“Hello Johnny!” Doug Danby exclaimed, as Johnny came racing into the Danby’s back yard. “Where you been? Gee! You look queer! As if you’d been stealin’ chickens or something.” Doug laughed.
“Oh forget it!” Johnny exploded. “Here! Give me your catcher’s mask. I’ll use it to hide my face.”
“Don’t need it,” Doug replied. “All self-respecting secrets carefully guarded—that’s our motto.
“But say!” Doug exploded. “The Colonel wants to see us! Guess it’s about that pitcher of his. Bet he’ll be with us next Saturday. And if he is,—say! Boy! We’ll lick ’em!”
Doug was a fine boy. Johnny liked him a heap. Tall, slightly angular, like the boy Abe Lincoln, he was honest, hard-working and full of droll fun—just the sort of boy that should come from a little city like Hillcrest.
Together the boys walked rapidly down the street. They soon caught up with a slow ambling figure that greeted them with a squawky but none the less hearty, “Why, hello Doug! Hello Johnny!”
This was Professor George, the little city’s favorite old man. He was eighty years old, was Professor George. The younger men of the city could remember when he was a popular teacher in the high school. Now, for years, he had been Professor George, friend of every boy in town.
The professor had a hooked nose and there were huge brown freckles all over his dry face, but his kindly smile was worth earning, and many a boy owed his success to Professor George’s kindly, steadying hand.
“Sorry you lost the game Saturday,” he said as he tried hard to keep in step. “You’ll have better luck next time. I’m sure of it.” Professor George had not missed a ball game in twenty years.
“Yes,” Doug exclaimed enthusiastically, “we’re going to have a grand pitcher, regular big league stuff! We—”
His words were broken in upon by a booming voice. It was Big Bill Tyson speaking. He had suddenly appeared from somewhere. “Just the fellows I want to see!” he roared. “The very ones. Wanted to tell you about the ball grounds.”
“Ye—es. What about it?” The words caught in Doug’s throat. He had been dreading this for some time, in fact ever since Big Bill’s father died. Bill’s father had owned the ball park. He had owned a lot more of the town besides. Now it all belonged to Big Bill. Once the ball park had been the grounds of a canning factory. Bill’s father had been rich and generous, a good citizen and a great friend of Professor George. So, when the antiquated canning factory failed to pay, he had allowed Professor George and his boys to tear it down and to use the lumber for a fence and bleachers of a ball park.
But now the good old man was dead and Big Bill reigned, in his stead. Big Bill was a different sort. He cared little for boys, in fact he thought very little about the welfare of anyone but Big Bill. So now Doug, Johnny and Professor George stood, inwardly quaking, awaiting his next word.
“It’s like this—” he tried to be brisk and business-like, but succeeded only in appearing, in the boys’ eyes at least, as a big bully. “Like this—” he began again. “Fellow came into my office last week. He’s interested in organizing a professional baseball league. Hired players and all that from out of town. Play the games on Sunday. Big thing for the city. Bring lots of folks here. Fill up the soft-drink places, pool halls an’ all that. Fine big thing!” Thrusting his fingers in his belt, he swelled out like a turkey gobbler.
“But the boys could play their games on Saturday just the same,” Professor George put in hopefully.
“No. No, they couldn’t. That’s what I wanted to tell you.” Big Bill scowled. “Boys would be in the way. Professionals need practice and all that. So—it’s out you go, just like that!” He snapped a pudgy finger. “Unless—”
“Unless what?” Doug breathed.
“Unless you can get me a thousand dollars.”
“Rent?” Professor George gasped. “We—”
“Rent nothing!” Big Bill roared. “First payment on a contract to purchase the grounds.”
“For—for how much?” Doug was staring.
“Ten thousand dollars on contract.”
“Ten thousand!” Johnny whistled through his teeth.
“We—ll,” Professor George said slowly, “that’s a fair price, William. But you’ll have to give us time to think where we can get it.”
“All right.” Big Bill suddenly put on a business-like air. “Two weeks. Time enough for anybody.” At that he strode away.
“Might as well make it two years,” Doug grumbled gloomily, “for all we’ll ever make it!”
“Now, now Doug!” Professor George admonished. “It’s a worthy cause, a very worthy cause. Nothing better for the boys than good, clean baseball. God loves boys, I’m positive of that. So, just like as not He’ll show us the way.” Professor George was religious but he was not what you call pious. His religion, like the blood that coursed through his veins, was a real part of him. Every boy who came to know him respected him the more because of his religion.
“Well, boys,” the good old professor said as he left them at his own door, “don’t let William trouble you too much. We’ll get round him somehow. Used to trouble us in school, William did, but we always got round him, somehow.” He gave forth a cackling laugh. “Always got round him somehow.”
“Bill went to school when Professor George taught,” Doug explained as he and Johnny went on down the street. “Dad says Bill cheated something terrible, but Professor George always caught on to him. That’s why he don’t like Professor George, even now.
“He’s been cheating ever since,” he added gloomily. “He’ll cheat us out of our ball park if we don’t watch out.
“A thousand dollars,” he murmured thoughtfully. “We’ve got half that much in the bank—been saving it for new bleachers. Took two years to save it. Fine chance to gather up that much more in two weeks!”
“Got to advertise,” said Johnny. “This mysterious new pitcher now. He ought to draw a crowd if we only had him advertised.”
Like a flash a bright idea occurred to Johnny. “I’ll think up some good publicity,” he told himself. “Think it up just right. Then I’ll shoot that thought-camera at myself and turn out some swell copy. Old C. K. Lovell will put it in theSentinel, I know he will.” But of this he said never a word to Doug. The thought-camera was a deep, dark secret.
“He is mysterious!” Doug exclaimed quite suddenly.
“Huh! What? Who’s mysterious?” Johnny dragged himself back to earth with a start. “Oh! Yes! That pitcher. Sure he is. Terribly mysterious.”
“The Colonel says he’s been working in the laboratories for three months,” Doug broke in. “Three months! I’ve been round the lab nearly every day, and I never once saw him, except that evening when he pitched a few over for us.”
As the boys approached the long, low building known as the laboratories, Johnny felt a thrill course up his spine. He was to see that strange pitcher. With his olive skin and bright gleaming blue eyes, this pitcher’s very movements seemed to say, “Here I am. A mystery. Solve me.”
The laboratories too held a special charm for Johnny. Here all manner of strange chemical secrets were sought out and often found. Already these laboratories were famous. Here a new drug had been discovered that had proved a great boon to those suffering from asthma. With characteristic generosity, the Colonel had given this discovery to the world, asking no profit to himself.
It was rumored that here a poison had been discovered, so powerful that it would make war impossible. One drop of it on any part of the body would mean instant death. This was only a rumor. Better founded was the statement that “heavy water”—a water in which no animal life, however small, could live—had been produced. However these things might be, both Johnny and Doug approached the place with a feeling akin to awe, for this to their growing minds was a place of great magic.
In the office of the laboratories they found awaiting them not only the Colonel, but a short, round-shouldered boy who wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses.
“Hello, Goggles!” Doug greeted the bespectacled boy with a hearty grin. “What you doing here? Been discovering some new element or something?”
“Johnny—” he turned to his friend. “Meet Goggles Short, the boy wizard, both chemical and electrical, of our fair city.”
“Aw now!” Goggles was embarrassed.
“Fame,” said the Colonel with a cordial smile, “is a terribly embarrassing thing, Goggles. However, since you have attained it, you’ll have to bear up under it.”
“I suppose you think—” the Colonel’s tone changed as he wheeled about to face the other boys, “I suppose you think that I sent for you to talk about our new pitcher. I did not. He is not here.”
“Not here!” Doug’s face dropped. “Gone for—”
“No, not for good,” the Colonel broke in. “Just for a day or two. He’ll be back for Saturday’s game. I’m ready to guarantee that. And you boys are going to need him—for—” his voice dropped, “for more reasons than one.”
“You know Big Bill’s plans.” Doug’s face took on a hopeful look. “You’ll help us.”
“Yes.” The Colonel spoke slowly. “Only moral and mental support, however. Cash is all tied up.
“But you’ll lick Big Bill, I’m sure of it!” the Colonel’s tone carried conviction. “Goggles here has an idea. Sit down.” He motioned them to chairs. “Goggles, tell them about it.”
“Well I—you know—” Goggles pulled at his sleeve nervously. “It’s sort of like this. Maybe it won’t help a bit. But this is it. Dave Saunders over at the electric shop has been experimenting with a thing. I’ve been helping him. Thing’s got eyes, better’n human eyes because they’re quicker.”
“Electric eyes,” Johnny put in.
“Sure! How’d you know?” Goggles’ eyes bulged behind his thick lenses.
“Know a lot about them,” Johnny chuckled. “Sometime I’ll tell you about how a fellow talked to me down a beam of light. Electric eyes helped him to do that, and a lot of exciting things happened. But go on. What you using electric eyes for?”
“Umpire,” Goggles said with a broad grin. “Baseball umpire. Got forty eyes. Some see up and down and some sideways. We’ve tried it out. Works swell. Calls balls and strikes perfectly. Never a miss.
“Thing is—” Goggles hurried on. “A week from Wednesday we play Fairfield. That team’s always beefing about the umpire. Holler their heads off. So I thought—” he took a long breath, “thought you might like to try our old electric umpire. He’ll umpire fairly. Never a mistake.”
“That—” Doug sprang to his feet, “that would be swell! And man! Oh, man! We’ll draw a crowd! Think of it! Something absolutely new. Electric umpire! What do you think of it, Johnny?”
“Wha—think of what?” Johnny started. “Electric eye. Oh! Yes, it’s interesting.”
“No! More than that!” Doug exploded. “Electric umpire!”
Truth was, strange as it may seem, Johnny’s mind had gone off the track. It had suddenly been deflected by the thought-camera, the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen. “I dreamed it,” he had been telling himself. “Thing never happened. That Chinaman never recorded my thoughts. But if he did, if the thing’s in my closet when I get home, I’ll try it—like to try it now.” This was what he had been thinking when Doug Danby brought him back to his present surroundings.
“Swell idea!” he enthused, once the electric umpire had been explained to him. “Work all right, I’m sure of it.”
“And draw a crowd,” put in Doug.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Colonel Chamberlain agreed. “Paying crowds are what you need right now. You’ll get that extra five hundred dollars in plenty of time. All you need is advertising.”
“Leave that to me.” Johnny was on his feet, ready for a dash home. With the aid of the thought-camera, he would dish up plenty of fancy advertising.
“All right,” Doug agreed, “you look after that. I’ll get in touch with the Fairfield bunch. See if they’ll stand for this electric umpire.”
“They’ll stand for it right enough,” the Colonel said with a smile. “They get a percentage of the gate receipts. Just talk publicity to them and they’ll agree readily enough.
“Well—” his tone became brisk. “Council of war is over. I’ll have my pitcher on hand for Saturday’s major attraction. And you, Goggles, you’ll take care of Wednesday. Meeting’s adjourned.”
With a “Thank you, thank you a lot!” the three boys filed out of the office.
“Well,” Doug sighed, “we didn’t see him after all.”
“See who?” Johnny was once more lost in his contemplation of the immediate future.
“The pitcher, of course,” Doug grumbled. “Fellow’d think he was just an ordinary person.”
“Well, perhaps he is,” Johnny chuckled.
“And perhaps he is not,” Doug replied as they lost themselves in the gathering darkness.
“Yes,” Johnny whispered to himself as he thrust his hand deep into a dark corner of his closet. “It’s still there. The thought-camera is no dream. But will it record thoughts for me? That’s the question.”
He found himself all aquiver with excitement. He was like a very small boy with his very first camera.
“Like to try it on myself,” he thought. Then, recalling the little Chinaman’s test and the sadly muddled thoughts the camera had brought out, he, for the time at least, abandoned that plan.
“There’s grandfather,” he told himself. “He sits by the hour every evening, looking off into the night and thinking. Wonder what those thoughts are like. I’d really like to know. That—that’s where I’ll try it first.” He hurried downstairs.
Johnny was very fond of the stalwart old man he called grandfather. A pioneer of his small city, he had seen much of life. At times he talked of those days long gone by. For the most part he sat in his great chair on the broad porch and gazed away into the darkness toward the spot where, in the daytime, the blue began.
Slipping silently into a chair close to the old man, Johnny touched the release to the thought-camera. There followed a low buzzing sound. Johnny’s heart leaped. The camera was working. But was it recording thoughts, his grandfather’s thoughts? Only time would tell.
For several moments in the night, disturbed only by the cricket’s chirp and the distant bullfrog’s hoarse croak, the pair sat there motionless.
Then the old man stirred. “What’s that, Johnny?” he asked.
“What’s what?” Johnny’s voice trembled slightly.
“Sounds a little like a new sort of cricket,” the old man rumbled.
“Nothing I guess.” Johnny snapped off his thought-camera. The sound ceased. “Well, guess I’ll go up,” he said in as steady a tone as he could command. “Goodnight!”
“Goodnight, Johnny.”
The boy fairly ran up the stairs. He was obliged to drop into a chair in his room to calm himself. Then, after shaking his fingers to loosen their tenseness, he went about the business of the hour.
Having removed the small cartridge containing the long, thread-like film, he set it revolving in that other magic box that was supposed to develop and finish it. Two minutes of this and the thing was done. Or was it?
Drawing one long deep breath, Johnny placed the film in the microscope-like affair, then started the mechanism.
For ten seconds he stood there squinting into the brass tube, spellbound. Then he exclaimed, “Hot diggity dog!”
After that, for a full fifteen minutes his thoughts were focussed upon the thing before him. In that quarter hour he ran the film through three times.
“Nothing,” he murmured as at last he sank into a chair, “nothing could be half so marvelous!”
And indeed itwasmarvelous for there, stripped of all the backwardness and timidity that so often hamper the speech of old men, were recorded the golden thoughts of one grand old man as he dreamed of the glorious pioneer days that are gone forever.
“I’ll copy it,” Johnny told himself, “then I’ll have it printed in theSentinel.
“No,” he amended, “I’ll do better than that. I’ll record his thoughts night after night. They’ll never be the same. It will make a book. And such a book!”
At that he sat for a long time dreaming of the marvelous things he would do with that thought-camera.
“But it belongs to Tao Sing,” he reminded himself. “Only he knows the secret of it. How long am I to have it? As long as I fulfill Tao Sing’s wishes I suppose.”
At that, with a shudder he could not entirely explain, he recalled his promise to Tao Sing. He was to carry the camera to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. He was to point it at his friend, the rich Chinese merchant Wung Lu, and record his thoughts for Tao Sing.
“I wonder why?” Disturbing thought!
“Think-o-graphs,” he whispered to himself before he fell asleep that night. “Good name for them, all right. A picture of your face is a photograph, so, naturally a picture of your thoughts is a think-o-graph. There now!” he chuckled to himself, “I’ve coined a brand new word. And if this thought-camera comes to be a common possession as ordinary cameras are, it will be a very popular word. If it does—” he repeated slowly.
He tried to think what the world would be like if anyone who wished it might have a thought-camera and photograph other people’s thoughts. There would not remain in the world one secret that could be kept, that was certain. All the secrets between nations would be at an end. Spies would lose their jobs. No criminal could escape revealing his innermost thoughts. The whole thing made him slightly dizzy, so he gave over thinking about it, and fell asleep.
The days that followed were strange ones for Johnny. At the very beginning, in his enthusiasm for a new and quite wonderful thing, he nearly gave the secret of the thought-camera away.
“Penny for your thoughts!” he said as he met Meggy Strawn on the street the very next day.
“Not for a dollar!” Meg exclaimed.
“All the same, I shall have them!” declared Johnny.
“You never shall!” Meg laughed in his face.
“I have them right now,” Johnny said in a mysterious tone. “I’ll bring them round later.”
He did too. The result was rather surprising. As Meg read her own thoughts, copied by Johnny from the thought picture he had taken, she gave him a startled look. “Why you—” she broke off to stare at him for all the world as if she had never seen him before. For a full moment after that neither of them spoke. When Meg at last broke the silence, it was in a queer small voice.
“Johnny, don’t ever do that again! I don’t know how you did it—you don’t need to tell. But never, never, never do it again!”
“I won’t,” Johnny said soberly. “Here! Shake on it!” Their hands clasped for a space of seconds. Then, without another word, each turned and went his own way.
“Not so good,” was Johnny’s mental comment. “Swell way to lose a good friend.”
His experiment in recording his own thoughts worked out in a more satisfactory manner. Having built up in his own mind a tale of mystery about the new pitcher and, having visited the electric shop and watched Goggles’ mechanical umpire with forty eyes perform, he hurried home, set up the camera, then fixing his thoughts on the publicity he wished to create for the two ball games, he sat quite still, staring at the wall for a full ten minutes.
“There!” he breathed at last. “The cake is done.”
With ever increasing enthusiasm he developed and copied his own personal think-o-graph.
“Gee! This is great!” He paused at last to gloat over the nearly finished product. “Am I the thinker! If only I could write as well as I think I’d become a great author right away.”
He carried his stories of the two approaching ball games to the slow-going, genial editor of the weekly paper.
“Let’s see it.” The editor put on his glasses. “Same old stuff I suppose. Have to do it all over before I run it.”
“Maybe it is.” Johnny gave himself a mental hug.
A moment later he saw the editor pouring eagerly over his copy. “Whew!” the editor exclaimed under his breath. Then, “Great Jehosophat, Johnny! Didn’t know you had it in you! Been seein’ you around your grand-pap’s for a good many years. What paper you been workin’ on?”
“No paper.” Johnny grinned broadly.
“Well, I’m surprised, Johnny. This is fine copy. Run it just as it is. Get you some fine crowds. I’ll say it will!
“Want you to know, Johnny,” he went on, “Want all the boys to know this paper’s for ’em. We want you to have that ball field, have it always.”
“Than—thanks, C.K.,” Johnny stammered. “That’s sure kind of you.”
“And look here, son!” The editor put a hand on his shoulder. “This stuff shows real talent. Keep on writing like this and you’ll get somewhere.”
“I—” Johnny had it on the end of his tongue to say, “I didn’t write it.” Fake glory was one thing Johnny had never craved. But then, if he did not write it, who did? That would require much explaining. He decided to leave well enough alone. “I—I thank you,” he muttered uncertainly. Then he was gone.
That evening he went to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and sat near to the rich and silent wise one, Wung Lu, for a long time. He liked this quiet place, full of treasures from the past. He loved to sit looking at that green-eyed dragon more than two thousand years old. He wondered what those green eyes could have seen when the world was very young. He wondered many things. But he did not forget to point his thought-camera at the silent, wise Wung Lu and to record his thoughts. He wondered what those thoughts were. This was not given to him to know. Wung Lu thought in Chinese. Only Tao Sing would read these. This made Johnny uneasy. He was almost ready to return the thought-camera to its owner—almost but not quite.
There were many things that might be done with that thought-camera. There were mysteries to be solved. Perhaps some day he would point it at that strange pitcher over at the laboratories. He wanted terribly to know his secret. And yet—one does not spy upon his friends. This young man promised to become a friend of Hillcrest and that meant he must be Johnny’s friend as well.
“Anyway,” he told himself, “I’ll keep it for another day or two.”
He carried the small round box containing the rich Wung Lu’s think-o-graph to the little room at the back of the Chinese spice store. There, in the semi-darkness, Tao Sing’s claw-like hand grasped it with such a nervous tenseness that Johnny was actually startled.
“Very good! Very good!” the little Chinaman cackled. “You will go again and again. Wung Lu is very wise. Soon we shall all be wise. Here are more—many more.” He pressed a bag of small metal boxes into Johnny’s hand.
As Johnny left the place to step into the cool air of night, he felt himself all but over-powered by a strange sense of Oriental intrigue and mystery. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be doing any of this,” he told himself. In the end, however, he succeeded in overcoming his misgivings.
The day for their second battle with the Centralia baseball team approached.
“We’ll win!” Johnny said to Meggy Strawn.
“We’ve got to,” was Meggy’s reply.
Johnny wondered if the thought-camera would help any. “Not a chance,” was his final decision. “But I’ll take it along anyway, just for company.”
Three times that week he sat in the great room with Wung Lu and the ancient dragon. Each time his uneasiness grew. Each time that he delivered the think-o-graphs, as he had come to call them, to the wrinkled Tao Sing, the little man’s enthusiasm increased.
“Wung Lu’s thoughts must be very wonderful,” was the boy’s mental comment. “And yet—” one more shudder. “Could it be that Tao Sing was learning things he had no right to know? And was he, Johnny, assisting him?” The thought gave him a start. “Secrets,” he whispered, “sometimes I think they’re no good.”
“I can’t get over the way that pitcher came to us,” Goggles Short murmured low to Johnny Thompson. They were seated in the bleachers. The Saturday game was about to begin. The new pitcher from the laboratories, cap drawn low, eyes gleaming, was putting over a few to the catcher.
“Itisstrange,” Johnny said. “Prince of India!” he exclaimed. “I gave him that name and I’m proud of it.” In his publicity produced by the thought-camera Johnny had played up the name “Prince of India.” He liked the sound of it. “He looks the part too! Look at that slim nose of his,” he went on, “those thin lips, that high forehead. You’d take him for a Frenchman, or perhaps an Englishman, if it weren’t for that dark skin of his. If he’s not a Prince of India, he should be. Watch him pitch!” The slender man on the mound, moving with the smooth agility of a cat, seemed to fairly slide the ball over the plate.
“Listen to the crowd!” Goggles cried. “And is it a crowd! That publicity stuff of yours was great! We’ll get nearly half the money we need for that first payment today. And Wednesday! It’s in the bag.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Johnny warned.
“Listen to that crowd!” Goggles exclaimed once more.
Led by Meggy Strawn, a streak of gold and blue that danced across the grass, the crowd was chanting:
A Prince! A Prince! A Prince!No quince! No quince! No quince!A Peach! A Peach! A Peach!We win! Yea! Yea!
A Prince! A Prince! A Prince!
No quince! No quince! No quince!
A Peach! A Peach! A Peach!
We win! Yea! Yea!
As for the “Prince,” he seemed totally unconscious of his surroundings as he slid one more stinger over the plate.
“Itisstrange,” Johnny said to Goggles, “strange about that pitcher, I mean. Colonel Chamberlain has had him working in his laboratories for more than three months. The pay-roll proves that. But who knew it? The pay-master and Colonel Chamberlain, that’s all. Queer, isn’t it? And now, when everything seems lost for old Hillcrest, he walks right into the picture. He takes the ball, and whang! How it pops into that old mit! Not a man will get to first. See! There goes one of ’em. Three strikes and out. Great, I’d say! Suppose he can keep it up?”
He did not wait for an answer. Instead, he allowed his eyes to seek a spot in the sky. Something up there interested him.
“Nope!” he murmured. “It’s not coming down.”
“What’s not coming down?” Goggles asked quickly.
“That airplane. It’s been circling way up high there for a long time.”
“I should hope it wouldn’t come down,” Goggles laughed good-naturedly. “What d’ye think? Think they’d come right on down and land square in the middle of the ball field?” He laughed again.
Johnny did not reply. Truth was, he did not know what he had expected. It was strange about that airplane. He had been watching it off and on for twenty minutes. All that time it had been circling above the ball field. At first it had seemed little more than a speck against the dull gray of a leaden sky. Moment by moment it had circled lower.
“Saw an eagle do that once,” he had told himself as a little thrill ran up his spine. “Old eagle soared and soared and soared until he was maybe a hundred feet from the ground. Then he folded his wings and dropped. And such a drop! Straight down! When he came up he held a half-grown rabbit in his talons. He’d had his eye on that rabbit all the time.”
Strangely enough, as he watched the airplane circle above the ball field where two fine teams were contending for high honors, fantastic as it might seem, he had gained the impression that this plane, circling as the eagle had circled, would in the end make one straight drop to the ball field.
“What nonsense!” he whispered to himself. “Why should they do that? Crack up! Everyone in the plane would be killed. Eagle’s a different sort of bird. He could recover balance and rise again. That plane—”
All the same, the impression remained a haunting suggestion until, with the end of the first half, a shut-out for the opposing team, the Centralia boys went trotting off the field. Only then did the airplane go skimming away into the hazy distance.
“It is as if the eagle had been watching the rabbit only to see the rabbit scurry into his hole,” he told himself.
“But the rabbit will come out again? Another inning?” a voice seemed to whisper in his ear.
With that, for a time at least, he forgot the strange airplane and gave his attention to the ball game.
“Hello Meggy,” he said a moment later as she slid into the place beside him. “We’re going to win, Meg!” he cried.
Meg’s voice was low. “Yes, we must, Johnny!”
Suddenly Meggy pinched Johnny’s arm. “Look! He—he’s up to bat! Isn’t he mysterious! The—the ‘Prince of India’—that’s what they call him.”
Once again Johnny’s eye was on the ball. The opposing pitcher shot it through to the Prince, but it went high and wide. The dark-faced one never moved a muscle.
“Believe he can bat,” was Johnny’s mental comment. His practiced eye swept over the diamond. Arthur Lowe was on first, Fred Frame on second. There were two men out. No score on either side.
“Now,” he whispered hoarsely, “just one good swat! That’s all we need! Get a grand lead! We—”
He did not finish. Came the crack of a bat and the ball went soaring high and far.
“Yea! Yea! Yea!” The crowd sprang to its feet and howled madly. “Yea! Yea! Yea! Prince! Prince! Prince!”
When the crowd settled back to its seats the new pitcher was on third base. Two men had come romping home.
“Two to nothing!” Meg exulted. “Watch us climb!”
Little Artie Snow was up next. He swung wildly and fanned. The inning was over.
“Well!” Johnny stretched himself. “Looks as if we’d lick ’em all right.”
All Meggy said was, “Isn’t he mysterious?” She was thinking of the “Prince.”
Then, as her mood changed, Meggy seized her megaphone and, grasping Johnny by the arm, screamed, “Come on! Cart wheels!”
Johnny had done cart wheels with Meggy on many another occasion, but always in private. But now! Oh well, Meg was Meg. Her word was law. Cart wheels it was, an even dozen, then a rousing cheer led by Meg:
Yea! Hillcrest! Yea! Hillcrest!Beat ’em! Beat ’em! Beat ’em!
Yea! Hillcrest! Yea! Hillcrest!
Beat ’em! Beat ’em! Beat ’em!
Scarcely had Johnny got his breath than he discovered that the “Prince” was once more on the mound, the second inning about to begin. Quite automatically his eyes swept the sky. They came to a focus.
“The airplane!” he whispered excitedly. “Like the eagle, it is circling back.”
It was strange the excitement this stirred up within his being. Why was it? It seemed absurd, yet in his soul there was a feeling that the dark pitcher must hurry, that the men who came up to bat must go down as they had before, one, two, three, or else the eagle would drop. “What nonsense!” he muttered once more.
For all that, the airplane did circle lower and lower. There was too in the mysterious pitcher’s action a suggestion of tense nervousness that was hard to explain.
A bat cracked. A ball popped into the air. The pitcher had it. One man down.
A second man came up. Ball! Strike! Ball! Crack! Up went the ball again. Down it came, right into that pitching wizard’s mit. Two out.
The plane circled lower. In the damp, cloudy air it seemed nearer than it really was.
Third man to bat. Strike! Strike! Strike! You’re out!
“Just like that!” Johnny exulted. He did not so much as glance at the plane. He knew that once again it had gone skimming away.
“It’s strange,” he murmured.
“What’s strange?” Meggy asked.
“Oh—everything,” he evaded, “everything’s strange today.” How could he tell Meggy of this fantastic daydream?
Again the opposing team took their places in the field. Once more Hillcrest came to bat. And how they did bat! Inspired by rosy dreams of victory, they sent the ball spinning, right, left and center. By the time Centralia had them stopped, the score stood 5 to 0 in favor of Hillcrest, and the crowd had gone mad.
“We’ll win!” Meggy screamed.
“We’ll win!” Goggles roared.
As for Johnny, he merely murmured, “Wait!”
The wait was destined to be longer than he dreamed it might be. Four wild balls put the lead-off man of Centralia on first with no one out.
It was then that Johnny once more began noticing that haunting airplane. It had returned. Once again it was circling downward.
The mysterious pitcher was slipping, there could be no doubting this. A hard-hit liner put the second batter on base.
Then the pitcher seemed to tighten up. He fanned the third man.
“But that plane!” Johnny was truly startled now. The plane did actually seem to be in a nose-dive. Down, down, down it came, straight at that lone figure, the pitcher, on the mound.
“They—they—” In his excitement Johnny stood up. He crushed his cap within his tight clenched hands. “No! No! Thank—” He did not finish. With a burst of speed, a thunder of motors, the airplane righted itself, then shot upward. But what was that? Did Johnny’s eyes deceive him? Did he catch a gleam of fire—or was it only a brilliant flash of light? Half unconsciously he waited the report of a shot fired. It did not come.
“It’s the strangest thing!” he murmured as he settled back in his place. Already the airplane was a long way off.
So filled was the boy’s mind with wild speculations that he failed to follow the game. Perhaps this was just as well. Dame Fortune appeared to have deserted the mysterious pitcher. He walked another man. The bases were full.
“But look at him,” Meggy whispered in Johnny’s ear. “Look at him wind up! You’d think he was doing it in his sleep!”
Indeed, as Johnny focussed his attention upon this mysterious stranger, he appeared to waver, as if he might fall.
“Something awfully queer about that,” Johnny murmured.
With what appeared to be tremendous effort the pitcher hurled the ball. It would have cut the plate squarely in the middle had not a stout bat met it to send it high and far.
When the commotion was over, the score stood 5 to 6 in favor of Centralia. There were men on second and third. What was more, the “Prince” was walking unsteadily toward the bench.
“Listen!” Meggy exclaimed. “They’re calling for Fred Frame.”
“Something queer about that!” Johnny repeated as he turned to watch the “Prince” walk away toward the showers. “The eagle swooped downward, and now—” he did not finish.
“He walks as if he were half blind. Poor ‘Prince!’” Meg sympathized. “What could have happened?”
Johnny would have given much to know the answer. For some time to come it was to remain a veiled secret.
“The mystery ship,” Johnny thought as he watched that airplane glide away toward the clouds. Then he murmured low, “Mystery wings.”
“‘Mystery wings!’ What makes you say that?” Meg whispered.
“Because that’s the way I think of a plane,” he replied soberly. “You can’t say the planes of an airplane. Don’t sound right. Why not wings of a plane? And, for my part, every plane that passes over my head has wings of mystery.”
“You’re queer,” was Meg’s only reply.
Among the Hillcrest fans feeling was running high. That something strange and rather terrible had happened to their new and quite marvelous pitcher, they appeared to realize. “But what did happen?” they were asking. “Who’s to blame? Who were the men in that plane?” Two men had been seen. They were not close enough to be recognized. Had the Centralia crowd hired them to heckle the new pitcher? This they found it difficult to believe. The friendliest of relations had always existed between the two small cities, even though there was a keen rivalry. “But who? Who? Who?” they were asking on every side. The mystery of the dark-skinned pitcher from the laboratories deepened.
As for Doug Danby, on whose shoulders rested Hillcrest’s hopes of victory, he found no time for solving mysteries.
“Fred, old boy,” he said to Fred Frame, “you’ll have to go in there and win the game. And you can!” He gave him a slap on the back. “If—”
“If my arm holds out,” Fred finished.
Tall, angular, red-headed, silent and droll, Fred was a universal favorite. He had been a successful pitcher until his arm had taken to going wrong. “I’ll go in,” he said simply, “and do my best.”
A loud cheer greeted him as he walked toward the mound. Despite all this, he felt a chill run up his spine. The score stood 6 to 5 against him. This wonderful crowd had turned out to see their team win. They had banked heavily on the mysterious “Prince.” In this they had lost. Would they lose the game as well?
“Not ifIcan help it!” Fred set his teeth hard.
“What if that plane returns?” He shuddered. “What if they do to me the thing they did to the ‘Prince,’ whatever that was! Oh well!” He set his shoulders squarely.
But now the shouts of the throng brought him back to earth. Motioning the batter to one side, he prepared to “throw a few over.”