  Johnny Thompson was happy; he thought he had never been so happy in his life. They were on their last lap home. The flight over the Rockies and across the Great American Desert, then over the vast prairies, had been accomplished with ease and pleasure. In a few hours they would be dropping down to the landing field at the factory. “I only hope the inventor has come to himself enough to tell them the secret formula,” he mumbled to himself. He was thinking of the new process steel and again, for the hundredth time, the vial in the laboratory flashed through his mind. “Guess I should have told them,” he mused. “Might be something in it. Might be—” Pant’s signal at the speaking tube broke in on his reflections. “Plane to our larboard aft,” he called. “Big blue one with wide planes. Looks like a racer.” Johnny started. What plane could this be? They were not in a region frequented by airplanes, nor in the path of an air mail line. But then, he reassured himself, planes were common enough the country over. He could not, however, shake off at once the sense of fear that gripped him. He had not forgotten their mad race across the desert, nor his narrow escape on the mountain lake. A race in an airplane might not end happily, especially with him at the wheel. His mind became at ease presently, and he again took up the thread of thought that had been broken off. Should this day’s work be completed in safety, their days of thrills and dangers would, for a time at least, be over. “Seem to be following us,” broke in Pant again. “Man, but they’ve got some speed! Let her out a notch or two.” The plane seemed fairly to leap from beneath them as Johnny, obeying instructions, “let her out.” She was a good, substantial plane, of the type that is destined to become the express-carrier of tomorrow, but she was not of the fastest model. Johnny risked a glance back. Pant seemed to be fumbling at something near his belt beneath his heavy leather coat. “If he were only up here at the wheel!” Johnny groaned. “Drop down a few hundred feet,” suggested Pant. “If it’s necessary, we might make a landing.” Johnny tilted her nose groundward. As they came closer to earth, they realized at once that a landing was impossible; they were passing over range after range of low, rolling hills. There were no valleys to the crooked streams that flowed between the hills. “Shoot her up again; better traveling,” suggested Pant. It seemed to Johnny that he could catch the thundering throb of the other plane’s engine. But this was only imagination. Truth was, however, that the other plane was gaining on them. Yard by yard they came closer. As the miles sped from beneath them, the distance diminished. Now they were a mile away; now three-quarters. And now they plunged into a great mass of white mist, which was a cloud, and were for a time lost to view. As they came again into clear sky, Johnny gasped. The other plane appeared to have doubled her speed. It could be only a matter of moments now. What mad thing did those fellows mean to attempt? Did they hope to force them to the ground? Would they ram them? To do so seemed certain death to all. “They’ve got parachutes!” shouted Pant through the tube. Parachutes? Johnny’s mind was in a panic. Perhaps they meant to take to their parachutes after ramming the “Dust Eater.” “Johnny!” Pant’s voice was even and composed, “just slow her up a bit and hold her in a steady, straight line.” “Slow up!” Was Pant mad? The other plane must be all but upon them! Without question he obeyed. Straight as a chalk line they shot on through the blue. One minute, two, three, four, five. As Johnny counted them on the dial of the clock in front of him, he expected at any one of them to feel a sudden shock. But the shock did not come. “As you are,” he heard Pant breathe at last. “No, I think you might circle a bit. Looks like we’re over a meadow. Not a bad landing-place. They’ve taken to their parachutes. Their plane’s on fire, but she’ll carry on a mile or two before she drops.” “Their plane’s on fire!” Pant had said it in such a composed tone of voice that one might think it quite the thing to expect at this juncture. Glancing back, Johnny saw him struggling to replace something beneath his leather coat. It looked like a long black leather case. With trembling hands he set the plane to circle downward, to follow the burning plane, which was now careening wildly. Some two miles back the two parachutes of the others, white specks against the blue, were nearing the ground. “We’ll just have a look at their plane and be away again before they arrive,” suggested Pant. “Their fuselage is of sheet-steel. It won’t burn. There may be something of interest in the seat or somewhere.” Johnny did not fully approve of this maneuver. Yet, since Pant was in charge of this expedition, he proceeded to put the suggestion into execution. * * * * * * * * “Here’s what I found in that plane.” Pant drew some jagged bits of rusty metal from a canvas bag. It was four hours after the burning of the blue racer. The two boys had made a landing near the wreck, and Pant had hurried over there, to return with two objects which he found in the seat: a canvas sack and a pair of gloves. They were now safe on the landing-field of the factory. They were “home.” Their journey and its dangers at an end, they were resting on the grass for a few moments before going to report to their employer. “This is all there is left of the bar of new process steel they made away with. They tried to work it by heating it in the usual way, and failed. They found out some way that we were trying out some parts made of the steel, and were all for running us down and taking it away from us.” Johnny examined the bits of metal carefully. “I believe you’re right,” he answered. “And these gloves,” said Pant, holding the pair up for inspection, “establish the identity of the driver of the blue racer. No one but your friend, the contortionist, the frog-man, could wear such long-fingered affairs as these. I suppose,” he said thoughtfully, “that we could have the sheriff out in that country hunt those fellows up.” “What kind of a case would we have on them, though?” smiled Johnny. “The sky’s all free property up to date, isn’t it? You can’t have a fellow arrested for following you, can you?” “I suppose not,” Pant reluctantly admitted. “Well, anyway, we got their machine.” “Pant,” said Johnny suddenly, “you set that airplane on fire.” “What?” Pant started and stared. “Well,” he said after a few seconds, “what if I did? Didn’t do it until they had shown they were planning to run us down, and then, not until I knew they had parachutes. That was all right, wasn’t it?” “Sure it was all right,” smiled Johnny. “It was more than all right—it was good.” For a time the two were silent. “You set their auto on fire back in the desert, too,” Johnny resumed. “Sure I did.” “How’d you do it?” The masked look that appeared to hide Pant’s face faded. “I’ll show you, Johnny. Just because you’re such a good pal I’ll show you.” Detaching from his belt the black leather case, which Johnny had seen twice before, he walked to the plane and, after attaching two wires, started the motor. “Watch the grass over there a hundred feet.” Suddenly the ground began to smoke, and a patch of grass turned to brown, then black. “Fairly rips up the ground, she does,” Pant said with a proud grin. “There’s a piece of gas pipe somebody’s left sticking up in the ground over there about three hundred feet. Watch that!” Johnny watched with popping eyes while a foot of the pipe turned first red, then intensely white, then toppled over like a weed in a forest fire. “Pant,” he said breathlessly, “what is it?” “I don’t quite know myself,” Pant smiled, as he shut off the motor. “There’s been a lot of things like it. X-ray, violet-ray, radium and the like, you know. But this is something I got up myself—sort of a cross between fire and lightning, near’s I can find out. I’m having it patented, though for the life of me I don’t know what you’d use it for. You can’t go around the world setting autos and planes on fire when they come up behind you.” “And that,” said Johnny, “is the white fire?” “Exactly! I got a lot of fun out of that business in the factory. Fooled you, didn’t I?” “Yes, and helped us a lot. That’s why you didn’t stay about when the manager was with us?” “Sure it was. I had to go back and get the show going.” Pant threw back his head and laughed. “Well,” said Johnny, rising and stretching, “guess we’d better go in and make our report.” “Leave that to you,” said Pant. “I’ll run over and see if my patent papers are at the postoffice.” “And there,” said Mr. McFarland, a half-hour later, as Johnny sat by the desk in his private office, “are a couple of papers you might be interested in.” The instant he had them in his hand Johnny recognized his father’s signature. “Notes,” he murmured. “Why, they’re marked ‘Paid in full.’ I—I don’t understand.” “You will remember,” said the manager, struggling against a huskiness in his voice, “that your banker told you he held notes against your father. He never told you who the real owner was. He was acting according to orders in doing this. I was the real owner, and now—since you have rendered a service to our company which more than balances the account—I am giving them to you marked ‘Paid in full.’” Johnny’s mind whirled. His good fortune seemed too good to be believed. His debt of honor was canceled. He might face the world with a clean start. “I—I,” he stammered, “I can’t thank you.” “There is no occasion,” said the magnate. “It is a plain business proposition—value for value received. “You may be pleased to know,” he hurried on, glad to change the subject, “that we found a glass bottle left in the laboratory by the inventor, that tells us what the new element in the steel is. We have also discovered a method of heat treatment which enables us to work the metal. We are now in a position to manufacture engines and utilize this new steel. It will be worth millions, and the inventor, who is slowly recovering, will receive his share.” Johnny was experiencing strange sensations. “Where,” he managed to ask, “did you find the bottle which gave you the secret of the formula?” “Upper shelf; right-hand corner; central laboratory. Why do you ask?” “For no reason,” said Johnny, a queer smile playing about his lips, “except that I guess I was the fellow who put that bottle there.” He then explained how he had made the test at night, to help keep himself awake, and how he had not dared to reveal the results for fear of being censured. They had a good laugh over it, and at the end Mr. McFarland said: “Just for that you may have the chummy roadster which you and Pant drove so far. And, by the way, send Pant to me. He must have some reward. How do you think he’d like the plane you drove?” “Guess he’d like that O. K.,” smiled Johnny. “Thanks for the car. If you’ll allow me, I should like to use it driving back and forth from your factory to the School of Engineering. I’d like to spend a half day in each place. There are a lot of things I need to know.” “A splendid idea!” said Mr. McFarland. And at that Johnny bowed himself out. A half hour later he and Pant sat drinking coffee and munching doughnuts in the small kitchen of the aged inventor of the dust-burning motor. They were telling their story to the delighted old couple. And that story, better than mere assurance, informed them that the invention was a huge success and that they were rich. No other pleasure could have so fittingly crowned this series of adventures than did this simple story-telling to two old people who appreciated it all as no others could. Johnny stuck to his purpose of attending the engineering school. He learned there many of the secrets of science and industry. The time soon came, too, when he might put his knowledge to work. For, one day, he received a wire from Pant, who was again on the Pacific coast with the “Dust Eater.” “Come at once,” the telegram ran. “Need you. Big new sea mystery. Will explain on arrival.” What that mystery was and how they solved it must be told in our next volume of mystery and adventure, “The Black Schooner.” |
|
