CHAPTER XX ETHER AND MOTH-BALLS
"For once old Irons O is fit as a fiddle." Goggles heaved a sigh ofrelief. Hours had passed. They had gone sweeping high above the prairies,had tilted the nose of their plane upward and had gone roaring over theRockies. Now here they were in the little cattle-country city of BrokenBow, ready for the second game of their unusual tour.
The city was not marvelous but the crowd, the boy thought with a thrilland a shudder, was immense and rather terrifying. Banked in rows to theright of the narrow bleachers were hundreds of cowboys. They had notdismounted, but were seated easily in saddle, awaiting the opening of thegame.
"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 setthe levers, placed a ball between the steel fingers, then pushed abutton.
"Never behaved better!" was Hop's pronouncement after five minutes ofpractice 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 thesmall tank concealed in the iron pitcher's back.
"Whew! What's that queer smell!" Goggles exclaimed as Hop set the can onthe ground.
"Something drifting in on the wind," Hop said quietly. "Sort of smellslike 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 leversand threw the switch. From somewhere within the iron pitcher's strangebeing came an unaccustomed sound. "Don't breathe right." The boy was atrifle startled. "And look, he's really spouting fire from his ironnostrils. Some--something's gone wrong again! And we thought nothingcould!" He was ready to give up in despair.
Hop threw off the controls, unbolted the back plate and started a carefulinspection. 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. Therewere shouts of "Play ball! Play ball!" from every corner.
"What's to be done?" Goggles groaned. "The crowd will be on the field ina minute. But we can't let old Irons O burn up."
"Look! They're coming! At least one is." Hop pointed to a huge cowboyriding toward them.
"Well!" Goggles sighed, "We--"
"Look Buddy!" The big cowboy's tone was deep and mellow. "Do you all planto 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 himsquarely in the eyes.
"It is not!" Goggles returned his look. "If the game doesn't start intwenty 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 thegallon can, he removed the cap and, holding it up, took one big sniff ofits 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 thetank. Throw that can away. Get some real gas, then we're off." And theywere!
"Ether and moth-balls!" Sheeley the air pilot chuckled to Goggles a halfhour later. "That's a rare combination. Load a flivver up with that stuffand 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 theboys and their iron pitcher received such a hand. Nor did Irons O loseany of his popularity when, for some unknown reason, he got a triflewild, gave two bases on balls, let in a runner with a wild pitch, andfinally lost the game 9 to 7.
"You're real sports!" the big cowboy complimented Doug and Goggles laterthat evening. "You came all this way in a big airplane to play our boys aball game, then you give 'em a break and let 'em win."
"We didn't _let_ them win," Goggles said quite frankly. "They just tookit.
"Of course," he added with a smile, "even an iron pitcher has his offdays. Old soup-bone gets tired don't you know."
"You're all right!" The big fellow grinned broadly. "Wish you all sortsof good luck!"
"Luck!" Goggles said to Hop. "That's what I'm going to need, for sure asmy name's Goggles I'm going to ride to the next stop inside one of thosewings 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 hourslater, Goggles did not occupy his accustomed seat in the airplane cabin.
Pilot Sheeley had offered no objection to the boy's plan of riding insidethe airplane's wing. "You won't find it very exciting. It'll be a bitbumpy. You won't be able to see a thing, and we'll be passing over somegorgeous country."
"May see enough!" the boy replied. "Someone has been tampering with ouriron 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 ifI shall!" he whispered.
At the back of him were the parts of the steel-fingered pitcher. Beforehim, 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 insevere weather when there is no hangar near," he thought.
What did he expect as he lay there feeling the lift and drop of the planeas she swung along through the air? He hardly knew. He suspected thatsomehow, someone had a means of getting into the plane after the ship wason the ground.
Whatever he expected, he had not long to wait, for all of a sudden as hestared at that roll of canvas, a head appeared above it. A small figuredragged itself over the canvas into the space before it. The boy barelyescaped uttering an audible gasp. It was the little dark man.
That night as he slept in his second-story bedroom of his grandfather'shouse, Johnny was troubled by strange dreams. He seemed to be riding on alimitless sea in a cockle-shell of a boat. The wind began to whisperacross the small waves. It blew a whiff of air into his face. Then, withastonishing speed, it rose into a gale, driving damp spray against hischeek, and set his frail bark rocking perilously. The little craftclimbed a wave, another, and yet another. It rose, then seeming to rearon high, came splashing down to dive, prow foremost, into the foam.
It was just as Johnny caught his breath, prepared to withstand thischilling 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 amin my grandfather's house."
Then with a sudden start, he sat up wide awake and staring. It was truethere was no storm and no sea. For all that, the wind was blowingstrongly 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 ladderleaned against the house. It reached his window. Whirling about, helooked 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 absurdlyeasy it had been. His trunk was small--an old army locker. The window waslarge. "What could be easier?" he whispered.
Slipping on his trousers, he crept down the stairs and out on thedew-drenched grass.
In a shadowy spot at the back of the house he found the trunk. The fraillock had been pried up. The thought-camera and his entire collection ofthink-o-graphs were gone. "As if they had never been," he murmured.
Shouldering his trunk, he climbed the ladder and slid it back into hisroom. After that he carried the ladder to its place on some hooks againstthe wood-shed.
"Fellow's foolish to keep a ladder outside his ho
use," he grumbled."Invites thieves."
For all that, as he tiptoed back up the stairs, he experienced asurprising sense of relief. The thought-camera, he supposed, was gone forgood, and with it a great deal of his responsibility in the matter.