For Johnny, the next day was one of experiences both fantastic and thrilling. He had ridden in an airplane many times. But a parachute—that was something different. So, too, was a glider. But Johnny was not the one who rode in the glider.
 
They rose from the earth, those two good pals, Johnny and Curlie, just as the sun was putting the last golden touch to the fleecy clouds of morning.
 
“What could be grander!” Johnny thought to himself as they glided up—up—up until they were in the very midst of a glowing mist.
 
They emerged to go skimming away toward a larger, denser cloud that seemed a huge pillow suspended on high.
 
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“If we hit it,” Johnny thought, “it seems that we must bury ourselves and be sent bounding back like a rubber ball.”
 
He was, of course, only using his imagination. He was not surprised in the least as they passed through it, to emerge once more into the glorious sunshine of a new day.
 
It was no time at all, however, before he found himself suspecting that he had fallen into a day dream from which he could not awaken.
 
They were some time reaching the next cloud. As they approached it he seemed to see a dark object moving along its edge. At first he thought this was a trick of the imagination. As they came nearer, he was sure that it was not.
 
“How odd!” he exclaimed. “Can’t be a bird. Too big. Can’t be an airplane. Doesn’t move fast enough. Even if its motor were stopped it would sink rapidly. But there it moves on like a bird, soaring, soaring always. And we must be all of five thousand feet up.” He fairly gasped with astonishment.
 
This was as nothing compared to what followed shortly.
 
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As they came rapidly nearer and Johnny could make out a figure at the wheel, he concluded that this was one of those new machines that had recently come to be so much the thing—a glider.
 
“But five thousand feet in the air!” He was truly astonished. “Could only reach that height by tying on to an airplane. And that’s forbidden. Too dangerous.”
 
A final shock was to follow. As they neared the glider he recognized the figure seated serenely there. A tall, gaunt figure it was. A long gray coat was draped about its body. A gray cap hid its eyes. Its gray beard shone in the sun.
 
“The Gray Shadow!” he gasped.
 
As if he had heard these words, which was not possible, of course, with the thundering of the motors, the lone glider turned his machine directly about and at once lost himself in the great white morning cloud.
 
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“It is strange,” Johnny mused, as they went thundering on their way. “That person, or spirit, or whatever he may be, appears to haunt my path. I cannot escape him. On the carnival grounds, in a tunnel, at the shack, in the air, it is always the same.
 
“And after all,” he philosophized, “what’s the use of wanting to escape him. No harm has come from his presence. Good may yet come. Who knows?”
 
And in this last he was more accurate than he knew.
 
* * * * * * * *
 
Joyce Mills had arrived at her room none the worse for her experience with the sofa, two pairs of fat ankles and a mouse.
 
She lay awake long that night, wondering about the missing package, the brethren of the radical cult, the man with the missing ear, Johnny’s Gray Shadow, the Voice of the air, and many other more or less mysterious persons and things.
 
For all this, she woke with the rising sun ready for one more day at the store. And an eventful day it was to be.
 
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She punched the clock promptly at the hour of nine, filled in the cards of her salesbook—which was, as we have said, only a blind to hide her real mission at the stor............