You think that every man has his price and it's only a matter of bidding to find out mine."

"Now, now!" said Westland, spots of color coming into his cheeks.

"And more than that," went on Joe, not heeding the interruption, "you want to make me a tool to lead others to break their contracts, too. I'm to be the bellwether of the flock. You figure that if it's once spread abroad that Matson has jumped into the new league, it will start a stampede of contract breakers. I tell you straight, Westland, it's dirty business. If you want to start a new league, go ahead and do it in a decent way. Get new players and develop them, or get star players whose contracts have expired. Play the game, but do it without marked cards or loaded dice."

Westland saw that he had lost, and he threw diplomacy to the winds.

"Keep your advice till it's asked for!" he snarled, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the money and jamming it viciously into his pocket. "I didn't come to this jay town to be lectured by a hick----"

"What's that?" cried Joe, springing to his feet.

Westland was so startled by the sudden motion that he almost swallowed his cigar. Before Joe's sinewy figure he stepped back and mumbled an apology.

Then he reached for his hat, and without another word stalked out of the house, his features convulsed with anger and chagrin.

As he flung himself out of the gate, he almost collided with a messenger boy bringing a telegram to Joe.

The latter signed for it and tore it open hastily. It was from the Giants'

manager and read:

"I hear the new league is coming after you hotfoot. But I'm betting on you, Joe.

"McRae."

He handed it over to Jim who read it with a smile.

"Betting on me, is he?" said Joe. "Well, Mac, you win!"

CHAPTER IV

THE TOP OF THE WAVE

While they were still discussing the telegram, Joe's father came home to lunch from the harvester works where he was employed. He seemed ten years younger than he had before the trip to the World's Series, which he in his quiet way had enjoyed quite as much as the rest of the family.

He greeted the young men cordially.

"I met a man a little way down the street who seemed to have come from here," he said, as he hung up his hat. "He had his hat jammed down on his head, and was muttering to himself as though he were sore about something."

"He was," replied Jim with a grin. "He laid twenty-five thousand dollars on the table, and he was sore because Joe wouldn't take it up."

Mr. Matson looked bewildered, but his astonishment was not as great as that of Clara, who at that moment put her head in the door to announce that lunch was ready.

"What are you millionaires talking about?" she asked.

"What do millionaires usually talk about?" answered Jim loftily.

"Money--the long green--iron men--filthy lucre--yellowbacks----"

"If you don't stop your nonsense you sha'n't have any lunch," threatened Clara, "and that means something, too, for mother has spread herself in getting it up."

"Take it all back," said Jim promptly. "I'm as sober as a judge. Lead me to this lunch, fair maiden, and I'll tell you nothing but the plain, unvarnished truth. But even at that, I'm afraid you'll think I'm romancing."

The merry group seated themselves at the table, and Clara, all alive with curiosity, demanded the fulfilment of Jim's promise.

"Well," said Jim, "the simple truth is that that fellow who was here this morning offered Joe sixty-five thousand dollars for three years' work."

Mrs. Matson almost dropped her knife and fork in her amazement. Mr. Matson sat up with a jerk, and Clara's eyes opened to their widest extent.

"Sixty-five thousand dollars!" gasped Joe's father.

"For three years' work!" exclaimed Mrs. Matson.

"Why," stammered Clara, "that's--that's--let me see--why, that's more than twenty-one thousand dollars a year."

"That's what," replied Jim, keenly relishing the sensation he was causing.

"And it wasn't stage money either. He had brought twenty thousand dollars with him in bills, and he laid it down on the table as carelessly as though it was twenty cents. And all that this modest youth, who sits beside me and isn't saying a word, had to do to get that money was to put his name on a piece of paper."

"Joe," exclaimed Clara, "do tell us what all this means! Jim is just trying to tantalize us."

"Stung!" grinned Jim. "That's what comes from mixing in family matters."

"Why, it's this way, Sis," laughed Joe. "That fellow traveled a thousand miles to call me a hick. I wouldn't stand for it and made him take it back and then he got mad and skipped."

"Momsey," begged Clara in desperation, "can't you make these idiots tell us just what happened?"

"Them cruel woids!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jim mournfully.

"Do tell us, Joe!" entreated his mother. "I'm just dying to know all about it."

Teasing his mother was a very different thing from teasing Clara, who was an adept at that art herself, and Joe surrendered immediately.

They forgot to eat--all except Jim, who seldom carried forgetfulness so far--while he told them about Westland's call and his proposition to Joe to break his contract and jump to the new league.

Sixty-five thousand dollars was a staggering amount of money, a fortune, in fact, in that quiet town, and yet there was not one of that little family who didn't rejoice that Joe had turned the offer down.

"You did the right thing, Joe," said his father heartily; "and the fact that lots of people would call you foolish doesn't change things in the least. A man who sells himself for a hundred thousand dollars is just as contemptible as one who sells himself for a dollar. I'm proud of you, my boy."

"I could have told beforehand just what Joe would do," said Mrs. Matson, wiping her eyes.

"You're the darlingest brother ever!" exclaimed Clara, coming round the table and giving him a hug and a kiss.

The thought of Clara being a sister to him had never appealed to Jim before, but just at that moment it would have had its advantages.

For the rest of the meal all were engrossed in talking of the great event of the morning--that is, all but Joe, who kept casting surrept.i.tious glances at the clock.

"Don't get worried, Joe," said his sister mischievously, as she intercepted one of his glances. "Mabel's train doesn't get in until half-past two, and it isn't one o'clock yet."