"Them?" inquired McCarthy. "Then you've heard this story before?"
"Yes," she admitted. "I refused to listen--I knew there was not a word of truth in the stories. I knew you were honest"----
"I thank you very much, Miss Tabor," he said quietly. "I shall not need to ask who told you."
"I only wanted you to know I believed in you," she said simply, and as he looked into her eyes, she lowered them with a quick blush and hastened to recover her book.
Thirty thousand persons were packed into the big stands on the Bears' Park, and ten thousand others camped in the outer field seats when the teams ran out to play that day.
A few loyalists applauded McCarthy as he trotted along with the other players, but the ripple of applause died suddenly as if the friends he had in the crowd feared to start a counterstorm of criticism and abuse.
The great crowd was strangely quiet, although a hum of comment spread through the stands when the Bears took the fielding practice and Jacobson, the pitcher, practiced at third base, while McCarthy remained near the stands idly warming up a recruit pitcher. The buzz arose to a hum of excitement. Reporters, deserting the press box, swarmed down under the stands and crowded to the entrance at the rear of the Bears' bench, calling for Clancy, who went to speak with them.
"Why isn't McCarthy in the game?" demanded the spokesman, who already had written that McCarthy was suspended and out of the game.
"He is in the game," replied Clancy innocently. "Why shouldn't he be?"
For an instant the reporters stood undecided, then sprinted back to their posts, to change what they had written and alter the line-up.
Bill Tascott, the umpire, swaggered out to the plate, dusted the rubber, while the megaphones announced the batteries, and, at that instant McCarthy, jerking his glove from his belt, hurled his catcher's mitt to the bench and trotted out to third base, as Jacobson walked toward the bench.
The little scattering applause that greeted him grew and grew until the crowd applauded heartily and gave round after round of applause for the third baseman. It was the American spirit of fair play and justice revealing itself, and the crowd, accepting Manager Clancy's confidence in his third baseman, rendered its verdict of not guilty in cheers.