“Think-o-graphs,” Johnny grinned, “of Wung Lu? Well, if—if it seems to be my duty.” Johnny shuddered slightly. “But not at night.”
“Any time you say.” The Chief’s face was sober. “It’s very important. I don’t mind telling you that you may have prevented a tragedy.”
“A—a tragedy. Yes,” Johnny replied quietly, “I had sort of guessed that. You wouldn’t mind telling me just a little, would you?” he asked timidly.
“Well now,” the Chief smiled, “if I don’t you will be turnin’ that mind readin’ machine on me an’ then there’s no tellin’ what you’d be findin’ out.
“I’ll tell you this much.” His voice dropped to a mere whisper. “You’ve heard of these Chinese secret societies called tongs? Well, it has to do with that. Your old friend Wung Lu belongs to a tong. He’s done somethin’ that’s displeasin’ to another tong. Probably nothin’ illegal, just short tradin’ or somethin’. So they’ve decided to get him out of their way.”
“Sho—shoot him?” Johnny stared. This had never occurred to him as a possibility.
“Somethin’ like that. Queer part is,” the Chief rumbled, “Wung Lu knows all about it but he won’t tell. They’re like a lot of boys, these Orientals. Just go about settlin’ their own affairs. But this is too serious to let them settle. We know the men we want and we’ve got to go get ’em. One of ’em’s this wrinkle-faced little fellow Tao Sing. He an’ his pals are in the United States illegally. We’ll just send ’em back where they came from—if we can catch ’em. And that,” the Chief ended, “is about all I can tell you just now.”
“All,” Johnny whispered to himself as he lay in his bed that night. “It’s enough to make a fellow’s head whirl.”
“For once old Irons O is fit as a fiddle.” Goggles heaved a sigh of relief. Hours had passed. They had gone sweeping high above the prairies, had tilted the nose of their plane upward and had gone roaring over the Rockies. Now here they were in the little cattle-country city of Broken Bow, ready for the second game of their unusual tour.
The city was not marvelous but the crowd, the boy thought with a thrill and a shudder, was immense and rather terrifying. Banked in rows to the right of the narrow bleachers were hundreds of cowboys. They had not dismounted, but were seated easily in saddle, awaiting the opening of the game.
“Nothing’s wrong this time!” Hop Horner agreed. “But just to make sure, we’ll put a few over the plate.” He called to the catcher. Goggles set the levers, placed a ball between the steel fingers, then pushed a button.
“Never behaved better!” was Hop’s pronouncement after five minutes of practice that set the crowd to staring.
“Better give him a little gas before we start,” Goggles suggested.
“Right!” Hop took up a gallon can and poured half its contents into the small tank concealed in the iron pitcher’s back.
“Whew! What’s that queer smell!” Goggles exclaimed as Hop set the can on the ground.
“Something drifting in on the wind,” Hop said quietly. “Sort of smells like a hospital.”
“Bad sign!” Goggles laughed. He was more right than he thought.
Ten minutes later the teams were all ready to go. Goggles set the levers and threw the switch. From somewhere within the iron pitcher’s strange being came an unaccustomed sound. “Don’t breathe right.” The boy was a trifle startled. “And look, he’s really spouting fire from his iron nostrils. Some—something’s gone wrong again! And we thought nothing could!” He was ready to give up in despair.
Hop threw off the controls, unbolted the back plate and started a careful inspection. He took plenty of time, testing out every wire.
“I tell you there’s nothing wrong,” he muttered.
All this had kept the crowd waiting and it was growing impatient. There were shouts of “Play ball! Play ball!” from every corner.
“What’s to be done?” Goggles groaned. “The crowd will be on the field in a minute. But we can’t let old Irons O burn up.”
“Look! They’re coming! At least one is.” Hop pointed to a huge cowboy riding toward them.
“Well!” Goggles sighed, “We—”
“Look Buddy!” The big cowboy’s tone was deep and mellow. “Do you all plan to play a ball game with that iron thing this afternoon?”
“We—we mean to.”
“And this ain’t no trick to git our money?” The big man looked him squarely in the eyes.
“It is not!” Goggles returned his look. “If the game doesn’t start in twenty minutes, you’ll all get your money back.”
“Fair enough!” The big man wheeled about and rode away.
“Hop!” Goggles said suddenly, “Do you suppose it’s the gas?” Seizing the gallon can, he removed the cap and, holding it up, took one big sniff of its contents. Next instant both boy and can went tumbling to the earth.
Goggles was down for only the count of ten. He came up sputtering. “Ether! Ether and moth-balls! Someone has loaded up our can. Drain the tank. Throw that can away. Get some real gas, then we’re off.” And they were!
“Ether and moth-balls!” Sheeley the air pilot chuckled to Goggles a half hour later. “That’s a rare combination. Load a flivver up with that stuff and it’ll think it’s a Rolls Royce or an airplane right off.”
“Wonder who could have done that?” Goggles said thoughtfully.
As for the game, from that time on it was a huge success. Never had the boys and their iron pitcher received such a hand. Nor did Irons O lose any of his popularity when, for some unknown reason, he got a trifle wild, gave two bases on balls, let in a runner with a wild pitch, and finally lost the game 9 to 7.
“You’re real sports!” the big cowboy complimented Doug and Goggles later that evening. “You came all this way in a big airplane to play our boys a ball game, then you give ’em a break and let ’em win.”
“We didn’tletthem win,” Goggles said quite frankly. “They just took it.
“Of course,” he added with a smile, “even an iron pitcher has his off days. Old soup-bone gets tired don’t you know.”
“You’re all right!” The big fellow grinned broadly. “Wish you all sorts of good luck!”
“Luck!” Goggles said to Hop. “That’s what I’m going to need, for sure as my name’s Goggles I’m going to ride to the next stop inside one of those wings of mystery, right along with our old iron pal.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Hop stared.
“Why not? Plenty of room. Safe there as anywhere.”
That was all there was said about it, but when they took off a few hours later, Goggles did not occupy his accustomed seat in the airplane cabin.
Pilot Sheeley had offered no objection to the boy’s plan of riding inside the airplane’s wing. “You won’t find it very exciting. It’ll be a bit bumpy. You won’t be able to see a thing, and we’ll be passing over some gorgeous country.”
“May see enough!” the boy replied. “Someone has been tampering with our iron man—done it three times. I’m going to find out how and why.”
He recalled his own words as, lying flat along the inside of the plane, he felt the throb of motors and knew they were on their way. “I wonder if I shall!” he whispered.
At the back of him were the parts of the steel-fingered pitcher. Before him, and on the other side of the trapdoor through which he had crawled, was a large roll of canvas. “Probably used for covering the motors in severe weather when there is no hangar near,” he thought.
What did he expect as he lay there feeling the lift and drop of the plane as she swung along through the air? He hardly knew. He suspected that somehow, someone had a means of getting into the plane after the ship was on the ground.
Whatever he expected, he had not long to wait, for all of a sudden as he stared at that roll of canvas, a head appeared above it. A small figure dragged itself over the canvas into the space before it. The boy barely escaped uttering an audible gasp. It was the little dark man.
That night as he slept in his second-story bedroom of his grandfather’s house, Johnny was troubled by strange dreams. He seemed to be riding on a limitless sea in a cockle-shell of a boat. The wind began to whisper across the small waves. It blew a whiff of air into his face. Then, with astonishing speed, it rose into a gale, driving damp spray against his cheek, and set his frail bark rocking perilously. The little craft climbed a wave, another, and yet another. It rose, then seeming to rear on high, came splashing down to dive, prow foremost, into the foam.
It was just as Johnny caught his breath, prepared to withstand this chilling plunge, that he awoke.
For a full moment, quite bewildered, he stared about him. At last, shaking himself, he murmured, “There was no storm. It was a dream. I am in my grandfather’s house.”
Then with a sudden start, he sat up wide awake and staring. It was true there was no storm and no sea. For all that, the wind was blowing strongly into his window. “It’s wide open!” His bare feet hit the floor. “And I left it open only a crack!”
Leaping to the window, he looked down. “Ah! I thought so!” A tall ladder leaned against the house. It reached his window. Whirling about, he looked where his trunk had been.
“Gone!” he muttered. “My trunk’s gone!”
He had not thought of that as a possibility. Now he realized how absurdly easy it had been. His trunk was small—an old army locker. The window was large. “What could be easier?” he whispered.
Slipping on his trousers, he crept down the stairs and out on the dew-drenched grass.
In a shadowy spot at the back of the house he found the trunk. The frail lock had been pried up. The thought-camera and his entire collection of think-o-graphs were gone. “As if they had never been,” he murmured.
Shouldering his trunk, he climbed the ladder and slid it back into his room. After that he carried the ladder to its place on some hooks against the wood-shed.
“Fellow’s foolish to keep a ladder outside his house,” he grumbled. “Invites thieves.”
For all that, as he tiptoed back up the stairs, he experienced a surprising sense of relief. The thought-camera, he supposed, was gone for good, and with it a great deal of his responsibility in the matter.
In the wing of the airplane, sailing high above the western prairies, Goggles was in a tight place. He had never been in a tighter one and never expected to be in the future, if indeed there was to be a future.
Just what had he expected when he crawled into that narrow place? Certainly not this. Perhaps he had hoped that someone would unlock the trap door after they landed. Then he would catch him. But now, as he thought all this, and his head went into a whirl, the little dark man looked up and saw him. For one full minute he did not speak or move; only his beady eyes bored into the boy’s very soul.
“So you’re here!” he said at last. “Don’t you think I did a good enough job messing things up? Well then, you and the Big Shot are agreed. But what’s he want?”
“I don’t know.” Goggles spoke slowly. He was thinking hard. He was, as we have said, in a tight enough place surely. Securely sealed up in a duramen tube a half mile in air with no means of communicating with his friends and with this enemy staring him in the face, his situation was anything but pleasant.
“Why do you want to spoil things for us?” he asked in as quiet a tone as he could command.
“I—why, now I don’t.” The little man laughed mirthlessly. “I’m paid to do it. I do what I’m paid to do.”
All this time the boy was thinking, “I’ve got to get the better of him. I must do it. But how?”
He moved a little. Something poked into his side. What was that? Oh yes, he remembered. A bottle! A sudden desperate plan came to him.
“Well,” he spoke slowly, “as long as we’re here, we may as well talk about something. Let’s make it liquid air.”
“Air ain’t no liquid,” the little man protested.
“Sometimes it is.” Goggles’ courage was growing. “You can make it liquid by putting it under very high pressure and getting it down to 216 degrees below zero. When it gets into liquid form you may keep it in a bottle for three or four days.” At this point he pulled the flat bottle from his pocket. It was half filled with a pale liquid. The little man stared at the bottle. “Liquid air is strange stuff,” Goggles went on. “It’s cold, colder than the North Pole. Put a fresh rose in it for a second, take it out and you can pinch it into a powder. Put a steel clock spring in it, take it out and it will snap like glass. Stick your finger in a bottle of it and I’ll break it off like an icicle.” He thrust the bottle out before him. The little man seemed to shrink back.
The boy’s tone did not change. He might have been a professor lecturing to a class. “Yes, liquid air is strange. I could pour it over my hand, or even put it in my mouth and, providing I got rid of it at once, it would not harm me. One minute of holding a spoonful in my mouth would mean death.
“If I were to pour even a small amount down your neck—” (he drew himself forward ever so little), “which I could—I’m strong. Much stronger than you think. I have strong fingers and arms. If I poured a quarter of a bottle down your back you would die. No one would guess what killed you. The liquid air would turn to gas and there you’d be. You—”
A strange look of terror came into the little man’s eyes as he cried in a shrill high-pitched voice, “You let me be! Don’t touch me! I’ll leave at the next stop, and you’ll never see me again. So help me, you won’t!”
Goggles settled back in his place. As he did so, his right hand was closed about the bottle, carefully concealing a printed label.
After that the big bi-motored plane with its flying baseball team in its cabin and that curious cargo in its wings sped across the land. Not once did Goggles relinquish his hold on that magic bottle. From time to time the little dark man spoke. His words were always in the nature of a confession. He had been hired by Big Bill Tyson to break up this trip. He had not been told why—he had only been paid to do it. He knew about locks. Locks had always been easy for him. He had a key to the lock on the door to this place. How? Well, that did not matter. He hadn’t succeeded in breaking up the cruise. Now he was going to quit.
“Yes,” he said, rolling his eyes horribly as he took one more look at the magic bottle, “yes, I’m going to quit! Just let me out of this place and you’ll never see me again.”
“If he only knew!” Goggles thought with an inward shudder. “If he knew, I wonder what would happen?”
Ah, well, he had this little dark fellow within his power, that was enough. So the plane sped on.
Never in all his life had the boy experienced such a sense of relief as, after the plane had bumped on some landing field, then gone gliding along to a stop, he saw the little dark man slip like a snake through the small door and disappear.
He grinned a broad grin as he dropped the flat bottle back into his pocket. “Lucky break!” he murmured. “Wonder if Sheeley missed it?”
“Old Irons O will do his full duty at this place,” he assured Doug as he came out to meet him.
“Are you sure of that?” Doug was still in doubt.
“Sure as anything. But just to make it a cinch, ask one of the boys to watch this plane while I go for a cup of coffee. I’m starved.”
The guard was arranged for at once. As the two boys hurried away, Goggles pulled a bottle out of his pocket. “Just read the label on that, will you?” he said. “I packed my glasses in my bag by mistake.”
“Sure!” Doug took the bottle. “It says, ‘Dr. Jordan’s Face Lotion. Good for sun-burned and chapped skin.’”
“It’s good for more than that—sometimes,” Goggles chuckled.
“What do you mean by that?” Doug demanded.
“Tell you sometime,” Goggles chuckled again. “Belongs to Sheeley, that bottle does. He left it in his room by mistake. I brought it along, and I—I’m glad I did.
“Do you know,” he said after a while, “it pays to know a little about a great many things. If you get sort of—well sort of shut off from the world with someone else, you’ve always got something to talk about. Take liquid air for instance. There’s a grand little topic for conversation.”
“Huh? Yes, I suppose so,” Doug grunted. He was already lost to the world in his contemplation of that day’s game.
He need have had no fear for that ball game. Never had Irons O performed so well as on this day. Not only did he pitch a big league type of game, allowing only seven hits and no runs, but he kept the crowd in an uproar of laughter with his bobbing head, his ludicrous grimaces, and his wild-cat screams at the umpire.
“A perfect day!” was Goggles’ enthusiastic comment when it was over. “And the little dark man kept his word. He was not about.”
He had not, however, seen the last of the little dark man—not quite. As, hopeful of receiving a letter from his mother, he hurried into the post-office, he ran squarely into him. “See here!” he exclaimed, “I thought—”
Ignoring his thoughts, the little dark man waved a telegram in his face. “From the Big Shot!” he exclaimed. “You know, him that’s paid me. He says for me to quit! He says that! Can you beat it?” At that, he darted from the door and was lost to the boy’s sight forever—or at least for a very, very long time.
“Big Bill’s called him off,” Goggles thought. “That’s sure good news. But I wonder why?” He was to wonder this many times in the days that were to come and then, in the end, was to know the answer.
Who can describe the joy of those days? Seeing the world from an airplane—Salt Lake City, Spokane with her magnificent falls, the green timbered Cascade Mountains, and then Seattle and the Pacific—all this came to them. To play ball with the finest sort of fellows from ranches, saw mills, canning factories, all entertained and amused by the perfectly behaved Irons O—all this was joy indeed. But to know that this joyous excursion was fast driving away clouds of doubt and fear, to know that the big payment on the home ball grounds was fast being collected—this indeed brought deep, satisfying and lasting joy to the weary boys.
One day, after a long drive with his grandfather, Johnny Thompson wandered down to the deserted baseball field to sit in the bleachers in the sun. Meggy spied him from afar, and came tripping down to take a place beside him.
“They’ll be back soon,” Meggy said.
“Yes,” Johnny agreed dreamily. “Their trip has been a success. The ball ground is safe. What’s better still, old Professor George told me this morning that Big Bill Tyson had turned over a new leaf. He’s going to give us a deed for the land as soon as the four thousand dollars is paid.”
“Johnny! That’s wonderful!” Meggy cried. “But Johnny! What made him change?”
“Don’t know,” Johnny replied. “Guess each man in the world has just so much capacity for meanness, same as a barrel will hold only so much water. Bill must have reached his limit.”
“Johnny—” Meggy suddenly changed the subject. “Did they ever find that little Chinaman and the thought-camera?”
“Tao Sing?” Johnny said soberly. “No, not yet I guess. But then,” he added, “you couldn’t very well prove he took that camera and the think-o-graphs. What I figure is that someone heard us talking there in the heart of the pines that day, then came and got ’em that night.”
For a time after that, there was silence. It was Meggy who spoke at last:
“The boys will have to be back soon. The last big game is next Saturday—the final battle for the pennant. Johnny, do you think the ‘Prince’ will pitch?”
“Your thought is as good as mine,” Johnny smiled.
“Isn’t he mysterious!” Meggy thrilled as of old.
“You don’t know the half of it, Meg.” Johnny chuckled. “Know what?” he exploded in a sudden burst of confidence, “That fellow isn’t brown! He never came from India. He’s as white as you or I!”
“Whi—white? How could he be?”
“His face and arms are dyed. I saw him pull up his sock, back there in the laboratories. You just wait and see!”
“Mystery—sweet mystery,” Meggy whispered after a time.
A moment more, and she was off on another tack. “Johnny, do you think those two terrible men will come back to bother the—the ‘Prince’ if he does pitch?”
“If they do—” Johnny stood up. “If they dare, we—we’ll give them plenty! We—”
“Listen!” Meggy sprang to her feet. “An airplane! And see! Over there. A big silver ship! The boys are coming home!” She dragged at Johnny’s arm. They were away like a flash, ready to celebrate the heroes’ return.
“I have a feeling—sort of dread—” Doug Danby’s voice dropped. “I believe they’ll try that trick of theirs again today—those two fellows who go after the ‘Prince’—in a different plane. If they do, then—” he did not finish. His voice trailed off.
“And I too have a feeling—” there was a suggestion of hidden knowledge in Johnny Thompson’s voice. “I have a feeling that if those two ill-wishers, who’ve been trying to break up our game every time the ‘Prince’ is on the mound, try any tricks today, they’ll get fooled!”
He cocked his head on one side as he murmured, “Wind’s in the west, what wind there is. Not much of any. Cloudy and damp. Just right, I’d say.”
“Just right for what?” Doug was curious.
“Don’t ask me. Just wait.” Johnny lapsed into silence.
Doug waited, and as he waited he thought. They were long, long thoughts, I assure you. The opening hour for the last game of the season was approaching. Today the championship of the series was to be decided. The crowd exceeded that of any preceding game. Excitement ran high.
Meggy Strawn, garbed in her brightest and best, was already on the sidelines, ready to lead in the cheering. Little wonder that chills and thrills coursed through her. Was this not the greatest day old Hillcrest had ever known? Had not the four thousand dollars been paid in full? Was not the ball park their very own—theirs to have and to hold for many a year? Yea! Yea! And yet there was mystery in the air.
“Something will happen today.” One might hear this whisper in many a corner. “Something strange, perhaps something quite terrible will happen.”
“Would it?” Meg wondered.
In the meantime, on foot, by train, by auto, the crowd continued to pour in.
“All paid attendance.” Old Professor George rubbed his hands together. “You boys are doing wonders! Hurray for old Hillcrest!”
“Yes!” Doug was truly happy. “But we must win today, Professor. We truly must!”
But would they? Centralia, the opposing team, their ancient rival, was first up to bat. As the mysterious “Prince” strolled out upon the diamond a strange hush fell over the assembled throng.
There were those in that crowd who had said quite boldly that this mystery should not be allowed to continue, that the pitcher should reveal his true identity or stay out of the game. “Only evil people wish to hide their identity,” this was their argument.
So, with the “Prince” in the box, the game began. For three innings he pitched a faultless game. Only two men found their way to first base. They “died” there, Hillcrest scored twice. Hopes ran high. Even Johnny Thompson, sitting on the bench and expecting almost anything, began to smile.
And then, out of the west came a gray streak.
Just as he expected, as on that other day the airplane began to circle. Down it came, lower and lower.
The “Prince” did not glance up. “But he knows,” Johnny whispered. “He’s—he’s beginning to break from the strain.”
Surely this must be true. “Men on first and second; only one out!” Johnny groaned. “They—they’ll make it. Sure to. And then—”
But what was this? A fire? To the west, hardly three blocks away, a dense column of smoke appeared. Rising higher and higher in the all but quiet sky, it at last drifted slowly over the ball grounds. So dense was it that it cast a deep shadow over all.
“Hurray!” Johnny sprang to his feet. “Hurray! That beats ’em!”
This, considering the “Prince” had just walked a man, filling the bases, seemed sheer madness.
“They’ll think I’m out of my head,” was Johnny’s second thought as he sank back into his place.
That Johnny was right was soon enough demonstrated. Seeming to find fresh power flowing through his veins, the mysterious pitcher stiffened his pace. The two men who came up next got three pitches each. They fanned the air. The inning was over.
“We arranged to put up a smoke screen,” Johnny whispered to Meggy. “Set a lot of old tar paper on fire. That checkmated those fellows in the airplane. They couldn’t see through it, nor—nor do anything else!”
“But Johnny! Who’s in that plane?”
“You’ll know tonight, per—perhaps,” was Johnny’s reply.
Three times the airplane circled. Three times a pillar of smoke rose to meet it.
“That airplane is from River Forest,” Big Bill Tyson said to Colonel Chamberlain. “Hate to take you away from the game; but if we’re to be there when they land, we’d better be travelin’.”
Three minutes later a long gray car shot away to the east. In it rode Big Bill and Colonel Chamberlain. Big Bill was at last truly interested in the boys of his city.
Johnny saw them leave the field. He knew why they were going, and smiled.
The boy who received the greatest surprise, however, was Fred Frame, the one-time star pitcher. As the team came in for its turn at bat, Doug Danby sidled over to him at the end of the sixth inning and said in a low tone:
“You are to pitch next inning.”
“Why! What?” Fred’s brain whirled. Was he to finish this last game? Score 2 to 0 in Hillcrest’s favor! The championship at stake! He to pitch! He could not understand.
Nor was he to know more save that the “Prince,” a trifle more stooped than usual, but walking with a firm, proud tread, was leaving the grounds.
Slowly a buzz like the swarming of bees sounded through the crowd. Then all was still.
It was well that Fred did not come up to bat that inning. He surely would have fanned.
As at last he stood in the pitcher’s box, he found above him a cloudless, smokeless sky where no airplane soared and circled.
“Think I’m small fry!” he muttered. “Not worth bothering with! I’ll show ’em!”
The seventh and eighth innings passed without a score on either side.
In the ninth, two Centralia men fanned. The game seemed over. Then came a two-bagger, followed by a single that brought in a run. By taking wild chances, the runner on first base stole second, then third. So there it was, last inning, two men down and the tying run on third.
Wildly Fred’s eyes searched the crowd for the familiar figure of the “Prince.”
“He’s gone,” a voice seemed to whisper. “You may never see him again. Perhaps he is no real person at all—just a sort of imaginary being. It’s up to you, and you alone!”
Then the catcher gave him a signal. For such a time as this, it seemed a piece of madness, that signal. But Fred was desperate. He took the chance.
Winding up, he sent the ball spinning. It was a wild throw—a perfect wild throw, if wild throws you want. By one mad leap the catcher was able to knock it down. Even so, he did not stop it. It went on rolling. He was after it in a mad scramble.
Shooting down the course came the tying run.
But not so fast! Francisco the catcher had the ball. He was on the home plate. The runner turned to dash back. He all but fell into Fred’s arms. And Fred had the ball. Francisco had passed it back to him.
This mad play, so cleverly planned and executed, had won! The game was over. Hillcrest was champion!
The crowd went wild. Seizing Fred, they tossed him to their shoulders, shouting: “Hurray for Fred! Hurray for Fred!” He tried to shout, “The ‘Prince’!” but his cries were drowned by a roar.
It was an interesting group that gathered in Colonel Chamberlain’s office two hours later. There was Johnny and Goggles, Fred Frame and Meggy. Besides these there was Big Bill Tyson and close beside him, grim and sullen, sat the two strangers who had caused so much trouble. There was too a tall, slightly stooped young man. At first the boys stared at him in wondering silence. “Who is he? Who can he be?” they whispered.
“I see you do not recognize a friend,” Colonel Chamberlain smiled. “I am surprised.
“This—” he paused to smile once more. “This is your old friend J., the one you have called the ‘Prince.’ Today, for the first time, he is able to remove the dye that might have concealed his identity from some people.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” came as in one breath.
“And now,” the Colonel said, turning to J., “perhaps you will tell them your story. Only,” he warned, “be brief. There’s a big feast of real good things to eat in store for us after it is told. Tonight the business men of Hillcrest are giving a banquet to all the boys who have fought so bravely for the honor of their city.”
“Tell us! Tell us!” they all pleaded.
“I shall be glad to,” the “Prince” replied.
“You see,” he began, “I’ve always been fascinated with chemistry. My native home is in Europe. Three years ago I was allowed to enter another country as a student. At once I was successful with my chemistry. Men said I had made some remarkable discoveries.
“Well,” he sighed, “success brings enemies. There are those who wished to possess my secrets.
“The part of that strange country I was in,” he went on after a period of silence, “was disputed territory. In time it became known that it was to be controlled entirely by this nation that was not friendly to my native land. This meant that I must leave. Many men came to me demanding to know my scientific secrets, which—pardon my pride—were very valuable.
“I refused. They threatened to have me sent to prison. I defied them and finally, with my secret formula hidden away in my garments, I escaped to America.
“But they followed, still threatening me. I put on that disguise, which has deceived some. Unfortunately it did not deceive all. So tonight I am removing it. Tonight I have taken out my first papers as an American citizen. Soon I shall belong to your wonderful country.”
“Good! Good! Fine! Wonderful!” came from the throats of his hearers.
Only two were silent—the two strangers.
“And you!” The “Prince” made a dramatic gesture. “Why do you still persecute me?” He had turned upon the silent pair.
“I think,” said the Colonel when the men did not reply, “it is because of greed and a deplorable race hatred. You need not, however, fear them any longer. They have done enough to send them to prison.”
“This,” the “Prince” exclaimed, “I do not wish! Only that they shall pledge themselves never to disturb me again.”
“Very well,” said the Colonel, “you shall be the judge.”
He turned upon the strangers. “Do you promise?”
“Yes, yes sir. We do!” was the answer.
“Very well. You may go.”
“Any other questions?” The Colonel turned to his young guests.
“I—I’d like to know what happened that day when the—the ‘Prince’ was obliged to leave the pitcher’s box,” said Meggy, “that first day.”
“That—” Johnny sprang up, “let me try to explain that.”
He held out a long tube with a very bright inside, also a small battery and two small bottles of powder. “You put the two powders in the tube, then touch them off with the battery. This makes a blinding flash that may be directed like the shot of a gun at any single individual. That’s what they did to the ‘Prince’ from the airplane,” he explained rapidly.
“What I can’t understand,” he went on in a puzzled tone, “is why it should spoil your game.” He turned toward the “Prince.”
“I will explain,” said the “Prince.” “I once was in a terrible chemical explosion. My sight was saved only as a sort of miracle. Since then, a flash of light half blinds me for hours. These men, knowing this, invented that instrument of torture. So now,” he added, smiling, “you know.”
“But why did you leave the game today?” Meggy asked.
“Oh that!” The “Prince” smiled a rare smile. “That was a case ofnoblesse oblige. The team was yours. The game yours too. How could I, a stranger, truly win it when that plucky boy of yours had tried so nobly? It was a duty of honor.”
“That—” Johnny’s eyes were dimmed. “That’s what I call sporting!
“One more question!” Johnny was on his feet. “This may seem strange, but ‘Prince,’ were you ever in prison in America?”
“No.” The “Prince” smiled a strange smile. “I have not had the honor.”
“Just one of my bum guesses,” Johnny thought to himself. He was thinking of the story told to him by that air pilot.
“And now,” said the Colonel, springing to his feet, “I call you all to a banquet.”
The banquet was all that anyone could ask, but, as for Johnny Thompson, his mind was on other things. As he was hurrying to this meeting, Chief Gallagher had called to him: “Come in and see me as soon as you can. I’ve got something big to tell you.”
“It has to do with the little Chinaman Tao Sing and the thought-camera,” Johnny assured himself more than once. As soon as he could, he was away to the Chief’s office.
“You’re right the very first time, Johnny,” the Chief laughed when Johnny hazarded a guess. “We caught up with that little Chink this afternoon. He and two others were tryin’ to make a getaway in an airplane. Guess they didn’t savvy that plane. Anyway, that plane didn’t get far. Those Chinamen had parachutes. They landed safely. Our men picked them up. Plane came down in flames.
“Queer part—” he rumbled, “that little fellow wanted to jump right into the flaming wreck. Said he wanted to save something—only one in the world. Man that made it was dead—all that stuff.
“Of course,” he added thoughtfully, “my men wouldn’t let him commit suicide that way. He’ll go back to China with those other fellows. The tong war is over.”
“That thing he wanted to save,” said Johnny soberly, “must have been the thought-camera. And I—you know I’m sort of glad it’s gone and that there are no more in the world. For you know—it’s no fun at all to take pictures of other people’s thoughts. And to have other people taking pictures of yours—why that would be simply terrible!”
“Yes,” the Captain said with a laugh. “It sure would be!”
Johnny enjoyed a few peaceful days in Hillcrest. After that he was off for fresh adventure. If you wish to know of these adventures look for our new book,Red Dynamite.