f business to
attend to. Father is putting more and more on his shoulders each year.
He wants him finally to take it up altogether. Reggie doesn't care so
much for it, but it's good for him," and she smiled frankly at Joe.

"Yes, work is good," he admitted, "even if it is only playing baseball."

"And that sometimes seems to me like hard work," responded Mabel.

"It is," Joe admitted. "How long do you stay in Riverside?"

"Three or four days yet. Why?"

"Because there'll be good sleighing, and I thought perhaps you'd like to
go out for a ride."

"I shall be delighted!"

"Then I'll arrange for it. Won't you come over to the house this
evening?"

"I have an engagement," she laughed.

Joe looked disappointed. Mabel smiled.

"It's with your sister," she said. "I promised to come over and learn a
new lace pattern."

"I'm just crazy about fancy work myself!" and Joe laughed in turn. "It's
as bad as the new dances. I guess I'll stay home, too."

"Do," Mabel invited. And when Joe took his leave some of the worry
caused by Shalleg's threat had passed away.

"I guess I'll say nothing about it," mused our hero. "It would do no
good, and if father and mother heard about it they might worry. I'll
just fight it out all alone. I guess Shalleg was only a 'bluff,' anyhow.
He may be in desperate straits, but he had no right to make threats like
that."

Riverside was storm-bound for several days, and when she was finally dug
out, and conditions were normal, there was still plenty of snow left for
sleighing. Joe planned to take Mabel for a ride, and Reggie, hearing of
it, asked Clara to be his guest.

Two or three days passed, and Joe neither saw nor heard any more of
Shalleg, except to learn, by judicious inquiry, that the surly and
threatening fellow had left the boarding house to which Joe had taken
him.

"I guess he's gone off to try his game on some other players in the
League," thought the young pitcher. "I hope he doesn't succeed, though.
If he got money I'm afraid he'd make a bad use of it."

There came another letter from Mr. Gregory, in which he told Joe that,
while the matter was still far from being settled, the chances were that
the young pitcher would be drafted to St. Louis.

"I will let you know, in plenty of time, whether you are to train with
us, or with the big league," the manager of the Pittston team wrote. "So
you will have to hold yourself in readiness to do one or the other."

"They don't gi