McCarthy was happier and more interested than he had been since he joined the Bears. Restlessly he awaited an opportunity to talk with Betty Tabor. Since his interview with Helen Baldwin he had been strangely jubilant for a young man who had just been discarded by the girl to whom he was engaged. He wondered how much of the conversation Betty Tabor had overheard, and worried about it. He wanted to explain to her who Miss Baldwin was and how he had happened to be talking with her, yet he knew it would seem presumptuous for him to broach the subject. Why should Betty Tabor think enough of him to be jealous? Yet, in spite of this, he decided that, at the first opportunity, he would mention meeting Helen Baldwin.
He went to bed annoyed and with an odd sense of being wronged. He determined to see the girl at breakfast and almost decided to confide in her the secret of his past life. But he did not see her at breakfast. After a restless night he was among the first in the dining car and he loitered, but the girl, usually one of the earliest risers, slept late, and when the train reached the city of the Travelers she went with Manager Clancy and his wife in a taxicab, while McCarthy was bundled with the other players into the big auto 'bus. He failed to catch a glimpse of her during luncheon and was in a bad humor when the team made an early start for the ball park.
The game was a runaway for the Bears. They piled up such a large score during the early innings that Manager Clancy was able to take out Morgan in the sixth and send Shelby, a second-string pitcher, to finish the game, saving up more strength and skill to use at the finish.
It was a jubilant crowd of players that returned to the hotel after the game. They sang and laughed and were happy again. They had won, and during the afternoon the Panthers, overconfident, had suffered two defeats by the Maroons, leaving the teams again practically tied for the lead.
McCarthy spent the evening loitering around the hotel lobbies, still hoping for an opportunity to see Miss Tabor, and she failed to appear at dinner and was not with Mr. and Mrs. Clancy when they started out for a car ride. He wandered aimlessly around until, abandoning his quest, he went to his room disconsolately. It was not yet eleven o'clock, but Swanson was preparing for sleep. As McCarthy came into the room he stopped to laugh. The giant shortstop was in his pajamas, on his back in the bed. With one bare foot he was holding a sheet of paper against the head board, and with a pencil grasped between the toes of the other foot he was laboriously striving to write.