Not that Billy Gaston was afraid. The thrill of excitement burned along
his veins and filled him with a fine elation whenever he thought of the
great adventure, and he gave his pocket a protective slap where the
"ten bones" still reposed intact. He felt well pleased with himself to
have made sure of those. Whatever happened he had that, and if the man
wasn't on the square Pat deserved to lose that much. Not that Billy
Gaston meant to turn "yellow" after promising, but there was no telling
whether the rest of the twenty-five would be forthcoming or not. He
fell to calculating its worth in terms of new sweaters and baseball
bats. If worst came to worst he could threaten to expose Pat and his
scheme.
During the first and second innings these reflections soothed his soul
and made him sit immovable with jaws grinding in rythmic harmony with
the day. But at the beginning of the third inning one of the boys from
his Sunday-school class strolled by and flung himself full length on
the grass at his feet where he could see his profile just as he had
seen it on Sunday while he was listening to the story that the teacher
always told to introduce the lesson. He could see the blue of Lynn
Severn's eyes as she told it, and strangely enough portions of the tale
came floating back in trailing mist across the dusty baseball diamond
and obscured the sight of Sloppy Hedrick sliding to his base. It was a
tale of one, Judas, who betrayed his best Friend with a kiss. It came
with strange illogical persistence, and seemed curiously incongruous
with the sweet air of summer blowing over the hard young faces and
dusty diamond. What had Judas to do with a baseball game, or with Billy
Gaston and what he meant to do on the mountain that night?--and earn
good money--! Ah! That was it. Make good money! But who was he
betraying he would like to know? Well if it wasn't on the square
perhaps he was betraying that same One--Aw--Rats! He wasn't
under anybody's thumb and Judas lived centuries ago. He wasn't doing
any harm helping a man do something he wasn't supposed to know what.
Hang it all! Where was Mark Carter anyway? Somehow Cart always seemed
to set a fella straight. He was like Miss Lynn. He saw through things
you hadn't even told him about. But this was a man's affair, not a
woman's.
Of course there was another side to it. He could give some of
the money to Aunt Saxon to buy coal--instead of the sweater--well,
maybe it would do both. And he could give some to that fund for
the Chinese Mission, Miss Lynn was getting up in the class. He would
stop on the way back and give her a whole dollar. He sat, chin in hand,
gazing out on the field, quite satisfied with himself, and suddenly
some one back by the plate struck a fine clean ball with a click and
threw the bat with a resounding ring on the hard ground as he made for
a home run. Billy started and looked keenly at the bat, for somehow the
ring of it as it fell sounded curiously like the tinkle of silver. Who
said thirty pieces of silver? Billy threw a furtive look about and a
cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. Queer that old Bible story
had to stick itself in. He could see the grieving in the Master's eyes
as Judas gave Him that kiss. She had made the story real. She could do
that, and made the boy long somehow to make it up to that betrayed
Master, and he couldn't get away from the feeling that he was falling
short. Of course old Pat had said the man had money belonging to
him, and you had to go mostly by what folks said, but it did look
shady.