Mystery Wings

  CHAPTER XIV THE STEEL-FINGERED PITCHER

  Next moment Goggles found himself experiencing one of the tragic momentsof his young life. In a moment of confidence and enthusiasm he had agreedto direct his mechanical man, Irons O, while he pitched a nine inninggame of baseball, and now before a crowd of three thousand or more, oldIrons O, who had always been reliable in the past, had turned squarelyabout on the first pitch and had all but sent the second baseman to thehospital with a baseball in his heart. What was the answer?

  "Someone's been fooling with him," Hop Horner shouted as he came runningup. "Here! Give me the screw driver. That's it. Now the wrench."

  "Time out!" a big voice roared, "Time out!" It was Big Bill Tyson.Everyone roared with delight; that is, everyone but those who wereinterested in the youthful inventor's success. Good old Professor Georgedid not laugh. Instead, he crowded forward to ask, "Anything I can dohere boys? Anything at all?" As if a professor who had taught Latin allhis life could do anything with a mechanical man! All the same it madeGoggles feel good inside. A friend at a time like this--well that wassomething.

  "Wires all twisted up," Hop was grumbling. "Somebody messed 'em up."

  For fifteen minutes the two boys worked feverishly. Perspiration streameddown their faces. Their hands were black and oily, their knees trembling."Hundreds of dollars gone," Goggles was thinking, "hundreds gone if wefail. Hope for the baseball park gone perhaps." Still Irons O would notswing his arms in a proper manner.

  The crowd was getting out of hand. Some were swarming on the field. Inone corner, led by a small dark man, a group was chanting in a maddeningmanner: "We want baseball! We want baseball! We want Irons O! We wantIrons!"

  It was in the midst of this uproar that Goggles felt a hand on hisshoulder and turned to find himself looking into the friendly smilingface of a man wearing an aviator's helmet. "He's one of those men fromthe big plane," he thought to himself.

  "Look!" the stranger was saying, "Isn't that wire, the short one with apink thread in its insulation--isn't it out of place?"

  "Sure! Sure it is!" Goggles felt his thoughts clearing. Seizing a pair ofpliers, he quickly made the change. "Now," he breathed, "Now! Let's tryit."

  They did try it and old Irons O did his work perfectly.

  "O.K. boys?" the stranger asked, still smiling.

  "O.K.!" Goggles breathed.

  Seizing a megaphone, the man roared, "Ready to go! Clear the field!"

  Once again the crowd settled into its place. A look of pleasantanticipation flashed like a gleam of sunlight from face to face.

  "S-strike!" the umpire roared. The game was on. And such a game as itproved to be! A plucky, good-natured young fellow cheerfully pitted hisstrength and skill against a thing made of iron, copper and steel.

  The first Centralia batter went down, one, two, three in a row. Goggles,with Irons O's aid, had given him two easy curves and a straight swiftone. Perhaps the batter experienced stage fright at batting against sucha pitcher. However that might be, he went down swinging and the crowdroared its applause.

  The second batter came to bat wearing a confident grin. Nor did hisconfidence go unrewarded. He made first on a line drive and received hisfull share of fans' approval.

  Then Irons O appeared to lose his control. He gave the third batter threeballs in a row.

  "He's afraid of him! He's walking him. Boo! Boo!" came in good-naturedbanter. "Boo! Boo! Boo!" shouted the crowd. Whereupon Irons O, droppinghis steel arm to his side, turned his head half around and, to theumpire's surprise, let out wildcat howls that could be heard at thefarthest end of the field.

  "Get that umpire!" someone shouted. "Where's that pop bottle?" But it wasall in fun. The mechanical pitcher tightened up, pitched three sizzlersin a row. A moment later, a third man went out on a pop-up.

  Johnny Thompson saw all of this inning. He saw very little of those thatfollowed. In all that throng he was interested in just one man--thelittle dark fellow who had led the razzing when Irons O appeared to bedown and out for good. Johnny had always been interested in the thingspeople did and their reasons for doing them. This little dark man was acomplete stranger to him. He wondered, at first in a vague sort of way,why he was such an ardent heckler. When Irons O had been put into serviceagain, he thought he detected on the fellow's face a look ofdisappointment and chagrin.

  "What can he care?" Johnny asked himself.

  All through the game he sat close to that man and watched him. He hadonce seen two large dogs fighting a battle for a bone. One had droppedthe bone. It lay beneath their feet as they fought. A third dog, a sortof insignificant hungry-looking pug, had hovered near all during thefight, licking his chops but never quite daring to seize the bone.Somehow, in a strange sort of way, the expression on this little man'sface resembled that on the insignificant pug's face.

  "I wonder what his interest in this game can be!" the boy whispered. "Ido wonder!"

  As for Goggles, during his spare moments while his team-mates were atbat, he was wondering about an entirely different matter. The men fromthe big airplane had caught his attention at once. When one of them,evidently a skilled mechanic, had interested himself in their problem andaided them in solving it, he had completely won Goggles' heart. ButGoggles' interest went farther than that. "They came here to see thisgame. Probably came all the way from the big city, three hundred milesaway," he told himself. "I wonder why?" For the time he could form nosatisfying answer.

  In the meantime the game went on. Bernard caught the ball as it came backfrom the catcher. He caught a pop-up fly now and then and also threwbases. To the excitement of the throng, Irons O did the rest. He pitcheda good game too, but no better than the smiling pitcher from Centralia.Goggles had always admired that Centralia pitcher, but never as now. Now,as he directed the pitching of Irons O, as the score went from 3 to 4, to6-5; then from 7-8 to 8-10, his sympathies were evenly balanced betweenthe man of iron and the man of brawn. Who was to win? Well enough he knewthat in the end it was up to him to decide.

  And so it turned out to be. At the end of the first half of the ninthinning the score stood 10-9 in the iron man's favor. At the beginning ofthe game they had tossed up to see who came first to bat. Centralia hadlost, so now in the last half of the ninth they were up to bat.

  "It's up to Irons O," Goggles breathed to Johnny as he went out on thefield.

  "Which means it's up to you!" Johnny smiled. He had read the story ofstruggle written on the other boy's face. He wanted his team and his ironman to win the game; yet, down deep in his heart he had a feeling that toset Irons O for a shut-out would be taking an unfair advantage of thatsmiling pitcher.

  "I--I've got to give them a break," he murmured as he took his placebehind the man of iron. He set Irons O's fingers for an easy curve, thenpressed the button.

  "St-trike! Ball! St-trike! Ball! Ball." The audience was on its toes."Ball three! Strike two!" Irons twisted his head about and screamed atthe umpire. Once again the audience went into near-hysterics.

  Goggles set the fingers for a swift fast one. The man went down swinging.

  Second batter up. Two curves went wild. A swift fast one would have cutthe plate in halves had not a stout hickory bat sent it shooting awayinto centerfield for a two bagger.

  "The tying run on second and only one out!" Goggles was thinking hard."They can't have it, not yet!" he decided. He raised the speed of theiron pitcher's arm a couple of notches, then set his fingers for a verywide curve. A ball and three strikes. The third batter went downswinging.

  "Pitcher's up next. They'll put in a pinch-hitter," Goggles thought. Butno, here came that smiling pitcher. He was swinging three bats andsmiling broader than ever.

  "It's a sure thing," the young inventor groaned. "But how can I?"

  Mechanically he set the controls, gave the ball into the iron pitcher'sfingers, then whispered, "Now!"

  And "now" was right. The ball, a slow straight one, was met squarely by
the strongly swung bat. It rose high to go sailing away over thebleachers and out of the park.

  "Home run, and the game's over!" a thousand voices shouted. A wild roarof approval greeted the end of the game. Only the little dark man, whohad occupied so much of Johnny's attention, did not cheer. He sat inmoody silence. "I wonder why?" Johnny murmured. Then he joined the throngthat pressed on toward the spot where the mechanical pitcher stood.

  A double rope barrier had been thrown about Goggles, Hop Horner and theirstrange invention. As for Irons O, he now bowed to the grown-ups whocheered him, and then screamed at the boys who shouted at him. Take itall in all, it had been a day of complete triumph for the Hillcrest boysand their iron pitcher. And the day was not over--far from it.

  The crowd had thinned to a mere handful of over-curious boys, and Goggleswas reaching for a wrench and pliers for unhooking and unscrewing hisgood iron friend when, as once before that day, a friendly hand touchedhis shoulder and smiling eyes met his.

  "I'm back," the stranger said simply. It was the man of the airplane.With him were his two companions. "You see," he began to explain, "wedidn't just _happen_ to come here. We were sent."

  "I--I guessed that." Goggles' heart leaped, though he scarcely knew why.

  "You did?" The other seemed surprised. "Well," he went on, "this is thestory. Mr. Montgomery here, who is vice-president of the NorthernAirways, read of this--this mechanical man of yours. He wanted to see itperform."

  "I wonder why?" Goggles repeated.

  "This is it." Montgomery, who appeared a quick nervous type of man,stepped forward. "We are anxious to advertise air travel in every way wecan. We feel it to be safe and we know it's a fast and clean way totravel. I said to the boys: 'If that iron pitcher really works, we'llpick him up with his whole ball team and carry him across the country inone of our big bi-motors, putting on exhibition games.' This--this man ofyours--what is it you call him?"

  "Irons O."

  "Well, he put on a good show--a very fine show. What do you say?"

  "I--I--" Goggles' head was whirling. "I'll tell you in two hours, if--ifI can."

  "All right. Meet us at the airport."

  "We sure will!"

  "Here, Hop!" Goggles threw his tools on the ground as the man walkedaway. "You take old Irons O and put him to bed. I've got business, plentyof it."

  "I'll say you have," Hop agreed.

  "Across the continent!" Goggles thought as he dashed wildly away. "Acrossthe continent in an airplane. Ball games perhaps in Denver, Cheyenne,Salt Lake City, Seattle! Boy! Oh boy! And a bag of gold from every portfor our ball field."

  But could they do it? His spirits dropped. "Can we? It--it seems almostimpossible. And yet, somehow, we must. We just must!"

  "Goggles," Johnny said to him later that evening when everything had beensettled that they were to start on that marvelous airplane cruise. "Idon't like the actions of that little dark man."

  "What little dark man?" Goggles asked in surprise.

  "Didn't you notice him? But of course you wouldn't have." Johnny went onto tell of the little man's part in that day's game.

  "It is strange that old Irons O should have gotten all mixed up inside."Goggles said this as if it were part of the story Johnny had justfinished. "Oh well," he concluded, "if that little dark man wants to makeus trouble on our trip, he'll have to hire a plane."

  "He'll never do that," Johnny replied. To his own surprise he foundhimself wondering, "What _will_ he do?" Had he known the answer, he wouldhave experienced an even greater feeling of surprise.