“There!” Her voice dropped. “I heard something back there!”
“Come on!” Johnny shuddered. “This place is haunted today.”
Together they hurried away through the pines and were soon upon the sunlit streets of old Hillcrest.
In the meantime the “Flying Ball Team,” as someone had aptly named it, had arrived at its first destination, and things were doing.
They arrived an hour before sundown, after a thrilling ride high in air, at the little city of Cannon Ball on the wheat-growing Dakota prairies.
The moment their plane came to a standstill, they were surrounded by a crowd of boys, shouting: “Where is he? Where is he? Show him to us!”
“Where’s who?” Doug asked with a smile.
For reply one boy held up a crumpled handbill on which had been pictured a grotesque mechanical man with sparks shooting from his finger tips and flames of fire pouring from his nostrils. Beneath were the words:
IRONS O, THE STEEL-FINGERED PITCHER WHO LIVES ON FIRE. SEE HIM PERFORM AT THE BALL FIELD TOMORROW!
At sight of this, Doug felt his knees sag. “Somebody,” he grumbled, “has been over-playing the thing. And now if we fail! Man! Oh man!”