CHAPTER VIIRADIO AND THE FIRE FIEND
“Well, I hope that the boys know what you’re talking about,” interrupted Mr. Layton at this point, his eyes twinkling, “for I’m sure I don’t.”
“They know what I’m talking about all right,” returned his guest, admiration in his laughing eyes as he looked at the boys. “Unless I miss my guess, these fellows are the stuff of which radio experts are made. I bet they’ll do great things yet.”
“Won’t you tell us more about your experiences?” begged Herb, while the other boys tried not to look too pleased at the praise. “It isn’t often we have a chance to hear of adventures like yours first hand.”
“Well,” said Mr. Bentley, modestly, “I don’t know that there’s much to tell. All we scouts do is to patrol the country and watch for fires. Of course, in case of a big fire, our duties are more exciting. I remember one fire,” he leaned back in his chair reminiscently and the boys listenedeagerly, hanging on every word. “It was a beauty of its kind, covering pretty nearly fourteen miles. Thousands of dollars’ worth of valuable timber was menaced. It looked for a time as if it would get the better of us, at that.
“Men were scarce and there was a high wind to urge the fire on. A receiving set was rushed to the fire line, some of the apparatus in a truck and some carried by truck horses. My plane was detailed to patrol the fire line and give directions to the men who were fighting the fire.”
He paused, and the boys waited impatiently for him to go on.
“The good old plane was equipped for both sending and receiving, and I tell you we patrolled that fourteen miles of flaming forest, sometimes coming so close to the tree tops that we almost seemed to brush them.
“My duty, of course, was to report the progress of the fire. Controlled at one point, it broke out at another, and it was through the messages from my ’plane to the ground set stationed just behind the fire line that the men were moved from one danger point to the next.
“Finally, the fire seeming nearly out along one side of the ridge, I sent the men to fighting it on the other side, where it had been left to rage uncontrolled. No sooner had the men scattered for the danger point than the brooding fire brokeout again and it was necessary to recall half the men.
“It was a long fight and a hard one, but with the aid of the blessed old wireless, we finally won out. As a matter of fact, the wireless-equipped airplane has become as necessary to the Forest Service as ships are to the navy.
“In the old days,” he went on, seeing that the boys were still deeply interested, “when they depended upon the ordinary telephone to convey warnings of fires they were surely leaning upon a broken reed.
“Often, just when they needed the means of communication most, the fire would sweep through the woods, destroying trees to which the telephone wires were fastened, and melting the wires themselves. So the eyes of the Forest Service were put out and they were forced to work in the dark.”
“But I should think,” protested Bob, “that there would be times when even wireless would be put out of the job. Suppose the fire were to reach one of the stations equipped with wireless. What then?”
Mr. Bentley laughed as though amused at something.
“I can tell you an interesting incident connected with that,” he said. “And one that shows the pluck and common sense of radio operators ingeneral—don’t think that I’m throwing bouquets at myself, now, for first and last, I am a pilot, even if sometimes I find it necessary to employ radio.
“Well, anyway, this operator that I am speaking of, found himself in a perilous position. A fire had been raging for days, and now it was so close to his station that the station itself was threatened.
“One morning when he got up the smoke from the burning forest was swirling about the open space in front of the station and he knew that before long he would be seeing flame instead of smoke. The fire fighters had been working ceaselessly, fighting gallantly, but the elements were against them. The air was almost as dry and brittle as the wood which the flames lapped up and there was a steady wind that drove the fire on and on.
“If only there might come a fog or the wind change its direction! But the radio man had no intention of waiting on the elements. I don’t believe he gave more than a passing thought to his own safety—his chief interest was for the safety of his beloved apparatus.
“He decided to dismantle the set, build a raft and set himself and the apparatus adrift upon the water in the attempt to save it.
“And so he worked feverishly, while the firecame closer and he could hear the men who were fighting the fire shouting to each other. Finally he succeeded in dismantling the set and got it down to the water’s edge.
“Here he built a rough raft, piled the apparatus upon it, jumped after it, and drifted out into the middle of the lake.”
“Did the station burn down?” asked Jimmy excitedly.
“No, fortunately. The wind died down in the nick of time, giving the men a chance to control the blaze. When it was evident the danger was past, the operator set up his apparatus again and prepared to continue his duties, as though nothing had happened.
“There you have the tremendous advantage of radio. There were no wires to be destroyed. Only a radio set which could be dismantled and taken to safety while the fire raged.”
“That operator sure had his nerve with him, all right,” said Bob admiringly.
“More nerve than common sense perhaps,” chuckled Mr. Bentley. “But you certainly can’t help admiring him. He was right there when it came to grit.”
After a while they began to discuss technicalities, and the boys learned a great many things they had never known before. The pilot happening to mention that there were sometimes a numberof airplanes equipped with radio operating within a restricted district, Joe wanted to know if they did not have a good deal of trouble with interference.
“No. There was at first some interference by amateurs, but these soon learned to refrain from using their instruments during patrol periods.
“You see,” he explained, “we use a special type of transmitting outfit aboard our fire-detection craft. It’s called the SCR-Seventy-three. The equipment obtains its power from a self-excited inductor type alternator. This is propelled by a fixed wooden-blade air fan. In the steam-line casing of the alternator the rotary spark gap, alternator, potential transformer, condenser and oscillation transformer are self-contained. Usually the alternator is mounted on the underside of the fuselage where the propeller spends its force in the form of an air stream. The telegraph sending keys, field and battery switch, dry battery, variometer and antenna reel are the only units included inside the fuselage.
“The type of transmitter is a simple rotary gap, indirectly excited spark and provided with nine taps on the inductance coil of the closed oscillating circuit. Five varying toothed discs for the rotary spark gap yield five different signal tones and nine different wave lengths are possible.
“So,” he finished, looking around at their absorbedfaces, “you see it is quite possible to press into service a number of airplanes without being bothered by interference.”
“It sounds complete,” said Bob. “I’d like a chance to see one of those sets at close range sometime.”
The time passed so quickly that finally the visitor rose with an apology for staying so late. The radio boys were sorry to see him go. They could have sat for hours more, listening to him.
“That fellow sure has had some experiences!” said Joe, as, a little later, the boys mounted the stairs to Bob’s room. “It was mighty lucky we happened along while he was here.”
“You bet your life,” said Herb. “I wouldn’t have missed meeting him for a lot.”
“Say, fellows,” Jimmy announced from the head of the stairs, “I know now what I’m going to do when I’m through school. It’s me for the tall timber. I’m going to pilot an airplane in the service of my country.”
“Ain’t he noble?” demanded Herb, grinning, as the boys crowded into Bob’s room.
CHAPTER VIIINEAR DISASTER
Several days later while the radio boys were experimenting with their big set and talking over their interesting meeting with the Forest Service ranger, Herb displayed an immense horseshoe magnet.
“Look what he’s got for luck,” chortled Jimmy. “The superstitious nut!”
“Superstitious nothing!” snorted Herb. “If I’d wanted it for luck I wouldn’t have got a magnet, would I? Any old common horseshoe would have done for luck.”
“Well, what’s the big idea?” asked Bob, looking up from the audion tube he was experimenting with. “Or is there any?” he added, with a grin.
“You bet your life there is!” returned Herb. “It’s got to do with that very audion tube you’re fussing with.”
“Ah, go on,” jeered Joe, good-naturedly. “What’s a magnet got to do with an audion tube, I’d like to know!”
“Poor old Herb,” added Jimmy, with a commiserating shake of the head.
“Say, look here, all you fellows! Don’t you go wasting any pity on me,” cried Herb hotly. “If you don’t look out, I won’t show you my experiment at all.”
“Go on, Herb,” said Bob consolingly. “I’m listening.”
“Well, I’m glad there’s one sensible member of this bunch!” cried Herb, and from then on addressed himself solely to Bob. “Look here,” he said. “You can make the audion tube ever so much more sensitive to vibration if you put this magnet near it.”
“Who says so?” asked Bob, with interest.
“I do. Here, put on the headphones and listen. I’ll prove it to you.”
Bob obeyed and tuned in to the nearest broadcasting station where a concert was scheduled. As soon as he signified by a nod of his head that the connection was satisfactory Herb placed the big horseshoe magnet in such a position that the poles of the magnet were on each side of the tube.
Sure enough, Bob was amazed at the almost magical improvement in the sound. It was clearer, more distinct, altogether more satisfactory. He listened in for another moment thenwonderingly took off the headphones while Herb grinned at him in triumph.
“Well, what do you think?” asked the latter while Joe and Jimmy looked at them curiously.
“Think?” repeated Bob, still wonderingly. “Why, there’s only one thing to think, of course. That fool horseshoe of yours, Herb, is one wonderful improvement. I don’t know how it works, but it surely is a marvel.”
Herb glanced at Jimmy and Joe in triumph.
“What did I tell you?” he said. “Perhaps now you’ll believe that my idea wasn’t such a fool one after all.”
“But what did it do, Bob?” asked Joe, mystified.
“It increased the sensitivity of that old audion tube, that’s what it did,” replied Bob, absently, his mind already busy with inventive thoughts. “I can’t see yet just how it accomplished it, but the connection with the station was certainly clearer and more distinct than usual.”
“But how can a magnet increase the sensitivity of a vacuum tube?” asked Jimmy, not yet wholly convinced. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, I don’t see why not,” contradicted Joe slowly. “I suppose the improvement is due to the magnetic effect of the magnet upon the electrons flowing from the filament to the plate. I don’texactly see why it should be an improvement, but if it is, then there must be some reason for it.”
“I wish we could find the reason!” cried Bob excitedly. “If we could make some improvement upon the vacuum tube——”
“Don’t wake him up, he is dreaming!” cried Herb. “If you don’t look out, old boy, you’ll have us all millionaires.”
“Well, there are worse things,” retorted Bob, taking the magnet from Herb’s hand and placing it near the tube. “This has given us something to think about, anyway.”
For a while they puzzled over the mystery, trying to find some way in which the discovery might be made to serve a practical purpose—all except Herb, who retired to one corner of the “lab” to fuss with some chemicals which he fondly hoped might be used in the construction of a battery.
So engrossed were the boys in the problem of the magnet and vacuum tube that they forgot all about Herb and his experiments. So what happened took them completely off their guard.
There was a sudden cry from Herb, followed closely by an explosion that knocked them off their feet. For a moment they lay there, a bit dazed by the shock. Then they scrambled to their feet and looked about them. Herb, being the nearest to the explosion, had got the worst ofit. His face and hands were black and he was shaking a little from the shock. He gazed at the boys sheepishly.
“Wh-what happened?” asked Jimmy dazedly.
“An earthquake, I guess,” replied Bob, as he looked about him to see what damage had been done.
Some doughnuts, which their namesake had recently fetched from the store, lay scattered upon the floor, together with some rather dilapidated-looking pieces of candy, but aside from this, nothing seemed to have been damaged seriously.
Jimmy’s followed Bob’s gaze, and, finding his precious sweets upon the floor, began gathering them up hastily, stuffing a doughnut in his mouth to help him hurry. What mattered it to Jimmy that the floor was none too clean?
“Say, what’s the big idea, anyway,” Joe demanded of the blackened Herb. “Trying to start a Fourth of July celebration, or something?”
“I was just mixing some chemicals, and the result was a flare-up,” explained Herb sulkily. “Now, stop rubbing it into a fellow, will you? You might know I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Bob began to laugh.
“Better get in connection with some soap and water, Herb,” he said. “Just now you look like the lead for a minstrel show.”
“Never mind, Herb,” Joe flung after the disconsolatescientist as he made for the door. “As long as you don’t hurt anything but Jimmy’s doughnuts, we don’t care. You can have as many explosions as you like.”
“Humph, that’s all right for you,” retorted Jimmy. “But I’ll have you know I spent my last nickel for those doughnuts.”
“Just the same,” said Bob soberly, as they returned to the problem of the vacuum tube, “we’re mighty lucky to have come off with so little damage. Mixing chemicals is a pretty dangerous business unless you know just what you’re doing.”
“And even then it is,” added Joe.
CHAPTER IXA HAPPY INSPIRATION
The days passed by, the boys becoming more and more engrossed in the fascination of radio all the time. They continued to work on their sets, sometimes with the most gratifying results, at others seeming to make little headway.
But in spite of occasional discouragements they worked on, cheered by the knowledge that they were making steady, if sometimes slow, progress.
There were so many really worth-while improvements being perfected each day that they really found it difficult to keep up with them all.
“Wish we could hear Cassey’s voice again,” said Herb, one day when they had tuned in on several more or less interesting personal messages.
“I don’t know what good it would do us,” grumbled Joe. “If he speaks always in code he could keep us guessing till doomsday.”
“He’s up to some sort of mischief, anyway,” said Bob; “and I, for one, would enjoy catching him at it again.”
“We would be more comfortable to have Dan Cassey in jail, where he belongs,” observed Jimmy.
But just at present the trailing of that stuttering voice seemed an impossible feat even for the radio boys. If they could only get some tangible clue to work on!
They saw nothing of Buck Looker or his cronies about town, and concluded that they were still at the lumber camp.
“Can’t stay away too long to suit me,” Bob said cheerfully.
It was about that time that Bob found out about Adam McNulty. Adam McNulty was the blind father of the washerwoman who served the four families of the boys.
Bob went to the McNulty cabin, buried in the most squalid district of the town, bearing a message from his mother. When he got there he found that Mr. McNulty was the only one at home.
The old fellow, smoking a black pipe in the bare kitchen of the house, seemed so pathetically glad to see some one—or, rather, to hear some one—that Bob yielded to his invitation to sit down and talk to him.
And, someway, even after Bob reached home, he could not shake off the memory of the lonesome old blind man with nothing to do all daylong but sit in a chair smoking his pipe, waiting for some chance word from a passer-by.
It did not seem fair that he, Bob, should have all the good things of life while that old man should have nothing—nothing, at all.
He spoke to his chums about it, but, though they were sympathetic, they did not see anything they could do.
“We can’t give him back his eyesight, you know,” said Joe absently, already deep in a new scheme of improvement for the set.
“No,” said Bob. “But we might give him something that would do nearly as well.”
“What do you mean?” they asked, puzzled.
“Radio,” said Bob, and laid his hand lovingly on the apparatus. “If it means a lot to us, just think how much more it would mean to some one who hasn’t a thing to do all day but sit and think. Why, I don’t suppose any of us who can see can begin to realize what it would mean not to be able even to read the daily newspaper.”
The others stared at Bob, and slowly his meaning sank home.
“I get you,” said Joe slowly. “And say, let me tell you, it’s a great idea, Bob. It wouldn’t be so bad to be blind if you could have the daily news read to you every day——”
“And listen to the latest on crops,” added Jimmy.
“To say nothing of the latest jazz,” finished Herb, with a grin.
“Well, why doesn’t this blind man get himself a set?” asked Jimmy practically. “I should think every blind person in the country would want to own one.”
“I suppose every one of them does,” said Bob. “And Doctor Dale said the other day that he thought the time would come when charities for the blind would install radio as a matter of humanity, and that prices of individual sets would be so low that all the blind could afford them. The blind are many of them old, you know, and pretty poor.”
“You mean,” said Herb slowly, “that most of the blind folks who really need radio more than anybody else can’t afford it? Say, that doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“It isn’t fair!” cried Bob, adding, eagerly: “I tell you what I thought we could do. There’s that old set of mine! It doesn’t seem much to us now, beside our big one, but I bet that McNulty would think it was a gold mine.”
“Hooray for Bob!” cried Herb irrepressibly. “Once in a while he really does get a good idea in his head. When do we start installing this set in the McNulty mansion, boys?”
“As soon as you like,” answered Bob. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, so we could start early in themorning. It will probably take us some time to rig up the antenna.”
The boys were enthusiastic about the idea, and they wasted no time putting it into execution. That very night they looked up the old set, examining it to make sure it was in working order.
When they told their families what they proposed to do, their parents were greatly pleased.
“It does my heart good,” said Mr. Layton to his wife, after Bob had gone up to bed, “to see that those boys are interested in making some one besides themselves happy.”
“They’re going to make fine men, some day,” answered Mrs. Layton softly.
The boys arrived at the McNulty cottage so early the next morning that they met Maggie McNulty on her way to collect the day’s wash.
When they told her what they were going to do she was at first too astonished to speak and then threatened to fall upon their necks in her gratitude.
“Shure, if ye can bring some sunshine into my poor old father’s dark life,” she told them in her rich brogue, tears in her eyes, “then ye’ll shure win the undyin’ gratitude uv Maggie McNulty.”
It was a whole day’s job, and the boys worked steadily, only stopping long enough to rush home for a bit of lunch.
They had tried to explain what they were doing to Adam McNulty, but the old man seemed almost childishly mystified. It was with a feeling of dismay that the boys realized that, in all probability, this was the first time the blind man had ever heard the word radio. It seemed incredible to them that there could be anybody in the world who did not know about radio.
However, if Adam McNulty was mystified, he was also delightedly, pitifully excited. He followed the boys out to the cluttered back yard where they were rigging up the aerial, listening eagerly to their chatter and putting in a funny word now and then that made them roar with laughter.
Bob brought him an empty soap box for a seat and there the old man sat hour after hour, despite the fact that there was a chill in the air, blissfully happy in their companionship. He had been made to understand that something pleasant was being done for him, but it is doubtful if he could have asked for any greater happiness than just to sit there with somebody to talk to and crack his jokes with.
They were good jokes too, full of real Irish wit, and long before the set was ready for action the boys had become fond of the old fellow.
“He’s a dead game sport,” Joe said to Bob, in that brief interval when they had raced home forlunch. “I bet I’d be a regular old crab, blind like that.”
Mrs. Layton put up an appetizing lunch for the blind man, topping it off with a delicious homemade lemon pie and a thermos bottle full of steaming coffee.
The way the old man ate that food was amazing even to Jimmy. Maggie was too busy earning enough to keep them alive to bother much with dainties. At any rate, Adam ate the entire lemon pie, not leaving so much as a crumb.
“I thought I was pretty good on feeding,” whispered Joe, in a delighted aside, “but I never could go that old bird. He’s got me beat a mile.”
“Well,” said Jimmy complacently, “I bet I’d tie with him.”
If the boys had wanted any reward for that day of strenuous work, they would have had it when, placing the earphones upon his white head, they watched the expression of McNulty’s face change from mystification to wonder, then to beatific enjoyment.
He listened motionless while the exquisite music flooded his starved old soul. Toward the end he closed his eyes and tears trickled from beneath the lids down his wrinkled face. He brushed them off impatiently and the boys noticed that his hand was trembling.
It was a long, long time before he seemed to be aware that there was any one in the room with him. He seemed to have completely forgotten the boys who had bestowed this rare gift upon him.
After a while, coming out of his dream, the old man began fumbling with the headphones as if he wanted to take them off, and Bob helped him. The man tried to speak, but made hard work of it. Emotion choked him.
“Shure, an’ I don’t know what to make of it at all, at all,” he said at last, in a quivering voice. “Shure an’ I thought the age of miracles was passed. I’m only an ignorant old man, with no eyes at all; but you lads have given me something that’s near as good. Shure an’ it’s an old sinner I am, for shure. Many’s the day I’ve sat here, prayin’ the Lord would give me wan more minute o’ sight before I died, an’ it was unanswered my prayers wuz, I thought. It’s grateful I am to yez, lads. It’s old Adam McNulty’s blessin’ ye’ll always have. An’ now will yez put them things in my ears? It’s heaven’s own angels I’d like to be hearin’ agin. That’s the lad—ah!”
And while the beatific expression stole once more over his blind old face the boys stole silently out.
CHAPTER XTHE ESCAPED CONVICT
The boys saw a good deal of Adam McNulty in the days that followed, and the change in the old man was nothing short of miraculous.
He no longer sat in the bare kitchen rocking and smoking his pipe, dependent upon some passer-by for his sole amusement. He had radio now, and under the instruction of the boys he had become quite expert in managing the apparatus. Although he had no eyes, his fingers were extraordinarily sensitive and they soon learned to handle the set intelligently.
His daughter Maggie, whose gratitude to the boys knew no bounds, looked up the radio program in the paper each day and carefully instructed her father as to just when the news reports were given out, the story reading, concerts, and so forth.
And so the old blind man lived in a new world—or rather, the old world which he had ceased to live in when he became blind—and he seemedactually to grow younger day by day. For radio had become his eyes.
Doctor Dale heard of this act of kindness on the part of the boys and he was warm in his praise.
“Radio,” he told the boys one day when he met them on the street, “is a wonderful thing for those of us that can see, but for the blind it is a miracle. You boys have done an admirable thing in your kindness to Adam McNulty, and I hope that, not only individuals, but the government itself will see the possibilities of so great a charity and follow your example.”
The boys glowed with pride at the doctor’s praise, and then and there made the resolve that whenever they came across a blind person that person should immediately possess a radio set if it lay within their power to give it to him.
On this particular day when so many things happened the boys were walking down Main Street, talking as usual of their sets and the marvelous progress of radio.
Although it was still early spring, the air was as warm almost as it would be two months later. There was a smell of damp earth and pushing grass in the air, and the boys, sniffing hungrily, longed suddenly for the freedom of the open country.
“Buck and his bunch have it all their ownway,” said Herb discontentedly. “I wouldn’t mind being up in a lumber camp myself just now.”
“Too early for the country yet,” said Jimmy philosophically. “Probably be below zero to-morrow.”
“What you thinking about, Bob?” asked Joe, noticing that his chum had been quiet for some time.
“I was thinking,” said Bob, coming out of his reverie, “of the difference there has been in generators since the early days of Marconi’s spark coil. First we had the spark transmitters and then we graduated to transformers——”
“And they still gave us the spark,” added Joe, taking up the theme. “Then came the rotary spark gap and later the Goldsmith generator——”
“And then,” Jimmy continued cheerfully, “the Goldsmith generator was knocked into a cocked hat by the Alexanderson generator.”
“They’ll have an improvement on that before long, too,” prophesied Herb.
“They have already,” Bob took him up quickly. “Don’t you remember what Doctor Dale told us of the new power vacuum tube where one tube can take care of fifty K. W.?”
“Gee,” breathed Herb admiringly, “I’ll say that’s some energy.”
“Those same vacuum tubes are being builtright now,” went on Bob enthusiastically. “They are made of quartz and are much cheaper than the alternators we’re using now.”
“They are small too, compared to our present-day generators,” added Joe.
“You bet!” agreed Bob, adding, as his eyes narrowed dreamily: “All the apparatus seems to be growing smaller these days, anyway. I bet before we fellows are twenty years older, engineers will have done away altogether with large power plants and cumbersome machinery.”
“I read the other day,” said Joe, “that before long all the apparatus needed, even for transatlantic stations, can be contained in a small room about twenty-five feet by twenty-five.”
“But what shall we do for power?” protested Herb. “We’ll always have to have generators.”
“There isn’t any such word as ‘always’ in radio,” returned Bob. “I shouldn’t wonder if in the next twenty or thirty years we shall be able, by means of appliances like this new power vacuum tube, to get our power from the ordinary lighting circuit.”
“And that would do away entirely with generators,” added Joe triumphantly.
“Well, I wouldn’t say anything was impossible,” said Herb doubtfully. “But that seems to me like a pretty large order.”
“It is a large order,” agreed Bob, adding withconviction: “But it isn’t too large for radio to fill.”
“Speaking of lodging all apparatus in one fair-sized room,” Joe went on. “I don’t see why that can’t really be done in a few years. Why, they say that this new power vacuum tube which handles fifty K. W. is not any larger than a desk drawer.”
“I see the day of the vest-pocket radio set coming nearer and nearer, according to you fellows,” announced Herb. “Pretty soon we’ll be getting our apparatus so small we’ll need a microscope to see it.”
“Laugh if you want to,” said Bob. “But I bet in the next few years we’re going to see greater things done in radio than have been accomplished yet.”
“And that’s saying something!” exclaimed Joe, with a laugh.
“I guess,” said Jimmy thoughtfully, “that there have been more changes in a short time in radio than in any other science.”
“I should say so!” Herb took him up. “Look at telephone and telegraph and electric lighting systems. There have been changes in them, of course, but beside the rapid-fire changes of radio, they seem to have been standing still.”
“There haven’t been any changes to speak of in the electric lighting systems for the last fifteenyears or more,” said Bob. “And the telephone has stayed just about the same, too.”
“There’s no doubt about it,” said Joe. “Radio has got ’em all beat as far as a field for experiment is concerned. Say,” he added fervently, “aren’t you glad you weren’t born a hundred years ago?”
The boys stopped in at Adam McNulty’s cabin to see how the old fellow was getting along. They found him in the best of spirits and, after “listening in” with him for a while and laughing at some of his Irish jokes, they started toward home.
“I wish,” said Bob, “that we could have gotten a line on Dan Cassey. It seems strange that we haven’t been able to pick up some real clue in all this time.”
For, although the boys had caught several other mysterious messages uttered in the stuttering voice of Dan Cassey, they had not been able to make head nor tail of them. The lads liked mysteries, but they liked them chiefly for the fun of solving them. And they seemed no nearer to solving this one than they had been in the beginning.
“I know it’s a fool idea,” said Herb sheepishly. “But since we were the ones that got Cassey his jail sentence before, I kind of feel as if we were responsible for him.”
“It’s pretty lucky for us we’re not,” remarked Joe. “We certainly would be up against it.”
On and on the boys went. Presently Joe began to whistle and all joined in until suddenly Jimmy uttered a cry and went down on his face.
“Hello, what’s wrong?” questioned Bob, leaping to his chum’s side.
“Tripped on a tree root,” growled Doughnuts, rising slowly. “Gosh! what a spill I had.”
“Better look where you are going,” suggested Herb.
“I don’t see why they can’t chop off some of these roots, so it’s better walking.”
“All right—you come down and do the chopping,” returned Joe, lightly.
“Not much! The folks that own the woods can do that.”
“Don’t find fault, Jimmy. Remember, some of these very roots have furnished us with shinny sticks.”
“Well, not the one I tripped over.”
It was some time later that the boys noticed that they had tramped further than they had intended. They were on the very outskirts of the town, and before them the heavily-wooded region stretched invitingly.
Jimmy, who, on account of his plumpness, was not as good a hiker as the other boys, was for turning back, but the other three wanted to go on.And, being three against one, Jimmy had not the shadow of a chance of getting his own way.
It was cool in the shadows of the woods, and the boys were reminded that it was still early in the season. It was good to be in the woods, just the same, and they tramped on for a long way before they finally decided it was time to turn back.
They were just about to turn around when voices on the path ahead of them made them hesitate. As they paused three men came into full view, and the boys stood, staring.
Two of the men they had never seen before, but the other they knew well. It was the man whose voice they had been trailing all these weeks—Dan Cassey, the stutterer!
CHAPTER XIDOWN THE TRAP DOOR
It seemed that in the semi-darkness of the woods Cassey did not at once recognize the radio boys. He was talking excitedly to his companions in his stuttering tongue and he was almost upon the boys before he realized who they were.
He stopped still, eyes and mouth wide open. Then, with a stuttered imprecation, he turned and fled. The men with him stayed not to question, but darted furtively into the woods.
“Come on, fellows!” cried Bob, with a whoop of delight. “Here’s where we nail Dan Cassey, sure.”
The boys, except poor Jimmy, were unusually fleet, and they soon overtook Cassey. Bob’s hand was almost upon him when the man doubled suddenly in his tracks and darted off into the thick underbrush.
Bob, with Herb and Joe close at his heels, was after him in a minute. He reached a clearingjust in time to see Cassey dash into an old barn which had been hidden by the trees.
The boys plunged into the barn with Jimmy pantingly bringing up the rear. In Bob’s heart was a wild exultation. They had Cassey cornered. Once more they would bring this criminal to justice.
“You guard the door,” he called in a low tone to Joe. “See that Cassey doesn’t get out that way, and Herb and I will get after him in here.”
The barn was so dark that they could hardly see to move around. There was a window high up in the side wall, but this was so covered with dirt and cobwebs that it was almost as though there was none.
However, Cassey must be lurking in one of those dark corners, and if they moved carefully they were sure to capture him!
There was a loft to the barn, but if there had been a ladder leading up to it it had long since rotted and dropped away, so that Bob was reasonably sure the man could not be up there.
It was eery business, groping about in the musty darkness of the old barn for a man who would go to almost any lengths of villainy to keep from being caught.
Suddenly Bob saw something move, and, with an exultant yell, jumped toward it. Once morehe almost had his hand upon Cassey when—something happened.
The floor of the barn seemed to open and let him through, and his chums with him. As he fell through the hole into blackness he had confused thoughts of an earthquake. Then he struck bottom with a solid thump that almost made him see stars.
He heard similar thumps about him and realized that Herb and Jimmy had followed him. Whatever it was they had shot through had evidently magically closed up again, for they were in absolute darkness.
“Well,” came in a voice which Bob recognized as Jimmy’s, “I must say, this is a nice note!”
“We’ve been pushed off the end of the world, I guess,” said Herb, with a sorry attempt at humor. “Who all’s in this party anyway? Are we all here?”
“I guess so,” said Joe, and at the sound of his voice Bob jumped.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you were going to guard the door.”
“That’s what I should have done, but I played the big idiot,” retorted Joe bitterly. “I couldn’t resist coming after you fellows to be in on the big fight. I suppose while I was trailing you boys somebody sneaked in the door and signed our finish.”
“Looks like it,” said Bob, feeling himself to make sure there were no bones broken. “And now, instead of delivering Cassey to justice we’re prisoners ourselves. Say, I bet the old boy isn’t laughing at us or anything just now.”
“I’m awful sorry, Bob,” said Joe penitently. “I thought if I kept my eye on the door——”
“Oh, it’s all right,” said Bob generously. “Accidents will happen and there’s no use crying over spilled milk. I suppose the most sensible thing for us to do right now is to hustle around and find a way out of this place.”
“Maybe there isn’t any,” said Jimmy dolefully. “Then what’ll we do?”
“Stay here and let the rats eat us, I guess,” said Herb cheerfully, and Jimmy groaned.
“Gosh, don’t talk about eating, old boy,” he pleaded. “I’m just about starved this minute.”
“You’ll probably stay starved for some little time longer,” said Bob unfeelingly. He had risen cautiously to his feet, and finding that their prison was at least high enough for them to stand up in, reached his hands tentatively above his head.
As, even by standing on tiptoe, his fingers encountered nothing but air, he decided that they must have dropped further than he had thought at the time.
A hand reached out and took hold of him and he realized that Joe was standing beside him.
“Must have been some sort of trap door opening inward, I guess,” said the latter. “You didn’t see anything, did you, Bob?”
“No. It happened too suddenly. One minute I was reaching forward to grab hold of Cassey and the next moment I found myself flying through space.”
“Humph,” grunted Joe. “It was lucky for Cassey that we all happened to be in a bunch,” he said. “He couldn’t have gotten rid of us so quickly if we’d been scattered about——”
“As we should have been,” added Bob. “Just the same,” he added, after a minute, “I don’t suppose it would have done any good if one of us had been left up there. It must have been the men who were with Cassey who sprang the trap on us; and if that’s so, the fight would have been three to one.”
“I’d like to have tried it just the same,” said Joe belligerently. “I bet Cassey would have got a black eye out of it, anyway.”
For some time they groped around the black hole of their prison, hoping to find some way of escape, but without success. They were beginning to get tired and discouraged, and they sat down on the floor to talk the situation over.
The queer thing about this hole in the ground was that it possessed a flooring where one would have expected to find merely packed-down dirt. The flooring consisted of rough boards laid side by side, and when the boys moved upon it it sounded like the rattling of some rickety old bridge.
“There’s some mystery about this place,” said Bob. “I bet this is a regular meeting place for Cassey and whoever his confederates may be. In case of pursuit all they would have to do would be to hide in this hole and they’d be practically safe from discovery.”
“I wonder,” said Herb, “why Cassey didn’t do that now.”
“Probably didn’t have time,” said Bob. “I was right on his heels, you know, and probably he didn’t dare stop for anything.”
“And so they turned the trick on us,” said Joe. “And it sure was a neat job.”
“Too neat, if we don’t get out of here soon,” groaned Jimmy. “I bet they’ve just left us here to starve!”
“I wouldn’t put it beyond Cassey,” said Herb gloomily. “It would be just the kind of thing he’d love to do. He’s got a grudge against us, anyway, for doing him out of Miss Berwick’s money and landing him in jail, and this would be a fine way to get even.”
“Well, if that’s his game, he’s got another guess coming,” said Bob, adding excitedly: “Say, fellows, if that was a trap door that let us down into this hole, and it must have been something of that sort, we’ll probably be able to get out the same way.”
“But it’s above our heads,” protested Herb.
“What difference does that make?” returned Bob impatiently. “One of us can stand on the other’s back, and we can haul the last fellow out by his hands.”
“Simple when you say it quick,” said Joe gloomily. “But I bet that trap door is bolted on the outside. You don’t think Cassey’s going to let us off that easy, do you?”
“Well, we could see anyway,” returned Bob. “Anything’s better than just sitting here. Come on, let’s find that trap door.”
This feat, in itself, was no easy one. They had wandered about in the dark so much that they had become completely confused.
Since Herb was the slightest, he was hoisted up on Bob’s shoulders and they began the stumbling tour of their prison. It seemed ages before Herb’s glad cry announced a discovery of some sort.
“I’ve found a handle,” he said. “Steady there, Bob, till I give it a pull.”