MYSTERY WINGS

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

COPYRIGHT, 1935
BY
THE REILLY & LEE CO.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Mysterious Chinaman 11

II A Strange Prophecy Comes True 23

III The Thought Camera 33

IV A Place of Great Magic 45

V Johnny’s Think-O-Graphs 58

VI Beside the Green-Eyed Dragon 63

VII Mystery Ship 70

VIII Strange Passengers 82

IX “Who’s Afraid of a Chinaman?” 96

X Clues from the Dust 103

XI What an Eye! 112

XII The Vanishing Chinaman 128

XIII Secret of the Pines 135

XIV The Steel-Fingered Pitcher 143

XV The White Flare 155

XVI A Tense Moment 162

XVII A Narrow Escape 172

XVIII The Flying Ball Team 181

XIX A Revelation in Chinese 190

XX Ether and Moth-Balls 200

XXI Liquid Air—Almost 209

XXII The Smoke Screen 220

MYSTERY WINGS

CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERIOUS CHINAMAN

“Pardon, my young friend!”

Johnny Thompson started at the sound of these words spoken by someone close behind him. He had been seated in a corner of the park. It was early evening, but quite dark. He sprang to his feet.

“Pardon! Please do not go away.” There was something reassuring in the slow easy drawl of the stranger. Johnny dropped back to his place. Next instant as the light of a passing car played upon the stranger, he was tempted to laugh. He found himself looking into the face of the smallest Chinaman he had ever known. To Johnny the expression “Who’s afraid of a Chinaman?” was better known than “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”

But what did this little man with his very much wrinkled face puckered into a strange smile, want? Johnny leaned forward expectantly.

“You think hard. You are worried. Is it not so?” The little man took a seat beside him. “All the time you think baseball. You do not play. But you think very much. Is it not so? This town, your team, they are everything just now. Is it not so? And you are troubled.” The wrinkles on the little yellow man’s face appeared to crinkle and crackle like very old parchment.

“Let me tell you,” he put a hand on Johnny’s arm. “You think of Centralia. A long time you have thought, ‘They will defeat us unless we find a pitcher, a very good pitcher.’ And you have found a pitcher. Perhaps he will do. You are not sure. Is it not so?”

Johnny started. All this was true. Centralia was the great rival of the little city he chanced to call home at that moment. He was thinking of the coming game. But this new pitcher! That was a closely guarded secret. Only three people knew and they were pledged to silence.

“Ah!” the little man leaned forward, “You are more greatly troubled now. You are thinking, ‘Someone has told.’ No, my young friend, it has not been told. It is given Tao Sing to know many things. Tao Sing can tell you much.”

“Are you Tao Sing?” Johnny fixed his eyes on the dark face beside him.

“I am Tao Sing.” The little man blinked strangely. “It is written, I shall be your friend. Tao Sing shall tell you many things. Ah yes, many, many things.”

Johnny was astonished, so much so that for an instant his eyes strayed away to the deep shadows beyond. When his gaze returned the dark figure of the little yellow man was gone. He had vanished into the night.

“How could he know that?” the boy asked himself in great perplexity. “I have only known it three days. It has been a pledged secret.” Here indeed was a mystery.

Johnny Thompson was, at that moment, living in the little city of Hillcrest. Having wandered the world over, sleeping beneath the tropical moon and the Midnight Sun, and meeting with all manner of weird adventures, he had returned to the place that had fascinated him most as a very small boy—his grandfather’s home. At the edge of this sleepy little city, a hundred and fifty miles from any truly great city, Johnny had found the rambling old home still standing,