CHAPTER XIX

A REVELATION IN CHINESE

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?”

“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.”