Part 23 (1/2)

”Look!” he cried. ”Didn't I tell you that radio was the best ever?

Just cast your eye on that aerial. You don't see that trailing on the ground, do you?”

For a moment the other radio boys failed to grasp the significance of his words. Then they let out a great shout of triumph. For what Bob had said was true. Where other means of communication with the outside world failed, radio stood firm.

The aerial was there, towering as serenely against the slaty sky as though there was no such thing as a snowstorm. The great marvel of radio! For no wires, other than the antenna, were needed to carry its messages to the farthermost parts of the world!

For a moment the boys were awed as the real significance of the modern miracle was borne home to them. It was magnificent, it was inspiring merely to have the privilege of living in such an age.

”Well, Mr. Salper doesn't need to worry,” said Joe, at last. ”There's always radio on the job if he wants to get a quick message through to New York.”

”It's queer he didn't think of it,” agreed Bob, adding, as the intense cold struck still more deeply into his bones: ”Come on in, fellows.

I'd like to see what the operator has to say to all this excitement.”

”You bet,” said Jimmy, adding fervently: ”And it will give us a chance to thaw out.”

When the boys reached the room which had become so familiar to them, they found that here too, the old regime had been interrupted. Several men were gathered in the far corner of the room, talking earnestly, and the long table where the operator could be seen daily bending earnestly over his beloved apparatus was vacant. The operator himself was nowhere to be seen.

Sensing something unusual, the boys came forward hesitantly. At sight of them one of the men detached himself from the group of his companions and came quickly over to them. The boys did not know his name, but his face was familiar to them.

”A most unfortunate thing has happened,” burst out this man nervously, without even an attempt at a preface. ”The operator here has been taken very ill with a fever and we are at a loss to find any one who can take his place in this emergency.”

The modesty of the radio boys was such that at that moment no thought of the possibility of their being able to take the experienced operator's place entered their heads. They were earnestly sorry for the misfortune which had overtaken their friend, and they told the man so. It seemed to them that the latter was rather disappointed about something, and he listened to their words of sympathy absently. After a moment he left them and rejoined his companions at the other end of the room.

”Say, that's tough luck,” said Jimmy, his round face comically long.

”I knew that fellow would get into trouble if he didn't take more exercise.”

Bob fumbled with the familiar apparatus on the table, his face troubled.

”If he's out of his head with fever, he must be pretty sick,” he muttered, as though talking to himself. ”And that means that he won't be able to attend to radio for a good long time to come.”

”And with telegraph and telephone wires all down, that's pretty much of a calamity,” added Joe, his eyes meeting Bob's with a look of understanding.

”Say!” cried Herb, suddenly seeing what they were driving at, ”that knocks out Mr. Salper's last chance of getting even with those crooks.”

”Yes,” said Bob, soberly, ”I guess the game's up, as far as he's concerned.”

”Let's go over to the hotel and inquire for the sick man,” Joe suggested, adding hopefully, ”maybe he isn't as sick as they make out.”

The operator had a room at the hotel, and the boys had been there once or twice to talk over points on radio with him and so they knew exactly where to go.

However, if they had treasured any hope that Bert Thompson's sickness had been exaggerated, they were promptly undeceived. No one was allowed to speak to him, the nurse at the hotel told them, adding, in her briskly professional manner, that it would be no use to speak to him anyway, since he was delirious and recognized n.o.body.

But before they went, softened by their real concern, she said, quite kindly, that as soon as the patient was able to receive visitors at all she would let them know.

They thanked her and went out into the freezing air again. The snow had stopped and the wind had died down completely but in the atmosphere was a deadly chill, a biting cold that seemed to penetrate to their very marrow.

”Suppose we go to the Salpers,” Bob suggested. ”Mrs. Salper and the girls may need help, for I imagine Mr. Salper isn't in a very pleasant mood.”