But if the Giant pitcher did well, Joe did even better, when you consider that he was only rounding out his first season in a big league, and that he was up against a veteran of national fame, the announcement that he was going to be in the game being sufficient to attract a large throng.

"Good work, old man! Good work!" called Boswell, when Joe came to the bench one inning, after having allowed but one hit. "Can you keep it up?"

"I—I hope so."

It was a great battle—a hard battle. The Giants worked every trick they knew to gain another run, but the score remained a tie. Goose egg after goose egg went up on the score board. The ninth inning had started with the teams still even.

"We've just got to get that run!" declared Manager Watson. "We've just got to get it. Joe, you are to bat first. See if you can't get a hit!"

Pitchers are proverbially weak hitters. One ingenious theory for it is that they are so used to seeing the ball shooting away from them, and toward the batter, that, when the positions are reversed, and they see the ball coming toward them they get nervous.

"Ball!" was the umpire's first decision in Joe's favor. The young pitcher was rather surprised, for he knew the prowess of his opponent.

And then Joe decided on what might have proved to be a foolish thing.

"I'm going to think that the next one will be a swift, straight one, and I'm going to dig in my spikes and set for it," he decided. And he did. He made a beautiful hit, and amid the wild yells of the crowd he started for first. He beat the ball by a narrow margin, and was declared safe.

A pinch hitter was up next, and amid a breathless silence he was watched. But the peerless pitcher was taking no chances, and walked him, thinking to get Joe later.

But he did not. For, as luck would have it, Rad Chase made the hit of his life, a three-bagger, and with the crowd going wild, two runs came in, giving the Cardinals the game, if they could hold the Giants down.

And it was up to Joe to do this. Could he?

As Joe walked to the mound, for that last momentous inning, he glanced toward the box where his parents, sister and Mabel sat. A little hand was waved to him, and Joe waved back. Then he faced his first man.

"Thud!" went the ball in Doc Mullin's big mitt.

"Ball!" droned the umpire.

"Thud!" went another. The batter stood motionless.

"Strike!"

The batter indignantly tapped the rubber.

"Crack!"

"You can't get it!" yelled the crowd, as the ball shot up in a foul.

The umpire tossed a new ball to Joe, for the other had gone too far away to get back speedily.

Joe wet the horsehide, and sent it drilling in. The batter made a slight motion, as though to hit it, but refrained:

"Strike! You're out!" said the umpire, stolidly.

"Why, that ball was——"

"You're out!" and the umpire waved him aside, impatiently.

Joe grinned in delight.

But when he saw the next man, "Home Run Crater," facing him, our hero felt a little shaky. True, the chances were in favor of the Cardinals, but baseball is full of chances that make or break.

"If he wallops it!" thought Joe.

But Crater did not wallop it. In his characteristic manner he swung at the first delivery, and connected with it. Over Joe's head it was going, but with a mighty jump Joe corraled it in one hand, a sensational catch that set the crowd wild. Joe was playing the game of his life.

"Only one more!"

"Strike him out!"

"The game is ours, Joe!"

But another heavy hitter was up, and there was still work for Baseball Joe to do.

To his alarm, as he sent in his first ball, there came to his arm that had been twisted on the car, a twinge of pain.

"My! I hope that doesn't bother me," thought Joe, in anxiety.

"Ball one," announced the umpire.

Joe delivered a straight, swift one. His arm hurt worse, and he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.

"Strike!" grunted the umpire, and there was some balm for Joe in that.

The batter hit the next one for a dribbler, and just managed to reach first.

"If I could only have managed to get him out!" mused Joe. "I'd be done now. But I've got to do it over again. I wonder if I can last out?"

To his relief the next batter up was one of the weakest of the Giants, and Joe was glad. And even yet a weak batter might make a hit that would turn the tables.

"I've got to do it!" murmured Joe, and he wound up for the delivery.

"Strike!" announced the umpire. Joe's heart beat hard.

"Here goes for the fadeaway," he said to himself, "though it will hurt like fun!"

It did, bringing a remembrance of the old hurt. But it fooled the batter, and there were two strikes on him.

The game was all but over. With two out, and two strikes called, there could be but one result, unless there was to be something that occurs but once in a lifetime. And it did not occur.

"Strike! You're out!" was the umpire's decision, and that was the end. The Cardinals had won, thanks, in a great measure, to Joe Matson's splendid work.

"That's the stuff!"

"Third place for ours!"

"Three cheers for Joe Matson—Baseball Joe!" called his teammates, who crowded around him to clap him on the back and say all sorts of nice things. Joe stood it, blushingly, for a moment, and then he made his way over to the box. As he walked along, a certain quiet man who had been intently watching the game said softly to himself.

"He must be mine next season. I guess I can make a trade for him. He'd be a big drawing card for the Giants."

"Oh, Joe, it was splendid! Splendid!" cried Mabel, enthusiastically.

"Fine!" said his father.

"Do you get any extra when your side wins?" asked his mother, while the crowd smiled.

"Well, yes, in a way," answered Joe. "You get treated extra well."

"And it's going to be my treat this time," said Mabel, with a laugh. "I want you all to come to dinner with me. You'll come; won't you, Joe?" she asked, pleadingly.

"Of course," he said.

"And bring a friend, if you like," and she glanced at Clara.

"I'll bring Rad," Joe answered.

They lived the great game over again at the table of the hotel where Mable was stopping.

"Is your arm lame?" asked Mrs. Matson, noticing that her son favored his pitching member a trifle.

"Oh, I can finish out the season," said Joe. "The remainder will be easy—only a few more games."

"And then what?" asked Rad.

"Well, a vacation, I suppose, and then get ready for another season with the Cardinals."

But Joe was not destined to remain with the Western team. The horizon was widening, and those of you who wish to follow further the adventures of our hero may do so in the succeeding volume, which will be called "Baseball Joe on the Giants; Or, Making Good as a Ball Twirler in the Metropolis."

In that we shall see how Joe rose to even higher fame, through grit, hard work and ability.

"Well, you turned the trick, old man!" declared Manager Watson, when, a few days later, the team was on the way back to St. Louis. "You did it. I felt sure you could."

"Well, I didn't, at one time," was the rejoinder. "My arm started to go back on me."

"Well, there's one consolation, Shalleg and his crowd will never get another chance at you," went on the manager. "Now take care of yourself. I'm only going to let you play one game—the closing one at St. Louis. We won't need our stars against the tail-enders."

And the Cardinals did not, winning handily with a number of second string men playing.

"Where are you going, Joe?" asked Rad, as they sat in their hotel room one evening, for Joe was "dolling up."

"Out to a moving picture show."

"Moving pictures?"

"Yes. That film of the exhibition game we played in Philadelphia is being shown in town. Come on up."

"Sure," assented Rad; and as they went out together we will take leave of Baseball Joe.

THE END

* * * * *

BOOKS BY LESTER CHADWICK

THE COLLEGE SPORTS SERIES 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated

THE RIVAL PITCHERS A Story of College Baseball

A QUARTER-BACK'S PLUCK A Story of College Football

BATTING TO WIN A Story of College Baseball

THE WINNING TOUCHDOWN A Story of College Football

THE EIGHT-OARED VICTORS A Story of College Water Sports

THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES

12mo. Illustrated. Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional.



1. BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS or The Rivals of Riverside

2. BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE or Pitching for the Blue Banner

3. BASEBALL JOE AT YALE or Pitching for the College Championship

4. BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUE or Making Good as a Professional Pitcher

5. BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE or A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles

6. BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS or Making Good as a Twirler in the Metropolis

7. BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES or Pitching for the Championship

8. BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD or Pitching on a Grand Tour

9. BASEBALL JOE: HOME RUN KING or The Greatest Pitcher and Batter on Record

10. BASEBALL JOE SAVING THE LEAGUE or Breaking Up a Great Conspiracy

11. BASEBALL JOE CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM or Bitter Struggles on the Diamond

12. BASEBALL JOE CHAMPION OF THE LEAGUE or The Record that was Worth While

13. BASEBALL JOE CLUB OWNER or Putting the Home Town on the Map

14. BASEBALL JOE PITCHING WIZARD or Triumphs Off and On the Diamond

Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue.



CHAMPION SPORTS STORIES

By NOEL SAINSBURY, JR.

Every boy enjoys sport stories. Here we present three crackerjack stories of baseball, football, and basketball, written in the vernacular of the boy of to-day, full of action, suspense and thrills, in language every boy will understand, and which we know will be enthusiastically endorsed by all boys.

Large 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in color. Price 50 cents per volume.

Postage 10 cents additional



1. CRACKER STANTON Or The Making of a Batsman

Ralph Stanton, big, rawboned and serious, is a product of the backwoods and a crack rifle shot. Quick thinking and pluck bring him a scholarship to Clarkville School where he is branded "grind" and "dub" by classmates. How his batting brings them first place in the League and how he secures his appointment to West Point make CRACKER STANTON an up-to-the-minute baseball story no lover of the game will want to put down until the last word is read.

2. GRIDIRON GRIT Or The Making of a Fullback

A corking story of football packed full of exciting action and good, clean competitive rivalry. Shorty Fiske is six-foot-four and the product of too much money and indulgence at home. How Clarkville School and football develop Shorty's real character and how he eventually stars on the gridiron brings this thrilling tale of school life and football to a grandstand finish.

3. THE FIGHTING FIVE Or the Kidnapping of Clarkville's Basketball Team

Clarkville School's basketball team is kidnapped during the game for the State Scholastic Championship. The team's subsequent adventures under the leadership of Captain Charlie Minor as he brings them back to the State College Gymnasium where the two last quarters of the Championship game are played next evening, climaxes twenty-four pulsating hours of adventure and basketball in the FIGHTING FIVE....

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York

THE END