His thoughts broke short off. What was Meggy up to now? She had walked away from her regular place, had crossed the field and was standing leaning against the white post just before the bench used by the rival team—the one she had said the Fairfield sub leaned on.
“You’d think she’s gone over to the enemy,” Doug whispered to Johnny. She hadn’t, though. He knew Meggy better than that. But whatwasshe there for? Surely that was a puzzler.
Shortly after the “Prince” took up his batting position for old Hillcrest, the sub from the Fairfield bench moved forward to touch Meggy on the shoulder.
“Sorry, Miss, you’ll have to move. It’s this way. The boys back on the bench can’t see through you.” His tone was apologetic.
“Oh! Is that so?” Meggy’s pug nose turned fully half an inch higher. “Well then! Suppose they try sliding along on the bench.” She held her position.
The sub returned to his bench discomfited.
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 youmustleave!” 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!”
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.
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.
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 justhappento 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, “Whatwillhe do?” Had he known the answer, he would have experienced an even greater feeling of surprise.
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.”