Mystery Wings / A Mystery Story for Boys

In the meantime, wonder of wonders, the electrical umpire of forty eyes had at last apparently taken pity on the Hillcrest team and was giving them a square deal.The “Prince” actually got a base on balls.

The fans on the bleachers ceased their fruitless razzing of the tin umpire and began to cheer.The opposing pitcher appeared to be losing his poise.After dealing out three more balls, he tossed Dave Dawson an easy one and Dave swatted it for a two bagger.Another walk, and the bags were loaded.

Fairfield changed pitchers.The fresh pitcher bore down hard.The result for that inning was one score for Hillcrest.

“Come on boys!”Doug yelled.“A shut-out this time!Then we’ll go after them.Two more runs and we got ’em.Something’s happened.I don’t know what, but at last we’re getting a square deal from our old tin ump.”

The shut-out was managed easily.The “Prince” did his part nobly.Two pop-ups and a strike-out did the work.All this time Doug was like one in a trance.Strange things were happening.The mechanical umpire had suddenly gone on the square.But poor Meg!She had apparently quite lost her mind.She was still leaning on that white post before the enemy’s bench.Had anyone been close beside her, however, he would have noticed that her attention was divided between a certain spot on the ground close to the post and a Fairfield player who had remained on the bench.The player was captain of the rival team.He had sent the sub out to take his place.

Hardly had the batting begun than this captain rose with some dignity to approach Meggy.“Sorry, dear child,” his air was patronizing, “but you’ll have to leave.This is our side of the diamond.Besides, you are in danger of being struck by a foul ball.”

“Oh!Thank you!”Meggy smiled sweetly.“I’m awfully good at ducking.”

“But you must leave!” The visiting captain’s tone was stern.

Meggy did not answer.Instead she turned her back upon him to cup her hands and shout across the diamond.

“Yoo-hoo!Johnny!Bring me that spade!There’s a dandelion, a great big one, here.”

The astonished Johnny did her bidding.The rival captain held his ground.A look of dread overspread his face.He seemed to be saying to himself, “What will this wild young creature do next?”

He did not have long to wait.Seizing the spade, Meggy hissed, “There!Right down there!”then sank her spade deep.

The captain made a move as if to stop her, opened his mouth as if to speak, then retired in apparent confusion.

There was no dandelion where Meggy sank her spade.The spot of gold that was a yellow “dannie” was fully a yard away.She did not trouble the dandelion at all.Instead, she sank her spade with a vicious poke of her stout young foot three times.Then, shouldering her spade as if it were a rifle, she marched back to her own bleachers and took up the task of cheer leader.She led the Hillcrest team to such a victory as the old town had never before witnessed.When the ninth inning was ended and Doug was borne in triumph off the field, the score stood 22 to 7 in favor of the home team.Doug, riding aloft on his fellow townsmen’s shoulders, was disturbed by a vague feeling that Meggy was far more richly deserving of this ride than he.But why?This he could not tell.That was to come later.

“Meggy, you’re holding something back,” Johnny insisted as he sat with Meg and Doug on Meg’s porch drinking lemonade late that evening.

“All right,” Meg laughed, “then I am.And I suppose you’d like to know what.They say,” she smiled whimsically, “that ‘figures won’t lie but liars will figure.’Well, Goggles may be able to make a perfect mechanical umpire, but he can’t keep some other electrical shark from tampering with it.

“You see—” she leaned forward, eyes gleaming, “you set up your equipment yesterday.During the night some smart boy from Fairfield came over and cut in a switch that would turn half the eyes of old Mr. Umpire off when they wanted them off.That gave Mr. Ump only half sight.And of course they made him half blind every time our team came up.He couldn’t see the balls.”

“But I don’t under—”

“Wait!”Peggy held up a hand.“The switch was by that white post.They’d buried the wires underground two or three inches.When I saw that sub stand there every inning, I guessed there was a reason.So—o, you see,” she laughed, “I took his place.

“He’d been throwing the switch off and on with his toe.Couldn’t while I was there.Bye and bye I discovered the switch, figured out where the wires ran, then chopped one off with that spade.After that old Mr. Ump could see very well all the time.”

“Meg!”Doug exclaimed, “You’re a whizz!”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” Meg laughed.“One thing I do know.The score wouldn’t have been so terrible if they hadn’t tried to cheat.Which all goes to show that the fellow that cheats can’t win.”

“Correct!”Johnny laughed.“Now how about another lemonade?”

“Well—” Doug sighed a happy sigh as he rose to leave a half hour later, “we got our thousand dollars and a little left over.So the old ball ground is safe, at least for a while.”

“Wasn’t the ‘Prince’ gr—and today!”Meg’s tone was rich and mellow.“Isn’t he mysterious!”

“He sure was good!”Johnny agreed.“And no one bothered him today.That airplane did not come back.”

“But it will,” a voice seemed to whisper in his ear.“You wait!Mystery wings!”

CHAPTER XII
THE VANISHING CHINAMAN

On his way home Johnny met Goggles.“Great work, Goggles!”he exclaimed with enthusiasm.“That stunt of yours sure drew a crowd.”

“Ye-a,” Goggles said with a drawl.“There was a time, though, when it looked as if the old ump and I’d be mobbed.That Fairfield bunch played a mean trick on us.Ought to be thrown out of the League.”

“Oh I don’t know.”Johnny paused for thought.“You couldn’t prove a member of their team did it.We licked ’em good and plenty.That should be enough.Anyway, they don’t stand high in the League.Centralia—there’s the team we’ve got to watch out for!”

“Say!”Goggles’ big eyes bulged.“I think Hop Horner and I have got a new pitcher for you.”

“A new pitcher?”Johnny stared.“What’s the matter with the ‘Prince’?”

“Nothing.Only—” Goggles’ voice dropped to a low, mysterious note, “this pitcher’s different.”

“He’ll have to go some if he’s as different as the ‘Prince.’”

“You’ll be surprised!Tell you what.”The young inventor’s tone changed.“You know that open space out in the center of the pine grove?”

“Yes, sure.”

“Meet me there day after tomorrow about two in the afternoon.I—I’ll bring this—this er—pitcher round.Let—well, sort of let him throw over a few.”

“All right, I’ll be there.But I don’t see—” Johnny looked up.Goggles was gone.

“Now what’s he up to!”Johnny muttered as he turned toward home.

“I’ll wander over to that Chink spice shop,” he told himself with sudden resolve.“See if Tao Sing’s there.”He felt in his pocket.Yes, the latest think-o-graph of the wise Wung Lu’s thoughts was there.He would give it to Tao Sing and then go right home.

“You want Tao Sing?”the clerk behind the counter asked as Johnny entered the shop.

“Sure.”

“No can do.”The Chinaman showed all his yellow teeth in a broad grin.“Tao Sing gone velly fast, velly far, mebby not come back velly quick.”He laughed a dry mirthless laugh.

“Oh!”Johnny’s eyes swept the place nervously.

“I—maybe I’ll come back some other time.”As he slid out of the place Johnny barely escaped bumping into two slim young men who had an air of watchful waiting about them.

“Federal agents, like as not,” was the thought that struck him all of a heap.Experience had taught him that the best detectives of today were likely to be young, slender and quick.These were of that sort.

Finding himself still free, he hurried away.

“Perhaps I ought to tell them,” he thought.And then, a moment later, “Tell them what?”What, indeed?What did he know about Tao Sing that Federal agents should know?Little enough, that was certain.“Know he wants to salt down some of Wung Lu’s wisdom,” he chuckled.Then of a sudden it occurred to him that the sort of knowledge he had secured from Wung Lu’s thoughts might not be that which wise men would record in a book of Chinese philosophy.

“Like to read just one of them,” he told himself.He fingered the small metal box in his pocket.“I can’t,” he sighed.“It’s all Chinese.”

Next morning Johnny, Doug, and old Professor George went to the bank and drew out a thousand dollars.“Whew!What a lot of money!”Doug whispered.

They carried it to Big Bill Tyson’s office.

“Here it is, William,” Professor George squeaked in his high-pitched voice.“Here’s your first payment on the baseball grounds.”

“Fine!Fine!”Big Bill’s eyes shone as if he were truly glad.And perhaps he was.Big Bill loved money.“Here’s the contracts you’ll have to sign.”He wheeled about in his swivel chair.“One for you and one for me.Don’t mind signin’ with them, do you Professor?Mere matter of form.Boys are under age, you know.”

“No.I’ll sign the contracts, William.”The aged professor’s smile was a fine thing to see.“I’m always glad to help the boys out.And William, I’m proud to see that you’re willing to do your part.”

Big Bill’s eyes squinted in a strange way.

“Oh!Yes!”His voice seemed unusually loud and a trifle off key like the dong of a cracked bell.“Yes, Professor, you and I must help the boys out when we can.Here—you sign right there, all three of you.And then this one.”

He stood up when all had signed.“Well boys, I wish you luck.”Just then, strangely enough, a cloud passed over the sun.It left Big Bill’s face in a shadow that to Johnny’s keen imagination seemed a mask.A moment later they were out in the open air and the sun had escaped from behind the cloud.

That evening Johnny got out the two strange objects he had taken from the deserted bungalow—the battery and the bright tube.He studied them a long time, screwing them together and unscrewing them many times.“I’d like to know,” he murmured.“Those were the men who flew over the ball field, I am sure of that.They had these.Wonder if Goggles still has those two powders.Hope he has.”With that he hid the battery and tube along with the thought-camera at the bottom of his trunk.

“Oh Johnny!Come in here a minute.”It was old C.K.the editor who called to Johnny from his door next day.

“Just thought I’d tell you,” C.K.said as Johnny took a seat in his office, “that, mebby you didn’t know it, but Big Bill Tyson drove a sharp bargain with you boys and old Professor George yesterday.”

“A—a sharp bargain!”Johnny stared.“We didn’t pay too much did we?”

“N—no.The price is a fair one,” C.K.drawled.“But!”He sat straight up.“How you boys going to raise four thousand dollars in sixty days?”

“Four thou—”

“That’s the contract you signed.Doug showed it to me yesterday.Didn’t say anything to him about it.Wanted to think it over.

“Of course—” he sank back in his chair, “you boys can’t be held for it, but the contract is binding.Four thousand dollars in sixty days, five thousand more in three years—that’s the way it reads.And, as it stands Professor George is stuck for it.He signed you know.He’s got a little house and a few investments.I figure it will about clean him out.Tough, I’d say!”

“Why!I—it can’t happen!”Johnny exploded.“Big Bill tricked us!”

“Guess that’s right,” C.K.agreed.“Too bad!But a contract is a contract.”

“Four thousand dollars!”Doug groaned when Johnny told him of it.“And to think good old Professor George will have to suffer for our blunder!Of course he wouldn’t suspect Big Bill.Professor George is so honest and kind himself, he’d never suspect a trick.Johnny, we’ve just got to do something.”

“Sure we have,” Johnny agreed.“But just think!Four thousand in sixty days!”

“Four thousand.Sixty days,” Doug repeated after him.This was followed by a vast silence.

CHAPTER XIII
SECRET OF THE PINES

Next day, in keeping with his promise to Goggles, Johnny found himself seated beneath the broad-spreading boughs of a pine tree.All about him were other pines.He was not in a forest, but a grove—a twenty acre grove of pines.Old Colonel Pinchot had planted them there a half century ago.Now they were known simply as The Pines.The heart of The Pines was a marvelous place to think, and Johnny was thinking hard.When he went into anything he went in heart and soul, did Johnny.He had gone in for the Hillcrest baseball team for all he was worth.

“And now,” he sighed, “looks as if it were all off just because—well, because somebody wants what he wants and appears to have the power to take it.Four thousand dollars!”He gave vent to a low grunt.“How’s a fellow to raise that much in times like these, for a baseball team,—and in sixty days!It can’t—”

He broke short off to listen.A curious sound, for such a place, had struck his ear.It seemed to be the low rattle and chuck-chuck of a two wheel cart.

“Who can that be carting things about way out here?”he asked himself.The question soon ceased to interest him.His mind turned once more to strange happenings in old Hillcrest.The little Chinaman with his thought-camera and think-o-graphs, lurking Federal agents, the mysterious pitcher, and Big Bill Tyson—all came in for their share of his thoughts.He lingered longer on the question of Big Bill and the four thousand dollars than all the rest, but was no nearer a solution than before, when to his vast surprise he saw Goggles break through the pine boughs, dragging a heavy cart behind him.

“Whew!”the young inventor exclaimed, mopping his brow.“That thing pulls like a ton of bricks.”

“Then why pull it?”Johnny grinned.“Where’s your friend the pitcher?”

“Right in behind.”Goggles grinned broadly as he nodded at something covered with canvas.

“You don’t mean—”

“Give me a hand,” Goggles grumbled.“It—it—I mean he’s pretty heavy.”

The astonished Johnny saw him throw back the canvas to disclose several sections of a mechanical contraption that might have been just anything at all.

His astonishment was not very much abated when, some fifteen minutes later, he saw standing before him on an improvised pitcher’s mound a six-foot figure that to some degree resembled a man.

“Meet Irons O.”Goggles beamed.“He doesn’t walk very well.He’s quite stiff-legged.He’s quite deaf, so there’s no use talking to him.But he can bawl out the umpire something fierce.His eyesight is very bad, so someone has to catch the ball for him and throw bases.But boy!How he can pitch!With just a little training he could fan out Babe Ruth nine times out of ten.

“Here!”he said, handing Johnny a big baseball mit, “You just get down there about where the catcher would stand, and I’ll have him throw a few over to you.”

After placing a ball between four steel fingers and a cast iron thumb, Goggles touched a button and the thing began a low puff-puff-puff that resembled low, heavy breathing.Johnny was mystified and amused beyond belief.

“Watch this curve!”Goggles shouted a moment later.He touched a button.A steel arm rose in air, wound up for all the world like a professional pitcher, then let fly.The ball shot forward, took a sudden broad curve, then went thud against Johnny’s big mit.A second ball, then a third followed and all took that same sharp curve.

“You set the fingers,” Goggles explained in a matter-of-fact voice.“Look at this straight, fast one.”Once again the steel arm went through its motion.This time the ball, shooting straight ahead like a cannon ball, cut the plate squarely in the middle.

“That,” said Johnny solemnly, “is the strangest thing I ever saw.A mechanical pitcher!”

“Nothing less!”Goggles agreed.

“Whe—where’d you get him?”

“Hop Horner and I have been working on him down at the electric shop for months.You see there’s a little motor inside that generates electricity.Electricity runs him.All a fellow has to do is to set his fingers and operate the controls.As I said before, he can even rave at the umpire.Watch!”He punched two buttons and old Irons O began bobbing his outlandish head.His steel teeth cracked together again and again, while from his metal throat there came sounds resembling the complaints of a wildcat chased up a tree.“He—he’s almost perfect!”Goggles admitted proudly.

“Yes,” Johnny agreed, “but what good is he?You can’t expect another ball team to let you substitute a—a machine for a real flesh-and-blood pitcher.”

“No, you can’t do that,” Goggles agreed, “but you can do this—it came to me just last night.You can announce an exhibition game.Get Centralia to come over and play us just for fun—fun and profit.We’d have a complete sell-out.Can’t you see it?Big headlines: ‘Come and See Irons O, the Mechanical Pitcher, Perform!’Why even Big Bill would have to come and see that game!That game would bring in the first hundred dollars or so toward that four thousand.”Goggles went hopping about in his excitement.

“Sounds good to me,” Johnny agreed.

And indeed it sounded good to everyone interested in the Hillcrest baseball team.The date of the game was set for the following Saturday.As Goggles had predicted, the thing became a headline story.Reporters were admitted to the evergreen grove for a demonstration.Everyone else was barred.Then Irons O went into seclusion; a seclusion however that was to prove not quite adequate for the occasion.

When the time came for calling the game every bleacher seat and all available standing space was packed.The fame of the mechanical pitcher was spread far and wide.

“It’s in the bag,” Johnny grinned broadly as he saw old Professor George tucking the day’s receipts, a fat wad of bills, into his pocket.

“Not yet,” Goggles warned.“Remember, we promised a perfect performance.‘Nine full innings pitched by Irons O, or your money back.’That’s the way the handbills were printed.”

For all this the young inventor wore a jaunty air as he marched out to the pitcher’s mound where his mechanical man awaited him.

Touching a button here, another there, he caused Irons O to bob his head from side to side, then let out a cry of defiance at the shouting throng.The crowd roared back its glee.

When this roar had subsided another reached Johnny’s ear.A huge bi-motored plane was circling to the landing field a half mile away.A shudder ran over him.He had not forgotten those “Mystery wings,” nor the two strangers who had done something terrible to the “Prince” on that other day.“Have trouble doing it to a mechanical pitcher.”He laughed in spite of himself.

Ten minutes later, as the players took their place on the field, Johnny saw three men in aviation caps crowding toward the front.

“Wonder who they are and what they want?”he thought to himself.Something seemed to tell him that their arrival was important.Why?He could not tell.

The great moment came at last, and “Irons O pitching!”the megaphone announced at the end of the line-up.

Goggles’ fingers trembled as he threw on an electric switch, then pressed the button.And well they might tremble for Irons O, instead of facing the batter and doing his plain duty, let out a defiant squeal, turned half about, wound up and let fly at the astonished second baseman who, taken off his guard, was struck squarely on the chest and knocked over like a policeman with a bullet through his heart.Instantly pandemonium broke loose.Goggles could not hear himself think for the wild tumultuous noise.

CHAPTER XIV
THE STEEL-FINGERED PITCHER

Next moment Goggles found himself experiencing one of the tragic moments of his young life.In a moment of confidence and enthusiasm he had agreed to direct his mechanical man, Irons O, while he pitched a nine inning game of baseball, and now before a crowd of three thousand or more, old Irons O, who had always been reliable in the past, had turned squarely about on the first pitch and had all but sent the second baseman to the hospital with a baseball in his heart.What was the answer?

“Someone’s been fooling with him,” Hop Horner shouted as he came running up.“Here!Give me the screw driver.That’s it.Now the wrench.”

“Time out!”a big voice roared, “Time out!”It was Big Bill Tyson.Everyone roared with delight; that is, everyone but those who were interested in the youthful inventor’s success.Good old Professor George did not laugh.Instead, he crowded forward to ask, “Anything I can do here boys?Anything at all?”As if a professor who had taught Latin all his life could do anything with a mechanical man!All the same it made Goggles feel good inside.A friend at a time like this—well that was something.

“Wires all twisted up,” Hop was grumbling.“Somebody messed ’em up.”

For fifteen minutes the two boys worked feverishly.Perspiration streamed down their faces.Their hands were black and oily, their knees trembling.“Hundreds of dollars gone,” Goggles was thinking, “hundreds gone if we fail.Hope for the baseball park gone perhaps.”Still Irons O would not swing his arms in a proper manner.

The crowd was getting out of hand.Some were swarming on the field.In one corner, led by a small dark man, a group was chanting in a maddening manner: “We want baseball!We want baseball!We want Irons O!We want Irons!”

It was in the midst of this uproar that Goggles felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find himself looking into the friendly smiling face of a man wearing an aviator’s helmet.“He’s one of those men from the big plane,” he thought to himself.

“Look!”the stranger was saying, “Isn’t that wire, the short one with a pink thread in its insulation—isn’t it out of place?”

“Sure!Sure it is!”Goggles felt his thoughts clearing.Seizing a pair of pliers, he quickly made the change.“Now,” he breathed, “Now!Let’s try it.”

They did try it and old Irons O did his work perfectly.

“O.K.boys?”the stranger asked, still smiling.

“O.K.!”Goggles breathed.

Seizing a megaphone, the man roared, “Ready to go!Clear the field!”

Once again the crowd settled into its place.A look of pleasant anticipation flashed like a gleam of sunlight from face to face.

“S-strike!”the umpire roared.The game was on.And such a game as it proved to be!A plucky, good-natured young fellow cheerfully pitted his strength and skill against a thing made of iron, copper and steel.

The first Centralia batter went down, one, two, three in a row.Goggles, with Irons O’s aid, had given him two easy curves and a straight swift one.Perhaps the batter experienced stage fright at batting against such a pitcher.However that might be, he went down swinging and the crowd roared its applause.

The second batter came to bat wearing a confident grin.Nor did his confidence go unrewarded.He made first on a line drive and received his full share of fans’ approval.

Then Irons O appeared to lose his control.He gave the third batter three balls in a row.

“He’s afraid of him!He’s walking him.Boo!Boo!”came in good-natured banter.“Boo!Boo!Boo!”shouted the crowd.Whereupon Irons O, dropping his steel arm to his side, turned his head half around and, to the umpire’s surprise, let out wildcat howls that could be heard at the farthest end of the field.

“Get that umpire!”someone shouted.“Where’s that pop bottle?”But it was all in fun.The mechanical pitcher tightened up, pitched three sizzlers in a row.A moment later, a third man went out on a pop-up.

Johnny Thompson saw all of this inning.He saw very little of those that followed.In all that throng he was interested in just one man—the little dark fellow who had led the razzing when Irons O appeared to be down and out for good.Johnny had always been interested in the things people did and their reasons for doing them.This little dark man was a complete stranger to him.He wondered, at first in a vague sort of way, why he was such an ardent heckler.When Irons O had been put into service again, he thought he detected on the fellow’s face a look of disappointment and chagrin.

“What can he care?”Johnny asked himself.

All through the game he sat close to that man and watched him.He had once seen two large dogs fighting a battle for a bone.One had dropped the bone.It lay beneath their feet as they fought.A third dog, a sort of insignificant hungry-looking pug, had hovered near all during the fight, licking his chops but never quite daring to seize the bone.Somehow, in a strange sort of way, the expression on this little man’s face resembled that on the insignificant pug’s face.

“I wonder what his interest in this game can be!”the boy whispered.“I do wonder!”

As for Goggles, during his spare moments while his team-mates were at bat, he was wondering about an entirely different matter.The men from the big airplane had caught his attention at once.When one of them, evidently a skilled mechanic, had interested himself in their problem and aided them in solving it, he had completely won Goggles’ heart.But Goggles’ interest went farther than that.“They came here to see this game.Probably came all the way from the big city, three hundred miles away,” he told himself.“I wonder why?”For the time he could form no satisfying answer.

In the meantime the game went on.Bernard caught the ball as it came back from the catcher.He caught a pop-up fly now and then and also threw bases.To the excitement of the throng, Irons O did the rest.He pitched a good game too, but no better than the smiling pitcher from Centralia.Goggles had always admired that Centralia pitcher, but never as now.Now, as he directed the pitching of Irons O, as the score went from 3 to 4, to 6-5; then from 7-8 to 8-10, his sympathies were evenly balanced between the man of iron and the man of brawn.Who was to win?Well enough he knew that in the end it was up to him to decide.

And so it turned out to be.At the end of the first half of the ninth inning the score stood 10-9 in the iron man’s favor.At the beginning of the game they had tossed up to see who came first to bat.Centralia had lost, so now in the last half of the ninth they were up to bat.

“It’s up to Irons O,” Goggles breathed to Johnny as he went out on the field.

“Which means it’s up to you!”Johnny smiled.He had read the story of struggle written on the other boy’s face.He wanted his team and his iron man to win the game; yet, down deep in his heart he had a feeling that to set Irons O for a shut-out would be taking an unfair advantage of that smiling pitcher.

“I—I’ve got to give them a break,” he murmured as he took his place behind the man of iron.He set Irons O’s fingers for an easy curve, then pressed the button.

“St-trike!Ball!St-trike!Ball!Ball.”The audience was on its toes.“Ball three!Strike two!”Irons twisted his head about and screamed at the umpire.Once again the audience went into near-hysterics.

Goggles set the fingers for a swift fast one.The man went down swinging.

Second batter up.Two curves went wild.A swift fast one would have cut the plate in halves had not a stout hickory bat sent it shooting away into centerfield for a two bagger.

“The tying run on second and only one out!”Goggles was thinking hard.“They can’t have it, not yet!”he decided.He raised the speed of the iron pitcher’s arm a couple of notches, then set his fingers for a very wide curve.A ball and three strikes.The third batter went down swinging.

“Pitcher’s up next.They’ll put in a pinch-hitter,” Goggles thought.But no, here came that smiling pitcher.He was swinging three bats and smiling broader than ever.

“It’s a sure thing,” the young inventor groaned.“But how can I?”

Mechanically he set the controls, gave the ball into the iron pitcher’s fingers, then whispered, “Now!”

And “now” was right.The ball, a slow straight one, was met squarely by the strongly swung bat.It rose high to go sailing away over the bleachers and out of the park.

“Home run, and the game’s over!”a thousand voices shouted.A wild roar of approval greeted the end of the game.Only the little dark man, who had occupied so much of Johnny’s attention, did not cheer.He sat in moody silence.“I wonder why?”Johnny murmured.Then he joined the throng that pressed on toward the spot where the mechanical pitcher stood.

A double rope barrier had been thrown about Goggles, Hop Horner and their strange invention.As for Irons O, he now bowed to the grown-ups who cheered him, and then screamed at the boys who shouted at him.Take it all in all, it had been a day of complete triumph for the Hillcrest boys and their iron pitcher.And the day was not over—far from it.

The crowd had thinned to a mere handful of over-curious boys, and Goggles was reaching for a wrench and pliers for unhooking and unscrewing his good iron friend when, as once before that day, a friendly hand touched his shoulder and smiling eyes met his.

“I’m back,” the stranger said simply. It was the man of the airplane. With him were his two companions. “You see,” he began to explain, “we didn’t just happen to come here. We were sent.”

“I—I guessed that.”Goggles’ heart leaped, though he scarcely knew why.

“You did?”The other seemed surprised.“Well,” he went on, “this is the story.Mr. Montgomery here, who is vice-president of the Northern Airways, read of this—this mechanical man of yours.He wanted to see it perform.”

“I wonder why?”Goggles repeated.

“This is it.”Montgomery, who appeared a quick nervous type of man, stepped forward.“We are anxious to advertise air travel in every way we can.We feel it to be safe and we know it’s a fast and clean way to travel.I said to the boys: ‘If that iron pitcher really works, we’ll pick him up with his whole ball team and carry him across the country in one of our big bi-motors, putting on exhibition games.’This—this man of yours—what is it you call him?”

“Irons O.”

“Well, he put on a good show—a very fine show.What do you say?”

“I—I—” Goggles’ head was whirling.“I’ll tell you in two hours, if—if I can.”

“All right.Meet us at the airport.”

“We sure will!”

“Here, Hop!”Goggles threw his tools on the ground as the man walked away.“You take old Irons O and put him to bed.I’ve got business, plenty of it.”

“I’ll say you have,” Hop agreed.

“Across the continent!”Goggles thought as he dashed wildly away.“Across the continent in an airplane.Ball games perhaps in Denver, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Seattle!Boy!Oh boy!And a bag of gold from every port for our ball field.”

But could they do it?His spirits dropped.“Can we?It—it seems almost impossible.And yet, somehow, we must.We just must!”

“Goggles,” Johnny said to him later that evening when everything had been settled that they were to start on that marvelous airplane cruise.“I don’t like the actions of that little dark man.”

“What little dark man?”Goggles asked in surprise.

“Didn’t you notice him?But of course you wouldn’t have.”Johnny went on to tell of the little man’s part in that day’s game.

“It is strange that old Irons O should have gotten all mixed up inside.”Goggles said this as if it were part of the story Johnny had just finished.“Oh well,” he concluded, “if that little dark man wants to make us trouble on our trip, he’ll have to hire a plane.”

“He’ll never do that,” Johnny replied. To his own surprise he found himself wondering, “What will he do?” Had he known the answer, he would have experienced an even greater feeling of surprise.

CHAPTER XV
THE WHITE FLARE

To the members of the Hillcrest ball team the days that followed were those of tremendous thrills and heart breaking disappointment.Whenever two members of the team met, wildly enthusiastic words regarding the coming airplane tour were exchanged.

“It’s a bi-motored plane!”one would exclaim, “a great silver ship of the air.Hundred and sixty miles an hour.And with a stiff wind behind you, boy, oh boy!What a ride!”

“And all the way to the Pacific coast!”the other would fairly shout.

On the other hand two games were played.Sad, tragic games they were indeed.Games that counted in the pennant race, they were lost.The “Prince” failed them.He did not show up.Everyone asked “Why?Why?”No one knew where he was; at least, if Colonel Chamberlain knew he did not tell.

Fred Frame’s arm gave out in the first of the two games.Leander Larson, who took his place, did his best.That best was not good enough.

“We are a whole game behind Centralia!”Doug Danby groaned.“Got one game with her next week.If the ‘Prince’ don’t show up we’ll lose, and that ends it all.What’s the good of a cruise with a steel-fingered pitcher, after we’ve lost the year’s contest at home?”

“You have to think of the money you’ll make,” Johnny reminded him.“Taking that cruise is the only thing that will save the ball field to the boys of Hillcrest.And that’s important.That will last for years and years and years.Why,” he cried, “that’s like setting up a monument to the team that’s playing just now!Better than a monument, I’d say!A lot better.You can only look at a monument.A ball field you can enjoy using.Thousands will have a good time there every year.It’s your grand and glorious opportunity.”

“Why do you say ‘you’?”Doug demanded.“You’re going along, aren’t you?”

“I can’t,” Johnny said soberly.“Grandfather has some government work to do, looking after the loaning of money.I’ve got to drive for him.Anyway, I’m not needed.Besides—”

He did not finish.He was about to say, “Besides, there’s that missing Chinaman, Tao Sing, the Federal agents, and the thought-camera.I’ve got to see that thing through.”He did not say it.

“Besides what?”Doug asked.

“Oh nothing,” Johnny countered.“I’ll not be with you, that’s all.Goggles and his mechanical pal will have to go along.Those, with the team, will give the airplane a pretty good load.”

“Meggy,” Johnny said that same afternoon, “why didn’t the ‘Prince’ come today?”

“That,” Meggy whispered, “is just what I asked Uncle Rob.And do you know what he said?”

“No.What?”

“He said,” Meggy whispered, “the ‘Prince’ is afraid!Afraid of what, Johnny?”

“I—I think I know,” Johnny said slowly.“But I’m not quite sure.Sup—supposing I don’t answer until I know?”

“That—that’s all right, Johnny.”

“Say, Meggy!”Johnny exclaimed, “Do you suppose you could get your uncle to let us go down to see—see the ‘Prince’ and take Goggles along?”

“I’m sure I could, Johnny.”

“Tonight?”

“Maybe.”

“All right.You try, then phone me.”

At eight o’clock that evening three dark figures approached a door in the laboratories.Through the clouded glass of that door a pale light shone.

The smaller of the three, a boy, rapped three times.The door opened a crack.Shining eyes peered into the darkness.The door opened wider.The trio entered.Meggy, Johnny and Goggles found themselves being ushered into a dimly lighted room.The room was lined on all sides by test-tubes, beakers, retorts and all manner of instruments that belong to the fascinating and mysterious science of chemistry.

“You wanted to see me?”Something very like a smile played about the lips of the “Prince.”

“Yes,—er—it’s this.”Goggles drew two very small bottles from his pocket, then held them up to the light.Each vial contained a small quantity of some chemical substance.

Taking these, the “Prince” poured a little from each upon a bit of tissue paper.He pinched each, examined it under a pocket microscope, poked it about with a needle.Then straightening up, he said rather sharply, “Where’d you get it?”

“Jus—just now I’d rather not tell,” Goggles stammered.

“All right.”The chemist’s tone was brusque.“Want me to show you something?”

Without waiting for a reply, he left the room, returning in a moment with a rather curious triangle of metal set on a wooden handle.He scattered grains of two mysterious powders along the bottom of this triangular trough.Next he ran insulated wires with bared ends, one each from two directions along this trough.The ends almost, but did not quite, touch.He connected the other ends of these wires to a dry battery.

“Now,” he breathed.Methodically he fastened a pair of very dark glasses before his eyes.

“Now,” he repeated, “watch for a surprise!No harm.Just a bit of a shock.”

Too much thrilled to watch his next move, the children jumped almost to the ceiling when there came a dazzling white flash.

“All that from those few powders!”Johnny exclaimed.“And no smoke at all.”

“Yes,” the “Prince” said quietly.“A truly marvelous discovery.By adding more powder one may light up a square mile in the darkest night—a great boon to aviators.With such a powder at hand, no secret army movement at night in war time could be sure to succeed.A truly marvelous discovery!”he repeated.He did not say, “Where did you get it?”

“Perhaps he knows,” Johnny told himself.

“‘Prince,’ you—you’ll pitch for us next Saturday?” There was pleading in Meggy’s tone. “We need you badly. You—you just can’t fail.”

A shadow passed over the strange dark face.“I—I’ll try to be there,” the “Prince” replied.“And now,” he said abruptly, “I must bid you goodnight.I am working on something for the Colonel, some—something rather large for so unimportant a person as myself.”

“Thank you, ‘Prince.’” Meggy made for the door.“Thank, oh thank you,” came from the others.

Johnny was the last one out.Just why he should have looked back at the instant the door was swinging shut behind him, he could never tell.Enough that he did look back and that, from this looking through a crack not more than two inches wide, he received the shock of his young life.

He saw a leg, the leg of the “Prince.” His sock had slipped down. He was pulling it up. In doing so, he lifted his trouser leg so high that it showed his bared leg. And that leg was not brown, but white as Johnny’s own.

“He’s not naturally brown!”The thought shot through the boy’s mind like a flash.“His hands, arms and face are dyed; probably his hair is too.I wonder why?”He was to continue wondering for some time to come.

CHAPTER XVI
A TENSE MOMENT

When a mysterious stranger takes up his abode in any community, there is sure to be a difference of opinion regarding his true nature.To some he is certain to be a romantic figure, to others an evil menace.It was so with the “Prince.”There were those who said he was a famous young chemist working out a formula that was to be of vast benefit to all the world.There were others—and this was strange—many others who said, “He is an industrial spy!Colonel Chamberlain will find this out too late!”

But what is an industrial spy?Probably there was not one person in ten who could have told.And always the thing we do not understand is the one we fear most.

Having heard all this, Johnny, on the day following his visit to the “Prince,” buckled up his courage and walked into Colonel Chamberlain’s office.

“Hello, Johnny!”the Colonel greeted him.“What’s troubling you?Lost last week’s game?Well, you can’t win ’em all.You’ll win next time.”

“We sure will,” Johnny agreed, “but it’s not that.

“Colonel—” Johnny was sitting on the edge of his chair.“Colonel Chamberlain, what is an industrial spy?”

“An industrial spy?”The Colonel sat up.“He’s a man paid by one nation to steal industrial secrets from another nation—new inventions, new processes, new chemical inventions.

“But,” he added quickly, “if you think our J., the one you call ‘Prince,’ is an industrial spy, think again.He’s not!”

“I—I’m glad.”Johnny settled back in his place.

“But see here!”He was on his feet now.“Look at this, and this, and this.”He was dragging things from a paper bag.

“What’s it all about?”The Colonel smiled.

“I’ll tell—tell you all about it.”Johnny seemed out of breath.

When he got going, however, the things he said, the proof he gave for all the things he believed, left the good Colonel staring.

“If all you say is true—and of course it is—” the Colonel said slowly, “something should be done about it.”

He went into a brown study.He drummed the desk with his pencil.

“Tell you what,” he said at last, “Rome was not built in a day.Let’s not be in a hurry.The evidence you already possess convinces you and me.But would it convince everyone?We’ll just wait a bit and see if we cannot gather more.If those two men return they will do something else.We’ll be prepared to trap them.Let’s see if we can’t worry along until two weeks from—let’s see—” he consulted his calendar.“Yes sir!That’s the very day!”

Johnny knew he was speaking now of something strange and quite unknown to him.

“Yes sir!”the Colonel repeated, “You see if we can’t wait to spring this thing two weeks from next Saturday, after the game, the last of the season.And Johnny—” he leaned forward to whisper in the boy’s ear.“I think at that time I can tell you J.’s secret.Or—wait!Better still—I’ll have him tell it.”

“That,” said Johnny in a tone that carried conviction, “will be swell!”

A moment later he found himself once more in the street.His precious paper bag of “evidence” was securely tucked under his arm.

After taking a dozen steps he paused to look back.Strangely enough, in his mind’s eye he saw at that moment not a brick building, but an airplane landing.From the airplane two persons stepped.One slim and dark with a dyed face, and the other was Colonel Chamberlain.Then his own words to the aviator on that night several days ago, came back to him: “Looks like a jail delivery.”

“But it couldn’t have been Colonel Chamberlain!”he told himself stoutly now.“Or, if it was, it surely was all right.”He was determined not to lose faith in a friend.“‘Thine own friend and thy father’s friend forsake not,’” he whispered.

Saturday afternoon came.The day was bright and clear.A brisk breeze from the west was blowing loose papers across the diamond.“Good!”Johnny exulted to himself.“There’ll be no soaring airplane today.But that ugly pair will be up to something!”His brow wrinkled.Once again he murmured, “I wonder why.”

The fame of the “Prince” had traveled far.The fact that he would once again appear had been highly advertised.There is nothing like a first class mystery to draw a crowd.The crowd was there for sure.The bleachers were packed and all available space overflowing long before the game was scheduled to start.

The umpire had taken his place, the mysterious pitcher was moving toward the box.Johnny was staring dreamily at nothing at all, when Goggles, with a strange look on his face, came sidling up to him.

“Jo—Johnny!”He stared through his thick glasses.He fairly stammered in his excitement.“Johnny, you didn’t see tho—those men who ca—came back to g—get something out of that bun—bungalow.Wan—want to see them?Well, th—there they are!Right over there, close to Big Tim Murphy!”

“Big Tim!”Johnny’s blood ran cold.Big Tim had once been the promoter of a Sunday baseball league.Could it be that Big Tim was trying to get the ball park, that these two were his aids?

It flashed through Johnny’s mind that he might be behind the group who were seeking to get control of their ball ground.“Can it be that Big Tim has hired these men to annoy our pitcher?”he asked himself.He hated to think this.Big Tim was not like Big Bill Tyson.He had very little money and he surely was not soft and flabby.Big Tim worked.“Must give him the benefit of the doubt,” he decided.

That the strangers sitting close to Big Tim were here for no good purpose became apparent at once.Hardly had the “Prince” taken his place than they began to razz him.

If the “Prince” heard them, he made no sign.The throng that gathered that day had never seen better pitching than came from his supple arm during the first four innings of that game.

For all this, the mysterious pair became more and more personal and cutting in their shouts at that silent figure on the mound.

“They should be put off the grounds!”Goggles fumed.

“Ought to mob ’em!”Johnny agreed.

The affair came to a sudden climax as, at the end of the fourth inning the “Prince” on his way to the bench passed close to the strangers.Then it was that the larger of the two, leaning far forward, called him a name.He spoke low.It was not a pretty name.Few heard it.Johnny heard.The pitcher too must have heard, for his lips turned blue and twitched in a manner painful to behold.He did not speak.He marched straight on.

Big Tim Murphy must have heard, for, slowly lifting his great bulk from his bleacher seat, he stood towering above the two strangers.

“Look a-here!”His tone was like the low rumble of a lion.“You’ve said enough.Fact is, you’ve said a few words too much.”He cleared his throat.“I’ve been watchin’ these boys with their ball game.They’re puttin’ on a good, clean, honest show.”

Johnny felt a sudden ache in his throat.Big Tim was championing their cause!Big Tim!

“As for that pitcher,” Tim went on, “I don’t know him—reckon there ain’t many here that does.But I been watchin’.He ain’t done nothin’ to you.Not a thing!Not here.If he’s done things in other places, then you go there to settle ’em.You can’t spoil these boys’ baseball game.”

“You don’t look like a Sunday School scholar!” the larger man sneered.

“All right—” Tim’s voice boomed.“Just for that, you’ll apologize!”

He took a step forward.“You called that pitcher a name that in this town means an apology or a fight!You’ll beg that pitcher’s pardon.You’ve got three minutes to do it.An’ if you don’t, I’ll pop your heads together till they crack like pumpkins bustin’ on the frozen ground!”

“He’ll do it too!”Goggles whispered to Johnny.

“But two of them!”Johnny whispered.

“Don’t matter.He’ll do it.”

Tim had dragged a huge watch from his pocket.The men were silent.The whole throng was still.The chirping notes of a robin in a distant apple tree could be heard distinctly.So a moment passed.

Big Tim did not move a muscle; just stood there watching the second hand go around.So another moment passed.

“All—all right.”The larger of the two strangers wet his lips.“All right, you win.Call that fellow over.I’ll tell him.”

“Hey!”Tim roared, “You pitcher!Come over here!This fellow’s got somethin’ to say to you!”

The “Prince” came.The little ceremony was soon over.Then the game was resumed.

“Big Tim,” Johnny whispered, “Even Big Tim is with us!What a wonderful town this is!”Then a thought struck him with the force of a blow.“If only I had the thought-camera I could take a picture of what’s in those fellow’s minds.”He was away like the wind.

He was back in fifteen minutes, but the place where the strangers had been was vacant.“Gone!”he murmured as a wave of keen disappointment swept over him.

They were gone.But were they through?He doubted that.What would they do next?And why?There came no answer.

That was a red letter day for old Hillcrest.The gate receipts were wonderful.Never in the town’s history had there been so many paid admissions to a ball game.This crowd had come to see a mysterious youth pitch a ball game.They were not disappointed.The “Prince” lasted the whole nine innings.After the episode of Big Tim Murphy and the strangers, he pitched like one inspired.In the remaining innings only six men got on base and none came home.The score at the end stood 12 to 1.Again the Hillcrest rooters went wild.Once more Johnny sighed deeply as he murmured, “Only one more game, and the pennant will be won.”

That game was still nearly two weeks off.When that game was played the Hillcrest team would be back from their airplane cruise.

“Will it be a triumphant return?”he asked himself.“Will they bring home the money needed to make the ball field truly our own?”He thought of the short dark man who had seemed so determined that Irons O should not be a success.He thought of the two strangers, of the Chinaman Tao Sing, and of the Federal agents.“In that time,” he told himself, “anything may happen, just anything at all.”And, as you shall see, many things did happen.

CHAPTER XVII
A NARROW ESCAPE

“Look, Meg!”Johnny’s voice was close to a whisper.“See those two slim fellows that seem to be just hanging around in front of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce?”

“Sure.”Meg’s eyes shone.“Who are they, Johnny?”

“Don’t matter just now.”Johnny’s tone was full of mystery.“I want you to do something for me.Those fellows are looking for a little Chinaman named Tao Sing.I want to know why.You ask them why for me, will you?”

“Sure, Johnny.”Meggy laughed.She thought he was joking.“And they’ll tell me just like that!”

“No.”Johnny was serious.“No, Meg, they won’t.They’ll not tell you, but they will tell me.”

“Tell you?”Meggy stared.

“Sure. You know when you ask a person about a thing, he is sure to think the answer. He may not say it, but he thinks it all the same. That’s enough. I’ll be lurking in the shadow of that pillar. I’ll get the answer.”

Meggy gave him a long slow look.“Johnny, you’re queer!But I’ll do it.”

“Good!”Johnny gripped her hand.“Go ahead.I’ll be near by.”

Two minutes later, in her finest inquisitive-little-girl tone of voice, Meggy said to one of the strangers who, as you have guessed, was a Federal agent, “Mister, I heard you were looking for Tao Sing.”

“Yes.”The slender young man started.“Do you know where he is?”

“N-no,” Meg drawled, “not just now, I don’t.But I—I just wondered why you wanted that innocent looking little fellow.”

The Federal agent favored Meg with a searching glance.“Well, sister—” he returned her drawl.“Truth is that Tao Sing has been teaching all the little Chinks to play marbles for keeps.We don’t think it’s right to play marbles for keeps.Do we, Joe?”

“That’s right.We don’t.”His partner chuckled.

“Aw, you just don’t want to tell me.”Meggy put on a good imitation of goo-goo eyes.“What’ll you give me to find him for you?”

“Find him?”The agent was serious again.“Plenty, sister!Good and plenty!A new dress, a silk one, or a bicycle—anything.Just you bring him around.”

“All right.I’ll try.”Meggy glided away.

“Johnny,” she whispered a moment later, “did you get it?Did you read his thoughts?”

“Perhaps I did,” Johnny replied slowly.“And again, perhaps I didn’t.”

“Johnny, you’re queer.”

“Perhaps I am.Tell you what, Meg!”Johnny came to a sudden resolve.“Meet me at the heart of The Pines at eleven tomorrow morning.I’ll tell you a secret, Meg.”

“A secret?”Meggy thrilled.“How grand!I’ll be there, Johnny.”She vanished into the dark.

For days Johnny had been fairly bursting with his secret—the story of that strange and seemingly improbable, if not quite impossible, thing, the thought-camera.He could not bear to think of keeping that secret alone.He would tell Meggy.

Just now, however, a question was burning in his mind.Had he got a real picture of the thoughts in that Federal agent’s mind?Perhaps he should not have tried this.Perhaps it was his duty to walk right up to them and tell what he knew.

“May do that tomorrow,” he told himself.

Of a sudden Johnny felt a wave of loneliness sweep over him.He sensed the reason at once.Early that morning a great silver airplane had come swooping down from the sky.It had gathered up the Hillcrest ball players, Doug Danby, Fred Frame and all the rest.Goggles and Hop Horner had stored the steel-fingered mechanical pitcher in the wings of the plane, then had climbed into the cabin with the others.

“I don’t see the little dark man with you,” Johnny had laughed.“The one you know who took such an interest in Irons O.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Goggles bantered.“We’ve stowed Irons O away with the baggage in the wings.”

“All the same,” Johnny advised, “keep an eye out for him, and don’t take any wooden quarters at the gate.Goodbye and good luck!”

These last words had fairly stuck in his throat.How he wanted to join them on that trip!But that was impossible.

“Probably be exciting enough right here in old Hillcrest,” he now told himself philosophically.He was not wrong.

He had turned his steps toward home when the many-colored lights from the windows of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce fell upon his eye.

“I’ll just go in and have one more shot at that rich and wise old Wung Lu,” he told himself.“May be more to his thoughts than appears on the outside.”

He entered the big room just as he had done many times before.He found the rich and wise one sitting, as was his custom during the evening hours, contemplating the fat and smiling Buddha that stood against the wall.

Tonight, as he crept into a corner, Johnny thought there was in the smile of the Buddha something crafty and dangerous.This, of course, was pure imagination.The Buddha, which had been carved from the trunk of a great tree many centuries ago, had never been known to utter a word.

Johnny did not care so much for the Buddha.Banners and dragons interested him more.He liked to think of small Chinese ladies working over the banners that hung on the walls—days, months, perhaps years, drawing marvelous pictures in silk, stitch by stitch.“Every banner says something,” Wung Lu had told him once.Tonight, as he sat staring at a blue and white banner, Johnny was seized with a desire to know its meaning.

“Pardon me, Mr. Wung Lu,” he broke in upon the wise one’s meditations at last, “what does that banner say?”

“It says, my son,” replied the Chinese merchant soberly, “that he who gets knowledge and discovers secrets by hard labor shall reap a reward, but he who obtains them some easy way will have cause for regret!”

Johnny started and stared.Did Wung Lu know of the thought-camera?Was this some sort of warning?He could not so much as guess the answer, for Wung Lu’s round face was as silent and expressionless as a placid lake at sunset.

The thought disturbed him.Soon he excused himself and started for home.While still in Chinatown, passing a narrow alley, he was startled by two dark figures leaping at him from the dark.Johnny was quick.He could run and dodge like a hare.This was his golden opportunity.Dodging to the right, he missed the two figures only by inches, caught a glimpse of their tense yellow faces, then shot away at a desperate pace.

He would soon have outdistanced them but for one thing.So startled was he that he at once lost his direction.Before he realized it, with his pursuers hot on his tracks, he found himself in a blind corner.The street, ending in a wall, closed him in.

“Got—got to get out of here,” he thought with a touch of despair.

The steel frame of a building in process of erection loomed above him.Before him, erected to keep onlookers out, was a high board fence.

One thing saved him.A large sign, POST NO BILLS, had been nailed to this wall.More than an inch thick, the frame about this sign offered a precarious hand and foot hold.He went up and over like a cat.

There were, however, others with climbing ability.Before he could catch his breath and ask himself, “What can they want?”the foremost of the men was atop the fence.

Before Johnny was the steel framework of the new building.So, up he went, one story, two, three, with the little yellow men only one jump behind.At the top was a swinging crane.From it a long chain dangled.Across a narrow space, not fifteen feet away, was the roof of a building.“Get the chain swinging,” he thought excitedly.“Swing over.Jump.”

At once the chain began to swing.His pursuer’s hoarse breathing came to him as he let go and swung out over space.

A breath-taking second over a hard pavement, and he dropped, still clinging to the chain, safely upon the roof at the other side.

Wrapping the chain about a flagpole, without turning to look back, he disappeared among the chimneys at the top of the broad apartment building.

Ten minutes later, still breathing hard, he entered his own home and went at once to his room.

“I’d give a lot to know what they wanted,” he thought soberly.“But that’s one time when the old thought-camera didn’t help a bit.”

After a full hour of serious thinking he decided on a very definite course of action which, he assured himself, should be begun on the very next day.

He had decided to confide all his secrets to someone older and he believed, much wiser than himself.This, we have reason to believe, is a wise course of action for any boy who finds himself bewildered by the strange circumstances that surround his life.

“But first I’ll keep my promise to Meg,” he assured himself before he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE FLYING BALL TEAM

At the heart of The Pines next morning, Johnny found Meg seated on a log waiting.This spot, so quiet and secluded, disturbed only by the chirp of a robin and the chatter of a squirrel, held for them many pleasant memories.Here, as small children, they had tumbled on the grass.Here, in early ’teens, together with other playmates, they had done cart wheels and wild, hilarious Indian dances.Now it was a sober-faced, eager Meggy who awaited him.

“Johnny,” she exclaimed with a little catch of breath, “what are you going to tell me?”

“That you helped me a lot last night, that I can find out anything that any person is thinking, and that at this moment I’m scared stiff.”With a heavy sigh Johnny dropped to a place beside her.

“Why, Johnny?”She gripped his arm.“Why are you frightened?”

“It’s that Chinaman, Tao Sing!There’s a tong war, and I’m in the midst of it—or at least I’m likely to be.But then—” Johnny checked this wild flow of words.“I’d better start at the beginning.It all began when that little Chinaman loaned me that thought-camera.”

“Thought-camera!”Meggy stared.

“I—I’ll tell you all about it.”So, seated there in the sun with only a robin and a squirrel, as he supposed, listening in, he told Meg the amazing story of Tao Sing’s great invention and some of its startling revelations.

“And last night,” he said, pausing to catch his breath, “last night I squinted the thought-camera first at the Federal agent, and then at that wise old owl Wung Lu up there in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.Then, after I’d been chased and almost captured by some wild-eyed Chinks, I sneaked along home to develop those last think-o-graphs.And what do you suppose the thoughts of that Federal agent told me?”

“What?”Meggy’s breath came quick.

“That a Chinese tong war has started with half a hundred Chinamen carrying big blue pistols, and any one of these ready to start popping at any moment, and—”

Johnny broke off abruptly.“What was that?”

“What?”Meggy was all aquiver.

“Something back in the pines.”

Johnny sprang back into the pine boughs.He found nothing.“Perhaps it was a squirrel,” he said quietly when he returned.

“So now you see,” he whispered, “I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea. The thought-camera belongs to Tao Sing. He loaned it to me. I should return it. But where is he? A tong war is a terrible thing. It’s a fight between two Chinese secret societies. If it gets going right, several people will be killed. On the Pacific coast two Chinamen have been killed. The thing is spreading. Tao Sing is at the bottom of it all. He’s in this country without permission. These two Federal agents know he’s been here—found his finger-prints at the back of the Chinese spice shop. Perhaps someone has told them I know about Tao Sing—I’m not sure. Someone does know I have the thought-camera, or at least they think I have. That’s why I was chased last night. I’m sure of it.” Johnny mopped his brow. “I—I suppose I helped Tao Sing discover secrets. Probably when I brought him Wung Lu’s think-o-graphs he read what he wanted to know.

“Meggy,” Johnny said solemnly, “there’s no good in stealing anyone else’s thoughts!This thought-camera!I’d like to give it back right now.But I can’t.Tao Sing has vanished.”

“Johnny, let me see it,” Meg whispered.

Johnny drew the thought-camera from beneath his coat.Meg looked at it, starry-eyed as she might had she seen a ghost.“Johnny, where do you keep it?”

“In my trunk.”

“In your room?”

“In my room.”

“Well,” said Meg, shaking herself as if to waken from a bad dream, “it’s the strangest thing I ever heard of.It—

“There!”Her voice dropped.“I heard something back there!”

“Come on!”Johnny shuddered.“This place is haunted today.”

Together they hurried away through the pines and were soon upon the sunlit streets of old Hillcrest.

In the meantime the “Flying Ball Team,” as someone had aptly named it, had arrived at its first destination, and things were doing.

They arrived an hour before sundown, after a thrilling ride high in air, at the little city of Cannon Ball on the wheat-growing Dakota prairies.

The moment their plane came to a standstill, they were surrounded by a crowd of boys, shouting: “Where is he?Where is he?Show him to us!”

“Where’s who?”Doug asked with a smile.

For reply one boy held up a crumpled handbill on which had been pictured a grotesque mechanical man with sparks shooting from his finger tips and flames of fire pouring from his nostrils.Beneath were the words:

IRONS O, THE STEEL-FINGERED PITCHER WHO LIVES ON FIRE.SEE HIM PERFORM AT THE BALL FIELD TOMORROW!

At sight of this, Doug felt his knees sag.“Somebody,” he grumbled, “has been over-playing the thing.And now if we fail!Man!Oh man!”

“Where is he?Where is he?”the boys were still shouting.“Show him to us.”

“He goes to bed an hour before sundown.”Doug chuckled in spite of himself.“He’s asleep in one of the plane’s wings now.You can’t see him until tomorrow.”

“Oh!Oh!Oh!”came in a disappointed chorus.

“It’s a good place to leave him,” Sheeley the pilot whispered to Doug.“Nothing like a little secrecy to make people keen for a thing.”

“But will he be safe there?”Doug’s brow wrinkled.

“Sure!Oh sure!”Sheeley assured him.“In a place like this, I roll up in my blankets and sleep on the cabin floor.”

So Doug and Goggles wandered away from the town to have a look at the glorious rolling prairies.Lit up as they were by the slanting rays of the setting sun, they offered the boys a view that time would never erase from their memories.

“Think of it!”said Doug, “tomorrow the wheat country; the next day the cattle country; then the gold-mining city.After that Spokane, and then the Pacific coast!”

“Don’t be too sure.”Goggles’ tone was a bit gloomy.“If we fail tomorrow, this place is our only destination.”

“You’re tired,” Doug said reassuringly.“You’ll feel better tomorrow.”He did; but not for long.

The fame of the mechanical pitcher who, with his steel fingers, could pitch a curve like a flesh and blood man, had spread afar in this land of golden grain.This was a slack period for wheat farmers.They began pouring in before noon.

“You have such a crowd as that there ball ground never saw before!”a tall, lanky lad in a ten gallon hat assured Goggles.You might believe this would stir up in the boy’s mind a feeling of joy.Instead, it made him feel shivery all over.

“We’ve got to be careful,” he said to Hop Horner.“Every crowd’s a mob.You can never tell what it’s going to do when things go sort of queer.”

“Everything’s going to be O.K.,” Hop said coolly.

The appointed hour arrived at last.Never had the boys from the quiet little city of Hillcrest seen such a crowd, and never had they looked upon such a sea of sun-tanned faces.

Irons O had been carried secretly to the grounds in a covered truck.Assembled within the shelter of the truck, he was then assisted with much ceremony and shouting to his place in the pitcher’s box.Solemnly the Hillcrest boys took their places in the field.

“The zero hour has arrived,” Goggles muttered to Hop.His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“Game!Game!”shouted a group of high school boys in a corner.“We want baseball!We want baseball!”

“Hey, Mister!”a small boy in the front row squeaked.“Make him spit fire, will ye?”Everyone laughed.

Only one person sat staring in silence.That was Doug Danby.Sitting alone in the bleachers, he had caught sight of a vaguely familiar face.At this moment he was staring at the person in open-mouthed astonishment.“How did he get there?How could he?”he was asking himself.

“But perhaps I’m wrong,” he hopefully reassured himself.Something told him he was not.A voice seemed to whisper in his ear, “You’re in for it, all right.That is really the same little dark man who caused you so much trouble at home—”

As for the little dark man himself, he sat staring at Irons O, and on his face was a look hard to describe.It was a look in which was mingled hate, contempt and triumph.

“Play ball!”the umpire roared.He was a western man of the old school.“Play ball!”

Goggles threw a switch.He pressed a button.With a circular sweep of his ludicrous head and a broad grin, Irons O lifted his good right arm; then, to Goggles’ utter dismay, swung it around three times instead of once, to at last discharge the ball in the manner of a cannon.The batter and the catcher both saw the action and dodged, each in good time.Quite unembarrassed by the wire screen behind the catcher, the ball went right on through to lose itself on the boundless prairies of the Dakotas.The crowd let out a terrible roar.But Goggles murmured weakly, “Something’s gone wrong again at the very start.”

CHAPTER XIX
A REVELATION IN CHINESE

That something had surely gone wrong with Irons O, the mechanical pitcher, there could be no doubt.After making a hasty adjustment, Goggles and Hop Horner gave him a second ball and one more chance.This time his behavior was worse than ever.Swinging his arm about in a circle four times, he sent the ball speeding over the catcher’s head, on over the low screen netting, and away into the blue.

“Strike!”a big voice roared from the crowd.This was greeted with a wild scream of merriment.

“Our first stop on the grand tour!”Goggles groaned once more.“A failure here, and we’re through.”In his mind he saw the baseball grounds of his home town deserted on Saturday, but crowded to over-flowing on Sunday afternoons.He heard wild shouts disturbing the sober citizens’ rest, saw autos full of pleasure seekers, shouting through the town.Then he muttered low: “We must not fail!”

“Hop!”he exclaimed, “There’s someone back of all this trouble.I’m going to find out who it is.”

For ten minutes both he and Hop worked feverishly, their trembling fingers serving them badly, when a quiet voice from behind them said: “Take your time, boys.Don’t get excited.You are hoping to entertain a quiet peace-loving and patient people.They will not fail you.”The speaker was a little man in steel-rimmed spectacles and a long black coat.

“An old-fashioned minister,” Goggles thought, swallowing hard to keep back tears.“God bless him!Everyone here loves him, I’m sure.”

The man went on talking slowly, quietly, reassuringly.“These Dakota farmers plant wheat.If the hail does not beat it down, if a prairie fire does not destroy it, if a drought does not dry it up—they get a good crop.If there is no crop, they plant again next year.They are patient.They can wait now, and they will.”

It is strange what confidence such quiet assurance can inspire in a boy’s mind.Five minutes had not passed before the boys had things adjusted and old Irons O was ready to pitch a perfect game.

The boys from the wheat belt put up a game defense, but they were no match for the Hillcrest team and their steel-fingered pitcher.At the end of the game the score stood 14 to 8 in Hillcrest’s favor.

“Well, you won!”Dave Tobin, who had come along as financial manager, exclaimed enthusiastically.“And say!You should see the wad of bills I have for the ball grounds at home!”

“Yes,” Goggles thought a trifle wearily, “we won.”Truth is, he was not thinking of this at all.Instead, he was asking himself, “How is it that Irons O gets his insides all mixed up before every game?”

“Mr. Sheeley,” he said a half hour later, “our mechanical pitcher got all mussed up while he was inside one of your wings.”(He always thought of the planes as wings.)

“How could it?”Sheeley was incredulous.“Locked up tight all the time.And I’m the only one that has a key.Fine lock too!”

“All the same,” the boy thought to himself, “I’d like to ride to our next stop right there in that wing.

“But of course it wouldn’t do,” he thought a moment later.“Fantastic sort of notion.Sheeley wouldn’t like it.And yet—‘mystery wings.’” He whispered these two last words.

“We get a different crowd next time,” Doug said.He had just come up.“Cattle men.Cowboys.Do you suppose they are a patient lot too?”

“Hope they won’t need to be,” Goggles smiled.“Cowboys!Well, you don’t think of them as a quiet sort of people.Whirling over the prairie shouting enough to split your ears—that’s my notion of them.”

“Say,” Doug asked in a low tone, “who do you suppose I saw in the crowd?”

“Who?”

“The little dark man.”

“What!How’d he get here?Where is he now?”

“He’s vanished.Been looking all over for him.”

“Wonder what it means?”said Goggles.“Wonder if he’ll be at the next place?”

“Mystery wings!”he murmured once more as he hurried away.Why did he say that?Perhaps he himself could not have told.

That same afternoon Johnny took his secret regarding the thought-camera to good old Professor George.He did not tell him all he knew, not nearly all, but enough to, in a way, outline the problem.What he really wished to know was, just how much right he had to keep such a secret.

“That, I suppose,” the old man replied thoughtfully, “is a question you will have to decide for yourself.Secret knowledge is rather strange.What your rights are in regard to it has never been decided; that is, when the law does not come in.Of course, if it’s a question of someone breaking the law, then your duty’s clear.You’ve got to tell.”

Johnny started.

The old professor was very wise.“And Johnny—” he leaned forward quite suddenly.“Seems to me this affair between the two Chinamen needs looking into.Why should Tao Sing wish to know what Wung Lu is thinking?Does he want to profit by Wung Lu’s wisdom?Well, perhaps—if it has to do with buying and selling, making money.But pure wisdom, the wisdom of ancient Chinese scholars?Never a bit of it.It’s all written down where he can read it if he chooses to do so.I doubt if you have a right to carry Wung Lu’s thoughts to Tao Sing.”

“I—I’ve been wondering,” Johnny said uneasily.

Again the professor had spoken more truth than he guessed.

“You’ve got the think-o-graphs you made last night,” Professor George said quite suddenly, “the one you took of Wung Lu’s thoughts?”

“Why yes.I—”

“Let’s take it to Captain Gallagher.”

“To—to the police?”Johnny stared.“He couldn’t read it.It’s all in Chinese.”

“He has an interpreter who can.He’s to be trusted.I know him,” the professor replied calmly.

“We-l-l,” Johnny said slowly.Go to the police?He had asked this old man in to help clear things up.It looked now as if they were more tangled than ever.

Their visit to the police station had the most astonishing results.When the think-o-graph of Wung Lu’s thoughts had been placed under the magnifying lens, the tiny mechanism started, and when the Chinese police interpreter was told to look into the microscope-like affair and watch the words go by, the result was most startling.At first he just stood there squinting into the glass.Then of a sudden he let out a wild howl and went dancing around the room as if he had been stung by a bee.

Johnny stopped the mechanism and waited.When at last the interpreter had regained proper control of himself, he stepped to his place once more.But not for long.

Leaping into the air he let out one more wild howl, began calling out all sorts of strange Oriental names and would have bolted out of the door had not Chief Gallagher blocked the door.

Seizing the interpreter by the arm, the Chief dragged him into his private office and closed the door.

For a full quarter of an hour only the low rumble of voices from the inner room disturbed the silence of the police station.

When the Chief and his interpreter returned the Chinaman appeared a shade paler, but seemed quite calm.

“Chief,” (Johnny had been thinking hard during that fifteen minute conference), “perhaps I should tell you, there’s a pair of Federal agents hanging around.I—I think they’re working on this.”

“As if I didn’t know!”the Chief exclaimed.“Fact is, we’re working with ’em hand in hand.That’s where I got a lot of my information.But Johnny!”His voice rumbled.“There’s no harm in givin’ the local police a break.Is there now?”

“Not a bit of harm.”Johnny grinned happily.He liked the Chief.Long years ago the Chief had saved him from a terrible beating by some older boys.

The Chief signaled Johnny to start the mechanism once more.The interpreter took his place and saw the thing through to the end.

“Johnny,” said the Chief, “do you think you could get one more of these—er—what is it you call ’em?”

“Think-o-graphs,” Johnny grinned, “of Wung Lu?Well, if—if it seems to be my duty.”Johnny shuddered slightly.“But not at night.”

“Any time you say.”The Chief’s face was sober.“It’s very important.I don’t mind telling you that you may have prevented a tragedy.”

“A—a tragedy.Yes,” Johnny replied quietly, “I had sort of guessed that.You wouldn’t mind telling me just a little, would you?”he asked timidly.

“Well now,” the Chief smiled, “if I don’t you will be turnin’ that mind readin’ machine on me an’ then there’s no tellin’ what you’d be findin’ out.

“I’ll tell you this much.”His voice dropped to a mere whisper.“You’ve heard of these Chinese secret societies called tongs?Well, it has to do with that.Your old friend Wung Lu belongs to a tong.He’s done somethin’ that’s displeasin’ to another tong.Probably nothin’ illegal, just short tradin’ or somethin’.So they’ve decided to get him out of their way.”

“Sho—shoot him?”Johnny stared.This had never occurred to him as a possibility.

“Somethin’ like that.Queer part is,” the Chief rumbled, “Wung Lu knows all about it but he won’t tell.They’re like a lot of boys, these Orientals.Just go about settlin’ their own affairs.But this is too serious to let them settle.We know the men we want and we’ve got to go get ’em.One of ’em’s this wrinkle-faced little fellow Tao Sing.He an’ his pals are in the United States illegally.We’ll just send ’em back where they came from—if we can catch ’em.And that,” the Chief ended, “is about all I can tell you just now.”

“All,” Johnny whispered to himself as he lay in his bed that night.“It’s enough to make a fellow’s head whirl.”

CHAPTER XX
ETHER AND MOTH-BALLS

“For once old Irons O is fit as a fiddle.”Goggles heaved a sigh of relief.Hours had passed.They had gone sweeping high above the prairies, had tilted the nose of their plane upward and had gone roaring over the Rockies.Now here they were in the little cattle-country city of Broken Bow, ready for the second game of their unusual tour.

The city was not marvelous but the crowd, the boy thought with a thrill and a shudder, was immense and rather terrifying.Banked in rows to the right of the narrow bleachers were hundreds of cowboys.They had not dismounted, but were seated easily in saddle, awaiting the opening of the game.

“Nothing’s wrong this time!”Hop Horner agreed.“But just to make sure, we’ll put a few over the plate.”He called to the catcher.Goggles set the levers, placed a ball between the steel fingers, then pushed a button.

“Never behaved better!”was Hop’s pronouncement after five minutes of practice that set the crowd to staring.

“Better give him a little gas before we start,” Goggles suggested.

“Right!”Hop took up a gallon can and poured half its contents into the small tank concealed in the iron pitcher’s back.

“Whew!What’s that queer smell!”Goggles exclaimed as Hop set the can on the ground.

“Something drifting in on the wind,” Hop said quietly.“Sort of smells like a hospital.”

“Bad sign!”Goggles laughed.He was more right than he thought.

Ten minutes later the teams were all ready to go.Goggles set the levers and threw the switch.From somewhere within the iron pitcher’s strange being came an unaccustomed sound.“Don’t breathe right.”The boy was a trifle startled.“And look, he’s really spouting fire from his iron nostrils.Some—something’s gone wrong again!And we thought nothing could!”He was ready to give up in despair.

Hop threw off the controls, unbolted the back plate and started a careful inspection.He took plenty of time, testing out every wire.

“I tell you there’s nothing wrong,” he muttered.

All this had kept the crowd waiting and it was growing impatient.There were shouts of “Play ball!Play ball!”from every corner.

“What’s to be done?”Goggles groaned.“The crowd will be on the field in a minute.But we can’t let old Irons O burn up.”

“Look!They’re coming!At least one is.”Hop pointed to a huge cowboy riding toward them.

“Well!”Goggles sighed, “We—”

“Look Buddy!”The big cowboy’s tone was deep and mellow.“Do you all plan to play a ball game with that iron thing this afternoon?”

“We—we mean to.”

“And this ain’t no trick to git our money?”The big man looked him squarely in the eyes.

“It is not!”Goggles returned his look.“If the game doesn’t start in twenty minutes, you’ll all get your money back.”

“Fair enough!”The big man wheeled about and rode away.

“Hop!”Goggles said suddenly, “Do you suppose it’s the gas?”Seizing the gallon can, he removed the cap and, holding it up, took one big sniff of its contents.Next instant both boy and can went tumbling to the earth.

Goggles was down for only the count of ten.He came up sputtering.“Ether!Ether and moth-balls!Someone has loaded up our can.Drain the tank.Throw that can away.Get some real gas, then we’re off.”And they were!

“Ether and moth-balls!”Sheeley the air pilot chuckled to Goggles a half hour later.“That’s a rare combination.Load a flivver up with that stuff and it’ll think it’s a Rolls Royce or an airplane right off.”

“Wonder who could have done that?”Goggles said thoughtfully.

As for the game, from that time on it was a huge success.Never had the boys and their iron pitcher received such a hand.Nor did Irons O lose any of his popularity when, for some unknown reason, he got a trifle wild, gave two bases on balls, let in a runner with a wild pitch, and finally lost the game 9 to 7.

“You’re real sports!”the big cowboy complimented Doug and Goggles later that evening.“You came all this way in a big airplane to play our boys a ball game, then you give ’em a break and let ’em win.”

“We didn’t let them win,” Goggles said quite frankly. “They just took it.

“Of course,” he added with a smile, “even an iron pitcher has his off days.Old soup-bone gets tired don’t you know.”

“You’re all right!”The big fellow grinned broadly.“Wish you all sorts of good luck!”

“Luck!”Goggles said to Hop.“That’s what I’m going to need, for sure as my name’s Goggles I’m going to ride to the next stop inside one of those wings of mystery, right along with our old iron pal.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”Hop stared.

“Why not?Plenty of room.Safe there as anywhere.”

That was all there was said about it, but when they took off a few hours later, Goggles did not occupy his accustomed seat in the airplane cabin.

Pilot Sheeley had offered no objection to the boy’s plan of riding inside the airplane’s wing.“You won’t find it very exciting.It’ll be a bit bumpy.You won’t be able to see a thing, and we’ll be passing over some gorgeous country.”

“May see enough!”the boy replied.“Someone has been tampering with our iron man—done it three times.I’m going to find out how and why.”

He recalled his own words as, lying flat along the inside of the plane, he felt the throb of motors and knew they were on their way.“I wonder if I shall!”he whispered.

At the back of him were the parts of the steel-fingered pitcher.Before him, and on the other side of the trapdoor through which he had crawled, was a large roll of canvas.“Probably used for covering the motors in severe weather when there is no hangar near,” he thought.

What did he expect as he lay there feeling the lift and drop of the plane as she swung along through the air?He hardly knew.He suspected that somehow, someone had a means of getting into the plane after the ship was on the ground.

Whatever he expected, he had not long to wait, for all of a sudden as he stared at that roll of canvas, a head appeared above it.A small figure dragged itself over the canvas into the space before it.The boy barely escaped uttering an audible gasp.It was the little dark man.

That night as he slept in his second-story bedroom of his grandfather’s house, Johnny was troubled by strange dreams. He seemed to be riding on a limitless sea in a cockle-shell of a boat.The wind began to whisper across the small waves.It blew a whiff of air into his face.Then, with astonishing speed, it rose into a gale, driving damp spray against his cheek, and set his frail bark rocking perilously.The little craft climbed a wave, another, and yet another.It rose, then seeming to rear on high, came splashing down to dive, prow foremost, into the foam.

It was just as Johnny caught his breath, prepared to withstand this chilling plunge, that he awoke.

For a full moment, quite bewildered, he stared about him.At last, shaking himself, he murmured, “There was no storm.It was a dream.I am in my grandfather’s house.”

Then with a sudden start, he sat up wide awake and staring.It was true there was no storm and no sea.For all that, the wind was blowing strongly into his window.“It’s wide open!”His bare feet hit the floor.“And I left it open only a crack!”

Leaping to the window, he looked down.“Ah!I thought so!”A tall ladder leaned against the house.It reached his window.Whirling about, he looked where his trunk had been.

“Gone!”he muttered.“My trunk’s gone!”

He had not thought of that as a possibility.Now he realized how absurdly easy it had been.His trunk was small—an old army locker.The window was large.“What could be easier?”he whispered.

Slipping on his trousers, he crept down the stairs and out on the dew-drenched grass.

In a shadowy spot at the back of the house he found the trunk.The frail lock had been pried up.The thought-camera and his entire collection of think-o-graphs were gone.“As if they had never been,” he murmured.

Shouldering his trunk, he climbed the ladder and slid it back into his room.After that he carried the ladder to its place on some hooks against the wood-shed.

“Fellow’s foolish to keep a ladder outside his house,” he grumbled.“Invites thieves.”

For all that, as he tiptoed back up the stairs, he experienced a surprising sense of relief.The thought-camera, he supposed, was gone for good, and with it a great deal of his responsibility in the matter.

CHAPTER XXI
LIQUID AIR—ALMOST

In the wing of the airplane, sailing high above the western prairies, Goggles was in a tight place.He had never been in a tighter one and never expected to be in the future, if indeed there was to be a future.

Just what had he expected when he crawled into that narrow place?Certainly not this.Perhaps he had hoped that someone would unlock the trap door after they landed.Then he would catch him.But now, as he thought all this, and his head went into a whirl, the little dark man looked up and saw him.For one full minute he did not speak or move; only his beady eyes bored into the boy’s very soul.

“So you’re here!”he said at last.“Don’t you think I did a good enough job messing things up?Well then, you and the Big Shot are agreed.But what’s he want?”

“I don’t know.”Goggles spoke slowly.He was thinking hard.He was, as we have said, in a tight enough place surely.Securely sealed up in a duramen tube a half mile in air with no means of communicating with his friends and with this enemy staring him in the face, his situation was anything but pleasant.

“Why do you want to spoil things for us?”he asked in as quiet a tone as he could command.

“I—why, now I don’t.”The little man laughed mirthlessly.“I’m paid to do it.I do what I’m paid to do.”

All this time the boy was thinking, “I’ve got to get the better of him.I must do it.But how?”

He moved a little.Something poked into his side.What was that?Oh yes, he remembered.A bottle!A sudden desperate plan came to him.

“Well,” he spoke slowly, “as long as we’re here, we may as well talk about something.Let’s make it liquid air.”

“Air ain’t no liquid,” the little man protested.

“Sometimes it is.”Goggles’ courage was growing.“You can make it liquid by putting it under very high pressure and getting it down to 216 degrees below zero.When it gets into liquid form you may keep it in a bottle for three or four days.”At this point he pulled the flat bottle from his pocket.It was half filled with a pale liquid.The little man stared at the bottle.“Liquid air is strange stuff,” Goggles went on.“It’s cold, colder than the North Pole.Put a fresh rose in it for a second, take it out and you can pinch it into a powder.Put a steel clock spring in it, take it out and it will snap like glass.Stick your finger in a bottle of it and I’ll break it off like an icicle.”He thrust the bottle out before him.The little man seemed to shrink back.

The boy’s tone did not change.He might have been a professor lecturing to a class.“Yes, liquid air is strange.I could pour it over my hand, or even put it in my mouth and, providing I got rid of it at once, it would not harm me.One minute of holding a spoonful in my mouth would mean death.

“If I were to pour even a small amount down your neck—” (he drew himself forward ever so little), “which I could—I’m strong.Much stronger than you think.I have strong fingers and arms. If I poured a quarter of a bottle down your back you would die.No one would guess what killed you.The liquid air would turn to gas and there you’d be.You—”

A strange look of terror came into the little man’s eyes as he cried in a shrill high-pitched voice, “You let me be!Don’t touch me!I’ll leave at the next stop, and you’ll never see me again.So help me, you won’t!”

Goggles settled back in his place.As he did so, his right hand was closed about the bottle, carefully concealing a printed label.

After that the big bi-motored plane with its flying baseball team in its cabin and that curious cargo in its wings sped across the land.Not once did Goggles relinquish his hold on that magic bottle.From time to time the little dark man spoke.His words were always in the nature of a confession.He had been hired by Big Bill Tyson to break up this trip.He had not been told why—he had only been paid to do it.He knew about locks.Locks had always been easy for him.He had a key to the lock on the door to this place.How?Well, that did not matter.He hadn’t succeeded in breaking up the cruise.Now he was going to quit.

“Yes,” he said, rolling his eyes horribly as he took one more look at the magic bottle, “yes, I’m going to quit!Just let me out of this place and you’ll never see me again.”

“If he only knew!”Goggles thought with an inward shudder.“If he knew, I wonder what would happen?”

Ah, well, he had this little dark fellow within his power, that was enough.So the plane sped on.

Never in all his life had the boy experienced such a sense of relief as, after the plane had bumped on some landing field, then gone gliding along to a stop, he saw the little dark man slip like a snake through the small door and disappear.

He grinned a broad grin as he dropped the flat bottle back into his pocket.“Lucky break!”he murmured.“Wonder if Sheeley missed it?”

“Old Irons O will do his full duty at this place,” he assured Doug as he came out to meet him.

“Are you sure of that?”Doug was still in doubt.

“Sure as anything.But just to make it a cinch, ask one of the boys to watch this plane while I go for a cup of coffee.I’m starved.”

The guard was arranged for at once.As the two boys hurried away, Goggles pulled a bottle out of his pocket.“Just read the label on that, will you?”he said.“I packed my glasses in my bag by mistake.”

“Sure!”Doug took the bottle.“It says, ‘Dr. Jordan’s Face Lotion.Good for sun-burned and chapped skin.’”

“It’s good for more than that—sometimes,” Goggles chuckled.

“What do you mean by that?”Doug demanded.

“Tell you sometime,” Goggles chuckled again.“Belongs to Sheeley, that bottle does.He left it in his room by mistake.I brought it along, and I—I’m glad I did.

“Do you know,” he said after a while, “it pays to know a little about a great many things.If you get sort of—well sort of shut off from the world with someone else, you’ve always got something to talk about.Take liquid air for instance.There’s a grand little topic for conversation.”

“Huh?Yes, I suppose so,” Doug grunted.He was already lost to the world in his contemplation of that day’s game.

He need have had no fear for that ball game.Never had Irons O performed so well as on this day.Not only did he pitch a big league type of game, allowing only seven hits and no runs, but he kept the crowd in an uproar of laughter with his bobbing head, his ludicrous grimaces, and his wild-cat screams at the umpire.

“A perfect day!”was Goggles’ enthusiastic comment when it was over.“And the little dark man kept his word.He was not about.”

He had not, however, seen the last of the little dark man—not quite.As, hopeful of receiving a letter from his mother, he hurried into the post-office, he ran squarely into him.“See here!”he exclaimed, “I thought—”

Ignoring his thoughts, the little dark man waved a telegram in his face.“From the Big Shot!”he exclaimed.“You know, him that’s paid me.He says for me to quit!He says that!Can you beat it?”At that, he darted from the door and was lost to the boy’s sight forever—or at least for a very, very long time.

“Big Bill’s called him off,” Goggles thought.“That’s sure good news.But I wonder why?”He was to wonder this many times in the days that were to come and then, in the end, was to know the answer.

Who can describe the joy of those days?Seeing the world from an airplane—Salt Lake City, Spokane with her magnificent falls, the green timbered Cascade Mountains, and then Seattle and the Pacific—all this came to them.To play ball with the finest sort of fellows from ranches, saw mills, canning factories, all entertained and amused by the perfectly behaved Irons O—all this was joy indeed.But to know that this joyous excursion was fast driving away clouds of doubt and fear, to know that the big payment on the home ball grounds was fast being collected—this indeed brought deep, satisfying and lasting joy to the weary boys.

One day, after a long drive with his grandfather, Johnny Thompson wandered down to the deserted baseball field to sit in the bleachers in the sun.Meggy spied him from afar, and came tripping down to take a place beside him.

“They’ll be back soon,” Meggy said.

“Yes,” Johnny agreed dreamily.“Their trip has been a success.The ball ground is safe.What’s better still, old Professor George told me this morning that Big Bill Tyson had turned over a new leaf.He’s going to give us a deed for the land as soon as the four thousand dollars is paid.”

“Johnny!That’s wonderful!”Meggy cried.“But Johnny!What made him change?”

“Don’t know,” Johnny replied.“Guess each man in the world has just so much capacity for meanness, same as a barrel will hold only so much water.Bill must have reached his limit.”

“Johnny—” Meggy suddenly changed the subject.“Did they ever find that little Chinaman and the thought-camera?”

“Tao Sing?”Johnny said soberly.“No, not yet I guess.But then,” he added, “you couldn’t very well prove he took that camera and the think-o-graphs.What I figure is that someone heard us talking there in the heart of the pines that day, then came and got ’em that night.”

For a time after that, there was silence.It was Meggy who spoke at last:

“The boys will have to be back soon.The last big game is next Saturday—the final battle for the pennant.Johnny, do you think the ‘Prince’ will pitch?”

“Your thought is as good as mine,” Johnny smiled.

“Isn’t he mysterious!”Meggy thrilled as of old.

“You don’t know the half of it, Meg.”Johnny chuckled.“Know what?”he exploded in a sudden burst of confidence, “That fellow isn’t brown!He never came from India.He’s as white as you or I!”

“Whi—white?How could he be?”

“His face and arms are dyed.I saw him pull up his sock, back there in the laboratories.You just wait and see!”

“Mystery—sweet mystery,” Meggy whispered after a time.

A moment more, and she was off on another tack.“Johnny, do you think those two terrible men will come back to bother the—the ‘Prince’ if he does pitch?”

“If they do—” Johnny stood up.“If they dare, we—we’ll give them plenty!We—”

“Listen!”Meggy sprang to her feet.“An airplane!And see!Over there.A big silver ship!The boys are coming home!”She dragged at Johnny’s arm.They were away like a flash, ready to celebrate the heroes’ return.

CHAPTER XXII
THE SMOKE SCREEN

“I have a feeling—sort of dread—” Doug Danby’s voice dropped.“I believe they’ll try that trick of theirs again today—those two fellows who go after the ‘Prince’—in a different plane.If they do, then—” he did not finish.His voice trailed off.

“And I too have a feeling—” there was a suggestion of hidden knowledge in Johnny Thompson’s voice.“I have a feeling that if those two ill-wishers, who’ve been trying to break up our game every time the ‘Prince’ is on the mound, try any tricks today, they’ll get fooled!”

He cocked his head on one side as he murmured, “Wind’s in the west, what wind there is.Not much of any.Cloudy and damp.Just right, I’d say.”

“Just right for what?”Doug was curious.

“Don’t ask me.Just wait.”Johnny lapsed into silence.

Doug waited, and as he waited he thought.They were long, long thoughts, I assure you.The opening hour for the last game of the season was approaching.Today the championship of the series was to be decided.The crowd exceeded that of any preceding game.Excitement ran high.

Meggy Strawn, garbed in her brightest and best, was already on the sidelines, ready to lead in the cheering.Little wonder that chills and thrills coursed through her.Was this not the greatest day old Hillcrest had ever known?Had not the four thousand dollars been paid in full?Was not the ball park their very own—theirs to have and to hold for many a year?Yea!Yea!And yet there was mystery in the air.

“Something will happen today.”One might hear this whisper in many a corner.“Something strange, perhaps something quite terrible will happen.”

“Would it?”Meg wondered.

In the meantime, on foot, by train, by auto, the crowd continued to pour in.

“All paid attendance.”Old Professor George rubbed his hands together.“You boys are doing wonders!Hurray for old Hillcrest!”

“Yes!”Doug was truly happy.“But we must win today, Professor.We truly must!”

But would they?Centralia, the opposing team, their ancient rival, was first up to bat.As the mysterious “Prince” strolled out upon the diamond a strange hush fell over the assembled throng.

There were those in that crowd who had said quite boldly that this mystery should not be allowed to continue, that the pitcher should reveal his true identity or stay out of the game.“Only evil people wish to hide their identity,” this was their argument.

So, with the “Prince” in the box, the game began.For three innings he pitched a faultless game.Only two men found their way to first base.They “died” there, Hillcrest scored twice.Hopes ran high.Even Johnny Thompson, sitting on the bench and expecting almost anything, began to smile.

And then, out of the west came a gray streak.

Just as he expected, as on that other day the airplane began to circle.Down it came, lower and lower.

The “Prince” did not glance up.“But he knows,” Johnny whispered.“He’s—he’s beginning to break from the strain.”

Surely this must be true.“Men on first and second; only one out!”Johnny groaned.“They—they’ll make it.Sure to.And then—”

But what was this?A fire?To the west, hardly three blocks away, a dense column of smoke appeared.Rising higher and higher in the all but quiet sky, it at last drifted slowly over the ball grounds.So dense was it that it cast a deep shadow over all.

“Hurray!”Johnny sprang to his feet.“Hurray!That beats ’em!”

This, considering the “Prince” had just walked a man, filling the bases, seemed sheer madness.

“They’ll think I’m out of my head,” was Johnny’s second thought as he sank back into his place.

That Johnny was right was soon enough demonstrated.Seeming to find fresh power flowing through his veins, the mysterious pitcher stiffened his pace.The two men who came up next got three pitches each.They fanned the air.The inning was over.

“We arranged to put up a smoke screen,” Johnny whispered to Meggy.“Set a lot of old tar paper on fire.That checkmated those fellows in the airplane.They couldn’t see through it, nor—nor do anything else!”

“But Johnny!Who’s in that plane?”

“You’ll know tonight, per—perhaps,” was Johnny’s reply.

Three times the airplane circled.Three times a pillar of smoke rose to meet it.

“That airplane is from River Forest,” Big Bill Tyson said to Colonel Chamberlain.“Hate to take you away from the game; but if we’re to be there when they land, we’d better be travelin’.”

Three minutes later a long gray car shot away to the east.In it rode Big Bill and Colonel Chamberlain.Big Bill was at last truly interested in the boys of his city.

Johnny saw them leave the field.He knew why they were going, and smiled.

The boy who received the greatest surprise, however, was Fred Frame, the one-time star pitcher.As the team came in for its turn at bat, Doug Danby sidled over to him at the end of the sixth inning and said in a low tone:

“You are to pitch next inning.”

“Why!What?”Fred’s brain whirled.Was he to finish this last game?Score 2 to 0 in Hillcrest’s favor!The championship at stake!He to pitch!He could not understand.

Nor was he to know more save that the “Prince,” a trifle more stooped than usual, but walking with a firm, proud tread, was leaving the grounds.

Slowly a buzz like the swarming of bees sounded through the crowd.Then all was still.

It was well that Fred did not come up to bat that inning.He surely would have fanned.

As at last he stood in the pitcher’s box, he found above him a cloudless, smokeless sky where no airplane soared and circled.

“Think I’m small fry!”he muttered.“Not worth bothering with!I’ll show ’em!”

The seventh and eighth innings passed without a score on either side.

In the ninth, two Centralia men fanned.The game seemed over.Then came a two-bagger, followed by a single that brought in a run.By taking wild chances, the runner on first base stole second, then third.So there it was, last inning, two men down and the tying run on third.

Wildly Fred’s eyes searched the crowd for the familiar figure of the “Prince.”

“He’s gone,” a voice seemed to whisper.“You may never see him again.Perhaps he is no real person at all—just a sort of imaginary being.It’s up to you, and you alone!”

Then the catcher gave him a signal.For such a time as this, it seemed a piece of madness, that signal.But Fred was desperate.He took the chance.

Winding up, he sent the ball spinning.It was a wild throw—a perfect wild throw, if wild throws you want.By one mad leap the catcher was able to knock it down.Even so, he did not stop it.It went on rolling.He was after it in a mad scramble.

Shooting down the course came the tying run.

But not so fast!Francisco the catcher had the ball.He was on the home plate.The runner turned to dash back.He all but fell into Fred’s arms. And Fred had the ball.Francisco had passed it back to him.

This mad play, so cleverly planned and executed, had won!The game was over.Hillcrest was champion!

The crowd went wild.Seizing Fred, they tossed him to their shoulders, shouting: “Hurray for Fred!Hurray for Fred!”He tried to shout, “The ‘Prince’!”but his cries were drowned by a roar.

It was an interesting group that gathered in Colonel Chamberlain’s office two hours later.There was Johnny and Goggles, Fred Frame and Meggy.Besides these there was Big Bill Tyson and close beside him, grim and sullen, sat the two strangers who had caused so much trouble.There was too a tall, slightly stooped young man.At first the boys stared at him in wondering silence.“Who is he?Who can he be?”they whispered.

“I see you do not recognize a friend,” Colonel Chamberlain smiled.“I am surprised.

“This—” he paused to smile once more.“This is your old friend J., the one you have called the ‘Prince.’Today, for the first time, he is able to remove the dye that might have concealed his identity from some people.”

“Oh!Oh!Oh!”came as in one breath.

“And now,” the Colonel said, turning to J., “perhaps you will tell them your story.Only,” he warned, “be brief.There’s a big feast of real good things to eat in store for us after it is told.Tonight the business men of Hillcrest are giving a banquet to all the boys who have fought so bravely for the honor of their city.”

“Tell us!Tell us!”they all pleaded.

“I shall be glad to,” the “Prince” replied.

“You see,” he began, “I’ve always been fascinated with chemistry.My native home is in Europe.Three years ago I was allowed to enter another country as a student.At once I was successful with my chemistry.Men said I had made some remarkable discoveries.

“Well,” he sighed, “success brings enemies.There are those who wished to possess my secrets.

“The part of that strange country I was in,” he went on after a period of silence, “was disputed territory.In time it became known that it was to be controlled entirely by this nation that was not friendly to my native land.This meant that I must leave.Many men came to me demanding to know my scientific secrets, which—pardon my pride—were very valuable.

“I refused.They threatened to have me sent to prison.I defied them and finally, with my secret formula hidden away in my garments, I escaped to America.

“But they followed, still threatening me.I put on that disguise, which has deceived some.Unfortunately it did not deceive all.So tonight I am removing it.Tonight I have taken out my first papers as an American citizen.Soon I shall belong to your wonderful country.”

“Good!Good!Fine!Wonderful!”came from the throats of his hearers.

Only two were silent—the two strangers.

“And you!”The “Prince” made a dramatic gesture.“Why do you still persecute me?”He had turned upon the silent pair.

“I think,” said the Colonel when the men did not reply, “it is because of greed and a deplorable race hatred.You need not, however, fear them any longer.They have done enough to send them to prison.”

“This,” the “Prince” exclaimed, “I do not wish!Only that they shall pledge themselves never to disturb me again.”

“Very well,” said the Colonel, “you shall be the judge.”

He turned upon the strangers.“Do you promise?”

“Yes, yes sir.We do!”was the answer.

“Very well.You may go.”

“Any other questions?”The Colonel turned to his young guests.

“I—I’d like to know what happened that day when the—the ‘Prince’ was obliged to leave the pitcher’s box,” said Meggy, “that first day.”

“That—” Johnny sprang up, “let me try to explain that.”

He held out a long tube with a very bright inside, also a small battery and two small bottles of powder.“You put the two powders in the tube, then touch them off with the battery.This makes a blinding flash that may be directed like the shot of a gun at any single individual.That’s what they did to the ‘Prince’ from the airplane,” he explained rapidly.

“What I can’t understand,” he went on in a puzzled tone, “is why it should spoil your game.”He turned toward the “Prince.”

“I will explain,” said the “Prince.”“I once was in a terrible chemical explosion.My sight was saved only as a sort of miracle.Since then, a flash of light half blinds me for hours.These men, knowing this, invented that instrument of torture.So now,” he added, smiling, “you know.”

“But why did you leave the game today?”Meggy asked.

“Oh that!” The “Prince” smiled a rare smile. “That was a case of noblesse obligeThe team was yours.The game yours too.How could I, a stranger, truly win it when that plucky boy of yours had tried so nobly?It was a duty of honor.”

“That—” Johnny’s eyes were dimmed.“That’s what I call sporting!

“One more question!”Johnny was on his feet.“This may seem strange, but ‘Prince,’ were you ever in prison in America?”

“No.”The “Prince” smiled a strange smile.“I have not had the honor.”

“Just one of my bum guesses,” Johnny thought to himself.He was thinking of the story told to him by that air pilot.

“And now,” said the Colonel, springing to his feet, “I call you all to a banquet.”

The banquet was all that anyone could ask, but, as for Johnny Thompson, his mind was on other things.As he was hurrying to this meeting, Chief Gallagher had called to him: “Come in and see me as soon as you can.I’ve got something big to tell you.”

“It has to do with the little Chinaman Tao Sing and the thought-camera,” Johnny assured himself more than once.As soon as he could, he was away to the Chief’s office.

“You’re right the very first time, Johnny,” the Chief laughed when Johnny hazarded a guess.“We caught up with that little Chink this afternoon.He and two others were tryin’ to make a getaway in an airplane.Guess they didn’t savvy that plane.Anyway, that plane didn’t get far.Those Chinamen had parachutes.They landed safely.Our men picked them up.Plane came down in flames.

“Queer part—” he rumbled, “that little fellow wanted to jump right into the flaming wreck.Said he wanted to save something—only one in the world.Man that made it was dead—all that stuff.

“Of course,” he added thoughtfully, “my men wouldn’t let him commit suicide that way.He’ll go back to China with those other fellows.The tong war is over.”

“That thing he wanted to save,” said Johnny soberly, “must have been the thought-camera.And I—you know I’m sort of glad it’s gone and that there are no more in the world.For you know—it’s no fun at all to take pictures of other people’s thoughts.And to have other people taking pictures of yours—why that would be simply terrible!”

“Yes,” the Captain said with a laugh.“It sure would be!”

Johnny enjoyed a few peaceful days in Hillcrest. After that he was off for fresh adventure. If you wish to know of these adventures look for our new book, Red Dynamite

Transcriber’s Notes

• Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
• Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
• In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)