CHAPTER XX

ETHER AND MOTH-BALLS

“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’t _let_ them 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.