Part 1 (1/2)
The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless
by H Irving Hancock
CHAPTER I
A SPARK PUTS THREE BOYS AND A BOAT ON THE JUMP
”Ho, ho, ho--huious yawn ”This may be what Mr Seaton calls a vacation on full pay, but I'd rather work”
”It _is_ fearfully dull, loafing around, in this fashi+on, on a lonely island, yet in plain sight of the sea that we long to rove over,”
nodded Captain Tom Halstead of the motor yacht ”Restless”
”Yet Hank just put us in hed Joe Dawson, the least restless of the trio of young Motor Boat Club boys
”Oh it's all right on the pay end,” agreed Hank, readily ”But just think of a young fellow, full of life and hope, with a dozen a up with a job of this kind!”
”What kind of job?” inquired Captain To bored,” answered butts, sole Island”
”Without the pay,” amended Joe Dawson, with another quiet srow rather wearisoreed To of a bell froalow, on the porch of which the boys sat, broke in on theed Hank, alht in the porch chair, with a comical pretense of excitement ”It's sure to be frorinned Joe, as he rose and crossed the porch in leisurely fashi+on The jangling of the bell continued The bell was a rather clu Dawson had attached to the wireless telegraph apparatus
For, though this bungalow on a little island southwest of Beaufort, North Carolina, had an appearance of being wholly out of the world, yet the absent owner, Mr Powell Seaton, had contrived to put his place very raphy at the bungalow On the premises was operated a coh to sendthe coast
For Joe, the enius of the Motor Boat Club, had always had a passion for telegraphy Of late he had gone in in earnest for the wireless kind, and had rapidly mastered its most essential details
The bell told when electrical waves were rushi+ng through the air at eneral wave and the special call for this bungalow station, which was by the letters ”CBA”
When Joe Daent into the roo froe not in the least intended for this station
Seating hiister close at hand, Joe Dawson picked up and adjusted the head-band with its pair of watch-case receivers He then hastily picked up a pencil, shoved a pad of paper close under his hand and listened
All this he did with a dull, listless air He had not the slightest forewarning of the great jolt that was soon to come to himself and his comrades out of the atmosphere
The call, whatever it was, had ended Yet, after a pause of a few seconds, it began to sound again Joe's listless air vanished as the new set of dots and dashes caainst his ear druent!” ran the first feords Joe's ni letter after letter until these words were down Then, dropping his pencil for the sending key, young Dawson trans electric ih space over hundreds of nal, ”CBA”
”Have you a fast, seaworthy boat within immediate call?” came back out of the invisible distance over the ocean
”A twenty-six-ht at the pier here,” Joe flashed back, again adding his signature, ”CBA”