CHAPTER XVIA TENSE MOMENT

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 justcan’tfail.”

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.

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.”

“Youdon’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.

“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 tothinkthe 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.

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. Someonedoesknow 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.”

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?”

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