CHAPTER XI

WHAT AN EYE!

That evening Johnny sat on his grandfather’s porch staring at the moon and allowing the events of the past few days to glide across his memory as a panorama glides across a picture screen.

It was strange! Here he was in the quiet little city of his grandfather. He’d been here many times before. Nothing unusual had happened; but now there was the little Chinaman who apparently had been seen by no one but himself and who was now being sought by detectives. And there was the thought-camera. He wondered whether the little man was still in town, but had no desire to visit the spice shop to find out for sure—at least not in the dark. He recalled C. K.’s words, and shuddered afresh.

“And there’s the ‘Prince,’” he thought. “Queer sort of fellow. How did he come here?” He seemed to see an airplane landing within prison walls. Had the Colonel rescued him in that strange manner from a prison? “Of course not!” he whispered. “Perfectly absurd!” And yet, there was that air pilot’s story. “Mystery wings!” he whispered low. How many mysterious things might be carried on high in the air—kidnaping, smuggling, daring robbers escaping from the scene of their crime. What had happened that day as the airplane soared over their baseball diamond? He had a rather definite notion. But was that idea correct? He meant to find out.

He thought of the coming ball game. The “Prince” would be there. He had promised to come. Meggy had brought word of this.

“Good old Meg!” he thought. “How I’d like to tell her about the thought-camera!” He was burning to tell someone. And yet, had he the right? Meg would keep the secret. Threats of death would not wring it from her. Good old Meg! And yet—. He wouldn’t tell, not just now.

How was the ball game to come out? And Goggles’ forty-eyed umpire? Would it work? They would get a crowd, he was sure of that. But would they be able to satisfy that crowd?

He stole a glance at his grandfather. As usual, he sat in his big chair dreaming of the past. Slipping up the stairs, Johnny returned with the thought-camera under his coat. He recorded one more chapter of the grand old man’s life. Then he crept back upstairs again.

“Wonder how that thing works,” he murmured as he once more hid the camera in the bottom of his trunk. “I’d give a lot to know.” He had read of things scientists were doing with what they called the spectrum, how they divided it into different rays, red, violet, indigo blue, and how some rays were life-giving and some deadly. It might be something like that. If he knew the secrets of that camera he could become the richest person in the world. Perhaps some day he would know.

“But now,” he laughed low, “the next thing is a ball game.”

He was late to the Wednesday game. His grandfather had a hurry-up call into the country. Johnny drove the car. Twenty miles from town they got a flat tire. The bolts stuck. He was a full hour getting it changed. When he finally reached the ball grounds the game had been in progress for some time and, to his great surprise and consternation, this is what he heard:

“Oh! What an eye! Kill that umpire! Git a pop bottle! Git twenty pop bottles! Wreck him! Wreck him!” The cries were loud and persistent from every corner of the grandstand.

“Trouble is,” Doug Danby groaned as Johnny came racing up, “they are liable to break loose any minute and do just that—‘wreck the umpire.’ And that umpire cost hundreds of dollars. How could we ever pay it back?”

Doug was, he believed, at that moment the most miserable person in the world. They were losing, losing the game they by all odds should be winning. And it was all his fault, or at least he accepted the blame. He, as captain of the team, had stood up for Goggles’ mechanical umpire. “And now look!” He gave Johnny an appealing glance.

Johnny didn’t want to look. Everyone else was looking; that is, everyone on the Hillcrest bleachers, and everyone was yelling: “Wide a mile!” or “Way below his knees!” “Take out that umpire! Wreck him!” “Strike! Strike! Strike!” They began chanting this as a refrain, and clapping their hands in a rhythmic accompaniment.

“Johnny, something’s gone terribly wrong!” Meggy Strawn screamed this into Johnny’s ear above the din.

“You’re telling us!” Doug shouted back. “Terribly wrong! I’d say! Bill’s out on strikes and all three were balls. Dave’s got two strikes now, and there—no—that tin umpire called it a ball!”

“There!” Meggy jumped up and down. “Dave swatted it. It’s a two bagger! Rah for Dave!”

Doug did not shout. He was glad Dave had made second. But he was sure he’d never see home.

“You can’t beat a crooked umpire,” he groaned. That the umpire was crooked he could not by this time doubt. Yet, how could it be? A mechanical umpire with an eye a thousand times faster than the human eye, set to call balls and strikes impartially, all the balls to be outside the plate, above the shoulder or below the knee, a mere thing of electrical tubes and cells, of wires and steel mechanisms, how could that kind of an umpire be crooked? Doug could find no answer. Nor could Johnny. He could only stand and stare.

“Johnny,” Meggy whispered, “why does that Fairfield sub always stand leaning against that post while our team is up to bat?”

The post she spoke of stood before the bench used by the visiting team. It held one end of the wire cable that kept the crowd off the field.

“Probably leans because he’s the leaning sort,” Johnny chuckled.

“He’s done that for four innings.” Meggy’s tone was low, mysterious. Johnny missed that tone. He was too much absorbed by what was going on to notice it. “When his team comes up to bat,” Meg went on, “he goes back to the bench. Then when we are at bat again, he hops up, strolls slowly to the post and stands there until the inning is over. Johnny, I—”

“There!” It was Doug who interrupted her. “Steve struck out. I’m up. Watch me fan! All I got to do is stand right still, and that tin umpire will call ‘Strike! Strike! Strike!’ and I’m out! You just watch!”

“Doug!” Meggy gripped his arm tight. “You—you’re being almost yellow. Buck up! Get in there and win in spite of odds. There’s something crooked about it. We all know that. But we can’t help it. At least not now. Listen! Uncle Rob told me once he’d seen a lot of crooked things tried in all sorts of games, but he’d found out this—if the straight player stood up to it and did his level best he’d win; but that a fellow who is crooked can never do his best—his conscience won’t let him. So you just get in there and swat that ball! Strike at every one. Boot it over the fence! And next time, when you’re up, I’m going to—”

She did not finish. Doug was gone.

With Meggy’s words ringing in his ears, Doug marched up to the plate. Ten seconds later he saw the ball coming. Figuring it would be “wide a mile,” he gave a quick side-wise lurch, swung the bat, struck the ball low and hard, then dashed for first base.

“Go! Go! Go! Go on!” came in a deafening roar. Nor did that call subside until he had crossed the home plate. He had boosted the ball clear out of the lot, a home run just like that.

“But even that won’t win,” he told Johnny gloomily. “The score is still 5 to 3 in their favor. And that tin umpire is set dead against us.”

This conclusion seemed fair enough, for when Tim Tyler, the best batter on their team, came up next he went down “One, two, three.” After that the Hillcrest players wandered gloomily to their places on the diamond.

Doug played right field. Since the men on the opposing team almost to a man batted right handed, he now had plenty of time to think. And those were long, long thoughts, you may be sure. “How could that electrical umpire be crooked?” he asked himself over and over. “It worked perfectly every time yesterday. If it wasn’t for the pledge that both teams made to see the thing through, I’d demand a new umpire. But thunder! We’d look fine throwing out our own umpire!”

Yes, they had tried the umpire out the day before. Goggles had secured the necessary equipment from the electrical shop which was really a laboratory for research work, and with the assistance of the head electrician had set the electrical umpire in place on the ball grounds.

“You see,” he had explained before they started to test it out, “there’s a battery of ten lights shining out at the side beyond the plates. There are ten above the batter’s shoulder, and ten below the knee. These lights shine on electric eyes. The moment one of these lights is shut off, even for an instant, a red light will flash and a phonograph shout, ‘Foul.’ Two other batteries of lights watch for strikes. Another phonograph calls ’em. Now you fellows try it.”

They did try it. Tried it many times and not once had the mechanical umpire failed.

“It did not slip once yesterday,” Doug groaned to himself out there on the field watching for any chance fly that might come his way. “And now, today, when the Fairfield batters are up, it works perfectly, but when we are up it just squints its forty eyes and gives the pitcher all the breaks.

“Crowds,” the boy grumbled, “are queer. One minute they are with you, next they are against you.” It had been so with the crowd from his own town in regard to the mechanical umpire. When they had heard it call “Strike!” “Foul!” then “Strike!” once more, they had gone wild over it. “But now,” he groaned, “they’re all against it. May swarm onto the field any minute and smash it up. Worst is,” he grumbled on, “we agreed to abide by the decision of that brainless mechanical man—even put it in writing. Both teams signed it—so—”

He broke short off. There had come a wild shout from the enemy’s bleachers. A high fly came sailing his way. Judging it correctly, he turned his back and ran; then, whirling about just in time, put up a single hand to nab the ball. It was a beautiful catch. Even the rivals applauded.

“Fine! Great! Wonderful!” His teammates patted him on the back as they raced in for their turn at bat.

“Lot of good that will be,” Doug grumbled. “We’re beat right now; beaten by our own little tin umpire. What an eye! is right.”

Then Meggy’s words came back to him: “Go in and beat them anyway. Fellows that are crooked seldom win. Their conscience won’t let them.”

“We’ll win!” He set his teeth tight. “Win in spite of it all. We—”

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 what _was_ she 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 you _must_ leave!” The visiting captain’s tone was stern.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But I don’t under—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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