Mystery Wings
CHAPTER VII MYSTERY SHIP
"I can't get over the way that pitcher came to us," Goggles Shortmurmured low to Johnny Thompson. They were seated in the bleachers. TheSaturday game was about to begin. The new pitcher from the laboratories,cap drawn low, eyes gleaming, was putting over a few to the catcher.
"It _is_ strange," Johnny said. "Prince of India!" he exclaimed. "I gavehim that name and I'm proud of it." In his publicity produced by thethought-camera Johnny had played up the name "Prince of India." He likedthe sound of it. "He looks the part too! Look at that slim nose of his,"he went on, "those thin lips, that high forehead. You'd take him for aFrenchman, or perhaps an Englishman, if it weren't for that dark skin ofhis. If he's not a Prince of India, he should be. Watch him pitch!" Theslender man on the mound, moving with the smooth agility of a cat, seemedto fairly slide the ball over the plate.
"Listen to the crowd!" Goggles cried. "And is it a crowd! That publicitystuff of yours was great! We'll get nearly half the money we need forthat first payment today. And Wednesday! It's in the bag."
"Don't be too sure," Johnny warned.
"Listen to that crowd!" Goggles exclaimed once more.
Led by Meggy Strawn, a streak of gold and blue that danced across thegrass, the crowd was chanting:
_A Prince! A Prince! A Prince!_ _No quince! No quince! No quince!_ _A Peach! A Peach! A Peach!_ _We win! Yea! Yea!_
As for the "Prince," he seemed totally unconscious of his surroundings ashe slid one more stinger over the plate.
"It _is_ strange," Johnny said to Goggles, "strange about that pitcher, Imean. Colonel Chamberlain has had him working in his laboratories formore than three months. The pay-roll proves that. But who knew it? Thepay-master and Colonel Chamberlain, that's all. Queer, isn't it? And now,when everything seems lost for old Hillcrest, he walks right into thepicture. He takes the ball, and whang! How it pops into that old mit! Nota man will get to first. See! There goes one of 'em. Three strikes andout. Great, I'd say! Suppose he can keep it up?"
He did not wait for an answer. Instead, he allowed his eyes to seek aspot in the sky. Something up there interested him.
"Nope!" he murmured. "It's not coming down."
"What's not coming down?" Goggles asked quickly.
"That airplane. It's been circling way up high there for a long time."
"I should hope it wouldn't come down," Goggles laughed good-naturedly."What d'ye think? Think they'd come right on down and land square in themiddle of the ball field?" He laughed again.
Johnny did not reply. Truth was, he did not know what he had expected. Itwas strange about that airplane. He had been watching it off and on fortwenty minutes. All that time it had been circling above the ball field.At first it had seemed little more than a speck against the dull gray ofa leaden sky. Moment by moment it had circled lower.
"Saw an eagle do that once," he had told himself as a little thrill ranup his spine. "Old eagle soared and soared and soared until he was maybea hundred feet from the ground. Then he folded his wings and dropped. Andsuch a drop! Straight down! When he came up he held a half-grown rabbitin his talons. He'd had his eye on that rabbit all the time."
Strangely enough, as he watched the airplane circle above the ball fieldwhere two fine teams were contending for high honors, fantastic as itmight seem, he had gained the impression that this plane, circling as theeagle had circled, would in the end make one straight drop to the ballfield.
"What nonsense!" he whispered to himself. "Why should they do that? Crackup! Everyone in the plane would be killed. Eagle's a different sort ofbird. He could recover balance and rise again. That plane--"
All the same, the impression remained a haunting suggestion until, withthe end of the first half, a shut-out for the opposing team, theCentralia boys went trotting off the field. Only then did the airplane goskimming away into the hazy distance.
"It is as if the eagle had been watching the rabbit only to see therabbit scurry into his hole," he told himself.
"But the rabbit will come out again? Another inning?" a voice seemed towhisper in his ear.
With that, for a time at least, he forgot the strange airplane and gavehis attention to the ball game.
"Hello Meggy," he said a moment later as she slid into the place besidehim. "We're going to win, Meg!" he cried.
Meg's voice was low. "Yes, we must, Johnny!"
Suddenly Meggy pinched Johnny's arm. "Look! He--he's up to bat! Isn't hemysterious! The--the 'Prince of India'--that's what they call him."
Once again Johnny's eye was on the ball. The opposing pitcher shot itthrough to the Prince, but it went high and wide. The dark-faced onenever moved a muscle.
"Believe he can bat," was Johnny's mental comment. His practiced eyeswept over the diamond. Arthur Lowe was on first, Fred Frame on second.There were two men out. No score on either side.
"Now," he whispered hoarsely, "just one good swat! That's all we need!Get a grand lead! We--"
He did not finish. Came the crack of a bat and the ball went soaring highand far.
"Yea! Yea! Yea!" The crowd sprang to its feet and howled madly. "Yea!Yea! Yea! Prince! Prince! Prince!"
When the crowd settled back to its seats the new pitcher was on thirdbase. Two men had come romping home.
"Two to nothing!" Meg exulted. "Watch us climb!"
Little Artie Snow was up next. He swung wildly and fanned. The inning wasover.
"Well!" Johnny stretched himself. "Looks as if we'd lick 'em all right."
All Meggy said was, "Isn't he mysterious?" She was thinking of the"Prince."
Then, as her mood changed, Meggy seized her megaphone and, graspingJohnny by the arm, screamed, "Come on! Cart wheels!"
Johnny had done cart wheels with Meggy on many another occasion, butalways in private. But now! Oh well, Meg was Meg. Her word was law. Cartwheels it was, an even dozen, then a rousing cheer led by Meg:
_Yea! Hillcrest! Yea! Hillcrest!_ _Beat 'em! Beat 'em! Beat 'em!_
Scarcely had Johnny got his breath than he discovered that the "Prince"was once more on the mound, the second inning about to begin. Quiteautomatically his eyes swept the sky. They came to a focus.
"The airplane!" he whispered excitedly. "Like the eagle, it is circlingback."
It was strange the excitement this stirred up within his being. Why wasit? It seemed absurd, yet in his soul there was a feeling that the darkpitcher must hurry, that the men who came up to bat must go down as theyhad before, one, two, three, or else the eagle would drop. "Whatnonsense!" he muttered once more.
For all that, the airplane did circle lower and lower. There was too inthe mysterious pitcher's action a suggestion of tense nervousness thatwas hard to explain.
A bat cracked. A ball popped into the air. The pitcher had it. One mandown.
A second man came up. Ball! Strike! Ball! Crack! Up went the ball again.Down it came, right into that pitching wizard's mit. Two out.
The plane circled lower. In the damp, cloudy air it seemed nearer than itreally was.
Third man to bat. Strike! Strike! Strike! You're out!
"Just like that!" Johnny exulted. He did not so much as glance at theplane. He knew that once again it had gone skimming away.
"It's strange," he murmured.
"What's strange?" Meggy asked.
"Oh--everything," he evaded, "everything's strange today." How could hetell Meggy of this fantastic daydream?
Again the opposing team took their places in the field. Once moreHillcrest came to bat. And how they did bat! Inspired by rosy dreams ofvictory, they sent the ball spinning, right, left and center. By the timeCentralia had them stopped, the score stood 5 to 0 in favor of Hillcrest,and the crowd had gone mad.
"We'll win!" Meggy screamed.
"We'll win!" Goggles roared.
As for Johnny, he merely murmured, "Wait!"
The wait was destined to be longer than he dreamed it might be. Four wildb
alls put the lead-off man of Centralia on first with no one out.
It was then that Johnny once more began noticing that haunting airplane.It had returned. Once again it was circling downward.
The mysterious pitcher was slipping, there could be no doubting this. Ahard-hit liner put the second batter on base.
Then the pitcher seemed to tighten up. He fanned the third man.
"But that plane!" Johnny was truly startled now. The plane did actuallyseem to be in a nose-dive. Down, down, down it came, straight at thatlone figure, the pitcher, on the mound.
"They--they--" In his excitement Johnny stood up. He crushed his capwithin his tight clenched hands. "No! No! Thank--" He did not finish.With a burst of speed, a thunder of motors, the airplane righted itself,then shot upward. But what was that? Did Johnny's eyes deceive him? Didhe catch a gleam of fire--or was it only a brilliant flash of light? Halfunconsciously he waited the report of a shot fired. It did not come.
"It's the strangest thing!" he murmured as he settled back in his place.Already the airplane was a long way off.
So filled was the boy's mind with wild speculations that he failed tofollow the game. Perhaps this was just as well. Dame Fortune appeared tohave deserted the mysterious pitcher. He walked another man. The baseswere full.
"But look at him," Meggy whispered in Johnny's ear. "Look at him wind up!You'd think he was doing it in his sleep!"
Indeed, as Johnny focussed his attention upon this mysterious stranger,he appeared to waver, as if he might fall.
"Something awfully queer about that," Johnny murmured.
With what appeared to be tremendous effort the pitcher hurled the ball.It would have cut the plate squarely in the middle had not a stout batmet it to send it high and far.
When the commotion was over, the score stood 5 to 6 in favor ofCentralia. There were men on second and third. What was more, the"Prince" was walking unsteadily toward the bench.
"Listen!" Meggy exclaimed. "They're calling for Fred Frame."
"Something queer about that!" Johnny repeated as he turned to watch the"Prince" walk away toward the showers. "The eagle swooped downward, andnow--" he did not finish.
"He walks as if he were half blind. Poor 'Prince!'" Meg sympathized."What could have happened?"
Johnny would have given much to know the answer. For some time to come itwas to remain a veiled secret.
"The mystery ship," Johnny thought as he watched that airplane glide awaytoward the clouds. Then he murmured low, "Mystery wings."
"'Mystery wings!' What makes you say that?" Meg whispered.
"Because that's the way I think of a plane," he replied soberly. "Youcan't say the planes of an airplane. Don't sound right. Why not wings ofa plane? And, for my part, every plane that passes over my head has wingsof mystery."
"You're queer," was Meg's only reply.