Mystery Stories for Boys

White Fire

By
ROY J. SNELL

Chicago
The Reilly & Lee Co.

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright, 1922
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE [I The Beginning of a Mystery] 9 [II Johnny’s Trap Works] 23 [III Johnny Flushes a Skulker] 36 [IV A Fight in the Night] 48 [V A Strange Test] 60 [VI A Wild Race in the Night] 72 [VII A Race Across the Desert] 90 [VIII The Dust-Eating Mule] 101 [IX A Plane in a Typhoon] 128 [X The Taste of Salt Sea Water] 142 [XI Life’s Hazard of a Single Glide] 154 [XII Flying Knives] 168 [XIII The Mystery Deepens] 182 [XIV A Strange Life Boat] 197 [XV The Chests Are Found] 213 [XVI A Race in Mid-Air] 225

WHITE FIRE

CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY

Johnny Thompson started, then stared with dilated pupils at a spot on the aluminum casting before him. The spot, a jagged notch left by imperfect work in the foundry, turned first a dull red, then a bright red, then a glowing white.

Mechanically his hand touched the valve of his oxy-acetylene torch. Yes, it was as he had believed, the acetylene valve was closed. The oxygen valve was open, it was true, but the drum which had contained oxygen under a thousand pounds pressure was empty. In fact, he was waiting for the arrival of a new drum. That was what made the thing seem strange, impossible! It was a miracle, only miracles don’t happen in such places—he was working in the heart of a great industrial plant which turned out automobiles in twenty carload lots and airplanes by the hundreds.

Johnny scratched his chin and stared at the white spot. True, the nozzle of his torch was aimed at that spot; but five minutes before it had sput-sputted for a few seconds, then died down to an insignificant flame giving too little heat for any sort of welding. He had cut that flame off, yet now, before his very eyes the metal glowed white hot.

With a grin which said plainer than words, “I’m dreaming,” he thrust a finger in a can of water, then held it over the glowing spot until a drop of water fell.

Instantly he started afresh and stared with wilder eyes. There had come the hiss of water on white-hot metal.

“It’s hot—hot enough to weld!—no doubt about it,” he whispered. “What in the name of all that’s good?”

Mechanically he lifted a light hammer and struck four deft blows. The metal yielded to the touch of the hammer as wax to the seal. Still as in a dream he selected a bit of metal and dropped it into the niche in the casting.

Watching it closely, he saw it, too, turn dull red, bright red, then glow white. Again his hammer fell upon the spot. Deftly he struck it here and there until presently no trace of the weld remained save the glowing white spot.

That, too, changed rapidly, first grayish white, then light red, then dull red, then black.

For a time he watched it, then with a file he brushed away the black scar, leaving the casting perfect, ready to take its place in a splendid chummy roadster.

A chummy roadster! For a moment, at thought of it, Johnny’s mind left the mystery. It was to be his chummy roadster, and was to cost him only a small fraction of what it would cost on the market, for was he not of the salvage department? And had not the head of that department given him permission to salvage a part here, another part there, and another there, a few in the foundry, in the forge room, in the electrical repair shop, here and there all over the factory, until he had all the parts to make a complete car, and was he not to pay for the car just what the total value of the whole number of parts would have been if they had been thrown upon the scrap pile?

A chummy roadster! It was the only bright spot that had come upon his horizon since he had returned home at the call of a telegram, and had arrived to find his home draped in black, with noiseless footsteps passing to and fro. His father, the father who had been his boyhood chum, had left him for other lands. He had left, too, through no fault of his, a debt unpaid and no estate from which to pay it.

To Johnny Thompson, who had had many adventures but had saved no money, whose soul was a soul of honor, this situation called for but one thing: Adventures for him must cease. He must settle down to hard work and clear off the debt which clouded the family’s good name.

Dearly as he loved adventure, much as he longed to be away to some untried wilderness of Russia, Africa, South America, he had set his teeth tight and had said:

“It is my duty and I will.”

For a half hour he had permitted his mind to dwell upon his thrilling experiences in Russia with the “Reds”; in Alaska with Hanada; beneath the Chicago river with Cio Cio San; with Panther Eye and the wild beasts of the jungle. All these adventures he had dreamed through once more, then he had resolutely turned his back upon them and had gone forth in search of work.

Work was not easy to find. Times were dull. At last after five days of fruitless search, through the kindness of an old friend of his father he had secured a place in the salvage department of a great automobile and airplane factory. This department took parts that had been badly forged, or badly cast, and attempted to make them perfect, to put them back into the line of construction.

“Cutting costs,” the aged manager had told him. “That’s what we’re after these days. Can’t afford to waste a move. And if you can help us do that you’ll soon be a valuable man.”

“Not much chance for adventure in sorting rusty castings, I guess,” Johnny had smiled, “but I’ll take the job; glad to. Thanks!”

“Now, see here,” the manager had smiled. “It’s queer about that adventure stuff. You can’t always dope it out, but sometimes I think that if a fellow is destined for adventure he’ll find it; yes, even in the heart of a noisy old industrial plant.”

Johnny had smiled and had at once forgotten the remark. He had resigned himself to hard and grimy toil, and for four months had stuck with determination to his job.

Now that remark came back to him as if he were hearing it again: “If a fellow is destined for adventure he’ll find it; yes, even in the heart of a noisy old industrial plant.” Was this strange white fire which enabled him to make a perfect weld with no oxygen and with his gas turned off, the mystery which was to provide the adventure destined to come to him?

He stared about the deserted room. It was after hours and no one was in the building save Tommy Barr, who had gone for a new tube of oxygen. He could discover no possible clue which would tell him of the origin of the strange white fire.

He started as there came a metallic click, click. Then he smiled. It was Tommy rolling the tube over the tile floor.

“Tommy,” he said, “the funniest thing,” then he paused and turned the remark to another subject. He had been about to tell of the strange white fire. “The mystery is mine,” was his sudden conclusion. “I’ll solve it alone.”

When Tommy had gone for the night, with trembling fingers Johnny selected a second defective casting and set it in the vise as the other had been. Eagerly he watched to see what would happen. His impatience grew as the moments passed, for no dull red glow answered his invitation to the unseen source of magic fire.

“Guess the spell’s broken,” he mumbled.

He waited a few minutes longer, then, switching on the valves of his torch, he sent a touch of blue flame against the defective casting and, a few minutes later, threw the now perfect part on the rapidly growing pile by his side.

After that he switched off his torch, snapped off the electric light and went home.

Long before sleep gave his tired eyes rest, however, he pondered over the strange doings of the mysterious white fire, and well he might, for as the days passed that mystery was destined to become more intricately complicated, more strangely baffling on each succeeding day.

Arriving at the factory, as was his custom, a full ten minutes before work for the day, Johnny, next morning, was surprised to find a boy waiting for him with a message from William McFarland, manager of and large stockholder in the plant, his father’s old-time friend.

“What’s he want, sonny?” Johnny smiled.

“Don’t know; jes’ wants to see you at the office.”

“Something to do with that white fire,” was Johnny’s mental comment.

“Johnny,” said the industrial leader, motioning him to a chair, “when I gave you a job in our salvage department you said something about adventure.”

Johnny smiled and nodded.

“You’ve had some adventures,” the magnate scowled, “that ought to have been profitable.”

“How—how?” Johnny stammered.

“Don’t matter how I found out. The point is you should have saved a lot of money from the proceeds of those adventures. Apparently you haven’t. There was that gold mine in Siberia; I’m told it was a new Klondike.”

“It was, but—”

The magnate held up his hand for silence. “There was also that bag of diamonds you rescued from the head of the bolsheviki band. Where’d your share of all that disappear to?”

“I never had any share,” Johnny answered. “In that Siberian gold mine affair I was pledged to pay over the profits to a relief committee working with the refugees in Vladivostok. In the case of the bag of diamonds, it belonged to a defenseless Japanese woman and her people. I returned it to its rightful owner.”

The magnate sat down. He was smiling. “That’s the sort of fellow I thought you were—a son of your father. Know what broke your father?”

“Not—not altogether.”

“He was too honest, too good to his employes. Sold them stock when things were booming because he thought it would be a good thing for them. Then, when the slump came and the stock went down, down, down, he bought it back at the price they had paid. I think it was a mistake. He thought it a point of honor. He paid them the last cent and it broke him flat.”

The capitalist sat staring into space. When he spoke again his voice was husky.

“Such men as that are rare. You’re like your father. That’s why I took you into our shop. I didn’t need you in the salvage department. I do need you now for a far more important mission.” He rose and closed the door. “I need you for a secret mission, one about which you must not breathe a word to any living being save myself.”

A silence fell over the room; a tense, almost vibrant silence.

“Johnny,” he put his hand on the boy’s arm, “we’ve a great discovery within the walls of our factory, a discovery to which the formula, for the time being, is lost. It is a new type of steel. It has the hardness and the flexibility of the Damascus sword blade and, like that wonderful weapon, its owner cannot tell how it was made.”

“Then what good will—”

Mr. McFarland again held up his hand for silence. “You know, in these days of keen competition, manufacturers of motors for airplanes and automobiles are bending every effort to produce steel that will stand severe tests, that will endure strains and over-drive, and will last, last!”

Johnny nodded.

“We have such a steel as that, a marvelous steel. The man who discovered it is a genius—one of our mechanics. Unfortunately, after he had produced a few bars of this steel, and before he confided the formula to any other person, or had discovered ways of working it, he broke down from the excitement and over-strain. His mind became a blank—a complete blank.”

He paused to stare at the wall, as if in a dream.

“And there,” he went on, “are the bars of steel, some only eight inches long, some two feet—eight of them. Up to last night, that is. Now two of the shorter ones are missing. I was very careless. They should have been guarded. Competition is very strong, and doubtless a competitor has a spy in our plant. If that spy makes away with that steel, if the other man discovers the secret formula first and secures a patent, you can see what it will mean to us.”

He looked Johnny squarely in the eyes. Johnny returned the gaze, but his knees trembled. He remembered his experience of the previous night. He had been the last man to leave the factory. Was his employer about to accuse him of stealing the precious bars?

It was a tense moment. For a full thirty seconds not a sound disturbed the room. At last the magnate spoke in a whisper:

“Johnny, from now on it shall be your task to guard the six remaining bars, and to discover the whereabouts of the two that were stolen.”

Johnny’s muscles relaxed like a violin string when the bridge falls.

“I—I—” he leaped from his chair, “I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will. Now sit down there in the corner for fifteen minutes and think out some plans for discovering the lost property. You don’t need to tell me of the plans, but tell me what I can do to aid you.”

Eight minutes had elapsed when Johnny sat up with a start.

“I have it,” he exclaimed. “I’d like an electro-magnet, a powerful one, leaned against the south doorpost to the east exit. I want it connected up with switches in such a manner that I can operate it at a point where I can watch the doorway and not be seen myself. The electro-magnet should appear to be merely stored there temporarily.”

“I’ll have it attended to at once,” said the magnate. “I wish you luck.”

CHAPTER II
JOHNNY’S TRAP WORKS

Closing time that afternoon found Johnny in a cubby-hole just back of the main entrance. He was peering through a crack which appeared to have been left between the boards by accident. It had, in fact, been made for Johnny’s benefit that very day.

He was watching the long line of workmen, each swinging in his right hand his paper lunch-box, file out of the building. A clicking, turnstile gate allowed only one to pass out at a time. The factory had other exits, but this was the only one close to the spot where the strange and precious steel bars had been stored.

Beside the narrow board-walk over which the single-file line traveled, lay a circular affair of iron. Some three feet across and two feet thick, it appeared but a crude lump of metal carelessly left there. A close observer, however, would have noted that electric wires led away from the back of it. This was Johnny’s electro-magnet. When suspended in air from a cable this innocent-appearing affair could lift a half-ton of steel to a freight car platform as easily as a child might pick up a handful of straw.

“It isn’t likely that the fellow who took that steel would attempt to take it from the building at once. He’d hide it in the factory and carry it out some other night. Sooner or later I’ll get him. Sooner or—”

Johnny’s thoughts were cut short by a hand lightly laid on his shoulder.

“Thought I’d find you here.” It was his employer. “Some things in the factory I want to show you when the men are gone. They’re about out now. I’ll just wait here. Don’t let me disturb you.”

But Johnny had been disturbed; his eyes for the moment had been drawn from that passing string of men and the electro-magnet. As he again focused his eyes on the crack, he gave an involuntary start. Clinging to the face of the electro-magnet as if glued there, was an oblong paper box—a lunch-box. And the man who owned it? He had passed on out of sight without any apparent attempt to regain possession of his property.

“Rotten luck!” Johnny’s lips framed the words but did not say them. The trap had worked. There was iron or steel in that box; that was why the powerful electro-magnet had drawn it to itself. He had recovered the property, but his man had escaped. The precious steel was safe. That much was good. He heaved a sigh of relief; watched the last workman march by, touched the switch, saw the box drop from the magnet as the current was shut off, then turned toward the door.

At this point a doubt came to his mind. What if the metal in the box proved to be some other metal than the precious steel? He had been about to display his catch in triumph. He decided to make sure first, and so merely said: “In just a moment I’ll be ready.”

Stepping outside, he secured possession of the mysterious lunch-box and, carrying it as if it were dynamite, again entered the cubby-hole and said cheerfully: “All right; I’m ready now.”

As they walked slowly back into the factory Johnny’s eyes turned first to the right, then to the left. For the time the baffling mysteries of the hour were forgotten, and for the hundredth time he was lost in admiration of this marvel of modern industry, a vast manufacturing plant. Here they passed through the forge-room where, by the dull light of dying fires, one might see trip-hammers, looming like giants, resting from their labors. Now again they passed through a sand-strewn room where crater-like heaps were smoking—the foundry. And now they emerged into the assembly-room, where were automobiles partly put together, and further down, airplanes poised like giant birds ready for flight.

“The things I am to show you to-night”—the voice of his employer roused him from the spell which the place had put upon him—“are secrets, secrets known only to myself and two other men. This factory was rebuilt and enlarged during the World War. Our entire output was then being taken by the Government. In those days every precaution was necessary. Spies of the enemy were all about us and in our very midst, seeking out our most valuable secrets, ready to destroy our plants and so cripple our army. It was such a time as this that I had installed in this plant the contrivances which I am about to show you and which may, perhaps, be of assistance to you. Your work from now on will be done at night. You slept this afternoon as I instructed?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then you will be all right for tonight.”

“Easy,” answered Johnny slangily.

“Now, here,” they had paused in the center of an aisle, “please note your exact position. Got it?”

“Yes.”

Johnny’s employer nodded approval.

“Have you a watch and flashlight? It’s dark where you’re going.”

“No flashlight.” In spite of his best efforts, Johnny’s knees trembled.

“Here’s a small one. Now prepare yourself for a surprise. In five minutes stand up. Watch me.”

The magnate reached up and gave a pull on an electric lamp wire just above his head. The next instant Johnny felt himself shoot rapidly downward, to land at last with no perceptible shock upon some flat object. All about him was pitch darkness. At once his trembling hand snapped on the flashlight. As its welcome gleam shot out before him, he saw that he was in a narrow, cement-walled chamber. One glance downward and his tense muscles relaxed.

“Humph!” he grunted. “The scrap-conveyor!”

It was true. Beneath this up-to-date factory, a tunnel had been cut, through which a broad, flat conveyor ran. On this conveyor, from every point in the factory, scraps of iron, steel, brass, cloth, wire, rubber and what-not were carried without the lifting of a human hand, direct to the scrap-room.

“It’s a clever exit, nevertheless,” thought Johnny, “and worth remembering. ‘Five minutes,’ he said, ‘then stand up.’”

Focusing the flashlight on his watch, he waited. The conveyor was moving. He could see the shadows of cement beams slowly rise and pass by him. The place was fairly spooky—“like a tomb,” he said to himself. It was dead still, too. Nothing save the almost noiseless motion of the conveyor broke the silence. “What a spot for a tragedy,” he thought. “A fight here in the night; the victor escapes; the dead body is carried silently on to the scrap-pile.”

One minute passed, two, three, four. The silence grew oppressive. Five! Then came a sudden flood of light from above him. Leaping to his feet, he reached up to the edge of a cement floor and vaulted up to it. Silently a second trapdoor closed behind him. His employer stood beside him.

“Have a nice ride?” he smiled.

“Fine! A bit spooky, though,” Johnny grinned back.

“Could you use it in an emergency?”

“I think so. It’s the wire of the lamp hanging directly above it, isn’t it?”

“Right. Works electrically. Pulling that wire does the trick. There are some others, though. We must hurry on. I have a directors’ meeting at eight.”

The marvels, the tricks of magic which Johnny witnessed during the tense half-hour that followed, thrilled, charmed and at times frightened him. Now he caught himself leaping aside, as if to avoid the blow of a hidden force, and now frozen in his tracks, he felt chills race up and down his spine, while cold perspiration stood out upon his brow. Convinced as he was that he was in the hands of a friend, he could not fully overcome the spell of this seemingly magic factory. While standing idly leaning against a wall, he would suddenly become conscious of a movement in front of him, and there, not three feet before him, a second wall towered. Whether it had risen from the floor, dropped from the ceiling or developed out of thin air, he could not tell, so sudden and silent was its motion. Again, he was standing talking to his employer and, having been attracted by a sound in the distance, turned away for an instant, only to find on turning again to his friend that he had vanished; the pillar beside which he had been standing had swallowed him up.

After initiating him into the secret mysteries of six of these strange devices, his employer promised him more in the future, then took him over to the front of a massive vault built into the wall of the factory.

“Here,” said Mr. McFarland, “we keep our most valuable tools and the diamonds used in giving to shaftings their finishing touches. Here also rest the six bars of steel of the mysterious, unknown formula. We hope soon to rediscover that formula, or that its inventor, through the agencies of the doctor of the sanitarium, will be restored to his normal mind and memory. An old and trusted employe presides over the vault during the day. It will be your task to guard it nights. At any time you feel yourself in danger, there are the secret doors, walls and passages I have shown you. They may be of great service to you in securing aid, if it is needed. And now I must bid you good night.”

“Good night.” Johnny’s own voice, as if coming from a cavern, sounded hollow to him.

As his employer disappeared from sight, however, he shook himself and attempted to remember something he had postponed, something of which his subconscious memory was striving to tell him.

Suddenly he started.

“The box! That lunch-box caught by the electro-magnet!”

The next instant he was hastening away to the cubby-hole where the box still rested.

As he put his hand to the door, a sinking feeling seized him. What if it were gone? The next instant found him reassured; with the handle of the box in his own right hand, he was hurrying back to his post of duty.

But what was that? Had his well-trained ear caught the sound of a footstep? With heart beating double-time, he stood in the shadow of a great punch-press and listened. Yes, there it was; a stealthy, gliding footstep.

Stooping, with a silent, tiger-like motion he crept forward until the steel door of the vault was within his view. There, in the shelter of a milling machine, he paused and crouched motionless as a cat.

He did not have long to wait, for out of the shadows there crept the dark, crouching form of a man.

Direct as an arrow the man glided forward. Now he was ten feet from the steel door, and paused to listen. Two steps more, and a second pause. And now his hand was nearing the shining metal knob that controlled the combination lock of the vault. Again he appeared to listen.

At that second, Johnny’s eyes fairly popped out of his head—a strange thing was taking place. The knob which had been white in the semi-darkness, had turned a dull red!

“The mysterious fire!” he whispered, almost aloud.

The next instant there came a strange hissing cry of pain. The person crouching there, without noting the red glow, had grasped the knob.

For a second he appeared to study the knob; then, without as much as looking backward, he turned and darted away.

Frozen in his tracks, Johnny stood staring at the knob until the red glow had faded out and the knob shone white once more.

A long time he stood there, his mind rife with wild wonderings. What was this white fire? Whence its origin? Johnny was not superstitious; he felt that some human being was back of it all. But that human being, was he friend or foe? If friend, then he had frightened the enemy away! If enemy, then he had known of Johnny’s presence and had used this means to warn his confederate.

Presently, when his mind was again composed, he thought of the lunch-box and with trembling fingers reached down to lift it from the floor.

What would it disclose? How would its contents affect the mystery he was trying to solve?

Johnny drew a deep breath, and grinned happily.

CHAPTER III
JOHNNY FLUSHES A SKULKER

Trembling with suppressed excitement, his brow deeply furrowed, Johnny lifted the lid to the lunch-box, then stared in surprise and disgust. The box contained, not the precious steel bars of unusual and as yet unknown composition, but a small twist drill, worth, perhaps, a dime. For a moment he stared at the thing, then picked it up and thrust it into his pocket.

“Sneak thief! Petty larceny of the pettiest kind. But, anyway, I’ll report it to the chief. He may want to do something about it.”

The rest of that night, waiting in the shadow of a gigantic sheet-steel press, in full view of the vault where rested the remaining bars of steel, Johnny saw no movement, heard no sound that told him there were other human beings in the building save himself and the regular night watchman, who made his monotonous hourly rounds, pausing only to punch a clock here and there. But motionless and silent as they might be, Johnny knew there were at least two persons in that building who were there without leave or license.

To attempt to run down a single individual in the vast plant, with its labyrinth of aisles, with thousands of machines, drill presses, millers, forges, moulders, cranes, conveyors, with its seemingly tangled mass of overhead equipment and its endless underground tunnels, would be equal to the task of capturing a fish with a hand-net on the bottom of the Atlantic. To discover the person would be almost impossible, and even if he were discovered, his capture would be difficult indeed. Only the best of good fortune could crown such an effort with success.

Johnny knew there were two men. One was he who had attempted to tamper with the vault’s lock, and the other was the originator of the mysterious white fire. That the fire was produced by electric currents set to operate upon certain given contacts, Johnny could not believe. In the case of the knob to the vault’s door, this might be true, but in that of the aluminum casting such a theory was impossible, for Johnny knew there could have been no prearranged electrical contacts.

The casting had been on the floor. Johnny had lifted it to his vise and had clamped it there. No one had been near it, save he himself, from that time until the mysterious heat had enabled him to do the work of repair by welding. How could the heat have come there? That, he could not tell. Who had created it? He could not even guess. What had been the purpose in either case? Was he friend or enemy? What would be his next strange demonstration of power? All these remained unanswered. Of one thing alone Johnny was positive: The person had been in the building and was there still.

The thought made him distinctly uncomfortable. “Why,” he thought suddenly, “if he is our enemy, he has but to burn out the lock to the vault and the door will swing open of its own weight!”

Then he thought of himself. He had an uncomfortable conviction that this heat might be applied anywhere—on his own body, like as not. At times he saw himself racing about the factory tortured by an intolerable heat which turned his garments to ashes and charred his very flesh. At such times as these he rose and shook himself free from disturbing fancies.

He tried in vain to remember any great discovery which would make such intense detached heat possible. He could think of none.

“It’s a discovery! A great discovery!” he whispered at last, “and the discoverer, instead of bettering the world with it, is playing with it just to make one person most awfully uneasy and unhappy. And yet,” he paused to think, “and yet he did send that chap gliding away from the vault door as if his life depended upon it.”

In spite of all his forebodings, nothing further disturbed the vast silence of the night, and Johnny was ready, upon the arrival of his employer in the morning, to make his report. He had decided to tell of the lunch-box and twist drill episode, but to say nothing, for the present, of the strange white fire. He felt that his employer would simply be perplexed and disturbed by this news, without in any way offering a contribution to the solution of the problem. This was an affair which a single individual might best work upon alone.

“No,” said his employer, as Johnny displayed the small twist drill and told how he came into possession of it, “we’re not, as you have already suggested, interested in that sort of thing. If there is a sneak-thief in our factory, he will receive his just deserts in due time, and that with no assistance from us. Our factory is run on the honor plan. Every man is put upon his honor. If he proves unworthy of the trust, his fellow-workmen will find it out first of all, and, since the honor of the entire group is at stake, they will request him to mend his ways or draw the pay due him and leave. It is useless for him to attempt to deceive them. He must be on the square or get out.

“In this case,” he smiled, “it is probably not a case of theft at all; it is very probable that this drill was borrowed by the workman for some work at home, with the consent of his foreman.”

Johnny blushed uncomfortably.

“Your plan, though,” the manager hastened to assure him, “is a good one. Keep it up, and you may catch something yet.

“I have said,” he went on, “that we are not interested in petty thefts. We are not. This perhaps makes you wonder that you are employed as you are at the present time. But this is quite another matter. The taking of those two bars of steel, insignificant as they may seem—a few pounds in all—is of great importance to us, since, as I have explained to you, it may mean the revealing of a valuable secret.

“The question of one’s right to keep a commercial secret is a delicate one. From a moral standpoint it depends entirely upon the type of secret. Unquestionably there are some secrets which no one has a right to keep. Many great secrets have been thrown open to the world as soon as they are discovered. Radium is a case in point. If our nation were at war with some other nation at the present time, it would undoubtedly be our duty to share our secret steel process, should we be so fortunate as to unravel all its mysteries, with the Government. Since we are not at war, it does not appear to be our duty.

“The law allows us to retain our secret until it has been patented. However, if another should discover it, we would hardly be in a position to claim a share in the patent right, since no one can prove that the other person did not possess the secret first.

“You will see then, that any person who attempts to discover our secret can hardly be classed as a criminal; he is simply playing the game in a rather unfair way. There have been secrets enough carried from one manufacturing plant to another. Retaining one’s commercial secrets and reaping advantages from them is part of the romance of business. You will find few manufacturing plants, big or little, but have their secrets. In one with the magnitude of our own there are many secrets; the one you are guarding is but one of them.”

“But—” Johnny began, then hesitated.

“But what? Come on; let’s hear what’s on your mind.”

“Don’t you think it’s really one’s duty to give the whole world the benefit of his secrets?”

“In time, yes. But not at once, unprotected by patents. We have spent a great deal of money in discovering these secrets. We have a right to get that money back with a fair profit.”

“I see,” said Johnny.

“And you are ready to go on with the search?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Report to me when there is any new development. Good morning, and better luck next time.”

That night the electro-magnet trap caught nothing. Johnny went to work with a sense of defeat disturbing his usually well-composed mind. Had the two bars of steel been carried at once from the factory, and were his well-laid plans to come to naught? Would the steel be tested and analyzed, the formula discovered and patented by the intruder?

“At least,” he told himself, “I can guard securely that which is left.

“Mr. Jordan,” he said to the aged keeper of the vault by day, as he came to take his post for the night, “can’t they work that steel as it is?”

“What steel?” The old man gave him a sharp look.

“You know,” Johnny smiled.

“Oh!” the other laughed. “No, it doesn’t seem to respond properly to the heat they have tried on it; it crumples up like mud when they try to work it. And when it comes to analyzing it, there’s an element or two they don’t understand. It’s as if the stuff was from a meteor dropped out of the sky.”

Johnny thought of these things on the watch that night. “I’d like to have a piece to experiment with,” he told himself. “This white fire, now; I wonder how that would affect it. Fine chance to try that,” he laughed to himself, “First place, no steel; second place, no white fire.”

A week passed with no reappearance either of the mysterious white fire or the stranger who had attempted to tamper with the lock of the vault. Johnny was growing uneasy. It was true that his pay had been increased enough to enable him to put away a generous sum at the end of the week toward the paying of his debt of honor. But the task was growing monotonous, and, besides, there was no opportunity to work on his chummy roadster that was to have been built up from salvage.

But one dark night, when the wind was banging at the steel-framed windows of the plant, and rain beat upon the skylights in great torrents, adventure came stalking his way in the form of a crouching, skulking human who made his way, all oblivious of Johnny hidden by the shadow of a forge, to a dark corner of the forge-room, where he rattled about in a pile of imperfect forgings. He had just turned and was about to skulk away when Johnny’s lips framed a word.

The word was not uttered, for like a flash it came to him that in that particular spot there was no opportunity to head the man off and capture him.

He thought of the strange entrance to the scrap-conveyor tunnel which had been shown him by his employer. The conveyor was not running. Once he had dropped down upon it, he could stoop and run forward upon its surface some two hundred feet. He would then come out at a place in the direction in which the man was going. In that spot a trick-wall might be made to rise and head him off. He would be trapped!

A few silent steps and Johnny was upon the spot above the scrap-conveyor. His hand went up to the light wire. Straight down he dropped. The next minute he was racing along the conveyor.

At the end of this race he took a long breath and waited. There would be a struggle, he knew that. The best man would win; there was no one to aid.

With a sharp intake of breath, he touched a button, a trap flew open. With a leap he cleared the opening and fell sprawling. His estimate of time had failed him. The skulking stranger had tripped over him and they had gone down together!

CHAPTER IV
A FIGHT IN THE NIGHT

Johnny Thompson was as nearly as possible a perfect physical being. Having been taught from childhood the necessity of physical well-being and muscular prowess to the business man as well as to the mechanic or professional athlete, he had kept himself fit and had never neglected an opportunity to learn some new trick or turn on the wrestling mat or gymnasium floor.

In the struggle that followed the collision there in the dark aisle of the factory neither Johnny nor the stranger had the advantage of anticipating attack. Both had been surprised.

Johnny soon learned that his antagonist was no ordinary person. Seizing the man by the feet, Johnny clamped on with a grip of iron. But to his utter surprise the man gave the sudden twist of a professional contortionist, and came up between his own knees, clawing at Johnny’s face like a cat.

Loosing his hold Johnny made a sudden grab for the other’s waist, but in that fraction of a second the man took a sudden double backward somersault, and leaping to his feet, dashed away.

Instantly Johnny was up and after him. He was dashing along at full speed, making a good gain at every leap, when of a sudden he banged into a perpendicular wall. The wall was rising. It lifted Johnny some four feet in air to dash him to the floor again.

“The fake wall!” he muttered, astonished. Had the other runner known of this trap and had he sprung it? Or had it been an accident?

There was not a moment to lose. Dashing back the way he had come, he rounded a pillar and was again in full pursuit.

The stranger was now far ahead of him, just rounding a corner to enter the loading-room.

Through this loading-room, which was a full block in length and two hundred feet in width, there ran a double railway switch. This switch was filled with freight cars, some empty, many loaded with raw material, bales of rubber-cloth, bars of steel, bundles of wire. If the man chose to lose himself among these cars the pursuit was at an end. Johnny pressed on; there was a chance that the great doors at the farther end stood ajar, and that the man would attempt escape at once.

As he rounded the corner, Johnny saw that the doors were ajar and that, a third of the way down the long unloading platform, a slim figure was fleeing.

“Can’t do it. Got to try, though,” he panted, as he sped along.

Suddenly he became conscious of a chain dangling just before him. It seemed to him that there came a slight jangle from that chain. Yes, now he saw it lift, then drop a foot or two. What could it mean? Now it moved forward a yard and stopped.

The chain was within his reach. Acting from instinct rather than reason, he grasped it, thrust his foot in the loop at the bottom, and the next minute, with a grinding roar sounding above him, he felt himself shoot forward at a terrific speed.

The chain was attached to a huge traveling crane. This crane, which was a steel beam swung from wall to wall of the structure and running on iron wheels along a steel rail set at the very top of the wall, fifty feet above, was electrically operated from a small cab that hung just beneath it.

Johnny looked up at the cab. He could see no person there. Darkness might account for that, but all the same he felt a cold chill creep up his spine. Was this, after all, a charmed factory? Had he, all unknown to himself, been moved to some enchanted city where heat, with no apparent origin, melted metals, and where giant cranes ground their way at express-train speed with no one to guide them? He was tempted to think so.

But cold reality brought him back to his senses. Dangling from a chain, he was rapidly approaching a man who was doing his utmost to escape. What if that man were armed? A wonderful target he would make, dangling there in mid-air!

Cold perspiration stood out on his furrowed brow. His knees seemed about to sink from beneath him. He swung one foot free, and began whirling about to give the chain a side-wise pendulum motion that he might prove a poorer target.

Meanwhile, the stranger did not turn to look back. The very thunder of the traveling crane appeared to lend new speed to his limbs. Perhaps he imagined the entire place to be swarming with men engaged in pursuing him. A surprised look overspread his face, as Johnny, not three feet to the right of him, swung past.

The man instantly dodged back and dropped to the floor, but Johnny, leaping from his iron swing, was upon him before he could get to his feet again.

There followed a second struggle similar to the first. This stranger was a contortionist, there could be no question about that now. Before three minutes had elapsed, he had again wriggled like an eel from Johnny’s grasp and had dashed through the door to freedom.

In disgust, Johnny sat up and dabbed at some scratches on his face which were bleeding. “Never saw anything like that,” he grumbled.

Above him the traveling crane hung in impressive silence. He gazed up at the driver’s cab. All was motionless there. But what was that? Did he see one of the landing doors on the fourth floor open a crack, then close again? He thought so, but in the pale moonlight that streamed in through the windows he could not be sure.

“Fate seems to mock at a fellow sometimes,” he mumbled. “Look at the luck I had, that trip on the crane and everything, and then look at the luck I didn’t have; he got away!”

He moved a foot to rise, and something jangled beside it.

“What?”

He put out his hand and took up a bar of steel. For a second he flashed a light upon it. His heart beat wildly; the steel was blue—the bluest steel he had ever seen.

“It’s one of the stolen bars,” he muttered. “Lost it out of his pocket.”

A careful search showed him that the second one was not there. Then suddenly he remembered that he was a long way from his main trust—the vault where reposed the remaining six bars. Rising hurriedly, he went racing back to the center of the factory where the vault was located.

Arrived at the corner of the forge-room he paused and peered away through the darkness to a point where a small light shone above the vault door. He half-expected to see a figure crouching there. There was no one in sight. Once more the aisles of machines, conveyors and tunnels appeared deserted. Strain his eyes and ears as he might, he caught only the din of the storm beating on the cupolas above the forge-room and an occasional flash of lightning.

Seating himself on a fireless forge, he leaned back against its smoke conveyor and rested. The double struggle, the race, the strange occurrences of the night, had unnerved him. He started at every new blast of the wind, fancying it the move of some new intruder.

He was puzzled. Who could have been present to give him that fast ride on the chain of the traveling crane? Surely not a watchman; these men knew nothing about traveling cranes; indeed, few men did. The manipulating of these huge burden-bearers, capable of carrying a loaded box-car from one end of the unloading room to the other, was a delicate and difficult task. There were scores of levers and switches to operate, scores of motions to memorize, yet this man, whoever he was, had shown a competent control of the massive machine. Who could he have been?

He thought again of the bar of secret-process steel which he had now in his possession. Only a few days before he had wished for a particle of that steel that he might test it. Now he had in his possession a whole bar of it, yet how was he to secure a sample for testing? Only a minute particle was needed, but how was that to be obtained?

He was seized with a sudden desire to try his skill on this strange metal. He had learned a little of steel-testing while in the salvage department. Not sixteen feet from the point where he now sat there was a branch laboratory for testing steel. All the equipment for testing it was there. There was only lacking the tiny particle of steel.

Taking the bar from his pocket, he turned it over and over. He struck it on an anvil and enjoyed the bell-like ring of it. He held it to the light and studied the intense blue of it. Never before in the history of the world had there been such steel, he was sure of that.

Laying the bar down upon the cinders of the forge, he took a little circle around the forge-room to stand at last gazing at the door of the vault.

Some faint sound caused him to turn about. At once his gaze was fixed on the forge where the steel bar was resting. The red glow of fire was on the forge. The coal was on fire. One end of the bar glowed with a peculiar white light!

His first thought was that there had been matches lying on the forge, and that they had been accidentally lighted, setting off the coal. This theory was quickly abandoned. Coal didn’t start burning that easily.

Then, remembering the old vault-keeper’s remark, “It doesn’t seem to take the heat right. Gets all sort of crumbly when it’s been heated,” he dashed for the forge, seized a pair of tongs, and drew the piece of metal from the fire. It slipped from the tongs and fell upon the cement floor with a dull thud.

In an agony of fear lest the steel had been ruined he seized a hammer and cold chisel and, placing the edge of the chisel against the still white-hot surface, struck it sharply with the hammer.

A thin circle of steel coiled up about the edge of the chisel, then dropped to the floor.

“Nothing the matter with that steel,” he muttered, as he watched the white heat slowly fade to a bright red, then dull red, then black, “but one thing, I’ll wager: That was our old friend the ‘white fire’ once more.”

He glanced about him apprehensively, as if fearing to see glowing eyes staring at him from the dark, but all he saw was a fresh flash of lightning followed by a burst of thunder.

Looking down, his eyes were caught by the thin coil of steel cut from the bar. It was cool now and blue almost to transparency. He picked it up and dropped it again, to see it bounce ten inches from the floor.

“Nothing the matter with that steel,” he repeated.

Then a new thought struck him.

“Why, that—that bit of coiled steel is my particle for testing.”

Touching the bar of steel he found it still hot. Waiting impatiently for it to cool, he paced the floor, his eye first on the vault-door, then on the precious steel. What if he were to be successful in his analysis of the steel? That would be a great honor, indeed.

Retracing his steps to the side of the forge, he once more tested the steel bar. Finding it cool enough, he thrust it into his pocket, picked up his bit for testing, and strode away to the laboratory, where through a window he could keep watch of the vault door.

CHAPTER V
A STRANGE TEST

On a work bench before the window in the laboratory there rested an instrument the like of which Johnny had never seen before entering the factory for work. The main body of it was a black drum about a foot long and ten inches in diameter. Out from this drum there ran a tube which, bending first this way, then that, passed into a bottle, then out of it into a second, then out again and so on until six or eight bottles had been included in its route.

“Let’s see,” said Johnny. “This one catches the carbon, this one, tungsten, this, water vapor, this, iron, and so on. Guess the thing’s all set for taking off the different known elements that are likely to be found in any steel. But how about those unknown elements? Here’s a wild shot in the dark.” Taking down three bottles from the wall, he poured a little from each into a fourth bottle. He then replaced the three bottles and, by the aid of two short tubes, inserted the bottle he had just filled into the circuit running from the drum. Repeating the operation with a new set of bottles he added a second bottle to the circuit.

“There,” he smiled, “if there are any strange atoms floating around, those ought to give them a home. Now for it!”

Pushing open a slide in the side of the drum he adjusted his bit of steel in a position between two electrical poles and directly before a small nozzle. He then shut the drum, turned on a switch which started a low snapping sound inside the drum, turned a valve which set a slight roar resounding within the drum, then sat back to watch.

Presently a greenish gas could be seen passing along inside the glass tube.

“Working!” he smiled. “Pretty slick arrangement! Electric spark sets fire to the metal, oxygen feeds the flame. Burn up anything that way. That gas was the hardest, most flexible steel in the world a moment ago.”

As he sat there watching the process go forward, hearing the hum and snap inside the drum, now and then catching the roll of thunder from the storm that raged outside, he thought of the three Shakespearean witches and their steaming caldron. He liked to think of himself as a modern wizard with his smoking electrical caldron.

But something caught his eye. The color of the liquid in one of the bottles of chemicals he had mixed at random was turning from white to a dull brown as the gas from burning steel passed through.

“Catching something!” he ejaculated. “Wonder what it may be?”

For ten more minutes he sat watching. Then, when all the gas had apparently passed off he turned the valve, threw out the switch, and sat there lost in thought.

It was interesting, this experiment. This instrument had always fascinated him. He felt that it might be that he had made a discovery. But thus far he could go, no farther. Of chemical analysis he knew nothing. Already he had made a vow with himself that, as soon as his debt of honor was paid, he would begin somewhere, somehow, a study of those sciences which were so closely related to industry—chemistry, metallurgy, engineering, mechanics, physics.

But now he was stuck. He had never really been given permission to work in the laboratory alone at night and he was loath now to admit he had done so.

“Oh, well,” he sighed, “probably nothing to it, anyway. I’ll just label you and put you up here for the present.” He scrawled a few words on a label, pasted it to the bottle containing the dull brown liquid, then set it upon an upper shelf.

“Some day,” he smiled, “perhaps I’ll have the nerve to tell Mr. Brown about it, but not now.” Brown was the head of the laboratory.

He went out into the aisle and began walking slowly up and down before the vault. He was sleepy and tired. This night work was telling on him.

“Wish it was over with,” he muttered. “Anyway,” he smiled, “I’ve got something to show them this time,” and he patted the steel bar in the right-hand pocket of his blouse.

* * * * * * * *

“You say someone drove the traveling crane down the loading-room and helped you chase that man!” the manager exclaimed next day after Johnny had told the story of his queer night’s adventures. “That seems incredible!”

“Maybe so, but it’s true!”

“There are only three men in our employ who can run that crane and they, I am sure, were not there.”

Johnny smiled. “Can’t explain it; all I know is, it’s true.”

“I’ll put a double guard on the place. Can’t have things going on like that.”

Johnny smiled again. He had told of the double struggle with the snake-like adversary, of the chase, of the ride on the traveling crane, and the recovery of one steel bar, but had not mentioned the “white fire” nor the steel test he had made. “What’s the use?” he had asked himself. “Who’d understand a thing like that ‘white fire’?”

“Well,” said his employer, “I’m glad you recovered one of the bars; I only wish you had secured the other. One may do us all the harm possible.”

“You never saw such a man,” Johnny half-apologized. “Like an eel, he was, a regular contortionist. I’ve handled a lot of fellows, but never one like him.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Mr. McFarland reassured him. “You did better work than many persons twice your age might have done. Well,” after a moment’s thought, “you keep that bar until this evening, then, when you go to work, give it to Marquis and have him put it in the vault. Your work will be as before until further orders.”

Johnny was disappointed. He had hoped to be relieved from this task, which would grow doubly monotonous since it was definitely known that the remaining bar of steel had been carried from the factory. He managed to conceal his disappointment, however, and went his way, to sleep the day through with the bar of steel beneath his pillow.

He did not return the bar to Marquis, the day keeper of the vault, as he had been instructed to do. When Johnny arrived he found the vault locked, its keeper gone.

“Well, old precious one,” he smiled, patting the bar of metal, “it’s one more night in my company for you, whether you like it or not.”

It was that same night, in the long, silent hours just following midnight, that something happened that was destined to change the entire course of Johnny Thompson’s life. He was sleepy—sleepier than usual, for his sleep had been broken into that day.

“If only I had another shaving off that steel bar,” he thought to himself, “I’d do that experiment again, and try for a different result.”

As if expecting the miracle to repeat itself, he walked to the forge-room and placed the bar of steel on the little heap of coals at the center of the same forge that had burned so mysteriously the previous night.

Then with a laugh, which told plainer than words that he thought he was kidding himself, he turned and strolled away down the aisle among the forges.

No room held such an endless fascination for him as this forge-room. In the day, especially toward evening when the outer light was failing, when the forge fires burned brightly, and the white hot metal on the dies glowed at each stroke of the massive hammers, when the whang-whang-whang of steel on steel raised a mighty clamor, then it was a place to conjure about. But even now, in the dead still of the night, the powerful hammers resting from their labor, the long line of forges with fires burned out spoke to him of solemn grandeur and dormant power.

He had just made the length of the room and had turned about when from his lips there escaped a muffled cry.

Instantly he broke into a run. Once more, as on the previous night, the forge on which the steel bar lay was a mass of white and red fire.

By the time he had reached the spot, the bar of metal was a glowing white mass from end to end.

His first thought was to seize the tongs and drag the bar from the forge to the floor; his second was a bolder one. It caused his heart to thump loudly, his breath to come quickly.

Dared he do it?

He put his hand to an electric switch by the side of the trip-hammer nearest the forge. The answer was a snap and a spark.

“Current’s on,” he murmured. “I could do it. Old McPherson taught me how when I was in the salvage department—but dare I?”

To the lower surface of the hammer was attached a nickel-steel die. To the surface on which it fell was bolted another. The two matched. A white-hot bit of steel placed upon the lower die at just the right spot, then struck; then moved and struck again; moved and struck two times more, would be no longer a clumsy bar of steel, but a rough-finished connecting-rod for an automobile. The white-hot bar of steel before him was just the right length and thickness. Dared he do it?

As in a dream, he seized the metal with the tongs, lifted it, swung it about to the proper position on the nickel-steel plate, touched a pedal with his foot, heard the whang of steel on steel, saw the hammer rise again, moved the white-hot metal, touched the pedal, heard the whang again; twice more repeated the operation, then tossed the bit of metal, still glowing white-hot, upon the sanded floor; a perfect connecting-rod as to shape—but as to composition? His breath came hard. Had the bit of metal been spoiled in the heating and the forging? And, if it had, how could he ever square himself?

To quiet his wildly beating heart he took a turn about the factory, then returned to the forge-room. He was just re-entering the forge-room when something caught his eye. What was it? Had his eye deceived him, or had he caught sight of a furtive figure dodging behind the sheet-metal press over at the right? In a moment he would investigate, but first he must make sure that the newly forged connecting-rod of priceless steel was safe.

Quickly his heart beat as he lifted the now thoroughly cooled steel, and allowed it to fall upon the cement floor.

“Sounds like real steel,” he exulted.

He picked it up and examined it closely. “Not a flaw. And real steel—the best steel on earth—and I forged it! But how?” He paused, a puzzled look overspreading his face. “How shall I tell them I heated it? What good will one forging do with no means of forging more?”

“Oh, well!” he murmured, at last, “I’ll tell them, anyway. And now,” dropping the connecting-rod in his pocket, “the next thing is something else. I wonder what it will be!”

He left the forge-room and walked cautiously toward the sheet-metal press.

As he neared it, a dark object, like some wild animal leaping from its hiding-place among the crags, leaped out, and away.

Who was this? Was it his contortionist-enemy returned in hopes of retrieving the lost bar, or was it some other intruder?

Johnny did not waste time on idle questions, but sprang away in hot pursuit.

CHAPTER VI
A WILD RACE IN THE NIGHT

Johnny had not gone far in the pursuit of the strange intruder who had leaped out from behind the sheet-steel press, before he realized that this was no ordinary runner. Not only was he fleet and sure, but he was also nimble as a deer.

Almost from the first it became an obstacle race, a hurdle race, a long-distance endurance race, all in one. Into the milling-room, where were long lines of milling-machines and where great quantities of unfinished parts—cam-shafts, crank-shafts, gears and a multitude of smaller parts—were piled close together, the fugitive raced. Over machines and heaps of parts alike he hurdled. Dodging this way and that, he was now lost to Johnny’s view and now found again.

Panting, perspiring, yet confident, Johnny followed on. Knowing full well that when it came to a test of endurance few men could outdo him, he held to his pace, striving only to keep his opponent in sight.

One thing puzzled him. In the tiger-like leap of the fellow, in the swinging, crouching stoop, there was something strikingly familiar.

“I’ve seen him before, I know that,” he told himself, “but when and where?”

Suddenly the fellow shot up the cross-bars of an inclined conveyor track which led to the second floor. Suspended from a mono-rail above this conveyor track was an electrically controlled tram.

Was the electricity turned on? Johnny’s mind worked with the speed of a wireless. His muscles did its bidding. Leaping to the platform of the tram, he threw the lever back. So suddenly did the thing start forward that Johnny was all but thrown from the tram.

The next instant he caught his breath and threw in the clutch. He was not a second too soon, for had the tram traveled ten feet further it would inevitably have struck the racing stranger square in the back of his head.

“I want to catch him, not kill him,” muttered Johnny.

But the stranger was game. Leaping away to the right, he dropped through a hole in the floor in which there dangled a chain. Quickly he disappeared from sight.

Johnny followed, and, just as he touched the floor below, heard the hum of an electric motor.

Johnny knew at once what it was—a “mule,” as the workmen called the short, snub-nosed electric trucks used all over the shops for light hauling.

“I can’t catch him on a mule,” he groaned.

But again his face cleared. Just before him there stood another of the trucks. “A mule against a mule,” he smiled. “Now we’ll see who’s the best driver.”

The race, while wild and furious, assumed an almost humorous aspect; indeed, Johnny fancied that from time to time the stranger turned about and uttered a low chuckle. That was disconcerting, to say the least. Added to this was the growing conviction that he had met this fellow before, and that under more favorable circumstances.

All this, however, did not in one whit abate his desire to win the race and capture the fellow. Wildly the mules plunged on. Around this corner, then that one, down a long row of half-assembled automobiles where a single mislaid tool in their track might mean a disastrous spill, through a maze of trucks loaded down with finished parts, now out into the open air between buildings, now through a tunnel, they raced. Now gaining, now losing, now dashing through a short-cut and almost clipping the end of the stranger’s mule, now headed off by a slamming door, Johnny gained, only to lose again, until at last he came up short to find the stranger’s mule standing deserted in the heart of the packing-room.

“Where could he have gone?”

It took but a moment for the answer. There came the grind of the overhead tram. The tram used for carrying fully boxed machines led to the great loading room where Johnny had lost his other race.

“If he makes it, he’s gone!” Leaping out and up, Johnny caught the platform of a second tram; he drew himself up, threw in the lever and was once more in the race.

At last fortune was favoring him. The door to the loading-room was locked. The stranger was running himself into a narrow passage from which escape would be impossible. Johnny leaped from his tram, to find the stranger facing him. That person was clearly on the defense. With fists doubled up he advanced to attack.

Just as the stranger struck out with his right hand, Johnny ducked low—so low that the other’s blow glanced harmlessly over his head. The next instant Johnny would have come up with a “haymaker,” had not the stranger thrown himself, stomach down, on Johnny’s back, and turned a quick somersault forward.

Whipping himself about, prepared for another wild race, Johnny was astonished to find the stranger standing smiling at him, and extending his hand;

“Good work, Johnny, old boy!” the other grinned. “You haven’t lost a bit of your pep!”

“You’ve got the best of me,” Johnny smiled doubtfully, “but if you ever had any more pep yourself, I’d hate to have followed you far!” He mopped his brow.

“Don’t recognize me, eh? Perhaps you miss the blue goggles.”