Kitabı oku: «The Campfire Girls on Station Island: or, The Wireless from the Steam Yacht», sayfa 5

CHAPTER XII – A DOUBLE RACE

Amy Drew scoffed at the thought of Belle Ringold’s tale of trouble for the “bungalowites” being true.

“She is always hatching up something unpleasant,” she told the neighbor who had spoken of Mr. Ringold’s claim to a part of Station Island. “We know her. She comes from our town.”

But little Henrietta continued to tell anybody who would listen that she owned a part of the island and expected to take possession of the golf links almost any day. The funny little thing, however, was very generous in inviting people to remain on “her island,” no matter what happened.

“Something has got to be done about that child,” said Jessie, sighing. “I can’t control her. She does say the most awful things. She has no manners at all!”

“He, he,” chuckled Amy. “Hen was built without any controller. I wouldn’t worry about her, Jess. She’ll come out all right.”

“I hope she comes out of the water all right,” murmured her chum, starting again after the very lively little girl who occasionally made dashes for the surf as though she proposed to go right out to sea.

But for one person Henrietta had some concern. That was Mrs. Norwood. She thought Jessie’s mother was a most wonderful person. And when Mrs. Norwood had a chair and umbrella brought to the sands and sat down within sight of Henrietta, the older girls had some opportunity of having a little amusement with the college boys.

“Come on,” Darry Drew said. “This staying inshore is no fun. Beat you to the raft, girls, and give you ten yards start.”

“O-oh! You can’t!” cried his sister, dashing at once for the sea.

“Hold on! Hold on!” commanded Darry. “I don’t believe you even know how long ten yards is. Both you girls go in and stand even with that pile yonder. You are headed for the raft. You see the life saver beyond it, I hope?”

Amy made a face at him, settled her bathing cap more firmly, and looked at Jessie.

“Ready, Jess?” she asked.

“We’ll just beat them good,” declared her chum. “They always think they can do things so much better than us girls.”

“‘We’ girls,” corrected Amy, giggling.

“‘We’ or ‘us’ – it doesn’t so much matter, as long as we win the race,” said Jessie.

“All ready out there?” demanded Darry.

“They’re edging out farther,” observed Burd Alling. “It wouldn’t matter if you gave them a mile start; they’d take more if they could. Give ’em an inch and they’ll take an ell,” he quoted.

“You don’t know what an ell is,” scoffed his friend.

“It’s something you put on a house after you think you’ve got all the rooms you’ll ever need. I know,” declared Burd, grinning.

“Come on out!” retorted Darry. “Cut the repartee. You have got to swim your little best, for those two girls are no slow-pokes.”

“You’ve said something,” agreed Burd. “Shoot! I am ready, Gridley.”

“Huh!” exclaimed his chum. “You have even forgotten your Spanish War history.”

“Shucks! They change history so fast now you don’t more than learn one phase than you have to forget it and learn some other fellow’s ‘hindsight’ of important events. The only way to get history straight,” declared the philosophical Burd, “is to be Johnny-on-the-spot and see things happen.”

“Now!” shouted Darry to the girls.

The four splashed in, the girls starting with a breast stroke and the boys having to run for some distance until the sea was deep enough to enable them to swim. The water beyond the ruffle of surf was almost calm. At least, the waves did not break, but heaved in, in smooth rollers. As Amy had said: The sea was taking deep-breathing exercises.

Just now, however, she was not making jokes. The two girls were doing their best to win the race. Darry was a long, rangy fellow, and his over-hand stroke was wonderful. Burd Alling – “tubby” as he was – was an excellent swimmer. The girls started with a dash, however, and they kept up their speed for some rods before either felt any fatigue.

The diving raft was a long distance out from the beach, because the sandy bottom here sloped very gradually. This part of the island was ideal for swimming and bathing. If it was finally proved that the old Padriac Haney estate belonged to little Henrietta, she would control the longest strip of beach on the island.

Amy flashed a glance over her shoulder to see how close they were pursued, and almost lost stroke.

“Come on!” panted Jessie. “Don’t let them beat you.”

“Ain’t – go-ing – to,” gasped her chum, in four short breaths.

They were more than half way to the raft, and it really seemed as though the stronger – and longer – arms of the two college boys were not aiding them to overtake the Roselawn girls. The latter began to congratulate each other upon this – with glances. They did not waste any more breath in speech.

Rising high to change stroke, Jessie turned on her side and did the over-hand. It heaved her ahead of her chum for a yard or so; and it likewise enabled her to see over the raft. The raft chanced to be deserted, nor were there any swimmers between her and the boat of the lifeguard beyond the raft.

The man in the boat suddenly stood up. He began waving his arms and shouting. As he was looking shoreward Jessie thought he must be cheering her and her chum on. She forged still farther ahead of Amy, and the lifeguard became more energetic in his motions.

Suddenly he dropped upon the seat of his boat, grabbed the oars, and pulled the bow of the craft around, heading it seemed, for the raft. He did act peculiarly.

From behind her Jessie heard faintly a cry from her chum:

“Oh, Jess! What’s that? What is it?”

“Why, it is the lifeguard,” rejoined Jessie Norwood, flashing another glance over her shoulder, but continuing to thrash forward at her very best speed.

“No, no! That thing! In the water!” At first Jessie saw nothing ahead but the raft. She thought the lifeguard was hurrying to the raft to meet Amy and herself if they won the race. Another glance that she flashed back swept the smooth, rolling sea as far as Darry and Burd, endeavoring to overcome the handicap they had given the two girl chums.

It was only then that Jessie realized that something must be happening – some threatening thing that she did not understand. From the rear Darry’s hail reached Jessie’s ear:

“Turn back! Come back, Jess!”

“Why! what does he think?” considered Jessie, amazed. “That I am going to stop and let him and Burd beat us? I – guess – not!”

Then she heard the voice of the lifeguard. He was driving his boat inshore with mighty strokes; but he sat facing shoreward, too, using his oars back-handed. He shouted:

“Shark! Shark! Look out for the shark!”

And behind Jessie Norwood her chum took up the cry:

“Shark! Oh, Jess! Shark!”

The word, which had never meant much to Jessie Norwood in her life before, being merely the name of a quite unknown fish, suddenly became the most important of words! She whirled over and took up the breast stroke. She rose high in the water again to look.

Off at one side and seemingly swimming toward them from a tangent, came a gray, sail-like thing, the like of which the Roselawn girl had never seen before. She accepted as true however the identification of the lifeguard. He should know.

The race to the raft became suddenly a double race. More than ever did Jessie Norwood wish to win it! She desired to outswim the dangerous fish of which she had heard such terrible stories.

CHAPTER XIII – MORE THAN ONE ADVENTURE

Jessie was badly frightened, but she was not too scared to swim as hard as she could for the diving raft. The lifeguard drove his boat around the end of the raft toward the gray, sail-like object which had so startled them all. Jessie remembered of reading that the dorsal fin of a shark shows above water when it swims at the surface. This odd looking thing must be it – it must be!

She measured the distance between it and herself with some calculation. It came on in a halting, undecided way. Perhaps the shark had not yet caught sight of any of the swimmers. Jessie flung up her arm and shouted at the top of her voice to her chum:

“Come on! Come on! Don’t let him get you!”

Amy was struggling so hard to reach the raft now that she had no breath left for speech. Jessie saw her splashing on in her wake. Behind, the boys were making a great splashing too, and Jessie realized that it was for an object. The shark might be frightened away if they made disturbance enough in the water.

Jessie was now very near the raft and the other three were bunching up not far behind her. The lifeguard shot by in his boat, yelling like mad. Darry shouted:

“Get aboard the raft, girls! Burd and I will beat him off till you are landed!”

“You come right on here, Darrington Drew!” sputtered his sister. “What good will you ever be if you get your leg bit off?”

Jessie reached the raft and seized a loop of rope hanging from it. If it had not been for this assistance she doubted if she could have hauled herself out of the water. When Amy arrived, her chum was lying over the edge of the refuge, and reached one arm out for her.

“Quick! Quick!” cried Jessie.

“Do – don’t scare me so!” gasped Amy. “I – I feel just as though he was nibbling at my toes right now!”

But it seemed no laughing matter to Jessie Norwood. Her chum, however, would find a joke in even the most serious circumstance. And the moment she lay on the raft beside Jessie she began to laugh, gaspingly.

“This is no laughing matter!” Jessie declared. “How can you, Amy? Darry and Burd – ”

At that instant a wild shout rose from the two collegians and from the lifeguard who had rowed so energetically to their rescue. Amy broke off suddenly in her nervous laughter.

“He’s got ’em!” she shrieked. “Oh! Oh!”

But, strange though it seemed to her, Jessie realized that Darry and Burd were laughing. And the astonished expletives that the guard emitted did not seem to show fear.

“What is the matter?” Jessie demanded, standing up.

“And where is the shark?” asked Amy, likewise scrambling to her feet.

The boys were hanging to the side of the guard’s boat. He was fishing for something in the water with an oar. He finally got the object and raised it aloft.

“What is it?” repeated Jessie.

“The shark!” shrieked her chum.

It actually was all the shark there was – a pair of partly deflated swimming wings which, carried here and there by the wind, had looked like a shark’s dorsal fin at a distance.

“Good thing you girls saw it,” declared Darry, when the boys lumbered along to the raft. “If you hadn’t been so scared you never would have beat us. Would they, Burd?”

“Of course not,” agreed his friend. “And how Jess can swim – when there is a man-eating shark after her!”

“Don’t make fun,” Jessie said, somewhat exasperated. “It might have been a shark. Then where would you have been?”

“Either here or inside the shark,” said Darry. “One thing sure, he never could have caught you girls.”

“Well,” Amy sighed, “we had all the excitement of racing with a shark, even if the shark was only in our minds. I’ll never be so scared by one again.”

“Goodness!” exclaimed Jessie. “I know I shall always be nervous in the water here after this. I’ll always be looking for one. What an awful feeling it is to try to swim when one is being pursued by – ”

“By a pair of swimming wings,” chuckled Burd. “Some imagination you’ve got, my dear Jess.”

There was a serious side to the matter, however. Although the shark scare had proved to be groundless, the quartette decided to say nothing about it to those ashore.

“Especially to Momsy,” Jessie Norwood said. “I don’t want to make her nervous. Little things annoy her.”

“She’ll be some annoyed by little Hen, then,” chuckled Amy. “Hen is worse than any shark you ever saw.”

“How terrible!” cried Jessie. “She is not a bad child at all, but she is wild enough.”

When they swam ashore later they found Henrietta on her good behavior with Momsy. Nobody on the sands had chanced to see the excitement out by the raft. Or, if they had, it was merely supposed that the four young people from Roselawn were playing in the water.

Jessie, however, felt rather serious about it. And she knew she would never go into the sea again at Station Island without thinking about sharks.

While they were playing hand-ball on the beach, still in their bathing suits, a low-wheeled pony carriage came along the drive from the upper end of the island, and Amy’s sharp eyes spied and recognized the two girls seated on the back seat of the vehicle.

“And that’s Bill Brewster driving!” cried Amy. “Some difference between the speed of that quadruped and his sports car.”

“One thing sure,” chuckled Burd. “He can’t do so much damage with that old Dobbin as he did with the car he drives about New Melford.”

“Belle and Sally have got a hen on,” said the slangy Amy to Jessie. “See them whispering together?”

“I can see what they are up to from right where I stand,” announced Darry, dropping the ball. “Come on, Burd! Let’s beat it for the raft again. That’s one place those two girls can’t follow us without bathing suits.”

“He, he!” giggled his sister. “I hope they sit right down here and wait for you to come ashore.”

“Send out our supper by the lifeguard,” called Burd, as he followed his chum into the surf. “We fear sharks less than we do a certain brand of featherless biped.”

“I suppose it would be too pointed for us to run away,” said Amy to Jessie, as Bill Brewster drove the pony carriage out on to the beach.

“Belle has got her eye on us, that is a fact,” agreed Jessie.

She was curious, especially after what their new friend had told them an hour before about the story that Belle Ringold was circulating. Belle was eager to talk – as she always was.

“So your folks got one of these bungalows, did they, after all, Jess Norwood?” she began. “I suppose you know there is no surety that you can keep it a month?”

“I don’t know about that. I guess father attended to the lease. And he is a lawyer, you know,” said Jessie, quietly.

“Pooh! Yes,” said Belle, tossing her head. “But there are lawyers and lawyers! My father has the smartest lawyer in New York working for him. And I suppose you know about the claim he has against all the middle of this island?”

“We have heard that you have a claim on the island – or think you have,” said Amy slyly. “But, then, Belle, you always did think you owned the earth.”

“Now, Miss Smartie, don’t be too funny! Father is going to prove his right to the golf course and all these bungalows. Don’t you fear – Why! There’s that terrible Henrietta Haney! How did she come here?”

“She is with us,” said Jessie shortly.

“Oh, indeed! One of your week-end guests, I suppose?” scoffed Belle. “We are entertaining General O’Bigger and Mrs. O’Bigger at the hotel. Of course, we would not live in one of these small bungalows – not even if we needed a vacation.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Henrietta promptly, “because I wouldn’t let you.”

“Oh! Oh! Hear that child!” cried Sally Moon.

“Nor you, neither,” declared Henrietta. “All them houses are mine – or they are going to be.”

“Hush, Henrietta,” commanded Jessie, in a low voice.

“Didn’t the funny little thing say something before about owning an island?” asked Belle, somewhat puzzled.

“And this is it,” said Henrietta. “You just try to come into any of them bungleloos! I’d get a policeman and have him take you out. So now!”

“Will you behave?” said Jessie, feeling like shaking the child, and in reality leading her away.

Amy came running after them in the midst of Jessie’s berating of the freckle-faced girl.

“Did you ever hear such nonsense?” Jessie’s chum demanded. “Belle declares the case is coming up in court next week and that her father is going to win. Did you ever?”

Mr. Norwood was sitting with his wife when they came near to that lady’s beach chair. Jessie was anxious enough to ask about Belle’s statement regarding the imminent court investigation of the controversy over Station Island.

“Why, yes, Ringold’s lawyers claim they have found new evidence entitling him to be heard as a claimant to the Padriac Haney estate,” the lawyer acknowledged. “But there may not be anything in it.”

“But is there a possibility, Robert?” Momsy asked, seeing how anxious both Jessie and the little girl looked.

“There is nothing sure in any case that comes into court,” declared her husband. “Besides, those attorneys of Ringold’s are sharp fellows. He may make his claim good.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” burst out Henrietta. “And then I won’t have nuthin’? No island, nor golf link, nor – nor nuthin’? Oh, dear me!”

“Never mind, honey,” Jessie begged. “You have friends. You have me.” And she sat down on the sands and took the freckle-faced little girl in her arms.

“Ye-es, Miss Jessie. I know I got you,” sobbed Henrietta. “But – but you ain’t a golf link, nor you ain’t a bungleloo. And – and I want to turn that Ringold girl off my island, I do!”

CHAPTER XIV – SOMETHING NEW IN RADIO

The Stanleys arrived at Station Island the next day, the doctor having arranged for a substitute preacher at the Roselawn Church for two Sundays. The bungalow they had arranged to occupy was one of the colony not far from the big house the Norwoods and their party were staying in.

Darry and Burd began to spend a good deal of their time on the yacht after that first day. Amy accused her brother of being afraid of a flank attack by Belle Ringold and Sally Moon, and he admitted that he had hoped to escape those two “troublesome kids” when he came to the island.

“I came here as the guest of little Hen Haney,” he declared soberly. “And I don’t wish to be annoyed by any girls older than she is.”

But he did not say this within Henrietta’s hearing. The little girl went around with a very long face indeed. She seemed to think that she was going to lose her island. Even Nell Stanley, who was a general comforter at most times, could not alleviate little Henrietta’s woe.

With the coming of the Stanleys, however, Henrietta became less of a trial to Jessie. For Sally Stanley was just about Henrietta’s age and the two children got along splendidly together.

Bob and Fred, those lively and ingenious youngsters, made their own friends among the boys of the bungalow colony. The three girls from Roselawn – Jessie, Amy, and Nell – found plenty to do and enjoyed themselves thoroughly during the next few days. Being all interested in radio they naturally spent some time at Jessie’s set. But unfortunately it did not work as well here as it had at home.

“And I do not know why,” Jessie ruminated. “I have been studying up about it and the more I read the less I seem to know. There are so many different opinions about how an amateur set should be built. Do you know, sometimes I feel as though I should have an entirely different kind of outfit. There is a new super-regenerative circuit that is being talked about.”

“But some people say it is not practicable for amateurs,” broke in Nell. “I’ve read so, anyway.”

“I should like to talk with some professional – some radio expert – about that,” Jessie confessed. “If I had thought before we left home I would have spoken to Mr. Blair.”

“You’ll have to wait until you get back, then,” said Amy promptly.

“Why?” cried Nell suddenly. “There must be experts over at that Government station.”

“That is so,” agreed Jessie, thoughtfully. “Do you suppose they would – ”

“Let’s go and see,” urged Nell. “I’m crazy to see the inside of that station, anyway.”

“It’s wireless – like the little outfit aboard the Marigold,” Amy suggested.

“But so much bigger,” Jessie chimed in eagerly. “If they admit visitors, let’s go.”

Mr. Norwood found out about that particular point for the girls and reported that if they went over to the station in the late afternoon the operator on duty would be glad to show them “the works” and give them all the information in his power.

The three friends went alone, for the collegians were off fishing that day on the Marigold. They left the little girls in Mrs. Norwood’s care and slipped away about four o’clock and walked to the station, which was some distance from the bungalow colony. They had to climb the stairs in the old shaft of the lighthouse to the wireless room. The room was half darkened and they heard the snapping of the spark, and even saw the faint blue flash of it when they came to the door.

The operator, with his head harness on, was busy at his set. Jessie, at least, had spent some time trying to learn the Morse code since talking the matter over with Darry on the yacht. But although the signals the operator received were in dots and dashes, she could not understand a single thing.

“I am afraid it will take us a long time to learn,” she said to Amy, sighing. “We shall have to buy a regular telegraph set and learn in that way.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about learning anything!” cried her chum. “Vacation is slipping right away from us.”

After a few moments the spark stopped snapping, the operator closed his switch and removed his harness. He wheeled around on the bench and welcomed them. He was really a very pleasant young man, and he explained many things about both the radio-telegraph and radio-telephone that the girls had not known before.

He was so friendly that Jessie ventured to ask him about the new super-regenerative circuit in which she was interested.

“Yes. I’m strong for that new thing,” said the wireless operator, enthusiastically. “In the first place, it was invented by the man who originated the ordinary regenerative circuit so much in use at present, and also of the super-heterodyne circuit. I understand this new circuit permits a current amplification up to a million times, and all with three tubes. You know, to reach such a high mark with your ordinary regenerative circuit, many more tubes would be necessary.”

“I understand that,” said Jessie. “But can an amateur build and practically work this new circuit?”

“Why not? If you follow directions carefully. And with the new outfit a loop is just as effective an antenna as an outside aerial. They say, too, that to catch broadcasting for not more than twenty-five miles, not even a loop is needed, the circuits themselves acting as the absorbers of energy.”

“I’m going to try it,” declared Jessie, with more confidence. “But I feel that I understand so little about the various forms of radio, after all.”

“You have nothing on me there,” laughed the operator. “I am learning something new all the time. And sometimes I am astonished to find out how, after five years of work with it, I am really so ignorant.”

The girls had a very interesting visit at the station; and from the operator Jessie and Amy gained some particular instruction about sending and receiving messages in the telegraph code. He received several messages from ships at sea while the girls remained in the station, and likewise relayed other messages received from inland stations both up and down the coast and to vessels far out at sea.

“It is a wonderful thing,” said Nell, as the girls walked homeward. “I never realized before how great an influence wireless already was in commercial life. Why, how did the world ever get along without it before Marconi first thought of it?”

“How did the world ever get along without any other great invention?” demanded Amy. “The sewing machine, for instance. I’ve got to run up a seam in one of my sports skirts, for there is no tailor, they say, nearer than the hotel. I do wish a sewing machine had been included in the furnishings of your bungalow, Jess. I hate to sew by hand.”

The boys had come in before the Roselawn girls returned for dinner, and they were very enthusiastic over a plan for taking a part of the bungalow crowd on an extended sailing trip. They had met Dr. Stanley walking the beaches, and he had expressed a desire to go to sea for a day or two, and at once Darry and Burd had conceived a plan for the young folks to be included.

“The doctor is a good enough chaperon,” said Darry, with a laugh. “Nell shall come. Her Aunt Freda will be down to look after the children.”

“And Henrietta?” asked Jessie, hesitatingly.

“For pity’s sake!” cried Darry, in some impatience. “Don’t be tied down to that kid all the time. You’d think you were a grandmother.”

“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Jessie. “I’m not sure that I want to go on your old yacht, Darry Drew.”

“Aw, Jess – ”

“Well, I’ll think about it,” murmured Jessie, relenting.