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Updated: May 4, 2025
Allandale proved to be all their reputation had boasted, and they seemed able to work a man around the circuit nearly every inning. Splendid fielding on the part of Hugh and his mates kept the score down, but nevertheless it continued to mount, in spite of all their efforts. Frazer was beginning to show signs of exhaustion. He had tried every trick he had in his list on the batters who faced him.
The blind was down, but he drew it aside and wiped the steam from the glass pane with his soft, fat hand. The night was black he could see nothing of the outside world. It was nearly an hour since he had left the saloon where he had been playing poker with John Allandale. He appeared to be waiting for some one, and he wanted to go to bed.
And yet he could shuffle well, and his fingers were, in reality, most sensitive. John Allandale looked on eagerly. The money-lender, contrary to his custom, dealt swiftly so swiftly that the bleared eyes of his opponent could not follow his movements. Both men picked up their cards. The old instincts of poker were not so pronounced in the rancher as they used to be.
His fertile brain had evolved a means by which to achieve his end, and, to his scheme-loving nature, the process was anything but distasteful. He had always, from the first moment he had decided to make Jacky Allandale his wife, been prepared for such a contingency as her refusal, and had never missed an opportunity of ensnaring her uncle in his financial toils.
Allandale and Belleville High fellows had given them a hard run of it before they carried off the championship pennant of the county in baseball the preceding summer.
In his dilemma a recollection came to him of the presence of Jacky Allandale in the barn, and a feeling nearly akin to revenge came to him. He felt that in some way this girl was connected with, and knew of, the doings of Retief. With a hurried order to remain where they were to his men he returned to his station at the window of the barn.
In their half the Allandale players again tried to delay the game until the umpire threatened to call it off, and proclaim Scranton the winner nine to nothing. Then they went to work, but without avail, for the inning found Scranton just one run to the good. Play was continued, even though a fine drizzle started, that caused hundreds of the spectators to take warning and depart.
In spite of his devotion to the bottle John Allandale usually made a hearty breakfast. But this morning the sight of Jacky presiding at his table upset him, and he left his food almost untasted. Remorse was deadened but conscience was yet unsilenced within him. Every time she spoke to him, every time he encountered her piercing gray eyes he felt himself to be a worse than Judas.
"The chances are," Thad said decisively, "that she was meaning to pass through Scranton, and was heading for some other town, perhaps Allandale. You might find out if any such thing happened there some years ago; or if an old man could be found who would welcome a dear little boy named Joey."
Our turn out in the field now, Thad. Glad to have seen you, O. K. Carry a message back home to Belleville for me, will you? Tell your fellows Scranton High has found herself at last, in the world of sports, and is primed to give both Belleville and Allandale a hard tussle for the prize."
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