's an old glove, that's pretty badly ripped; you might sew it up. It will do to practice with."