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CHAPTER XX – BROKEN WIRES

True to Bob’s prediction, the snowstorm proved to be a fierce one even for this season of unusual snows, and when the boys awoke the next morning they found that the ground had taken on an extra covering and the branches of the trees were weighted down with the heavy fall.

“Say, fellows, look what’s here!” cried Joe as he roused his mates, sleepy-eyed from their comfortable beds. “Old Jack Frost sure was busy last night.”

“Guess he thinks it’s Thanksgiving,” Bob agreed as he hurried into his clothes, keeping one eye on the frosty landscape and fairly aching to make part of it. “Hurry up, fellows, let’s go out and have a snow fight.”

“You’re on,” agreed Joe, and then began the race to see who would get from their cottage to the hotel and to the breakfast table first.

They arrived there – at the breakfast table, that is – at one and the same time and ate as ravenously as though they had not broken their fast in a week. Mr. and Mrs. Layton watched them and smiled, wishing that they might once more eat with such lusty appetites.

Before the boys had finished breakfast, it had begun to snow again, making the landscape appear more than ever blizzardy and bleak. Eagerly the boys buttoned up heavy sweaters, prepared to fight the storm to a finish.

It seemed that they were not the only ones whom the storm had lured forth. There were a number of people gathered in front of the hotel and, since they seemed rather excited about something, three of the boys joined them to find out what the fuss was all about, Jimmy remaining behind for the time being to take a nail from his shoe.

“The telegraph wires are all down,” said a man in response to Bob’s question. “There’s a man been raving around here like a crazy man, declaring he has to send a telegram. Nobody can seem to make him understand that since the wires are all down such a thing is impossible.”

“He might telephone,” Joe suggested, but the man who had been their informant took him up quickly.

“They’re down too,” he said. “We’re as marooned here, as far as any communication with the outside world is concerned, as though we were stranded on an island in the midst of the ocean. This storm has done considerable damage.”

“I should say so,” remarked Joe, as the gentleman turned to some one else and the boys started on a tour of the place to look over the prospect. “I’ll call it some damage to knock down both telephone and telegraph wires at one fell swoop.”

“That talk about our being just as badly off for communication with the outside world as though we were on an island isn’t quite correct,” observed Herb. “That fellow seemed to forget all about trains.”

“I suppose he meant quick communication,” said Bob. “We could send a message by wire in an hour or less, while it would take two or three times that time to send the same message by rail.”

“That’s so,” agreed Herb, staring up at the wires which had fallen beneath their weight of snow. “I’d hate to have to get a message through for any reason just now. But look,” he added, pointing to the hotel. “Our aerials are still up anyway.”

“I wonder who the fellow was who was so anxious to telegraph,” said Joe, after a few minutes. “He must think himself in bad luck.”

Bob brought his gaze from the damaged wires and stared at the boys, and at Jimmy who just then came puffing up.

“Say, I bet that was Mr. Salper,” Bob said. “Don’t you remember last night that he said he must get a message through to his broker first thing in the morning?”

“By Jove, the storm knocked it clear out of my head!” exclaimed Joe. “Say, I feel sorry for him, all right.”

“Wish we could help him some way,” said Herb anxiously. “It would never do to let that fellow Mohun and his pals get off with the filthy lucre just when we thought we’d double-crossed them so nicely.”

“I guess that’s where Mr. Salper would agree with you,” said Jimmy, with a grin. “Especially since the filthy lucre belongs to him.”

They walked on in silence for a few moments, chagrined at the thought that the storm had played so into the hands of Mr. Salper’s enemies.

They had learned from Mr. Salper the night before that Mohun of the protruding teeth was not the kind of man to let a golden opportunity pass. He would rush the “deal” through while Salper was out of town, and, from the latter’s impatience, they had gathered that the next few hours would, in all probability, be the crucial time.

“Burr-r-r!” cried Jimmy suddenly, wrapping his arms as far as they would go about his chubby body and shivering with the cold. “This weather sure does make a fellow wish for a fur overcoat. The thermometer must have gone down twenty degrees over night.”

“Hear who’s talking!” scoffed Herb. “With all that fat on your bones, Doughnuts, you haven’t a chance in the world of feeling cold.”

“I suppose you know more than I do about it – not being me,” retorted Jimmy, scathingly. “I’d just like you to feel the way I do; that’s all.”

“Well, it isn’t what you might call unpleasantly hot,” observed Bob. “I must say I’m not sweltering, myself.”

“Guess it isn’t much colder than this up at the North Pole,” agreed Joe, as he turned his sweater collar up higher about his ears. “Might as well rig up as an Eskimo and be done with it.”

“Reminds me of that Norwegian, Amundsen,” said Bob. “He sure intends to discover the North Pole with all the fancy trimmings, this time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Herb, with interest.

“Do you mean to say you haven’t read about it?” demanded Jimmy, indulgently. “Why, he’s the fellow who is going to have his ship all dressed up with wireless so that when he smashes his ship against the North Pole he can let everybody know about it.”

“It’s a great idea, I call it,” said Joe, enthusiastically. “Up to this time, explorers haven’t had any way of communicating with the outside world, and so if they got in trouble they just had to get out of it the best way they could or die in the attempt.”

“While now,” Bob took him up eagerly, “his wireless messages will be picked up by hundreds of stations all over the world and in case of need ships and teams of huskies and even aeroplanes can be rushed to his rescue.”

“Exploring de luxe,” murmured Herb, with a comical look. “Pretty soon there won’t be any such thing as adventure because there won’t be any danger. We’ll have radio to watch over us and keep us from all harm.”

“It’s all right for you to talk that way,” said Jimmy. “But I bet if you were one of these explorer chaps you’d be mighty glad to have something watch over you and help you out of a tight fix.”

“Yes, I guess those fellows need all the help they can get,” agreed Bob, soberly. “It isn’t any joke to be away out there with hundreds of miles of ice and water between them and civilization.”

“They say even the sledges are to be equipped with radio,” Joe broke in. “So that they can keep in touch with the ship all the time and through the medium of the powerful sending set aboard the boat the ship itself can be kept in constant touch with the outside world.”

“There are planes too, equipped with radio,” added Bob. “And they say each plane is outfitted with skids so that it can land safely on the ice.”

“I should think there would be danger in that,” remarked Jimmy, rubbing his hands vigorously to set the blood circulating again. “They say the ice is awfully rough and bumpy and spattered with small hills of ice. I should think a pilot would have a jolly time trying to make a landing under those conditions.”

“They intend to cut out the ice about the ship so as to make landing possible,” explained Bob. “And in the other places the skids help them to make a sure landing. Say, wouldn’t I like to make one of that expedition!” he added, with enthusiasm.

“I wonder how long they expect this expedition to take,” said Herb. The idea of exploring the arctic with radio as a companion was a fascinating one to him and at that moment he would have made one of Amundsen’s hardy crew, if such a thing were possible, with the greatest joy.

“They expect it will take them five years, maybe six.” It was Bob who answered the question. “Their idea is to travel as far as possible north before the ice gets thick. Then when the floes close in about them they will drift with the ice over the pole – or, at least, that’s what they hope to do.”

“What gets me,” said Jimmy plaintively, “is how they are going to know when they get to the pole anyway.”

Herb made a pass at him which the fat boy nimbly avoided.

“Why, you poor fish,” said the former witheringly, “you sure will be a full-sized nut if you ever live to grow up. I suppose if you got to the North Pole you’d expect to see a clothes pole with the clothes line wrapped around it, ready for use.”

CHAPTER XXI – A SUDDEN INSPIRATION

Unconsciously their feet had carried the radio boys in the direction of the radio station and now they were surprised to find themselves confronted by the building itself.

“We’ve come some way,” Herb began with a chuckle, but Bob cut him short excitedly.

“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 régime 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 nobody.

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.”

“I wonder,” said Joe, as with common consent they turned in the direction of the Salper home, “if Mr. Salper has heard yet that even the radio is out of business.”

“Give it up,” said Herb, while Jimmy added, with a grin: “I’d hate to be the one to break the news to him.”

But, as it happened, that was just what they had to do. They saw Mr. Salper coming and tried to pretend that they did not, but he would have none of it.

He made for them directly, with a scowl on his face as fierce as if they had been the cause of all his trouble.

“This is a fine business, isn’t it?” he asked, waving his hand in the direction of the snow-weighted wires. “No telegraph, no telephone – only the radio left. I’m on my way to the station to try to get the message through, though that operator is a stubborn young donkey and has before this refused to send messages for me.”

Herb and Jimmy made frantic motions to Bob to keep quiet, for they saw that he was about to tell the news. And Bob did.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Salper,” he said quietly. “But the operator at the wireless station has become suddenly very ill and there’s no one there to operate the apparatus.”

For a moment Mr. Salper simply glared while the news sank home. Then he gazed wildly about him as though to escape from his own worrisome thoughts. Then the fierce scowl returned to his face and he made an angry motion toward the boys.

“The operator sick!” he muttered. “And not a doctor up here!”

The boys started and looked at him queerly.

“Do you need a doctor?” asked Bob quickly, thinking immediately of Mrs. Salper and the girls. “Is some one sick?”

“Yes,” snapped Mr. Salper. “My wife is sick, very sick. And if I can’t get any sort of word through, even by radio – ” He paused and his mouth looked as though he were grinding his teeth.

He turned back toward his house, and the boys accompanied him with some vague idea of at least offering their sympathy, even if they could not do anything to help.

They found Edna and Ruth nearly frantic with fright.

“Mother is dreadfully ill,” said Edna, between sobs. “Her hands and face are burning up and she talks queerly. I’m afraid it’s pneumonia, and if she doesn’t get a doctor pretty quick she’ll d-die!” And with a sob she fled into the room where the sick woman lay.

The boys felt awkward, and, since there was nothing they could do to help, deeply concerned over the trouble of these friends of theirs.

“There’s some good in Mr. Salper, anyway,” said Joe, as they tramped along. “He was so worried over Mrs. Salper that he didn’t mention those Wall Street scoundrels.”

“I reckon it’s worrying him just the same,” said Jimmy.

“If only there was something we could do – ” began Bob, then stopped short, a great idea leaping to his eyes. “Say, fellows, what’s the matter with our sending that message?”

CHAPTER XXII – PUTTING IT THROUGH

The boys stared at him for a moment as though he had gone suddenly crazy. Then the light of adventure dawned in their eyes, and they grinned joyously.

“Say, old boy,” said Joe in an awed voice, “that sure is some swell idea. But do you think we could swing it? We know a lot about receiving, but when it comes to sending – ”

“We’re a bunch of nuts,” finished Jimmy, decidedly.

“Maybe,” retorted Bob. “But at this time, even a bunch of nuts might be better than nothing.”

“We’ve been studying the code,” said Joe thoughtfully. “We might be able to handle it all right. It isn’t the first time, if we’re not experts. Of course we can do it.”

“But not for old Salper,” said Herb. “He’s so impatient he’d make us forget in five minutes everything we ever knew.”

“Maybe,” said Bob again, adding, stoutly: “But I’m game to make a try at it anyway. There’s no one else to do it, and Mr. Salper stands to lose his wife and a lot of money besides if some one doesn’t help him out.”

“Well, let’s make him the proposition,” suggested Joe, pausing and looking back at the Salper house. “I’m with Bob in this thing.”

“So say we all of us,” sang Herb cheerily, as they turned back.

“So long as Bob’s the goat,” finished Jimmy.

They found Mr. Salper in the living room of the bungalow, savagely smoking a cigar. He scarcely looked at the boys when the girls let them in, and Bob was forced to speak his name before he gave them his attention.

“Well, what is it?” he said gruffly, his tone adding plainly: “What are you doing here anyway? I wish you’d get out.”

The tone made Bob mad, as it did the other boys, and when he spoke his own tone was not as pleasant as usual.

“We’ve decided to try to help you out, if we can, Mr. Salper,” he said, and the man looked at him with a mixture of surprise and incredulity.

“In what way?” he asked, in the same curt tone.

“We know something about sending and receiving messages by radio,” Bob went on, getting madder and madder. “And we thought maybe we might get a message through for you to a doctor and to your brokers, as well. Of course,” he added, modestly, “we haven’t had very much experience – ”

Bob was too modest to say anything about how he had once sent messages to some ships at sea, (as related in detail in “The Radio Boys at Ocean Point,”) and how he had tried to send on other occasions.

“Experience be hanged!” cried Mr. Salper, so suddenly that the boys jumped. “You mean to tell me you can operate that radio contraption?”

“I think so,” said Bob, still modestly. “We haven’t done much along that end of it – ”

“You’ll do,” cried Mr. Salper, while Edna and Ruth stared at him with tear-reddened eyes. “Are you ready to go with me right away to the station?”

The boys nodded and the older man shrugged into his great coat, reaching quickly for his cap.

“Take care of your mother,” he said to the girls. “I’ll stop on my way over to the hotel and send a nurse over for her. I hear there are two of them there. Don’t see why the physician there didn’t send some one to take his place if he had to leave.”

In a moment the radio boys found themselves once more in the freezing air of the out-of-doors, being hurried along by the erratic Mr. Salper.

Poor Jimmy suffered on that forced march. Although he uttered no word of protest, his face was purple and his breath came in little puffing gasps before they had reached the hotel.

Once there, they had a little respite, however, while Mr. Salper went to arrange about having a nurse sent over to his wife. Jimmy waited in the hotel lobby in a state nearing collapse while the other boys went up to inquire once more about their friend, the operator.

They found him no better – worse, if anything – and their faces were very solemn when they rejoined Jimmy in the lobby.

“Guess it will be nip and tuck if he gets through at all,” said Bob, anxiously. “I don’t see why such hard luck had to pick him out for the victim.”

“I suppose they’ll appoint another operator right away,” suggested Herb.

“I suppose so,” agreed Jimmy. “But it will be hard to get any one for a week or more on account of the heavy weather.”

“And in a week’s time without communication with the outside world a lot of Mr. Salper’s money will probably have gone up in smoke,” said Joe.

“Yes, it’s us on the job all right,” said Bob, looking a bit worried. “I only hope we can live up to what’s expected of us.”

“All right, boys,” said Mr. Salper, on returning, in his eyes the preoccupied look of the man of affairs. “If you can help me out of this fix, I will surely be deeply in your debt.”

These genial words – almost the first that they had heard from the self-absorbed man – warmed the boys’ hearts and they resolved to do the best they could for him, and, through him, for his daughters.

When they reached the station they found it deserted save for one man who sat at a desk, humped over in a dispirited fashion, reading a magazine.

At the entrance of Mr. Salper and the boys he looked up, then got up and came over to them as though he were glad of their companionship.

“How do you do, Mr. Salper?” he said, addressing the older man with marked respect. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Nothing, unless you can work this contrivance,” returned Mr. Salper, with a comprehensive wave of his hand toward the cluttered radio table.

“I’m sorry,” said the other, a frown of anxiety lining his forehead. “The operator is sick, and because of the heavy weather it is doubtful if we shall be able to secure another one within the week.”

“A week!” cried Mr. Salper. “That amount of time, my friend, may very easily spell ruin for me. It is necessary that I communicate with New York immediately. Are you ready, boys?”

The man looked with surprise, first at the radio boys and then back to Mr. Salper.

“Am I to understand – ” he began, when Mr. Salper cut him short with an imperative wave of the hand.

“These boys,” he said, “know something of radio. How much they know I am about to find out.

“Are you ready?” he asked, sharply, as the boys still hesitated. “A delay of even a few minutes would be regrettable.”

The boys looked at each other, and since no one else made a move to approach the apparatus, Bob saw that it was up to him. And right there he realized the great difference that there is between theory and practice. Of course they had had some practice in sending and they were fairly familiar with the code, but never before had they been called upon to make use of their knowledge in such a matter as this.

Then too, Mr. Salper was not the kind of person to inspire self-confidence. He was a driver, and it is hard to do good thinking when one is being driven.

However, having gone so far, there was no possibility of backing out and with a show of confidence, Bob approached the apparatus. The man who had addressed Mr. Salper regarded him with not a little distrust. He had heard of the radio boys, as who at Mountain Pass had not, but he certainly did not think them competent to send a message of any importance.

And at that moment, neither did Bob.

“Will you send your message phone or code?” he asked, looking up at Mr. Salper inquiringly. “We can do either here.”

Mr. Salper hesitated for a moment, then with a significant glance at the other man, who was hovering curiously near, he snapped out, “Code.”

“Do you know the letters of the station to be called?” asked Bob.

The broker consulted a notebook which he took from his pocket.

“Call HRSA,” he returned. “That is our Stock Exchange station,” he explained. “They ought to be on the job while the Exchange is open. They will relay a message to my brokers.”

Joe was standing beside Bob and saw that his chum’s hand trembled somewhat as he took hold of the ticker.

“Don’t get rattled, Bob,” he whispered. “Take your time and don’t let him scare you. Remember, it’s you that’s doing the favor.”

Bob grinned, and then began sending out the call. Across the ether traveled the letters HRSA and the call was presently caught up in New York and then another message was relayed to the office of a well-known brokerage firm.

“Hey, Bill,” called a well-dressed young man seated at a desk in the far end of the office. “Here’s WBZA calling us. These are the letters of the station at Mountain Pass – ”

“Where the Honorable Mr. Gilbert Salper is taking his rest cure,” finished another man, flinging away his cigarette and coming to stand beside his partner. “Do you suppose it’s the old boy himself calling?”

“We’ll soon find out,” returned the other, and without delay sent in a message to the New York sending station. In a few seconds they were being radioed into the ether.

Bob’s face beamed as he transcribed the dots and dashes into words. The message read thus:

“WBZA heard from. HRSA awaiting message.”

Mr. Salper, who had been striding up and down, hurried to Bob’s side in answer to the lad’s hail. The other boys were peering eagerly over Bob’s shoulder.

“I’ve reached HRSA and through them H. & D.,” explained the young operator proudly. “H. & D. are waiting for your message.”

“Fine! Fine!” cried Mr. Salper, and his face showed great enthusiasm. “Those are my brokers, Hanson and Debbs. Got ’em right off the reel, didn’t you, boy? Great work! Can you get my message through at once?”

“I don’t know of anything to stop me,” answered Bob. It seemed too good to be true that he had picked up the right station so quickly.

“Send this, then,” Mr. Salper directed. And in a firm hand he wrote down the following message: