Part 15 (2/2)
”Oh, Gus, I know a scheme: That portable set we made Tompkins--it's in his room. He would be tickled, for he liked Tony, and he has gone to Saranac Lake. They've got one up there, so he didn't take this. We'll get in his room and get it for you to take along. Then I'll stay here, glue my ear to the phones and radio you everything I know, for they are all away, and I can use their transmitter.”
”Portable idea is fine, Bill, but all the rest is bunk. What, really, can you do here?”
”Well, then, I know: We'll swipe the keys, unhook the school transmitting set and I'll go with you and set it up at Oysterman Dan's.
Then we can work together.”
”Fine! But how about the license?”
”Got one. Merely change of locality, and my own license will let me operate anywhere. Let's get busy.”
CHAPTER XXII
AT OYSTERMAN DAN'S
It was a good cause, yet the boys were up against a doubtful procedure.
The janitor of the school was a good-natured, but stubborn chap. He liked Bill and Gus, but they knew he would never let them take anything from the buildings without special consent. And while there was no time to get this permission, Bill and Gus knew that all concerned would be in favor of their motive. If they injured anything they knew they would more than make it good; or that Mr. Sabaste would make it good. Even Mr.
Hooper would, if called on.
So they wrote a note to Mr. Hooper, explaining fully what they intended doing and requesting that he reimburse the school for any loss or injury to the broadcasting instrument in case anything happened to both of them. Then they placed this letter where it would be found in their room, with a request to the finder to deliver it.
The janitor, they knew, was a bug on fis.h.i.+ng. Bill coaxed him to take a day off while they watched the place. He did this, and while Mrs. Royce was strenuously engaged with her housework, the boys got the keys to the radio room. The rest was easy, even to fixing up camouflaged parts that would befool Mr. Royce, if he should enter the room. They got the apparatus in parts to their own room, where they packed it up, and Gus climbed into Tompkins' room through the transom, handed out the portable set and got out the way he got in.
The next day, again sending for Mr. Merritt and his taxi, they were on their way to the station at Guilford, and from there by train to the sh.o.r.e, Gus debouching at a convenient junction for a two-hour trip home, while Bill patiently waited. When Gus got back to the junction he had the shotgun and some old clothes for both, though Bill might have no need to disguise.
Reaching the terminus of the railroad, the boys hired a rather dilapidated team of mules drawing a farm wagon, with youthful driver to match, and made a long, slow journey, especially tiresome to these eager, expectant lads, that landed them by the most direct route at Oysterman Dan's little cottage.
The old fellow came out and was so delighted to see Gus that he gave him and Bill a real welcome. He was a bachelor who lived alone, but lived well. He kept to himself and yet was not averse to having a little company of his own choosing. Apparently he would not have wanted more entertaining fellows than Bill and Gus, or better listeners, for he liked to spin yarns. When he found the boys insisted upon paying him for board and lodging and certain privileges he was further pleased. Let them put up ”one o' them thar wirelesses?” He sure would and welcome. It would be a ”heap o' fun,” and when they told him of the purpose of it he was elated.
Nothing could have been more characteristic of the imagination and optimism of youth than the making of all these extensive preparations on the merest guesswork, and after the boys had arrived on the scene, not half a mile from Lower Gifford's Point, doubts began to a.s.sail Bill with much force.
”By jingo, Gus! Here we are, at considerable expense and a deal of trouble, taking it for granted that we're going to do wonderful things, and we even don't know that the theory we are working on is worth a blamed thing.”
”Oh, yes; we do,” said the intuitive Gus, who, looking like a woebegone swamp dweller, had just come in from the dunes. ”And soon we'll know a whole lot more. I just saw two gunners in the woods above the point, and if they aren't Italians I don't know one.”
The boys were a long day putting up their transmitting instrument, with its extensive aerial stretched between tall pines near the cottage.
They would depend on the portable receiver.
And then, leaving Bill listening, poring over books, or chatting with old Dan, when the latter was off the water, Gus got into his ragged togs again, took his gun and started out prowling. And he prowled wisely and well.
CHAPTER XXIII
GUS
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