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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 35044
   :PG.Title: The Boys of the Wireless
   :PG.Released: 2011-01-22
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Roger Frank
   :PG.Producer: the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
   :DC.Creator: Frank V. Webster
   :DC.Title: The Boys of the Wireless
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1912
   :coverpage: images/cover.jpg

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   The Boys of the Wireless
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      Title: The Boys of the Wireless
      
      Author: Frank V. Webster
      
      Release Date: January 22, 2011 [EBook #35044]
      
      Language: English
      
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   TOM SPEEDILY GAVE THE CALL TO THE STATION AT THE DIXON PLACE.
   
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   :xl:`THE BOYS OF THE WIRELESS`

   Or

   :l:`A Stirring Rescue from the Deep`

   BY

   :l:`FRANK V. WEBSTER`

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   | AUTHOR OF “AIRSHIP ANDY,” “COMRADES OF THE SADDLE,”
   | “BEN HARDY’S FLYING MACHINE,” “BOB THE CASTAWAY,” ETC.

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   | ILLUSTRATED
   |
   | :s:`NEW YORK`
   | CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
   | :s:`PUBLISHERS`

|
|
|

.. class:: center

   BOOKS FOR BOYS

   By FRANK V. WEBSTER

   12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

.. class:: smaller center

   | ONLY A FARM BOY
   | TOM, THE TELEPHONE BOY
   | THE BOY FROM THE RANCH
   | THE YOUNG TREASURE HUNTER
   | BOB, THE CASTAWAY
   | THE YOUNG FIREMEN OF LAKEVILLE
   | THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS
   | THE BOY PILOT OF THE LAKES
   | THE TWO BOY GOLD MINERS
   | JACK, THE RUNAWAY
   | COMRADES OF THE SADDLE
   | THE BOYS OF BELLWOOD SCHOOL
   | THE HIGH SCHOOL RIVALS
   | BOB CHESTER’S GRIT
   | AIRSHIP ANDY
   | DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER
   | DICK, THE BANK BOY
   | BEN HARDY’S FLYING MACHINE
   | THE BOYS OF THE WIRELESS
   | HARRY WATSON’S HIGH SCHOOL DAYS

.. class:: center

   Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York

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|

.. class:: center

   | Copyright, 1912, by
   | CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
   | THE BOYS OF THE WIRELESS

.. contents:: Contents
   :backlinks: entry
   :depth: 1

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    :xl:`THE BOYS OF THE WIRELESS`

CHAPTER I—TOM BARNES’ WIRELESS
==============================

“What’s that new-fangled thing on the blasted
oak, Tom?”

“That, Ben, is a wireless.”

“Oh, you don’t say so!”

“Or, rather the start of one.”

“Say, you aren’t original or ambitious or anything
like that, are you?”

The speaker, Ben Dixon, bestowed a look of
admiration and interest on the chum he liked best
of all in the world, Tom Barnes.

Tom was reckoned a genius in the little community
in which he lived. He had the record of
“always being up to something.” In the present
instance he had been up a tree, it seemed. From
“the new-fangled thing” Ben had discovered in
passing the familiar landmark, the blasted oak,
wires and rods ran up to quite a height, showing
that some one had done some climbing.

Ben became instantly absorbed in an inspection
of the contrivance before him. He himself had
some mechanical talent. His father had been an
inventor in a small way, and anything in which
Tom had a part always attracted him.

“Tell me about it. What’s that thing up
there?” asked Ben, pointing directly at some
metal rods attached to the broken-off top of the
tree.

“Those are antennae.”

“Looks like an—twenty!” chuckled Ben over
his own joke. “There’s a whole network of
them, isn’t there?”

“They run down to a relay, Ben, catching the
electric waves striking the decoherer, which taps
the coherer and disarranges a lot of brass filings
by mechanical vibration. That’s the whole essence
of the wireless—otherwise it is no different
from common telegraphy—a group of parts each
for individual service in transmitting or receiving
the electric waves.”

“Thank you!” observed Ben drily. “How delightfully
plain that all is! You rattle those scientific
terms off good and spry, though.”

“So will you, as soon as you do what I’ve been
doing,” asserted Tom.

“And what’s that?”

“Getting a glance at the real wireless outfit Mr.
Edson is operating down at Sandy Point.”

“I heard of that,” nodded Ben.

“He’s a fine man,” said Tom enthusiastically.
“He’s taken all kinds of trouble to post me and
explain things I wanted to know. This little
side show of mine is just an experiment on a
small scale. I don’t expect any grand results. It
will work out the principle, though, and when I
get to taking messages——”

“What! you don’t mean to say you can do
that?”

“Just that, Ben,” declared Tom confidently.

“From where?”

“Well, mostly from Mr. Edson’s station at
Sandy Point, and maybe some stray ones that may
slip past him.”

“Say!” cried Ben, on fire at once with emulation
and optimism, “what’s the matter with me
starting a station, too, down at my house? Then
we could have all kinds of fun over our line.”

“It isn’t much work nor expense,” said Tom.
“You can get an outfit cheap for a home-made
apparatus—you need some coarse and fine wire
for the main coil, a glass tube, a bell, sounder and
a buzzer, some electromagnets——”

“I see,” interrupted Ben with a mock groan,
“just a few things picked up anywhere. Oh,
yes!”

“You won’t be discouraged once you get interested,
Ben,” assured Tom. “We’ll talk about
your starting a station later. Just now you can
help me quite a bit if you want to.”

“Sure!” returned the enterprising Ben with
vim.

“All right; I want to string a coil of new wire
I got yesterday,” explained Tom, going around
to the other side of the tree. “Why, it’s gone!”
he cried.

“What’s gone?” queried Ben.

“The wire. Now, isn’t that a shame!” cried
Tom indignantly, fussing around among the grass
and bushes. “That coil couldn’t have walked
away. Some one must have stolen it.”

“Don’t be too hasty, Tom. Some one passing
by may have picked it up. You know the fellows
are playing ball over in the meadow just beyond
here. Some of them may have cut across and
stumbled over your wire.”

“Couldn’t they see that I was putting up a
station here?” demanded Tom with asperity.

“Station?” repeated Ben with a jolly laugh.
“See here, old fellow, you forget that we scientific
numbskulls wouldn’t know your contrivance
here from a clothes dryer.”

“Well, come on, anyway. I’ve got to find that
wire,” said Tom with determination.

In the distance they could hear the shouts of
boys at play, and passing through some brushwood they
came to the edge of the open meadow
lining the river.

Half a dozen boys were engaged in various
pastimes. Two of them playing at catch greeted
Tom with enthusiasm.

There was no boy at Rockley Cove more popular
than Tom Barnes. His father had farmed
it, as the saying goes, at the edge of the little
village for over a quarter of a century. While
Mr. Barnes was not exactly a wealthy man he
made a good living, and Tom dressed pretty well,
and was kept at school right along. Now it was
vacation time, and outside of a few chores about
the house morning and evening Tom’s time was
his own.

The result was that usually Tom had abundant
leisure for sports. The welcome with which his
advent was hailed therefore, was quite natural.

“I say, Tom,” suddenly spoke Ben, seizing the
arm of his companion in some excitement, “there’s
Mart Walters.”

“Ah, he’s here, is he?” exclaimed Tom, and
started rapidly across the meadow to where a
crowd of boys were grouped about a diving plank
running out over the stream. “I’m bothered
about that missing coil, but I guess I can take time
to attend to Walters.”

The boy he alluded to was talking to several
companions as Tom and Ben came up. His back
was to the newcomers and he did not see them
approach. Mart Walters was a fop and a braggart.
Tom noticed that he was arrayed in his
best, and his first overheard words announced
that he was bragging as usual.

Mart was explaining to a credulous audience
some of the wonderful feats in diving and swimming
he had engaged in during a recent stay in
Boston. With a good deal of boastful pride he
alluded to a friend, Bert Aldrich, whose father
was a part owner of a big city natatorium. Tom
interrupted his bombast unceremoniously by suddenly
appearing directly in front of the boaster.

“Hello, Mart Walters,” he hailed in a sort
of aggressive way.

“Hello yourself,” retorted Mart, with a slight
uneasiness of manner.

“I’ve been looking for you,” said Tom bluntly.

“Have?”

“Yes, ever since I heard some criticisms of
yours yesterday on my bungling swimming.”

“Oh, I didn’t say much,” declared Mart evasively.

“You said enough to make the crowd believe
you could beat me all hollow at diving.”

“Well,” flustered Mart desperately, “I can.”

“Want to prove that?” challenged Tom sharply.

“Some time.”

“Why not now? We’re all here and the water
is fine. We’ll make it a dash for the half-mile
fence and return, under water test, somersaults
and diving.”

Mart had begun to retreat. He flushed and
stammered. Finally he blurted out:

“I’m due now at Morgan’s with a message
from my folks.”

“You haven’t seemed in a hurry,” suggested
Ben.

“Well, I am now.”

“Yes, might muss your collar if you got wet!”
sneered a fellow in the crowd.

“All right,” said Tom, “when will you be
back?”

“Can’t say,” declared Mart. “You see, I don’t
know how long I may be.”

He started off, flushed and sheep-faced under
the critical gaze of the crowd. As he did so Tom
noticed that he had something in his hand.

“Here!” he cried, “where did you get that?”

Tom had discovered his missing coil of wire.
His hand seized it. Mart’s did not let go. The
latter gave a jerk, Tom a twist.

“That’s mine,” Tom said simply. “You took
it from where I was stringing up my wireless.”

“I found it,” shouted Mart, thoroughly infuriated
in being crossed in any of his plans. “It
was kicking around loose. I’ll have it too—take
that!”

He came at Tom so suddenly that the latter,
unprepared for the attack, went swinging to the
ground under a dizzying blow.

It looked as if Mart was about to follow up
the assault with a kick. Tom offset that peril with
a dextrous maneuvre.

Seated flat, he spun about like a top. His feet
met the ankles of the onrushing Mart.

Mart stumbled, tripped and slipped. He tried
to catch himself, lost his balance, fell backward,
and the next instant went headlong into the water
with a resounding splash.

CHAPTER II—STATION Z
====================

A yell of derisive delight went up from the
smaller youths of the crowd as Mart Walters went
toppling into the water. Mart did not have a
real friend in Rockley Cove, and the little fellows
Welcomed an opportunity for showing their dislike.

Tom, however, promptly on his feet was making
for the spot where Mart was puffing and
splashing about, when two of his friends in bathing
attire anticipated his helpful action, reached
Mart, and led him, blinded and dripping, onto
dry land.

Mart was a sight. All the starch was taken
out of him, and out of his clothes. He did not
linger to renew the conflict. He only shook his
fist at Tom with the half Whimpered words:

“I’ll fix you, Tom Barnes, see if I don’t! This
will be a sorry day for you.”

“Who started it?” demanded Tom bluntly.

“I’ll get even with you for this treatment,”
threatened Mart direfully, sneaking off.

“You’ve made an enemy for life of that fellow,
Tom,” declared Ben.

“Well, he never was very friendly towards me,”
responded Tom. “Where’s the wire? I’ve got
it,” and he picked it up from the ground where
it had dropped. “I’m sorry this thing occurred,
but he brought it on himself. Come on, Ben.”

“You’re going to stay and have some fun, aren’t
you, Tom?” inquired one of the swimmers.

“Can’t, boys—that is, just now. I’ve got
something to attend to. See you again.”

Tom and Ben had not proceeded fifty feet,
however, when a hurried call halted them. Tom’s
younger brother came running towards them.

“Oh, Tom!” he hailed breathlessly, “I’ve run
all the way from the house. I’ve got a message
for you.”

“What is it, Ted?”

“Mr. Edson was passing the house and told me
to find you and ask you to come down to the tower
as soon as you could.”

“All right, Ted,” replied Tom. “I wonder
what’s up?”

“Why?” questioned Ben.

“I saw Mr. Edson early this morning down at
the Point, and thought I’d got him to talk himself
out for a week to come asking him so many questions
about the wireless.”

“Are you going to drop rigging out your plant
at the old oak till you see him?”

“We’ll have to. It may be something important
Mr. Edson wants to see me about. You come
too, Ben.”

“Had I better?”

“You want to, don’t you?”

“Well, I guess!” replied Ben with undisguised
fervor. “I’ve envied the way he’s posting you in
this wireless ever since I first saw his outfit.”

The boys pursued their way to Sandy Point,
passing the old blasted oak. Here Tom took
pains to stow the coil of wire safely in a tree.
Resuming their walk they neared Sandy Point
twenty minutes later.

The Point was a high but level stretch of shore
with one or two small houses in its vicinity. It
was really a part of Rockley Cove, but the center
of the village was half a mile inland.

A high metal framework designated the Point,
and could be seen from quite a distance. This,
however, was no recent construction nor a beacon
point, nor originally erected for its present use as
a wireless station.

It had served as a windmill for a farmer who
once operated an eighty-acre tract of land. One
night his house and barns burned down. For
years the spot was abandoned. Recently, however,
the Mr. Edson Tom had alluded to had
come to Rockley Cove and established “Station Z”
at the old windmill.

He had built a room or tower as he called it
midway up the windmill structure. This was
reached through a trap door by a fixed iron ladder.
The height and open construction of the
windmill enabled the setting of upper wireless
paraphernalia in a fine way, and the whole layout
was found especially serviceable in carrying out
Mr. Edson’s ideas.

The operator was at the window of the little
operating room he had built, and waved a cheery
welcome to his two young friends. Tom and Ben
were up the ladder speedily and through the trap
door.

“Did you send for me, Mr. Edson?” inquired
Tom.

“Yes, Tom,” replied the operator, “and I’m
glad you came so promptly. I’ve got to leave
Rockley Cove on short notice.”

“Oh, Mr. Edson, I am very sorry for that!”
declared Tom.

“I regret it too, especially so far as you are
concerned,” admitted Mr. Edson.

“I was getting on finely,” said Tom in a disappointed
tone.

“No reason why you shouldn’t continue,” declared
the operator encouragingly. “You have
been strictly business all along, Tom. I want to
commend you for it, and I have sent for you to
make you a business proposition.”

“A proposition?” repeated Tom wonderingly.

“Yes. You have got so that there is very
little about the outfit here that you do not understand.
The transmitting and receiving end of it
is old history to you. In fact I am going to leave
you here in entire charge of the station.”

“Oh, Mr. Edson!” exclaimed Tom, “I am
afraid you rate me too highly.”

“Not at all. You have got sense, patience,
and you want to learn. As you know, my starting
the station here was a private enterprise, but
it was no idle fad. I expected to work something
practicable and profitable out of it. You
can carry on the work.”

“Why are you giving it up, sir, if I may ask?”

“I received a letter only an hour since, with an
unexpected offer of a very fine position with one
of the operating wireless companies in Canada.
They expect me at a conference in New York
City Friday, and I do not doubt that I shall close
an engagement with them. As I have told you,
I have very little capital. In fact, about all my
surplus has been invested in the station here.”

Ben was looking around the place with his usual
devouring glance. Tom felt that some important
disclosure was about to be made and was
duly impressed.

“There is a good chance for a live young fellow
in a business that can send a message hundreds
of miles in a few seconds,” continued Mr. Edson.
“The business is now only in its infancy, and
those who get in first have the best chance. The
only hope here of the international circuit is to
make a killing.”

“What do you mean by a killing, Mr. Edson?”
inquired the big-eyed, interested Ben.

“Catching a stray message and making a home
shot with it. The fellow who saved an ocean
liner last week by sending help quick, just when
needed, got more pay in one hour than many people
earn in a lifetime. Now then, Tom, as to my
proposition.”

“Yes, sir,” nodded Tom, eagerly.

“I want you to buy me out.”

“To buy you out?” repeated Tom slowly and
in a puzzled way.

“That’s it.”

“You mean with money?” put in the ever-attentive
Ben.

“It’s got to be money, I am obliged to say,”
replied Mr. Edson. “I shall need all the ready
cash I can get hold of in taking my new position,
for I have a lot of debts to clean up. Between you
and me, Tom, I can sell the outfit here to certain
people, but it would throw you out. Of course,
I don’t expect you, a boy to have any great amount
of money to invest, but I had an idea that some
of your relatives or friends might help you.”

Tom was silent, deeply thoughtful for a minute
or two. His eyes wandered wistfully over the
apparatus that so fascinated him. Then, very
timorously, he asked:

“How much would it take, Mr. Edson?”

“One hundred dollars to you, Tom,” said Mr.
Edson.

Ben squirmed. Tom’s voice was quite tremulous
as he inquired:

“How soon would you have to have the
money?”

“By next Tuesday.”

“Will you give me till then to—to try?” asked
Tom.

“Surely. I hope you can make it, Tom. I like
you very much. You are the right sort, and I
think you should be encouraged in your interest
in the wireless. I’ll show you just what the equipment
here is.”

Ben voted the hour that followed the most
interesting of his life. For the first time in his
career he began to get a faint conception of spark
lengths, spark voltage, condensers, circuits, vibrators,
grounds, concentric radiations, wire cores
and armatures. He had been dabbling for over
a week with both Morse and the Continental alphabets,
and when Tom mentioned the possibility
of establishing a sub-station at the Dixon home instead
of at the old blasted oak, Mr. Edson was
quite encouraging, and offered to contribute some
of the equipment necessary to carry out the idea.

The expert operator engrossed the attention of
the boys. It was a ramble in a field of rare delight
as they passed from one part of the wireless
mechanism to another.

“Now then, sit down, boys, for a few minutes,”
said Mr. Edson at length. “I don’t want you to
buy a pig in a poke. There are a couple of attachments
that go with the station, and you should
know about them.”

“Attachments?” repeated Ben.

“What are they, Mr. Edson?” inquired Tom
with curiosity.

“Spooks,” was the ominous reply.

CHAPTER III—“SPOOKS!”
=====================

“Spooks?” repeated Tom, with a stare of
wonder.

“Spooks,” echoed Ben, edging a trifle away
from the open trap door.

“Call it that,” said Mr. Edson, with a quiet
smile. “Perhaps I had better say—mysterious
happenings.”

“What may they be, Mr. Edson?” inquired
Ben, always interested in any sensational disclosures.

“Well, first—let me see,” and the speaker
reached over for a slip of documents held with
others in a paper clip on the table; “yes, here it
is—‘Donner.’”

“Who’s he?” inquired Tom, puzzled.

“Say rather what is he?” corrected Mr. Edson.
“Frankly, I don’t know.”

“It’s a name,” observed Ben; “a man’s name,
isn’t it?”

“I don’t know that,” responded Mr. Edson.

“Neither do the other fellows on the circuit. Perhaps
I’d better explain, though, so when this
Donner comes along you will be prepared for
him.”

“Yes, you have excited our curiosity and we’ll
be on the lookout,” said Tom.

“Well, for nearly three weeks, at odd and unexpected
times, with no sense or reason to it, no
call or ‘sine,’ abruptly and mysteriously zip! the
wires have gone, and in floats a jumbled, erratic
message.”

“As how?” propounded Ben.

“‘Donner.’ That always, first. It may be an
explanation, it may be a name, it may mean nothing,
but all the same splutter—splutter! on she
comes. At first it was spelled out slowly, lamely,
sometimes wrong, and then corrected as if an
amateur beginner was at the other end of the
line.”

“And that was all—‘Donner’” questioned
Ben, aggravatingly consumed with curiosity.

“Not after a few days. Then ‘Donner’ began
to add something of a message. That, too, was a
jumble, wrong dots and dashes and all that. Finally,
though, this queer crank of a sender began to
say something about a boy.”

“A boy?” murmured the engrossed Ben.

“It looked as if he was trying to describe some
one. However, as I say, his sending was so
faulty that not much could be made out of it. It
got clearer, but no more coherent and enlightening.
I tried to trace the sender. So did others
on the circuit. I got in touch with Seagrove.”

“What did they say? Mr. Edson?” asked
Tom.

“They confessed themselves fully as much puzzled
as I was. The last three or four days ‘Donner’
has gotten into action trying to tell something
about money. First it was a hundred dollars,
then two hundred, then five, and about an
hour since the same old string of jangled talk
came in over the receiver: ‘Donner boy—a thousand
dollars.’”

“How strange,” commented Tom.

“Oh, you’ll get some of it,” declared Mr. Edson.
“Early in the morning about daylight, always
at noon, sometimes just about dusk, the
message comes through the air.”

“How do you explain it?” submitted Tom.

“Why, I have to think it is some person who
has rigged up an old station somewhere in range,
and is trying to tell something he is too ignorant
to express clearly. Pay no attention to it as a
serious circumstance. It is only one of the freaks
of the wireless experience.”

“That’s one of the spooks you told about?”
inquired Ben.

“Yes,” nodded Mr. Edson.

“Any more?”

“Something more tangible this time,” observed
Mr. Edson. “For about a week some one has
invaded my den here nights regularly.”

“Maybe this same mysterious ‘Donner’” suggested
Ben.

“Hardly. You see, I am pretty regular in my
hours here. I have come on at about eight in the
morning and leave at six in the evening always.”

“And the second spook you speak about?”
interrogated Tom.

“Puts in an appearance after my departure in
the night time. Here’s the gist of it: Every
morning when I come down here, the ground under
the windmill for a space of about fifty feet
is swept as clean as a ballroom floor.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” observed Tom.

“I leave the den up here in some slight disorder
evenings, preferring to put it in shape in
the morning. Well,” declared Mr. Edson, “I find
it all cleaned up for me.”

“You don’t say so!” ejaculated Ben.

“Nothing is touched about the apparatus, my
papers are not disturbed. One night I carelessly
forgot my pocketbook. I found it placed carefully
on the paper tab with the contents intact.”

“Well, that’s a helpful, honest, useful kind of a
spook, isn’t it, now?” cried Ben.

“I think this harmless intruder sleeps on the
floor here nights,” said Mr. Edson. “Anyhow,
I’ve apprised you of the mysteries as well as the
excellencies of Station Z. I must be going,
Barnes,” added Mr. Edson, consulting his watch
and arising and taking up his satchel from a corner
of the room. “Think over my proposition.”

“I certainly shall,” declared Tom, quickly.

“It’s a dandy chance,” remarked Ben.

“Use your best intelligence and judgment in
running the business here until I come back,”
added Mr. Edson. “You can come down to the
house with me if you like and get some stuff that
will help you rig up your home-made wireless.”

“All right,” assented Tom, “I’d like to do
that.”

The professional operator followed his young
guests down the ladder, locking the trap door
padlock and tendering the key to Tom.

“You’re in charge now,” he said in a pleasant
way.

Tom’s finger tips tingled with pleasure at the
possession of the key, and Ben’s eyes brightened
with glowing anticipations.

The boys waited outside on a bench on the porch
of Mr. Edson’s boarding house when they reached
that place. He went up to his room and soon
returned with an oblong box.

“You’ll find the stuff in there I told you about,”
he explained.

“Many thanks,” said Tom.

“I’m in that, too!” echoed Ben. “I only
hope we can really rig up a plant at my house like
you talk about,” he added eagerly.

“That will be easy,” advised Mr. Edson.
“And now good-by, my young friends, and good
luck.”

Mr. Edson shook hands in a friendly way with
Tom and Ben. The boys started down the village
street in the direction of the Barnes home.

Ben walked as if he were treading on air. His
comrade, carrying the box, was thoughtfully going
over the great fund of information he had obtained
in the preceding two hours.

“I say!” he spoke suddenly, coming to a halt.

“What’s up?” challenged Ben.

“I was thinking it would be handier to leave
this box at the station.”

“I’m sure it would. You see, it’s nearer our
place,” counselled Ben eagerly, glad of any excuse
that would take them back to the fascinating
influence of Station Z.

They faced about and proceeded back over the
course they had come.

“Look here, Tom,” broke in Ben on the
thoughts of his comrade, “are you going to try
and raise that hundred dollars?”

“Yes, if possible.”

“Wish I could help you. Going to ask your
father?”

“No,” replied Tom. “In the first place, I
don’t think he would let me have it. You know
he calls my craze after wireless, as he terms it,
all a fad,—says I’d better think of getting through
school before I take up outside things.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Then again,” continued Tom, “I have a sort
of pride of starting in business life on my own
resources.”

“But you’ve got to have some money help.”

“I’ve thought of that, and I’ll tell you what I’ll
do. You remember my Aunt Samantha?”

“Down at Westport?”

“Exactly. I have always been a favorite of
hers. Many a time she has hinted at all the
money she is going to leave me in her will some
day. Many a time, too, after a visit to our house,
she has reminded me that any time I need help to
write her.”

“And you’re going to?”

“Yes,” replied Tom, “just as soon as I get
home this evening. I’m going to offer her my
note, and I mean to pay it, too.”

“Say, Tom,” cried his loyal companion, “I’ll
endorse for you.”

Tom had to laugh outright at the proposal.

Then, seeing that he had hurt Ben’s feelings, he
said kindly:

“That’s all right, Ben; you mean well, but if
Aunt Samantha won’t let me have the money
alone, she won’t give it to the two of us.”

It had been growing dusk as the chums proceeded
on their way. They passed through the
village and beyond it, and finally approached the
wireless station. Tom was fumbling in his pocket
for the key to the trap door when Ben suddenly
caught his arm.

“Tom, hold on!”

“What’s the matter?” questioned Tom.

“Look yonder!”

Ben pointed directly at the old windmill framework.
Both stared intently.

Climbing up one of the outer girders was a
boy. As he reached the level of the window of the
little aerial room aloft, he swung towards it, in
some deft way lifted or pried up the sash, and
disappeared suddenly from view.

.. figure:: images/illus-024.jpg
   :align: center

   BEN POINTED DIRECTLY AT THE OLD WINDMILL FRAMEWORK.

CHAPTER IV—“DONNER”
===================

“Well!” ejaculated Tom in startled amazement.

“Don’t you see?” gasped Ben.

“What?”

“One of the spooks Mr. Edson spoke about!”

“That’s so, it must be,” assented Tom. “The
nightly intruder, as sure as fate!”

The window was lowered from the inside. In
a minute or two a faint light showed. Tom
started forward, joined by Ben, who was in a
quiver of excitement and suspense.

“What are you going to do, Tom?” he inquired.

“Find out who this mysterious trespasser is.
Don’t make any noise, Ben, but keep close to me.”

Tom gave the box into the possession of his
companion, and started up the ladder. Very cautiously
he inserted the key into the padlock.
He managed to turn it and remove the padlock
without making any alarming sound. Then very
slowly Tom pushed up the trap door.

A glance across to one corner of the room interested
him. Upon the floor lay the intruder. He
had upset a chair, and he was using its slanting
back as a pillow. On another chair he had set a
lighted piece of candle. In a posture of ease
and comfort he lay reading a well-thumbed book,
while gnawing away at a great hunk of dry bread.
His face was turned away from the trap door.
He was so engrossed in eating and reading, that,
unobserved, Tom was able to get up into the
room and Ben was half way through the trap
door before the trespasser was aware of it.

“Well, we’ve caught you right in the act, have
we?” spoke Tom suddenly.

With a slight cry and starting up into a sitting
posture, the intruder stared hard at his unexpected
visitors. He seemed to scan their faces
searchingly. His own, at first startled, broke into
a pleasant smile.

“That’s just what you’ve done,” he admitted.

“Pretty cool about it,” observed Ben.

“Not so cool as I’ve been, sleeping in the damp
grass a few foggy mornings lately. What are you
going to do with me, fellows?”

The speaker rose to his feet with something
of an effort. Then Tom noticed that he limped on
one foot. The lad was thin and pale, too. He
righted the upset chair and sat down on it. Ben
placed the box on a table and leaned against it,
regarding the stranger with curiosity. Tom sank
into another chair.

“We’re not judges or officers,” he said, “but
we are in charge here now.”

“Then I’d better get out, I suppose,” said the
boy.

“What did you come in for in the first place?
That’s what we’re interested in knowing,” remarked
Ben pointedly.

The stranger shrugged his shoulders in a way
that was quite pathetic.

“See here,” he said soberly, “if you had a
foot pretty nigh cut off by a scythe right on top
of a hard spell of the typhoid fever, and no
place to eat or sleep, you’d burrow in most anywhere
lying around loose, wouldn’t you?”

“Does that describe your case?” questioned
Tom.

“Just exactly,” responded the lad, a quick dry
click in his throat. “I’m not able to do my old
work, and you might call me a roving convalescent,
see?” and he chuckled. “I manage to pick
up enough food. I spotted this place, tried to
keep out of anybody’s way, and tidied it up to
pay for wearing out the floor boards. Then, too,
I frightened off two tramps one night, who would
have ransacked everything in sight if I hadn’t
made them believe I was a private watchman.”

“But where do you live?” asked Ben.

“Here, if you’ll let me,” was the prompt reply.

“We’ll do better than that,” said Tom, who
had been studying the boy’s face and manner
closely, and each succeeding moment was attracted
more and more by his honest eyes and frank ways.

“Will you?” questioned the lad wonderingly.

“Yes,” assured Tom. “To be plain about it,
you are homeless and friendless.”

“To be plain about it, you’ve just hit the nail
on the head.”

“All right; when we leave here you come
along.”

“Where to?”

“My home. You shall have a good supper, and
I’m sure my mother will let me rig up a comfortable
bed for you in the garret.”

“Mattress?” queried the stranger with a grin.

“Of course.”

“Pillow?” he asked additionally

“Yes.”

The boy chuckled.

“Say,” he spoke in a half sad, half gloating
way, “it’s so long since I saw such things I can
hardly realize it. I suppose you want to know
my name?”

“We’d like to,” said Ben.

“Then call me Ashley, Harry Ashley. If anybody
asks what I am, just tell them a poor lonely
fellow in hard luck, but mending as fast as he
can, and not afraid to tackle any job that means
pay for work.”

“That rings true,” said Ben.

Tom got busy shoving the box he had brought
from the village under the table. He had lighted
a lamp. About to extinguish it, he glanced around
the room to see that everything was in shape for
the night.

“Come on, Ben, you too,” directed Tom.
“Blow out your candle, and we’ll make a start.”

The boy calling himself Harry Ashley limped
over towards the chair holding the candle. At
that moment there was an interruption. With a
sharp tang the receiver began to pop out dots,
dashes and echoing clicks.

“Some one on the line!” pronounced Ben
quickly.

“Yes,” nodded Tom, hastening over to the instrument.
“Hello!”

Tom gave a vivid start. For over a month he
had been acquiring the Morse code alphabet.
Novice as he was, he was able to translate the
rapid furious dots and dashes that sounded in the
earpiece of the apparatus.

“The spooks!” Ben gasped.

“Yes,” assented Tom quite stirred up himself—“‘Donner!’”

“What’s that?” exclaimed Harry Ashley. He
turned as white as a sheet, and began trembling
all over, and stood staring askance at Tom, the
instrument and Ben.

CHAPTER V—A BOY WITH A MYSTERY
==============================

Tom did not take much notice of the strange
conduct of the refugee. He was intent on learning
what further the receiver would immediately
tap out. Ben noted particularly the excitement
of their new companion. His attention, too, was
instantly diverted through his eagerness to catch
the message coming all strange and jumbled by
wireless.

“Just as Mr. Edson told us——” he began.

“Ah!” commented Tom.

The big distended eyes of Ben Dixon devoured
the instrument with its shining coils and connections.
He stood now rooted like a statue.

Finally the message ended. A queer smile
crossed Tom’s face.

“Well,” he observed, “Mr. Edson certainly
described it perfectly.”

“Yes.”

“And two thousand dollars this time.”

“What else was the fellow trying to send?”

“It was gibberish to me. Oh, we’ll have to
pass it up, Ben, just as Mr. Edson said.”

“Yes,” assented Ben, “it’s some novice or
joker or crank experimenting, or trying to be
smart. What’s the matter?” challenged Ben,
turning now upon the boy calling himself Harry
Ashley, hoping for some explanation of his queer
startled actions of a few minutes previous.

But whatever the refugee had on his mind
he evidently was not disposed to impart it to his
questioner.

Harry Ashley had somewhat recovered his
composure. He still looked disturbed, but he said
with assumed carelessness:

“Oh, nothing. I get a pretty sharp twinge
in my lame foot every once in a while.”

“I see,” observed Ben, drily and unbelievingly.

The boys were soon on the ground and on
their way towards the village. Tom kept up a
casual conversation. He did not ask the strange
waif who had drifted into their keeping any
leading questions, however. Much as he was
interested in knowing more about Harry Ashley,
there was something in the lad’s manner that
repelled curiosity. Furthermore, Tom did not
wish to embarrass a comrade he had invited to
become his guest.

Ben was quite silent. He stole many a furtive
look at Harry as they proceeded on their way.
He was half satisfied with the lame explanation
of his actions the boy had made in the wireless
tower. He forged ahead a few yards with Tom
as they came to the road leading south towards
his home.

“I say, Tom,” he remarked in a low tone,
“there’s some mystery about that fellow.”

“Well, if that’s true,” returned Tom, “let
the future work it out. He strikes me as a poor
unfortunate who needs some help, and I’m going
to give it to him.”

“That’s natural,” retorted Ben, “you’re always
helping somebody.”

Tom rejoined Harry. The latter became more
chatty now. He did not say much about himself,
but from what he did impart Tom surmised that
he was practically a tramp, picking up a living
at odd jobs.

“See here,” said Harry, as Tom indicated the
cheery lights of the old Barnes homestead, “it
won’t put you in bad with your folks, will it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Lugging in a ragged stranger like me.”

“My mother will answer that,” replied Tom
with a smile, leading the way around the house.

His companion halted outside the kitchen door,
as Tom sang out to a portly bustling lady directing
the operations of a hired girl.

“Mother, I’ve brought some company home
to supper.”

The kindly glance of the hospitable Mrs.
Barnes swept the forlorn refugee, clearly reviewed
in the light streaming out across the door-step.

“Come right in,” she said, with a genial smile
of welcome.

“It’s Harry Ashley,” explained Tom. “He
may stay all night.”

“You arrange where he shall sleep, then, Tom.
Go into the dining room, boys. Father seems
to be delayed in town, and we needn’t wait for
him.”

Tom did not regret the kindness he was showing
to his new friend. When he went to bed that
night he felt that he had never passed a more
satisfactory evening. He had never seen a boy
enjoy a meal as Harry Ashley did that supper.
It was enough to warm the heart of a stone, he
decided, to witness the happy comfort of Harry,
as in the cozy sitting room he showed the stranger
his books, and some of the electrical toys he had
made for his young brother Ted.

Harry looked around the airy attic with a
smile of pleasure as he noted a mattress filled
with clean straw in one corner, a white coverlid
and a pillow.

“Makes you think of home, doesn’t it?”
questioned Tom.

“No, it doesn’t,” sharply, almost rudely,
snapped out Harry, and then, a slight moisture
visible in his eyes, he added apologetically,
“you’ve touched a sore spot, Barnes.”

“I won’t again,” promised Tom gently.

“That’s all right,” replied Harry in his usual
offhand way. “When you know me better I’ll
explain some things. I’ll dream like a prince
in a palace to-night.”

Tom went to his own room. His head was
pretty full with all the varied and exciting events
of the day. Of course wireless details predominated.
He went to sleep building in fancy the
station for his friend, Ben, down at his home.
He woke up to the lively sound of whistling outside
of the house. Tom went to the window
and looked out.

Bright as a cricket, cheery and clean faced,
Harry was surveying what had been a jumbled-up
mass of kindling the night before. He had piled
it up symmetrically and had swept up the last
stray sliver of wood on the ground. Over
towards the vegetable beds was a five-foot heap
of weeds which his industry had collected.

Suddenly the happy whistle ceased. Tom saw
his father come out of the house, stare at the
strange boy, then at the evidence of his enterprise,
and smile grimly. Mr. Barnes hailed the boy.

“You’re the lad my wife told me about, I
reckon,” observed the farmer.

“If you mean the boy she was so kind to, yes
sir,” promptly responded Harry.

“Who hired you?” demanded Mr. Barnes.

“Who hired me?” repeated Harry in a
puzzled way.

“Yes, to do that,” and Mr. Barnes’ hand swept
the woodpile and the weed heap suggestively.

“Oh, that’s to pay for supper and lodging,”
explained Harry brightly.

“Well, we’ll count breakfast into the bargain,”
stipulated Mr. Barnes, “and if you get tired
doing nothing there’s five hundred weight of
grain in the barn I’ll pay you to grind.”

“You will?” cried Harry, his eyes sparkling.
“Show it to me, will you, please?”

“Good for him,” commented Tom. “He’s
the real sort, and he’s got father on his side
all right.”

Kindness, attention and the prospect of work
seemed to have wrought a marvellous change
in Harry. He little suggested the homeless forlorn
refuge of the previous night as he sat at the
breakfast table. He was lively and chatty, acting
the pleasant chum with Tom, the grateful guest
to motherly Mrs. Barnes, and narrating comical
experiences with amateur farmers he had worked
for to Mr. Barnes, keeping the latter in rare
good humor throughout the meal.

About an hour later Ben arrived on the scene.

“Say, Tom,” was his first sprightly hail,
“Father says I’ve been hopping about like a chicken
with her head cut off ever since I got up—and
that was five o’clock.”

“What’s the trouble, Ben?” inquired Tom
with a smile, guessing.

“Fever—the wireless kind,” chuckled Ben.
“I’ve got five fellows down at the old oak ready
to give all day to helping me get the outfit in
down at my house. Say, Tom, give me the key
to the tower and let me get that box of trimmings
Mr. Edson gave us, will you?”

“I shall have to go on duty at the station soon,
Ben,” explained Tom, “but here’s the key. Get
down to the oak right away, and I’ll instruct you
how to dismantle my unfinished plant and start
you in at your house. Then at noon I’ll give
you another hour.”

“You’d better come right up to our house for
supper, Tom,” suggested Ben, “and we can have
two full working hours by daylight after you
quit work.”

“Very well,” agreed Tom gladly.

Never did a boy spend a more entrancing day
than Ben Dixon. His helpers at the blasted oak
were delighted to climb like monkeys to remove
the spirals and wires from the old tree, and handle
the queer contrivances contained in the box Mr.
Edson had donated.

Harry Ashley spent the day between working
about the farm, visiting the scene of activity at
the Dixon place, and limping up to the tower.

Only some exchange test calls came to Station Z
that day. Tom was encouraged to find how quickly
he could read them, and send the necessary replies.

Nearly every lad in the neighborhood was on
hand that evening, when Tom arrived at the
Dixon place, and began to connect the various
devices of the wireless outfit. It took into the
next day fully to adjust the various parts.

Ben was in a rare fever of excitement
and expectancy the second evening about seven
o’clock, when Tom announced to him that the
finishing touches of the experiment were in
process.

“She’s all there, Ben,” he said triumphantly,
as he drew smooth the tinfoil tongues of the
setts of the coherer. “I’ll run down to Station Z
and give you a call to see if she works all
right.”

Ben Dixon stood staring fixedly at the apparatus
rigged up in a shed running up to the spirals
strung to tree tops near the old barn. Six ardent
watchers sat astride a bench, mouths agape and
eyes bolting from their heads, resembling lads
awaiting the touching of a match to a powder
mine.

Finally a thrill ran instantaneously from the
metallic poles through the vibrating parts of the
apparatus. As one after another the boys listened
at the telephone-like receiver, they heard
the tell-tale dots and dashes.

“Hurrah!” shouted Ben Dixon in a frenzy
of wild delight.

CHAPTER VI—A TIP VIA WIRELESS
=============================

“This means business!” exclaimed Tom.

What Mr. Edson had predicted had happened—a
stray message that meant something, the accidental
discovery of news perhaps of vast importance
to the person for whom it was intended.

The young wireless operator was a quick thinker.
The call was for O-17. Tom knew from
hearsay where that station was located.

Mr. Morgan had a large stock farm a little
outside of a small hamlet called Deepdale. That
settlement had no telephone or telegraph service.
It was located nearly twenty miles from a railroad
station and any stranger sojourning there
was temporarily outside of civilization so far
as communication with the world was concerned.

Tom was aware of all this. He readily figured
out as well why the message had been sent per
wireless to Station O-17. This was operated on
a high point of rocks directly on the coast
outside of Deepdale. It was one of a regular
chain in the coast service.

The sender in New York City had some reason
for believing that Mr. Morgan was at his stock
farm and not at his home at Fernwood, near
Rockley Cove. It was imperative that he get in
communication with him within an hour. He
had risked all on the message finding Mr.
Morgan at Deepdale.

“Why, I met Mr. Morgan this morning in
his automobile coming from the direction of
Deepdale,” soliloquized Tom. “He must have
changed his plans. No delay now. This must
be important.”

Tom trusted to his memory as to the subject
matter of the wireless message. As he hastily
descended from the tower, however, he repeated
it over mentally to make sure he would not forget
any salient point.

“The message mentioned ‘U. Cal.’,” breathed
Tom. “I can guess what that means.”

To his way of thinking it meant “United Calcium.”
Only two days previous in the Rockley
Cove *Weekly Clarion* Tom had read a bit of
current gossip about the present subject of his
thoughts.

The item had referred to some late investments
of the retired capitalist. It specifically cited the
fact that “our esteemed townsman,” Mr. Walter
Morgan, it was rumored, was negotiating for
the control of the stock of the United Calcium
Company. The investment, it was stated, would
involve nearly a quarter of a million dollars of
capital.

Now it appeared the partner or business representative
of Mr. Morgan in New York City
had discovered a flaw in the proposition, and had
anxiously and urgently wired for instructions.

Station Z was just two miles from Fernwood,
the summer home of the Morgans. It lay directly
on the ocean, and was a straight course.
Tom thought of Grace Morgan as he braced up
for a vigorous walk. That was quite natural,
for they were good friends. He lamented that
he was not in very dressy shape to meet the dainty
little miss, whom he would probably find in the
pink of perfection as to garb and appearance,
as she generally was.

“Can’t help it, this is business,” decided Tom
grimly. “Maybe I won’t meet her,” he added
hopefully.

Tom undertook a big spurt of speed. As he
came to Silver Creek, two school chums getting
ready to start fishing yelled at him.

“Hey, Tom!” cried one mandatorily.

“Yes, we want you,” piped the other.

“Can’t stop,” panted Tom, waving his hand,
and speeding on as if he were entered for a
Marathon.

“I’ve lost no time, that’s sure,” he decided as
he passed the boathouse at the end of the private
pier belonging to Fernwood.

Tom came to the terrace in front of the Morgan
mansion. A fluttering white dress attracted
his attention from the front porch of the house,
and Grace came into view.

“Why, Tom!” she said in a genuine friendly
welcome. “Come up and sit down. You look
tired out.”

“Yes, been running hard,” explained Tom,
short-breathed and excited. “Must see your
father.”

“Father?” repeated Grace, quite surprised.

“Yes, Mr. Morgan, is he at home?”

“Why, no, Tom.”

“Where will I find him, then?”

“Why, you are so excited, Tom!”

“Reason to be,” gulped Tom. “Please don’t
delay. It’s important.”

“Papa just left in the automobile for Springville.
There is a meeting of bank directors there,
he told me. There’s the horn now.”

“Excuse me,” said Tom hastily, and bolted
unceremoniously around the side of the house
where the announcement from the automobile had
echoed.

Pretty Miss Morgan looked amazed, and
tapped her daintily slippered foot in a vexed
way at the ungallant disappearance of her acquaintance.
Tom, however, did not wait for explanations.
He had caught sight of the Morgan
automobile. It was just passing upon the roadway
leading west from the rear of the grounds.

“Hold on—stop!” yelled Tom irrepressibly.

The puffing of the newly-started machine apparently
drowned out his hail. The hood of
the tonneau shut Tom out from sight of Mr.
Morgan and his chauffeur.

Tom ran no farther after the rapidly-gliding
car. He saw in a flash that his only chance of
stopping it was by a sharp swift dash diagonally
to a point where the circling road cut south. He
speeded reckless of flower beds and fences on
his mission, flew heedless of mud and water
through an obstructing swale, and, breathless and
pretty nearly exhausted, gained the main-road.

Honk! honk!—not a hundred yards distant
the chauffeur sounded a warning as Tom sprang
into the middle of the highway, waving his arms
violently to call a halt.

“What’s this?” demanded Mr. Morgan sharply,
as the chauffeur perforce let the machine down
to a dead stop.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan——” began
Tom.

“Young Barnes?” observed the capitalist, with
a surprised stare at Tom.

“Yes, sir,” hurried on Tom. “I have some
important news for you.”

“Important news for me?” repeated Mr.
Morgan vaguely.

“Yes, sir.”

“Who from?”

“Your partner, sir, or agent in New York
City.”

“What?” cried Mr. Morgan. “How does it
come through you?”

“By wireless,” reported Tom promptly.

“Oh, I’ve heard something about your dabbling
in that.”

“Can I speak before your chauffeur?” inquired
Tom.

“If you have anything to say, go ahead.”

“Well, sir,” said Tom, “I caught a message
sent to wireless station O-17, up at Deepdale.
It seems that the sender expected to reach you
there. His name appears to be Dunbar.”

“Yes, yes,” urged Mr. Morgan impatiently,
“I sent word I would be at Deepdale until to-morrow,
but changed my plans.”

“It was fortunate that I knew you were back,”
said Tom. “The message seems important.”

“Out with it,” ordered Mr. Morgan.

“I think I can repeat it word for word.”

“Do so, then.”

“‘Have a tip that U. Cal. cannot prove up on
patents. News will be public before night.
Order your subscription cancelled before afternoon
session of Stock Exchange, or there will be a
heavy loss.’”

“Thunder!”

Mr. Morgan jumped up fully a foot on the
cushioned seat of the tonneau. His face went
white as chalk. He seemed about to spring from
the automobile. Then he jerked out his watch,
fell back, and, trembling all over, gasped out
to the chauffeur:

“Drive for your life to the telegraph office at
Rockley Cove. Don’t lose a second!”

CHAPTER VII—GRACE MORGAN
========================

Tom stepped aside quickly as the chauffeur set
the power, and the machine made a sharp jump.
As it flashed around a curve bound townwards Mr.
Morgan leaned over the back of the tonneau.

“I won’t forget this, Barnes,” he bawled loudly.

“Good for the wireless!” exclaimed Tom,
with a genuine flush of delight.

He felt well satisfied with the exploit of the
moment. He was flushed, bedraggled and exhausted,
but there was the thrill of a big action
accomplished and the utility of Station Z established.

Tom glanced longingly in the direction of
Fernwood and then at his soaked shoes, and
shook his head dolefully.

“It won’t do,” he ruminated. “Grace is probably
offended at me for bolting away so unceremoniously,
and I’ll wait until I can make my
apologies in better trim.”

Tom kept a patch of timber between himself
and the Morgan place, and reached the beach
road on a detour. He was summarily halted as
he passed the flight of steps leading up to the
terrace. A silvery but peremptory voice called
out:

“Stop there, Tom Barnes!”

Grace Morgan came tripping down the steps
a minute later. There was a pretty pout of pettishness
on her winsome face, and her eyes did
not look altogether pleased.

“What do you mean by running away from
me, sir?” she challenged, gaining the side of
Tom, and regarding him as if she was never
going to forgive him.

“Business is my only excuse,” explained Tom
meekly.

“You mean with my father?”

“Yes——”

“Did you overtake him?”

“I am glad to say I did,” replied Tom, “and
I think your father is, too.”

“What was it about?”

Tom laughed evasively,

“You must ask him that yourself.”

Miss Morgan looked mild daggers at Tom.

“I never met such rude, unfriendly boys!”
she declared.

“Oh, there are more offenders than my poor
humble self?” interrogated Tom archly.

“Yes, there are,” declared the indignant miss.
“Mart Walters has a friend from Boston visiting
him—Bert Aldrich. He made an engagement to
be here an hour ago with his gasoline launch. Gentlemen
keep their engagements!” concluded Grace
with emphasis.

Unconsciously Grace had walked along with
Tom, much to his personal pleasure.

“Well, I’m glad,” he observed.

“Glad of what?” demanded Miss Morgan
suspiciously.

“Oh, everything,” replied Tom bluntly, with
a significance that caused Grace to blush. “As
to my own transgression,” he went on, “as I
told you, I can’t explain details, but I do not
think your father would mind my telling you that
I brought him an important message from my
wireless.”

“Your wireless?” exclaimed Grace in a
sprightly tone. “Oh, Tom, I heard about that.
Is it really true that you know how to telegraph
all over the world, and rescue sinking steamers,
and catch fleeing criminals, and—and all that?”

Impetuous Miss Morgan had gone off in a
rhapsody over the great enthusiastic theme of
Tom’s mind, and he was truly delighted.

“Well, hardly,” he said. “You see, I haven’t
reached that yet. It may come—I hope it does.
That’s why I’m sticking to it.”

“Can I come and see you do it?” implored
Grace excitedly. “Can I come into the tower
and watch the messages come in, and see everything?”

“I shall feel honored if you do,” replied Tom
proudly. “Ah, there’s another of those shells.”

Tom’s foot had kicked up a pearly odd-shaped
shell in the sand. He stooped and secured it.

“Oh, how odd and beautiful!” cried Grace.
“Oh, Tom, can I have it for my collection? I
haven’t one like it.”

“You certainly can,” answered Tom gladly.
“We call that the peach blow, and it’s pretty rare.
I didn’t know you were interested in shells.”

“I dote on them,” declared Grace. “Oh,
Tom!”

From his pocket he had taken a handful of
exquisite specimens of star pebbles and shells he
had gathered up within a week, and tendered them
for a choice to his pretty companion.

They strolled on for nearly half a mile. Tom
explained that he must get back to the wireless
station, but he could not resist lingering when
Grace sat down to rest on an upturned boat on
the beach. She occupied the time between admiring
the pretty shells he had given her and
inquiring into the details of his work at the
wireless tower. Tom was in the midst of a
description of some of the methods employed in
sending wireless messages, when he paused and
glanced seawards.

“There is your friend, Grace,” said Tom.

A natty gasoline launch was approaching the
pier up-shore. Tom made out two passengers,
both of whom he recognized. One was Mart
Walters. The other boatman was at the wheel.
Tom had seen him twice on the street of Rockley
Cove and knew who he was—young Aldrich, the
friend about whom Mart was so continually
boasting.

Grace Morgan glanced in the direction of the
pier. Then, as if totally uninterested in what
was going on there, she turned her back upon it
and led an animated conversation with her companion.
Tom kept facing the pier. From the
launch Aldrich finally leaped ashore, evidently
made them out, and leaving Mart in charge of
the launch walked rapidly up the beach.

“I think I had better be getting back to the
tower,” said Tom, as the newcomer neared them,

“Don’t be in a hurry, Tom,” advised Grace,
with a slightly malicious twinkle in her eye. “Oh,
you, Mr. Aldrich?” she added, arising with a
formal bow to the young man, who, arrayed in
fancy yachting costume, was quite a “swell”
sight, indeed.

She introduced them, but Mr. Aldrich was not
inclined to make any friendly advances towards a
boy in common working clothes. He deliberately
turned his back on Tom, and began a conversation
with Grace.

“Had we not better start out on our cruise?”
he asked.

“Why, I had forgotten all about it, quite,”
declared the wilful miss, with an encouraging
smile at Tom, which quite nettled the newcomer.

“The water is very smooth,” observed young
Aldrich. “I am sure you will enjoy it.”

“I regret it very much,” replied Grace, “but
I was ready an hour ago. It is my time for
musical practice now, and you will have to excuse
me. Don’t hasten, Tom,” she added, crossing
over to Tom.

“I think I had better be getting back on duty
at the wireless station,” said our hero.

“Wireless, eh?” young Aldrich condescended
to observe at this juncture. “In with that fad,
eh?”

“I am trying to make something more than a
fad out of it,” replied Tom pleasantly.

“Wire repairer or something of that sort?”
intimated Bert Aldrich with a supercilious stare
at Tom’s working clothes.

“Indeed, no,” flashed out Grace resentfully.
“Tom is quite an expert, aren’t you, Tom? He
has been telling me the most delightful and fascinating
things about the wireless. Oh, there
is papa!”

There was an abrupt lull in the conversation
as the Morgan automobile came down the beach
road from the direction of Rockley Cove. Mr.
Morgan gave the chauffeur the signal to stop and
leaped from the machine in an excited way.

The politic young Aldrich advanced to meet
the capitalist, all smiles and ceremony. Mr.
Morgan almost brushed him aside, not even noticing
the extended hand.

He went straight up to Tom, and his eyes
glowed with friendly interest. Mr. Morgan
caught both of Tom’s hands in his own and gave
them a hearty shake.

“Barnes,” he said, “I stopped to say just a
word to you. I must get to the city at once, but
when I return I want you to come down to Fernwood.
I have something important to say to
you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Morgan,” bowed Tom
courteously.

“You have saved me much of my fortune,”
declared the capitalist in a tremulous, grateful
tone. “How shall I ever repay you? Going up
to the house, Grace?” he inquired of his daughter.

“Yes, papa, it is my practice hour.”

With a bewitching smile for Tom and a crisp
little nod to Bert Aldrich the miss sprang airily
into the car.

“Oh, Tom,” she called back to the young
wireless operator, as she mischievously noted the
discomfited look on the face of young Aldrich,
“I won’t be like some people—I’ll be on time to-morrow
to have you show me all the wonders
of that delightful wireless tower of yours.”

CHAPTER VIII—QUICK ACTION
=========================

“Whew!”

“Some storm, Tom!”

“I shouldn’t fancy many gusts like that last one.”

Station Z quivered like an eggshell in the hand
of a giant. A loose piece of wood from the roof
of the operating cabin struck a sash, demolishing
two panes of glass, and the iron framework
rocked to and fro in the heaviest wind storm that
had struck Sandy Point in years.

Tom Barnes glanced anxiously at the delicate
wireless apparatus which shared sensitively in
the pervading disturbance. His companion, Harry
Ashley, was looking around for something to
fasten over the broken window to shut out the
driving rain.

It was three days after the Morgan incident,
and Tom was now fairly in the wireless harness.
It had been lowering weather all day, and Tom
had been glad that the rain had held off until
Grace Morgan, who, with her music teacher, had
spent a delightful hour going over the wonders
of Station Z, had gotten home before the tempest
broke.

Tom had obtained his mother’s consent to his
remaining all night at the tower. It was the current
conviction among all coast wireless men that
a stormy night usually brought urgent and important
service. A storm generally meant distress
of some kind at sea, and Tom wanted to
be on hand in case of emergency, as he had promised
Mr. Edson.

It was agreed that Harry Ashley should remain
with him, and Mrs. Barnes had put up a
fine lunch. About five o’clock when the wind
began to rise with low rumblings of thunder in
the distance and fitful gusts of wind, Tom held
eye and attention close on the apparatus, ready
for what might come.

Within an hour, however, his thoughts, as well
as those of his companion, were mainly concerned
in their own immediate environment. The storm
was not accompanied by very vivid lightning, but
the wind had risen to hurricane force.

Just before dusk a particularly severe gust
broke down a large elm tree in sight. A little
later a boat shed near the beach toppled over,
and the fragments were carried like kindling wood
out into the hissing, boiling surf.

About half an hour after dark, Harry, at
the window, had sounded a quick alarm.

“Tom!” he had shouted, “every light in the
town has shut off in a second!”

This meant that the storm had carried down
the electric supply line from Springville. Tom
thought uneasily of the folks at home. Then the
assaults of the high breeze on their aerial perch
caused him to center his attention on their own
position, and be ready to save themselves if collapse
came.

“Here, Harry, use this,” ordered Tom, as his
companion picked up a coat to stop up the hole
in the broken sash.

Harry took the square piece of matting Tom
tendered. He picked a hammer and nails to
secure it across the sash. About to set it in
place, however, he interrupted proceedings with
a violent:

“Hark!”

“What’s the matter, Harry?” questioned
Tom.

Harry held up a hand, warningly. He bent
his ear keenly towards the aperture. Then he
turned to Tom.

“Did you hear it?” he demanded.

“Hear what?”

“That shout—a cry?”

“Wasn’t it the wind?”

“No, I am sure not. Come here. There it
is again!”

Tom ran to the window. Both held their
breath in suspense. Both started with intelligence
and certainty now.

A fearful echoing cry rose far above the
whistling, shrieking storm—the echo of a human
voice.

“Help! help! help!”

“That’s no imagination,” declared Harry.

“No, someone is in trouble,” acquiesced Tom.

“It’s right down on the road running to the
beach,” said Harry.

“Come on,” urged Tom definitely, “we must
investigate this.”

He seized a lantern and threw open the trap
door. Harry was at his heels promptly. A
gust of wind and a forceful dash of rain nearly
swept them off their feet as they reached the
ground.

“Which way?” asked Harry quickly.

“Hark!” interrupted Tom.

Again the cry rang out. It was fainter, less
emphatic than before, but nearer. Tom could
trace the point of the compass from which it
came. He ran in that direction, holding the lantern
before him.

“There he is!” cried Harry suddenly.
“Don’t run over him, Tom.”

Coming to an abrupt halt, both boys stared
in startled excitement at a human being on hands
and knees making his way from the side of the
road. Near to him was a tangled mass of wreckage
which had been a bicycle. Its shattered skeleton
covered a big flat rock, into which it had
run to be completely demolished.

The recent rider was bareheaded, and from a
wound in his temple the blood trickled down
over his face and hands. One arm was helpless,
and doubled up under him at every futile attempt
at forward progress.

“Why,” shouted Tom, swinging the lantern
forward so that its rays covered the man, “it’s
Mr. Barton.”

“Tom—Tom—” quavered the man, looking
up through half blinded eyes, “quick—the doctor!”

“What’s that?” Tom challenged, keenly alive
to the fact that Mr. Barton’s presence and condition
signified some important circumstance.

But the man with a groan fell flat, rolled over
on his side, and lay like one dead in the road.

“Say, Tom, what shall we do?” inquired
Harry in an awesome whisper.

“We mustn’t let this man die here, exposed
to the storm. He may be seriously injured.”

“It looks that way. I suppose he ran or was
blown into that big rock yonder.”

“Yes,” nodded Tom.

“What was he doing, though, out such a night
as this on a bicycle?”

“He said something about a doctor. Help
me, Harry, we must get him under shelter.”

“We can’t carry him up into the tower.”

“There’s the old tool shed. Ready?”

“Yes, Tom.”

They managed to convey the insensible man
to the dilapidated structure Tom had mentioned.
Its roof was like a sieve, and several boards were
missing from its sides, but it afforded some security
from the tempest.

Tom placed a pile of old bags under the man’s
head and set the lantern near.

“Do you know him, Tom?” asked Harry.

“Oh, yes, he is almost a neighbor of ours.
He runs a small truck farm and has quite a
family. Wet this, Harry, soaking.”

Tom gave his handkerchief to his companion,
who went outside and saturated it in a deep
puddle. Tom washed the dirt from the face of
the injured man and tried to staunch the flow of
blood.

He listened at his heart and to his breathing,
and lifted the limb that seemed to have lost its
natural power.

“He breathes all right,” reported Tom to his
anxious companion. “His arm is sprained or
broken, though.”,

“We must get him home, Tom.”

“In this storm—with no conveyance?”

“That’s so. He might die, though, if we
don’t get a doctor.”

“He’s coming to,” said Tom suddenly. “Mr.
Barton! Mr. Barton!” called Tom gently.
“Don’t you know me?”

The man opened his eyes, stared vaguely, and
then tried to arise. He fell back again instantly,
however, with a moan of weakness.

“No use!” he gasped. “My head is splitting
and I’ve got no strength left in me at all. It was
a fearful shock, a header full force, and—the
doctor!” he shouted suddenly, almost in a
scream.

“What doctor, Mr. Barton?” inquired Tom
solicitously.

“From Rockville.”

“What about him?”

“My child—dying!” wailed the man. “Dr.
Burr, the only one in Rockley Cove, is away.”

“That’s so, I remember hearing of that,”
assented Tom.

“Lights in town shut off, telephone lines all
down—the doctor, quick!”

With these last words pronounced in a painful gasp,
Mr. Barton succumbed and fell back
unconscious again.

“Tom, we’ve got to do something!” cried
Harry, greatly worked up by all that was happening.

Tom’s face showed the greatest anxiety and
concern. The situation as revealed by the disconnected
utterance of the injured man was serious
and critical.

Tom pictured the storm-swept village in his
mind’s eye—the lights out, telephone service disrupted,
and a father despairingly endeavoring to
get word to the nearest doctor, five miles distant.

“Wait here, watch him,” ordered Tom sharply,
making up his mind what he would do.

“Can you do anything?” questioned Harry
eagerly.

“I’ll try,” replied Tom, starting in the direction
of the tower.

“The wireless!” cried Harry, his eyes snapping
animatedly.

“Yes.”

Tom was up the ladder and through the trap
door in a hurry. He had his plan, but its success
depended on two circumstances: first, if Ben
Dixon was in reach of the amateur wireless outfit
at the home nest; and second, if the telephone
circuit the Dixon home was on, which belonged
to a different system to that at Rockley Cove, was
in working order.

Tom speedily gave the call to the station at
the Dixon place. He did not wait for any response.
He repeated the call briskly. Then he
flashed off the message he had in mind. Then
he repeated the message twice. Then—Tom
waited.

There was a lapse of nearly ten minutes. Tom
began to consider that Ben was not on duty.
Suddenly there was a spitting crackle in the receiver.

“O.K.,” came the slow message. “Telephone
all right. Reached doctor. On way to Rockley
Cove now.”

“Good!” cried Tom.

CHAPTER IX—STRICTLY BUSINESS
============================

Tom’s face was hopeful and pleased as he descended
through the trap door to the ground
with his good news.

“How is he?” was his eager inquiry, as he
stepped inside the doorway of the old tool shed.

“He’s just begun to move again,” reported
Harry, “but he has been twisting about and
moaning terribly.”

“Mr. Barton! Mr. Barton!” shouted Tom
in the ear of their patient, as the eyes of the latter
opened and stared wildly at him.

“I remember now,” spoke Mr. Barton weakly.
“It’s Tom Barnes?”

“Yes,” assented Tom. “That’s better,” he
added, as the man sat up. “Don’t give way
again, Mr. Barton, it’s all right.”

“What’s all right, Tom?”

“Good news. The doctor.”

“Yes! yes!”

“I sent word to him.”

“How could you? The telephone lines are
dead.”

“By wireless, to my friend, Ben Dixon, who
runs a small station. He got my message. Their
telephone service is all right. The doctor is now
on his way to your home.”

“Oh, thank you, Tom, thank you!” cried Mr.
Barton fervently.

“That’s great, Tom,” commented Harry heartily.

“I noticed a light in the nearest house yonder,”
proceeded Tom. “The wind has gone
down a good deal. Could you make it, do you
think, Harry?”

“You mean get to the house?”

“Yes.”

“Why, of course.”

“Take your lantern so you won’t run into anything
or lose your way.”

“All right. What then?”

“An old fish peddler lives there. Tell him of
the fix Mr. Barton is in.”

“I understand.”

“And ask him to hitch up and try and get
him home.”

“I’ll do that,” said Harry promptly, as he
picked up the lantern and put for the door.

Tom urged hope and patience on his charge.
The announcement that he had succeeded in getting a
doctor started for Rockley Cove had
worked a great change in the patient. He forgot
his sufferings in his joy at the knowledge that help
was on the way to his dying child at home.

It was about ten minutes later when there was
a rattle of decrepit wheels and a resounding call:

“Whoa!”

“We’re here,” reported Harry, springing
from the peddler’s wagon.

Its owner had spread some blankets on the
floor of the vehicle, making a comfortable bed
for the injured man. They lifted him into the
wagon box as carefully as they could.

“How shall I ever thank you, Tom?” asked
Mr. Barton gratefully.

“Don’t try,” said Tom. “Just get home and
get mended up, and I hope the doctor is in time
to save your child.”

Tom, left alone, returned to the tower. He
felt well satisfied with the way affairs were progressing.
He had been able to demonstrate some
practicability to Station Z, and the fact encouraged
him greatly.

The storm had subsided considerably. The
rain had ceased entirely, and the wind came only
in occasional gusts, diminishing gradually in their
violence.

It must have been an hour later when Tom,
almost dozing in his chair before the operating
table, gave a great start as a cheery signal whistle
rang out from below.

“Ben,” he soliloquized, quite glad to welcome
a companion in his loneliness.

“I’ve come,” announced his chum, appearing
through the trap opening. “Ugh! but it was a
tough fight part of the way! I was nearly blown
into the surf once or twice.”

“What brought you out such a night as this?”
challenged Tom.

“Just what is keeping you here,” retorted
Ben; “the chance of something exciting happening.
Say, that message of yours has just stirred
me up.”

“You got it all right?”

“The first time. I expected there might be
business such a night as this, and kept watch for
it. Our ’phone was all right, and I got the doctor
at once. He said he would start without
delay for Rockley Cove.”

“I hope he made it,” said Tom.

“He must have, for he had the smooth sheltered
turnpike to take, and the storm is nothing
much now. Our folks were delighted to think
that our toy telegraph, as they call it, did something
really useful, and they let me come down
to stay all night.”

“I’m glad of it, Ben,” replied Tom. “Harry
will be back soon. We’ve got a lunch mother put
up for us, and we can make a pleasant night of
it.”

“That’s just famous!”

Ben removed his wet jacket and took up a
comfortable position in a chair. Tom told of
the injured Mr. Barton and what he had done
for him.

“I say, Tom,” suddenly asked Ben, during the
pause after they had discussed current topics,
“heard anything from Mr. Edson lately?”

Tom’s face fell instantly, as though the remark
suggested some unpleasant and disturbing subject.
He looked quite anxious.

“Yes, Ben,” he replied, “I got a letter this
morning. He will be here to-morrow.”

“How’s that?”

“It seems he has made his arrangement to
go into paid service on the North Atlantic coast.”

“And he wants his money?” questioned Ben
uneasily.

“That’s about it,” answered Tom in a subdued
tone.

“Too bad!” murmured Ben. “You can’t
reach it any way, Tom?”

“I’m afraid not,” responded Tom. “As you
know, my aunt wrote me yesterday that she had
everything invested. She said that the first of
the month she had some interest money coming
in, and would send me a hundred dollars as soon
as it did.”

“But that’s too late to do any good.”

“Yes,” admitted Tom reluctantly.

“Then you’ll have to give up the station
here?”

“I’m afraid I will,” answered Tom with a
sigh. “I’ll tell you frankly, I felt pretty hopeful
of getting the money from another source, but
I’m disappointed in that, too.”

“What source, Tom?”

“Mr. Morgan.”

“Oh, yes! Well,” declared Ben, “he ought
to.”

“I am sure he would help me if he were at
home,” said Tom.

“You did a big thing for him, Tom.”

“Mr. Morgan thinks that way himself. I am
sure of it, from what he said.”

“Maybe he will return to-morrow,” suggested
Ben.

“Grace says he has business in New York
until the end of the week.”

“Too bad!” exclaimed Ben.

“Well, it can’t be helped,” said Tom philosophically.
“I’ll just have to start in a more
modest way. Mr. Edson is poor, and has got
to realize right off from his investment here, he
wrote me. Just think of it,” added Tom, gazing about
the room with longing enthusiastic
eyes, “we’ve got to give it all up, maybe the
chance of a lifetime, because we can’t raise the
money.”

“How much do you need?” challenged a sharp
voice suddenly, bringing both boys to their feet
with a shock.

CHAPTER X—A YOUNG CAPITALIST
============================

Harry Ashley stuck his head up through the
trap opening, and climbed into the room with
the announcement:

“Overheard what you said, so—how much do
you want?”

Tom only smiled. The idea of a money offer
from Harry was amusing. Ben assumed a mock
gravity of manner with the words:

“Give us a check right on the spot, I suppose?”

“About that, if you don’t want too much,”
answered Harry seriously.

“We won’t call on you just yet, Harry,” said
Tom. “What about Mr. Barton?”

“We got him home all right.”

“And the child?”

“You’ve done a big piece of work with your
wireless this night, Tom Barnes,” replied Harry,
his eyes brightening. “We found the doctor at
the Barton home when we arrived. He got
there just in time. Said half an hour more and
the patient would have been beyond help.”

“That’s grand!” voiced Ben.

“He’s fixed up Mr. Barton’s bruises. Says
his arm is only sprained, and that he’ll be around
as well as ever in a week. I wish you’d heard
that mother speak when they told her about what
you had done in saving her child.”

“With your help, remember that.”

“H’m,” said Harry with a wriggle, and blushing
like a school girl. “The peddler has gone
out into the country to bring a sister of Mrs.
Barton to the house, and I wanted to get back
here. Now that Ben is here, it seems jollier
than ever. I must go to the peddler’s house,
though, and tell his wife that her husband won’t
be home for an hour or two. I promised him
I would.”

“All right, Harry,” said Tom briskly. “Then
we’ll have a little lunch.”

But Harry tarried. About to descend the
ladder, he turned around with the pertinent
query:

“About that money that had to be paid, or
you’d lose the station here.”

“You heard about it, did you?” questioned
Tom.

“Didn’t I tell you I did? Come, Tom, how
much do you want?”

“Supposing you knew, what good would that
do?”

“I may help you.”

Ben looked skeptical and grinned. Then,
sobering down, he said:

“Don’t make fun of us.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s serious enough as it is. Tom needs
a hundred dollars.”

“Does he?” exclaimed Harry with animation.
“Well, he can have it.”

“Who from?”

“Me. One hundred? Oh, that’s easy—awfully
easy,” declared Harry, as if very much
pleased.

“I suppose you are ready to supply the amount,
cash down?” said Ben.

“On the nail head!” cried Harry, a ring of
genuine confidence in his tone. “See here, you
fellows, you’ve been the truest chums I ever ran
across. I’ve got a hundred dollars, yes, nearly
double that, and all you’ve got to do is to take
it.”

“I only want to borrow—until my aunt collects
her interest money,” said Tom, half hopeful,
half doubting that unexpected good fortune was
about to materialize.

“Six months, a year—it’s all the same to me,”
declared Harry gaily. “I’d give it to you outright
if—if I could,” he stammered rather blunderingly.
“There you are.”

Ben in his stupefaction and Tom in wonder
regarded the strange boy who had so warmly
won their friendship during the brief period of
their acquaintanceship. Harry had drawn off
his rather threadbare coat. Then he reached
inside the shirt he wore.

“Well, what next?” interrogated Ben, watching
the movement curiously.

“The hundred dollars, of course,” pronounced
Harry. “Think I’m fooling?”

He had been fumbling with one hand inside his
shirt. Something clicked like a snap of a buckle.
Then he drew into view a long snake-like object.

“A belt,” murmured Ben.

“That’s right,” nodded Harry.

With a clang he landed it on the table. He
beckoned to Tom and Ben to approach.

“I made that belt myself,” he went on, with
some pride in his tone. “Looks like a sectional
rattlesnake, eh? It’s made out of snakeskin. See,
it’s got pockets. This one,” and Harry unsnapped
a button—“pennies.”

A dozen cent pieces rolled out. He gave them
a peep into five other similar pockets.

“Nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars,” recited
Harry. “Then this one at the end—ten,
twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred. There’s
your money, Tom. I’ll take your note when it’s
convenient.”

From a last compartment in the belt the speaker
had produced a goodly roll of banknotes. He
counted off the bills with the flippancy and skill
of a bank cashier. Tom sat staring at the little
heap that meant his business salvation, fairly
agape.

“The mischief!” giggled the petrified Ben.
“It’s real money!”

“Yes, and hard earned, and mine,” said Harry.

“But how, where——”

“Did I get it?” smiled Harry. “Work, hard
work, fellows,” and there was a mingled pride
and fondness in Harry’s voice. “That little heap
means over a year of hard knocks and close
scrapings, before I had the typhoid fever.”

A strange silence fell over the trio of chums.
Harry had come into the life of Tom and Ben
in a strange way, and had won their confidence
and friendship from the start. He had become
quite a fixture at the Barnes homestead. Mr.
Barnes had come to depend on him for an hour
or two of pottering around at odd tasks on the
farm, and felt that his young helper amply paid
for his meals and lodging. At length Tom spoke,
his face flushed with pleasure.

“You’re a queer fellow, Harry,” he said heartily,
“and you are a good fellow. You are willing
to lend me this money?”

“Willing?” repeated Harry. “Glad, honored,
delighted. Is a hundred enough?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“All right, there it is. Don’t you look at me
in that leery way, Ben Dixon,” said Harry, with
a chuckle. “I haven’t been stealing anything.
That money is mine, all mine, and honestly mine.
There is this much I will tell you about it, though:
it is a part of a certain amount I am hoping to
reach to pay a certain person.”

“Money that you owe?” ventured Ben, consumed
with curiosity.

“Yes, and no. I’m to save five hundred dollars,”

“Whew! that’s a heap.”

“I’ll reach it,” declared Harry confidently—“in
time. It’s money that I must repay.”

“That you borrowed?”

“No.”

“Oh, that you took?” insinuated Ben, in his
blunt, straightforward way.

“No, sir! Do you take me for a thief?”
cried Harry indignantly. “I’ll tell you this much
more: I was living with a man I didn’t like so
very much. I made up my mind to cut out from
him. I wanted first to find some papers of mine
I believed he had in his possession. When he
was away from home one night, I took a lighted
candle and made a tour of investigation. I came
across a pile of banknotes. A strip around them
said ‘Five Hundred Dollars.’ I went on searching
for what I was after, but didn’t find it. When
I turned around to take up the candle, the drawer
in which I had placed it was all ablaze. The
banknotes were a heap of crisp cinders.”

“Well!” ejaculated Ben.

“I tell you I was scared,” confessed Harry.
“He was a close-fisted, mysterious old fellow,
and—well, I decided to get out. I left a note
telling the circumstances of the accident, and said
that I would work my finger nails off to earn that
five hundred dollars and bring it back to him,
some day. I’ve been doing it ever since.”

“That’s a remarkable story, Harry Ashley,”
said Ben, in earnest admiration.

Harry pushed the bills over to Tom, restored
the belt to its place, and, with the indifference of
a millionaire, started for the trap door.

“I must tell the peddler’s wife about her husband’s
delay,” he said. “Glad to oblige you,
Tom. I’ll be back soon.”

Tom grasped the banknotes thoughtfully, and
with an expression of gladness and relief on his
face.

“What luck!” commented Ben.

“I am awfully glad to get the money,” said
Tom, with deep feeling. “Harry is a splendid
fellow. It’s only a loan, but think what it means
to me just at this time!”

“There’s something!” exclaimed Ben suddenly.

“Hello!” said Tom, all attention at once to
the clicks. Then his face broke into a smile.

“‘Donner’ again!” cried Ben.

“After a lapse of two days,” observed Tom.
“Listen.”

The mysterious “spook” of Mr. Edson was in
evidence once more.

“He’s getting along better,” said Ben.

“‘Donner’ tapped that out pretty fair. ‘Lost
boy.’ What’s that? ‘Money’ again. Thousand
dollars.’ He’s getting extravagant. ‘Donner.’
H’m!”

There was a lapse. Tom laughed and Ben
chuckled. “Donner” was a standing joke now.

“There, he’s at it again,” announced Ben a
moment later. “‘Donner. Lost boy.’ Yes,
we’ve heard that before. Hello! here’s something
new.”

“Yes,” nodded Tom, translating the message:
“Lost boy named Ernest Warren. Look out for
sun, moon and stars on his left shoulder.”

“Wonder who the lost boy can be?” said
Ben in a ruminative tone.

They were soon to learn that—in a startling
and unexpected manner.

CHAPTER XI—A GREAT STEP FORWARD
===============================

“Mr. Barnes, I believe?”

“Yes, I am Tom Barnes,” said the young wireless
operator of station Z.

Tom was in the old windmill tower, and had
been tidying up generally. He had just come
from dinner, and was alone in the operating room.

He had checked himself in the middle of a
whistling tune to survey a head and then the
shoulders and body of a stranger, coming up
through the trap door.

The intruder was a keen-eyed, sharp-featured
man of about thirty, very neatly dressed, and
very erect and soldierly in his general appearance.

He nodded briskly to Tom, crossed the room,
and, uninvited, sank into the nearest chair.

“Glad I found you,” he said, and then took
a close survey of Tom and of the furnishings
of the room. “Heard about you at the town,
and being somewhat interested in these new-fangled
wireless ideas, I thought you wouldn’t
mind a casual visitor.”

“No, indeed,” answered Tom readily. “I am
only too glad to meet anybody who is interested
as to our little station here.”

“It’s quite a plant,” declared the stranger.
“Tell me something about it, will you?”

An enthusiastic boy like Tom was only too
ready to enter into a general description of the
parts and utilities of the apparatus. The stranger
listened intently, approbatively too, it seemed to
Tom. He followed the indication of Tom’s
finger as it pointed out this and that attachment
of the general operating device; and arose and
looked closer as Tom explained in detail and
very clearly some intricate features of the mechanism.

“That’s pretty interesting,” voiced the man
at length, “and you seem to know your business.”

“Oh, I’m only a novice, a mere amateur,” insisted
Tom modestly.

“What’s that now?” inquired the visitor,
reaching a careless hand very near to the coherer.

“Look out!” shouted Tom warningly.

“What’s the trouble?” calmly interrogated
the man.

“Danger. You’ll get a hard shock if you
touch that.”

“I’ll be careful,” pledged the stranger, and
to Tom’s amazement with a deft expert touch
he dislodged the cap of one of the glass tubes.
“I say, my friend,” he added, gazing down into
the cup critically, “you’d get much better action
if you’d mix in some fine brass filings here. The
old stuff is pretty well corroded.”

“I had noticed that,” said Tom, “and have
sent to the city for new material.”

“There’s another point worth your attention,”
resumed the man, pointing up at the secondary
circuit. “A double coil to that condenser would
strengthen your current.”

Tom stared at the speaker in a vague way. He
was a good deal surprised and also suspicious
at the facility with which this avowed seeker for
information exhibited a profound knowledge of
the very subject under discussion.

“You seem to know something about it,” observed
Tom.

The man did not reply. He busied himself
with a fixed and calculating glance through the
roof skylight up at the metal nets and spirals.

“Very good,” he said, half aloud, “and kept
in very fair order, too.”

“I’m glad to hear you say it, Mr ——?”

“I am expecting a friend who will introduce
us,” said the stranger, with a peculiar smile.
“Ah, there he is now.”

He moved to the window, and in quite a friendly fashion
waved his hand to an occupant of an
automobile that had just driven up from the
beach road.

Tom at once recognized it as the Morgan
machine. Its owner alighted, and a minute later
came up the ladder.

“Glad to see you, Barnes,” he hailed cheerily,
shaking hands with the young wireless operator.
“You didn’t wait for me at the village as agreed,
Mr. Mason,” he added, addressing Tom’s guest.

“I fancied I had better come on ahead and
get an unprejudiced view of the proposition,”
observed Mr. Mason.

“Strike you all right?” intimated the magnate
pleasantly.

“Capital,” answered the stranger with emphasis.

“That’s good. Barnes, this is Mr. Mason,
inspector for the International Wireless Company,
of New York.”

“Oh,” said Tom, a little dubiously and a trifle
flustered.

“I knew how you were interested in this wireless
business, Barnes,” resumed Mr. Morgan,
“and I spoke to my friend here of the independent
station you were running.”

“Which I wish to take into the service, you
included,” broke in Mr. Mason in a clear,
straightforward way. “I hear of some good
work you have done here. The location can
be made an important one, and, if you are ready
for it, I’ll talk business with you.”

“There is not much doubt about the utility
of the station here,” observed Mr. Morgan.
“Barnes saved me half my fortune through an
intercepted wireless. He has my unqualified
recommendation and support, Mr. Mason.”

“So you told me,” returned the wireless professional
in a brusque, business-like way. “Practically
you own the apparatus here, Mr. Barnes?”
he questioned.

“Yes, sir,” announced Tom.

“Is there any lease on the site?”

“You mean the old tower here?”

“Yes.”

“No, sir. It belongs to the house that burned
down about a year ago, and is entirely out of
commission as a windmill.”

“I see.”

“The man who owns the place gave Mr.
Edson full permission to use the old wreck free
of charge as long as he liked.”

“The company would like a formal lease for
two years. Do you think you could arrange
that?”

“Oh, yes, I am sure of it,” replied Tom.

“Very well. Offer him a trifle—say fifty dollars
for the term. Now then, as to your outfit
here. Would you be willing to turn over your
right and interest here to the company at a fair
price, in consideration of a contract for two years
establishing you here as their accredited operator?”

Tom’s face changed to all colors. His eye
sparkled.

“Mr. Mason,” he said frankly, “you take my
breath away!”

The wireless professional smiled indulgently.
Mr. Morgan rested a friendly, encouraging hand
on Tom’s shoulder.

“The equipment here,” continued Mr. Mason,
making a swift mental calculation, “is not worth
a great deal. The installation, however, cost
something. I shall recommend the company to
offer you five hundred dollars for the outfit.”

Tom gasped now. Business was business, and
he realized that the keen-faced man of affairs who
was talking to him was too shrewd to throw
anything away or buy a bad bargain. For all
that, he was fairly stunned at the good fortune
that had come to him.

“I will be glad to do as you suggest,” he said,
choked up from varied emotions.

“Good!” cried Mr. Mason. “The papers
will be sent to you soon as I can report to headquarters.
In the meantime, you can negotiate
for the lease we spoke about I will have a contract
forwarded to you, accompanying full instructions
as to your duties as our representative.”

“What will you pay Barnes?” inquired Mr.
Morgan, a practical business man on all occasions.

“Sixty dollars a month,” was the reply.

“Don’t fall off your chair, Barnes!” laughed
Mr. Morgan, “You’re going to reach bigger
things than that in the wireless line, I predict.”

“There was one thing,” said Tom a little
anxiously; “I have a friend, a chum, who knows
almost as much as I do about the business.”

Mr. Mason took out his memorandum book.

“What is his name?” he inquired.

“Ben Dixon.”

“Very good. We’ll start him with a commission
as substitute and relief man. I intended
to send one of our men for the shift, but if you
think this young Dixon can do the work, I will
recommend him.”

“I am sure of it,” declared Tom.

“Good-bye, Barnes,” said Mr. Morgan, as he
and his companion prepared to leave the tower.
“I have a little something I wish to add to your
bank account when you come up to the house
again.”

“Please don’t mention such a thing, Mr. Morgan,”
pleaded Tom.

“And, remember, call on me as a ready friend
whenever I can help you in any way,” went on
the gentleman; and then he and Mr. Mason
went away.

“My!” was all Tom could say when he returned
to the tower, and flung himself into a chair
in a dazed, overwhelmed way. “My! it all seems
like a dream!”

CHAPTER XII—“SUN, MOON AND STARS”
=================================

“The Mercedes in the lead,” announced Ben
Dixon.

“All right,” returned Tom Barnes.

The buzzer was going merrily; Tom was
on his professional mettle and thoroughly enjoying
himself. He was tallying off the information
shouted down in sections through the tower
skylight by his faithful assistant.

Ben, astride a cross arm beam of the old windmill,
balanced an elongated telescope seaward
focussed on several yachts engaged in a race.

It had been part of the day’s instructions received
that morning from headquarters for the
operators at Station Z to watch out and announce
the order in which the yachts passed Rockley
Cove. The information was wanted for newspapers
and persons interested at the starting point
of the race. The names and pennant colors of
the various craft had been furnished to Tom,
and Ben was able, with this basis to work from,
to report like an expert.

“*Druid* second,” he announced sharply two
minutes later.

The entire flotilla had passed within half an
hour, and Ben descended into the operating room.

“That was easy and pleasant,” he observed.

“Say, Tom, we’ve got a dandy plant here, and
no mistake.”

Tom replied by nodding in a gratified way,
and glancing with pride and approval at the well-ordered
equipment about him.

Tom was now a duly authorized operator in
the service of the International Wireless Company.
Mr. Mason had carried out the plans
outlined during his original talk with Tom, and
that rising young wireless operator was now
working on instructions and a liberal salary, and
had over five hundred dollars in the bank.

Mr. Morgan had insisted on Tom accepting
a check for two hundred dollars as a slight recognition
of his service in respect to the United
Calcium securities.

What pleased Tom most of all, however, was
that he was given the privilege of employing
extra help when in his judgment the same was
required, and Ben was put in a way to earn many
a welcome dollar.

Station Z was not in the regular service. It
was maintained by the International Wireless
Company as a sort of demonstration station.
The object was to do little commercial business,
but to pick up important messages sent in cases
of emergency. The purpose of the company was
to demonstrate to the general public the chance
utility of an isolated station.

Tom had paid Mr. Edson the hundred dollars,
he had secured the lease of the station site,
had returned to Harry Ashley the money borrowed
from him, and was a happy, hopeful enthusiast,
every day learning more and more concerning
the wonderful wireless.

He sat back in his chair now, comfortable
and at ease, with the satisfaction of a person
understanding his business and doing his duty.
Ben swung back luxuriously in a hammock they
had rigged up in one corner of the room. The
sunshine was bright, the air balmy, the sea refreshingly
blue and cool looking, and both boys
enjoyed the acme of comfort and satisfaction.

“I say, Tom,” began Ben lazily, after a spell
of indolent rest, “what about that letter? Did
you bring it?”

“Oh yes,” answered Tom, feeling in the pocket
of his coat. “Here it is.”

Ben took a mussed-up envelope from the hand
of his chum. It was directed in crooked, printed
letters: “mister tom barns.”

“I found it stuck under our front door last
night, as I told you,” recounted Tom, and Ben
perused the enclosed sheet covered with straggling
words and sentences, and read it aloud:

   | “Warnin to tom barns, keep yure own turtory,
   | or it’l be the worst fer you and yer frens.
   | sined: the Black Kaps.”

“Sort of blood-curdling, eh, Ben?” mused
Tom.

“It don’t scare you one little bit?”

“Not a particle.”

“What does it mean?”

“Why, Ben, the only way I can figure out, is
that the so-called Black Caps are in active operation
again.”

“Phew!” observed Ben, and fell into a prolonged
fit of musing. Both he and Tom were
quite familiar with the past operations of that
sinister concern. Like all country communities,
Rockley Cove had some undesirables. Over the
village line, in fact, between it and the residence
of the Morgans, was a little community of fishermen
whose social condition was not very high.

One particular family with numerous branches
was quite notorious. The name was Barber, and
the younger members of the family constituted
an uncouth and troublesome set. They and some
neighboring lads formed what they called a secret society
called the “Black Caps.” They soon
became the terror of adjoining communities.

Out of pure perversity they stole fishing nets
and tackle, robbed farmers’ hen roosts, and dismantled
yachts and yawls. When these pilferings
were brought home to them, they destroyed
fishing outfits, scuttled boats, and burned down
several haystacks. Six of them were finally arrested,
and among the witnesses against them
were Tom and Ben. The young desperadoes,
who had established a dead line over which few
Rockley Cove boys dared to venture, were locked
up in the county jail for thirty days and in addition
their parents had to pay fines for them.

All this had happened about a year before
Station Z was started. The Black Caps had been
disrupted, it seemed, and Tom had heard little of
the Barbers for some time. If they continued
their former marauding course, it was in some
new territory, for they neither noticed nor molested
any more Rockley Cove boys or property.

Now, however, the old-time tactics so common
in the past had been revived, it seemed, as witness
the warning note Tom had received. It
was over this that Ben was cogitating. Finally
Tom expressed an opinion.

“I can’t account for any fresh antipathy on
the part of the Barbers,” he said, “unless it is
because they see me going down to Mr. Morgan’s
once or twice a week.”

“I’ll bet that’s it,” exclaimed Ben. “You generally
take the cut inland near the settlement,
don’t you, Tom?”

“Nearly always.”

“That must be it, then. They think you are
sort of watching them—invading their territory,
as they call it. I don’t think, though, they would
cut up very rough with you.”

“Why not?”

“Well, Bill Barber said before he got out of
jail you had made up for telling what you had
to tell against him, by pleading with the judge
to let them off light for a first offence.”

“I shall not lose any sleep over the terrible
warning,” laughed Tom lightly.

“I’d take the beach road when I went up to
see Grace Morgan, though, if I were you,” suggested
Ben. “Talking of something else, Tom,
have you said anything to Harry along the ‘Donner’
line?”

“Not a word. Our mysterious spook seems
to have given up his erratic messages.”

“That name, ‘Donner,’ struck Harry all of
a heap, just the same.”

“Well, he’s a fine fellow, and I’m not going
to pry into his secrets.”

“I wonder what old ‘Donner’ was after, anyhow?” observed
Ben, “with his mysterious ‘messages,’
and his ‘thousand dollars.’”

“And the boy with the sun, moon and stars
on his left shoulder,” smiled Tom.

No orders had come to Station Z for work
that night, and at five o’clock the boys locked up
the tower. They parted when they reached the
village, Ben taking the road south and Tom proceeding
homeward alone.

He was up in his room changing his working
clothes, when his mother appeared at the bottom
of the stairs to tell him that Ben Dixon was on
the telephone.

“Ben wants you to call him up before you go
out to-night,” advised Mrs. Barnes.

“All right,” sang down Tom.

He forgot all about Ben when he came downstairs,
full of his plans for the evening. Grace
Morgan had invited him down to Fernwood, so
Tom had asked his mother to give him an early
supper. Then, in the bustle of getting a lift as
far as the crossroads in a passing rig, he left the
house in a great hurry, and never thought of
his chum again until he left the wagon.

“I won’t go back,” decided Tom. “It can’t
be anything very particular Ben wants to see me
about. I’ve got plenty of time, too, and can
stroll around his way before I go to see Grace.”

Tom passed down the winding road, but on
the way ringing boyish shouts beyond a thicket
caused him to deviate from his course. As he
came to where a fringe of shrubbery lined the
banks of Silver Brook, he nearly ran into a man
who stood peering past them at a merry group
of boys sporting in the sparkling waters of the
stream.

There was so much that was ill-favored in
the face of the man, something so sinister in his
pose, that it suggested to Tom the lurker with
a purpose. Tom halted and regarded the man
closely. Then he peered past him at the group
sporting in the water.

Their leader was Harry Ashley, and he was
in great evidence. At just that moment he was
giving them a specimen of rapid hand over hand
water climbing. His admiring friends cheered
as Harry made a marvelous dash of some fifty
yards, described a disappearing dive with wonderful
dexterity, and, coming to the surface, landed
on a rock not twenty feet away from the
observing stranger and Tom, and stood shaking
the water from hair and face.

“Ah-h!” suddenly exclaimed the strange man,
craning his neck, losing his balance, falling flat;
and then, discovering Tom, he scowled at him,
and suddenly disappeared in the underbrush.

“The mischief!” ejaculated Tom, as he too
glanced at Harry.

The back of the latter was towards him. Tom
experienced a queer thrill as he saw what the
stranger had also seen.

Upon Harry Ashley’s left shoulder, plainly
tattooed, was a sun, a moon and some stars!

CHAPTER XIII—THE BLACK CAPS
===========================

Harry Ashley, all unconscious of the fact
that he was under inspection from others than
his aquatic comrades, gave a yell and dove away
from the rock.

“Here’s something to think about!” said Tom
in startled wonderment. “Ben was right—Harry
is a boy with a mystery, just as he said.”

Tom’s first impulse was to advance among the
noisy crowd of swimmers, or linger under cover
and intercept Harry when he started for home,
and challenge him for some explanation.

Then it occurred to him that he had no right
to pry into Harry’s secrets. At first the case
looked strange and grave. At second thought,
however, it occurred to Tom that the discovery
of the fact that a man whom they called “Donner”
was supposedly seeking a certain Ernest
Warren, and that Harry Ashley fitted into the
affair because he had tattooed marks on his back,
was not such an important circumstance after all.

Presumably this wireless operator was the
man whose five hundred dollars Harry had accidentally
burned up. This set Tom thinking on a
new tack.

“‘Donner’ is certainly very anxious to find
Harry, if he really is this Ernest Warren,” mused
Tom. “He seems willing to pay money to find
him. What for—to punish him? Hardly. Then
something of importance may have happened to
change the face of affairs, and if this would be
of any benefit to Harry he ought to know about
it. I know what I’ll do—I’ll get down and tell
Ben what I have discovered, and we’ll decide
together what is best to do in the case.”

Tom started to leave the spot. He glanced
all about for some trace of the sinister appearing
lurker he had seen watching the swimmers, but
found none.

“Maybe I am just imagining that fellow was
particularly interested in Harry,” ruminated Tom.
“He is probably some strolling tramp, and was
casually watching those antics in the water.”

Tom glanced at his watch. It was two miles
over to the Dixon place. It was fast getting on
to dusk. Tom calculated that he would reach
the farm by dusk, have half an hour to spare with
Ben, and reach the Morgan mansion by eight
o’clock. He had changed his plans since leaving
home, his original purpose being to arrive before
nightfall at the Morgan home while there was
enough daylight left to play a game of tennis
with Grace.

It was a short cut to the Dixon place by taking
a road through the woods, and Tom kept on
planning how he would utilize the moments until
he reached Fernwood, and anticipating the usual
pleasant time he always had with pretty Grace
Morgan. He was just thinking how happily
and usefully life was rounding out for him, when
there came an abrupt interruption to his pleasing
reverie.

Just as he was passing a thick copse where the
road turned and high trees on either side shut the
highway into dimness and obscurity, there was a
rustle in the underbrush.

“Halt!”

A form stepped into view suddenly. It was
that of a boy. In his hand he poised a long pole
sharpened at the end. This he directed straight
at Tom.

“Halt!”

A second figure came quite as magically into
view. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth and sixth,
and the astounded Tom stared vaguely at a
perfect circle formed about him by the sextette.

“Why,” he began, turning in a ring and discovering
that each one of the group wore a sable-lined
hood over his head with slits cut in for eyes,
nose and mouth, “I understand now—the Black
Caps.”

“That’s right,” responded a voice from behind
one of the masks, disguised into great gruffness.
“March!”

“March where?” demanded Tom, a half
amused smile on his face.

“Don’t fool,” spoke a second voice quickly.
“Get him under cover.”

“Yes, someone may come along,” spoke another
of the masked crowd.

“Now!”

The leader of the gang gave the order. His
coterie was well trained. To a man they dropped
their spears to the ground, and made a general
rush for Tom.

“Hold on, Bill Barber!” said Tom, as he was
seized by five pairs of sturdy hands.

“Bill Barber isn’t here,” declared the former
gruff voice.

“What do you want of me, whoever you are?”
demanded Tom.

“You come along and see.”

“I will not,” retorted Tom.

He struck out with his fists and laid two of
his assailants low. They were promptly on their
feet. Then the united strength of the group was
exerted to seize and throw our hero down. He
found his arms and feet securely bound by strong
ropes.

“Someone is coming,” spoke one of the crowd
sharply.

“Rush him,” ordered the leader.

Tom set up a loud shout.

“The gag,” came the quick command.

Tom’s outcry was hushed in an instant by the
application of an elastic band fastened to a padded
stick, which was tightly pressed between his
lips. He was lifted bodily and carried away
from the road just as a wagon rattled past the
spot where he had been confronted by the gang.

The members spoke not a word as, bodily lifting
their captive, they bore him helpless on their
shoulders through the woods. They proceeded
a quarter of a mile, finally halting at a low structure
which Tom recognized.

It was the abandoned hut of a man who had
passed a hermit-like existence in the densest part
of a thicket. Tom was carried inside and placed
on the broken floor of the hut, which was covered
with dead leaves.

“What’s the orders, chief?” asked one of the
crowd.

A whispered reply that Tom could not over-hear
led to five of the party filing out of the hut
like trained soldiers. The sixth, the leader, remained
behind for half a minute.

“We’re coming back soon,” he said. “We’ll
bring a skull and cross bones when we do. If
you’ll swear on ’em never to cross our dead line
again, maybe we’ll leave you go this time. If
you don’t——”

The speaker aspirated a long low hiss and
ground his teeth tragically. Then he, too, disappeared.

Tom had ample time for reflection as he lay
alone in the darkness. He could not figure out
what the Black Caps were up to. The whole
proceeding was freakish, and carried along in the
most heroic style of juvenile roysterers aping
pirates and outlaws; yet Tom believed there was
some definite motive underlying it all. What it
was he could not at the moment decide.

A half hour passed by. The Black Caps had
apparently retired to a distance. Then the crackling
of dry twigs outside the hut announced the
approach of someone.

“Hello, there, Tom Barnes!” spoke the owner
of a head thrust past the open doorway.

Tom at once identified the tones. They belonged
to Mart Walters.

CHAPTER XIV—TURNING THE TABLES
==============================

“This is getting interesting—I think I am beginning
to understand this affair,” murmured
Tom amid his helpless discomfort.

Mart Walters stepped into the hut. He felt
about with his feet, and even groped with his
hands. As one toe touched the prostrate Tom
the visitor came to a stop.

“We’ll have a little light on the subject,” he
observed, drawing out a cigar lighter. Mart
fancied it was “mannish” and grand to exhibit
this appurtenance when he lit a cigarette. He
snapped a light and held the flame over Tom.
Then he extinguished it, and stooping unsnapped
the gag from the captive’s lips, letting it drop
under his chin.

Mart had not spoken to Tom since the day of
the ducking at the creek. Twice Tom had met
him in Rockley Cove, and had nodded to him
pleasantly. This courtesy had been rewarded
with a malevolent scowl. It was evidently still
in the mind of our hero’s enemy to “get even”
with him.

More than once Tom had seen Mart on the
Fernwood pier or in the powerful launch with the
elegant young swell, Bert Aldrich. Several evenings
Tom had passed at the Morgan mansion at
little social gatherings of Miss Grace and her
friends. On these occasions, however, Aldrich
and his satellite had made a point to cut Tom
direct. Tom had not minded this in the least,
for Grace had laughed outright at such ridiculous
manœuvres.

Tom now instantly made up his mind that the
present episode had something to do with his
visits to Grace. Mart was not above mean plotting,
and his supercilious friend, Bert Aldrich,
had always struck Tom as an unpleasant cad.

“There’s only just about five minutes to spare,
Tom Barnes,” spoke Mart smartly.

“For what?” demanded Tom.

“For me to save you.”

“What from?”

“The Black Caps.”

“You train with them, do you?” interrogated
Tom.

“Who, me? No, indeed!” answered Mart.
“It’s this way: I’m your friend.”

“Go ahead, Mart.”

“The Barbers don’t like you any too well.
They think the best way they can beat your game
is to keep you from coming here.”

“Coming where?” challenged Tom specifically.

“Well, down to the Morgan place. They
don’t want you sneaking around anywhere near
them.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” observed Tom.

“I overheard their talk. They’ve gone to
get some tar and feathers. They’re going to
muss you up bad. I know them pretty well.”

“I see you do,” remarked Tom, significantly.

“Oh, I don’t mean that I chum with them, or
anything like that,” corrected Mart, in a flustered
manner. “But, I have—why, well—influence,
that’s it, with them. Then again, I’m interested
personally.”

“How are you interested?” inquired Tom.

“Well, I’ll just be plain with you. My friend,
Bert Aldrich, is sweet on Grace Morgan, and
you’ve spoiled it.”

“Indeed,” said Tom simply.

“He thinks you have prejudiced Grace against
him, and he’s mad as a hatter about it. See here,
she isn’t your class. You know she ain’t—half
a million, classy family. Why, you’re poor.
Then again, she’s going south soon, and when
she gets into society she’ll have to meet Bert and
his family, and take up with him again—see?”

“Get along, Mart,” railed Tom, “you’re
progressing finely.”

“I’ll save you from the Black Caps if you’ll
agree to keep away from Grace Morgan.
There’s the straight of it. What do you say?”

“I say no,” responded Tom promptly.

“You won’t do it?”

“Hardly.”

“You’ll be sorry.”

“All right.”

“Suppose—suppose Bert gives you fifty dollars,
will you keep away?”

“Say, Mart,” observed Tom, quietly, but with
force, “you’re too cheap. Grace Morgan is
worth a million, if she is worth a cent. You
can’t scare me off nor buy me off. She’s a dear
little lady, my good friend, and I wouldn’t give
up her company under any circumstances as long
as my coming seems to please her.”

“Rot you!” shouted Mart, fairly infuriated
at the failure of his cherished schemes. “I’ve
a good mind to kick you. I’ll do it, yes, I
will——”

“Stop there, you miserable scamp!”

“Let go!”

“Speak another word, and I’ll half choke the
life out of you!”

“Ben!” murmured Tom gratefully.

A form had flashed through the doorway.
There was the sound of a struggle, a thud, as
Mart Walters’ body struck the floor.

“I’m sitting on him, Tom,” announced the newcomer.
“Lie still, or I’ll knock you silly.
Where’s that gag, Tom? I’ve got it.”

Tom felt the hand of his friend grope in the
dark and remove the gag from under his chin.
Then, from the squirmings and splutterings of
Mart, he knew that Ben had silenced him effectually.
Next, Ben whipped out his pocket knife,
and the ropes holding Tom a prisoner were
severed.

“Trim and tidy,” reported the diligent Ben
as he helped Tom to his feet. “I’ve gagged
him and tied him for keeps. Come outside.”

“Why, how in the world did you happen to
come along in the nick of time?” propounded
Tom, wonderingly.

“Never mind that now. You do just what I
tell you to do. You were bound for Morgan’s?”

“Yes.”

“Get there, then. I’ll come along a little later.
I’ve got something else to do hereabouts.”

“But Mart, here?”

“He’ll be taken care of, never fear,” retorted
Ben with a chuckle.

“And the Black Caps?”

“You forget all about it till I see you later,”
insisted Ben. “There will be quite a story to tell.
Don’t spoil it by hanging around here. I know
my business. Go along.”

Tom did as directed. He could guess that
there was some motive in his chum’s insistence.
He rearranged his disordered attire, left the spot,
and half an hour later had followed Ben’s directions,
having indeed forgotten everything except
that he was seated on the Morgan porch with
charming Grace as his companion.

“What is that?” exclaimed Grace suddenly.

Tom arose quickly to his feet at the startling
inquiry. The light from the front rooms illumined
the porch, but beyond the shadows were
vague and dim. Amid these, Tom, peering, discerned
some bustling forms.

He moved towards the button controlling the
electric lights at either side of the pillars at the
steps. Just as he pressed it, ear-splitting sounds
rang out.

“The Black Caps!” exclaimed Tom, as he
recognized his recent persecutors.

“Oh, what are they here for?” cried Grace,
timidly clinging to Tom’s arm.

“Fire him, men!”

A struggling form in the grasp of the six
young outlaws was forcibly propelled forward,
landed on the porch steps and rolled over on
the gravel walk.

“Cut for it!” came the sharp mandate.

The Black Caps vanished as if by magic. Tom
stared hard. Grace, trembling with excitement,
gazed vaguely at the figure arising to its feet.

“Why,” she faltered, catching sight of the
terrified face of the unwilling visitor, “it is Mart
Walters!”

It was Mart, indeed, and he was a sight.
From head to foot loose fluttering feathers waved
ghost-like in the night breeze. Mart was not
bound now, but the gag was still in his mouth.
He cast one appalled glance at Grace and Tom,
tore the gag loose and uttered a shrill yell of
rage and chagrin. Then, throwing his hands
above his head, he, too, disappeared.

“What does it all mean, Tom?” quavered
Grace with a bloodless face. “There—there is
somebody else!”

She shrank back anew with the words.

“It’s all right,” Tom reassured her. “It is
Ben Dixon.”

Ben, smothering a laugh, came up the steps,
lifting his cap and smiling, his eyes twinkling.

“The biter bit, the tables turned, Miss Grace,”
he said.

“Ben, explain what it all means,” pleaded
Grace. “Tom won’t.”

.. figure:: images/illus-108.jpg
   :align: center

   “WHY,” SHE FALTERED, “IT IS MART WALTERS!”

“It’s like him not to,” declared Tom’s staunch
chum. “I got a hint from a friend early in the
evening that the Barber boys were on the rampage.
I missed Tom by ’phone and started to
intercept him on his way here, when I ran across
the crowd talking with Mart Walters. I learned
the whole scheme, and followed Walters to a hut
where the gang had imprisoned Tom, and—well,
I set Tom free and tied and gagged Walters in
his place.”

“What for?” questioned Grace.

“To give him a needed lesson,” answered
Ben promptly. “When the crowd returned
I suppose they had arranged if Walters didn’t
come back to them they were to ‘fix’ Tom, as
they called it. Two of them carried a feather
bed. Two others carried pails of soft soap. It
seemed they intended to use tar, but couldn’t get
any. They ripped open the bed, deluged Walters
with the soap, mistaking him for Tom, rolled
him in among the feathers, and—you saw him.
They never got onto the fact that it was the
fellow who had hired them who got the dose
they intended for Tom.”

“Why did he hire them?” inquired Grace.

“Because that Aldrich cad plotted with Walters
to scare Tom away from coming here to
see you,” explained Ben bluntly.

Grace Morgan’s eyes flashed. A flush of real
anger came into her cheeks.

“Mart and Mr. Aldrich did that?” she cried.
“Oh, they shall never come into this house
again.” And on hearing this Tom Barnes felt
rewarded for all the tribulation he had gone
through that night.

CHAPTER XV—AN UNEXPECTED RESCUER
================================

“Have you spoken to Harry yet, Tom?” inquired
Ben, two days after the overturning of
the plots of Mart Walters and his city friend,
Bert Aldrich.

It was the middle of the afternoon, and things
wireless had been slack at Station Z ever since
morning. Tom turned from his chair at the
window where he had been dreamily surveying
the open sea.

“No, Ben,” he replied a little gravely. “I
came near doing it last night, but I didn’t know
but it might worry him, or make him think I was
trying to pry into his personal business.”

“I tell you, Tom, I think Harry ought to be
told about the mysterious ‘Donner’ messages,
and asked to explain about the tattooed sun,
moon and stars on his left shoulder.”

“I fancy he’s about through with his task in
the pasture by now,” said Tom. “Supposing
you go up to the house, get him down here, and
we’ll try to introduce the subject so it won’t
frighten or bother him.”

“All right,” assented Ben with alacrity, and
was forthwith on his way.

Tom resumed his place at the window. His
back was to the road running up from the beach to
the village, and he was not aware of an unexpected
arrival from that direction until a man’s voice
sounding within the room hailed him.

“Hey, boy, who’s in charge here?”

“I am,” answered Tom, turning to confront
two men who in turn entered the tower by way
of the trap door. They were strangers in Rockley
Cove, and Tom did not at all like their looks.
The man who had accosted him had a sharp, hard
eye. His companion was furtive-faced, and suggested
a person constantly on the watch.

“We want to send a message,” the former proceeded.
“In cypher.”

“Where to?” inquired Tom.

“The man pointed seawards.”

“To a ship?”

“Yes, to the *Councillor*, bound for Canada.”

Tom shook his head discouragingly.

“You will have to go to Station O at Deepdale.
This is only a demonstration plant, and I
have no orders to take commercial business,” explained
Tom.

The man drew out a pocketbook.

“See here,” he said, “I’ll give you ten dollars
to send the message.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s against the rules.”

“Jackson, do it yourself,” spoke the other man
quickly, pressing close to his companion’s side.

“I’m out of practice.”

“Oh, you can manage it.”

“Hold on, there. I can’t allow any interference
with the apparatus here,” said Tom, stepping in
front of the first man as he started over towards
the operating table.

“Can’t, eh?” sneered the man. “Well, you’ll
have to. Keep him quiet, Griffin.”

“I’ve got him,” announced the man addressed.

He had caught Tom by the wrist. As the latter
struggled to free himself, his captor dragged him
toward a closet in one corner of the room.

Its door stood open. The closet was oak
framed, built into the wall of the room, and had a
stout door with a small circular slit in it. Mr.
Edson had utilized it to lock up things he did not
wish to leave lying around loose, when he left
the tower at night. Tom had used it as a storeroom
for surplus parts of the wireless outfit.

It had a strong padlock. The man threw Tom
in roughly, secured the padlock, and then went
up to the table. His companion was closely inspecting
the apparatus.

“I’m at home at the regular key,” he said. “I
don’t know whether I can work this, though.”

“Of course you can,” urged the other. “Get
ready. I’ve got the cypher key and the message
right here,” and he took two sheets of paper from
his pocket.

Tom was helpless. He could not possibly
force the heavy door of the closet from its fastenings.
Shouting would do no good. If he attempted
it, his jailers would probably treat him
roughly, for they were vicious-looking fellows.
Tom hoped for the return of Ben and Harry, or
the arrival of someone else to interrupt the man
at the table. Meanwhile he was on the keen
alert as to all that individual was doing.

The minute this man got his bearings, he
started in with confidence. Tom learned that he
was flashing a message to the steamer *Councillor*,
bound from New York to Halifax. In plain
English, the operator on the *Councillor* was instructed
to deliver a message to a passenger answering
to the name of Daniel Ritchie. The
message itself was a lot of private code-words,
utterly unintelligible to Tom.

The sender repeated the message and got up
from the table.

“Hit or miss, that is the best I can do,” he
remarked.

“Hit or miss, you’ve done all that could be
expected of you,” remarked his companion.
“What are you going to do with him?” questioned
the speaker, with a shrug of his shoulders
towards Tom’s place of imprisonment.

“Oh, leave him where he is. We want a start,
and someone will come along to let him out. So
long, son. You might have made ten dollars if
you’d saved me the trouble of showing you that
I’m some wireless myself.”

Both men laughed coarsely and left the tower.
Tom knew it was futile to expect his liberty except
through the accidental visit of someone. He
contented himself by trying to recall what he could
remember of the message sent. He tried also
to figure out the motive for the men’s actions.

“They have got word to someone aboard the
steamer *Councillor*,” mused Tom. “The trouble
they went to to do it looks suspicious and mysterious,
though. Hello!”

Tom stared hard at the trap door opening.
Through it a head was protruded.

“Anybody here?” its owner called out.

“Yes, I am here,” announced Tom, moving
his hand through the slit in the closet door.

“Tom Barnes!”

“That’s right.”

And then Tom gave a start as he recognized his
unexpected visitor as Bill Barber, head of the
Black Caps.

CHAPTER XVI—KIDNAPPED
=====================

“Let me out,” said Tom, rattling the closet
door.

“Sure, how did you get in there?” asked Bill
Barber.

“I was locked in.”

“Who by?”

“I’ll tell you later. The key is in the padlock.”

“I see it.”

There was nothing belligerent or threatening in
Bill’s behavior. On the contrary, he seemed
anxious to please Tom and glad to do him a favor.
This was so foreign to the usual attitude of the
Barber boy, that Tom was both astonished and
puzzled.

He noticed casually that Bill seemed more
tidy than usual, and there was not so much of
the hang dog look about him as in the past.

“Queer,” spoke Bill, staring perplexedly at
Tom as the latter stepped out into the room.
“You didn’t shut yourself up in there?”

“No, I’ll tell you how it was soon. Thank
you, Bill, you’ve done me a big favor in coming
just when I needed help.”

“I am glad,” voiced Bill, sententiously but
heartily.

“I’ve something to do, so just sit down till
I get things to rights, will you?”

“I’ll do that, Tom.”

Bill sat staring wonderingly at the wireless outfit.
He watched Tom flit about as might a
wizard among his trick apparatus. Tom flew to
the operating table. He knew that somehow irregular
work had been done by his two recent
visitors. He wondered if he could head off the
design they had in view, and was intent on getting
word to headquarters.

Just ready to flash the signal, however, Tom
ran over to a corner of the room and picked up a
crumpled wad of paper. As he opened it, revealing
two sheets, and reviewed their contents, he knew
that he had discovered something worth while.

“The cypher message and the key to it,” exclaimed
Tom eagerly. “Those fellows got what
they came after and carelessly dropped these.
Now to figure it out.”

Tom ran his eyes first over one sheet and then
the other. The cypher message dovetailed with
words he had heard the surreptitious operator
use. With a pencil he wrote the words out with
the help of the key. This was the result:

   | “Leave the steamer before arrival at Halifax,
   | as New York police have telegraphed there to
   | arrest you.”

“I see it all as clear as daylight,” murmured
Tom. “The two men who imprisoned me are
warning a friend, a criminal confederate. I’ll
block the game.”

Tom was busy at the transmitter for the next
half hour. He flashed a message to the *Councillor*,
informing the captain that the passenger,
Daniel Ritchie, had received a wireless message
irregularly, and to prevent him from leaving the
ship until he reported to the police at Halifax.

Then Tom sent a message to headquarters explaining
the entire proceedings of the past hour,
giving his construction of the episode, and advising
an immediate report to the New York police
authorities.

Pretty tired from his activities, he now sat
down in a chair. He had to smile as he observed
the face of Bill Barber. The latter sat like one
entranced over the manipulation the wireless outfit
had undergone.

“Say,” he bolted out in mingled awe and
admiration, “you know how to do things with
that queer contrivance, don’t you?”

Tom briefly explained some of the minutiæ of
the wireless and had an ardent listener. When
he had concluded he intimated pleasantly:

“And how did you chance to come along just
when I needed you, Bill?”

The Barber boy at once looked serious. A
furtive embarrassed expression came into his face.

“That’s it,” he mumbled, “I came to tell you,
Tom, you see?”

“To tell me what, Bill?” asked Tom encouragingly.

“About that tar and feather business. I had
nothing to do with it, Tom, honest Injun.”

“Who said you did, Bill?” propounded Tom,
smiling.

“I’ll bet you thought it.”

“Well, wasn’t it quite natural I should?” inquired
Tom.

“No, sir!” declared Bill, quite indignantly,
“I wouldn’t play a mean trick like that on you,
Tom Barnes. I’ve got nothing against you. In
fact, ever since you spoke up for me at the trial,
I’ve—well, Tom,” stammered Bill, a little sheepishly,
“I’ve tried to remember what you said
about giving me a chance to make a man of myself,
and I—I hope I’m doing it.”

“Good for you, Bill Barber!” cried Tom
heartily. “I’m proud of you, to hear you talk
like that.”

“It was some of my old gang hired out to
trim you. I’ve thrashed the whole kit of them
for doing it, and they won’t trouble you again,
never fear.”

“You’re a good friend, Bill,” declared Tom.
“Did you say you were working?”

“Yes, but not steady,” answered Bill. “I get
odd jobs running small launches for the resorters
down at Sea Grove. Had a trip or two for that
young Boston cad, who is hanging around with
Mart Walters. Huh! he brags about what lots
of money he’s got, and he hasn’t paid me for my
work yet. I’ll get it, though, or take it out of
his hide,” declared Bill, ominously. “I say, Tom,
he’s a bad one, and Mart Walters is worse. Look
out for them.”

“I shall, Bill, and thank you for your good
wishes and help. Any time I can return the favor
call on me as a real friend.”

Bill Barber departed with a pleased face, and
Tom was not sorry for the chance to help a fellow
whom he decided had lots of good in him, if
rightly encouraged.

In about half an hour a message came from
headquarters. It had the “sine” of the superintendent.

“Good work,” it commended. “Parties interested notified.
Man on steamer fugitive forger
wanted by the Government. Probably a reward case.”

Tom felt that he was progressing finely in his
work. So far, application and straightforward
devotion to duty had enabled him to perform his
duties without a censure, and to avoid snares set
for his downfall.

He was glad when Ben appeared, for Tom was
full of the theme of the hour, and his chum and
assistant was a good listener. Something in Ben’s
face checked the welcome rising to Tom’s lips,
however, and he eyed Ben keenly.

“Something wrong,” reported Ben, looking
pale and breathing hard as if he had been running
fast.

“Where—how?” propounded Tom quickly.

“At the farm—Harry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Harry is in trouble of some kind. I hurried
to tell you. Tom, Harry has disappeared.”

“You don’t mean for good?” exclaimed Tom
seriously.

“I don’t know, but he’s been kidnapped.”

CHAPTER XVII—UP TO MISCHIEF
===========================

“Kidnapped!” repeated Tom, quite startled.

“Yes,” declared Ben. “That much is sure.”

“Did you see Harry?”

“No, but others did. When I went after him
your father told me that Harry was grubbing out
some brush in the old pasture lot. I went down
there. The hoe he had been using was lying on
the ground. His coat was hanging on the fence,
but no Harry. I walked out beyond the fence to
look around for him, and near the big gate was
his cap, all tramped down in the mud. The
ground looked as if there had been a scuffle.”

“This all sounds pretty strange,” commented
Tom.

“I was standing wondering what next to do,
when the old lady who lives near your house
came over to me. She asked me whom I was
looking for, and when I told her she said that
about an hour before two men, strangers to her,
had driven up in a covered wagon. They halted
outside of the pasture lot. One of them stayed
in the wagon. The other man went up to Harry
and engaged him in conversation. He seemed to
induce him by some argument or other to go out
to the wagon. Once there, the woman said, the
man tried to force Harry to go with them. He
must have refused, for there was a scuffle, and the
men threw Harry into the wagon and drove off
with him.”

“Did you tell my father?” inquired Tom, arising
to his feet in a state of deep anxiety and
excitement.

“I ran to a field where some men were working.
They told me that your father had gone to
Westport with a load of hay. Then I ran here to
tell you about it.”

“Ben, we must do something about this at
once! You must stay here in charge.”

“I will, Tom. What do you suppose those
men carried Harry away for?”

“This is no time to lose in theorizing. I have
my ideas, but never mind them now. I will hurry
home and start a chase after him.”

Tom lost no time. He gave Ben a few instructions,
and then hastened homewards on a
run. Within half an hour he was mounted on
a horse, and following the main road west in
the direction the kidnappers had taken. He had
made a brief explanation to one of his father’s
field hands, and the man was started on horseback
down the branching road.

Tom stopped at half a dozen farm houses and
made inquiries, but found no one who had seen
a wagon pass answering to his description. He
reached in turn three small settlements, met with
no success in his quest, and turned around and
made for home, disappointed and concerned, but
hoping that the hired man had met with better
luck.

His messenger, however, had not returned, he
found when he reached the farm. There was
an hour of anxious waiting. Finally the man
rode up.

“What news?” inquired Tom eagerly.

“I traced the wagon five miles,” reported the
man, “lost it at the crossroads, and couldn’t get
the trail again.”

Tom hurried to the telephone and called up
every exchange within a radius of twenty miles,
explaining briefly but clearly what he wanted.

“About all you can do is to wait, Tom,” said
his mother, who tried to conceal her solicitude
for the missing boy.

“It seems to me those men cannot get through
the network of people watching out for them,”
spoke Tom. “I must do all I can, though, myself,
for Harry.”

Our hero started off again on horseback. He
took another route this time. It was seven o’clock
when he got back home again. No trace of the
kidnappers had been reported.

Ben had locked up at the tower, and was waiting
for Tom at the Barnes’ home in a great state
of impatience. Tom, after reporting to his
mother, called his chum outside.

“Ben,” he said, “I got a description of one
of the men who drove the wagon, and I know
who he is.”

“You do?” exclaimed Ben.

“Yes—the man I told you about seeing, the
day Harry was in swimming, and I discovered
the tattoo marks on his shoulder.”

“You don’t say so!”

“I am pretty sure of it,” declared Tom.

“That being true, it connects with the ‘Donner’
business!” cried Ben. “The sun, moon and
stars message.”

“Perhaps. If Harry is really the Ernest Warren
they have been telegraphing about, someone
was trying to find him.”

“And they’ve done it, and gotten him!” cried
Ben excitedly. “We’ll never see him again, and
we’ll never know the mystery about him.”

“You give up too easily, Ben,” said Tom, and
then he hastened to meet his father, who at that
moment drove into the farm yard.

Mr. Barnes was a peculiar man. He was wilful
and went to extremes where his likes and dislikes
were involved. He had taken a great fancy to
the busy, buoyant lad he had hired, and at once
manifested the deepest interest in the particulars
of the strange disappearance of Harry Ashley.

He turned his horses directly around and drove
to the village. When he returned, he told Tom
he had got a local constable to start at once and
try to get some trace of the missing boy.

With that move all were forced to be content.
Ben stayed at Tom’s house all night, and the boys
remained up late, hoping some word might come.
The captors of Harry, however, seemed to have
well planned their flight, for at the crossroads
all trace of them had disappeared.

The next day went by with no report as to the
fate of Harry. Tom and Ben took turns till
late in the afternoon spelling one another in visits
to the house, anxious and eager to hear some
word about their missing comrade.

“We’ll just have to wait,” concluded Ben, as
they locked up the tower that evening. “You
see——”

There Ben suddenly interrupted himself. He
halted, drawing Tom also to a dead stop.

“What’s the matter, Ben?” inquired Tom in
some surprise.

“S—sh! Ambush.”

“Don’t be mysterious, Ben,” began Tom.

Then, following the indication of the pointed
finger of his companion, Tom became as much
startled and interested as his chum.

There was a dense stretch of wild rose bushes
on a sandy hill about fifty yards distant from the
tower. Protruding from these, plainly visible,
was a pair of human feet.

“Some one spying on us,” declared Ben in a
quivering whisper. The air had been so full of
mystery the past few days that Ben traced its
continuance in any unusual happening.

“More like a sleepy tramp,” observed Tom.

“Find out, will you?”

“I intend to.”

Tom picked up a heavy stick, advanced quietly
to the bushes, and brought it down with a force
of a policeman’s club directly across the flat soles
presented.

“Thunder!”

The owner of the shoes leaped to his feet with
a vivid exclamation.

“Oh, it’s you, Bill?” spoke Tom instantly.
“What in the world have you got here?”

Peering past Bill Barber, Tom observed a
double-barreled shotgun where he had been lying
down. Ben looked dreadfully suspicious. Bill
flushed and stammered.

“Oh, just hunting,” he spoke evasively.

“In that bunch of brush?” laughed Tom.

Then, placing a rallying hand on Bill’s shoulder,
he added: “Out with it, Bill, what are you up
to?”

Bill’s lips came grimly together.

“You won’t interfere with me, if I tell?”

“Why should I?”

“Well, then, I’m watching your station here.”

“What for?”

“Visitors.”

“Indeed?”

“Trespassers, vandals, I had better say,” went
on Bill. “See here, I’m laying for somebody,
partly for you, partly because I am interested
myself. Tom Barnes, I want you to go straight
home and leave me to my own affairs. You’ve
got enough confidence in me to believe that I
wouldn’t harm you or your friends or your wireless,
haven’t you?”

“There’s my answer,” said Tom promptly.

As he spoke he extended the key to the trap
door.

“No,” dissented Bill, “I don’t need that, but
thank you just the same. The fellows I’ve got
a tip about won’t get as far as the tower.”

“You won’t hurt anybody, Bill?” questioned
Tom gravely, with a glance at the shotgun.

“No, but I’ll teach them a lesson they won’t
forget for a long time to come,” was Bill Barber’s
significant reply.

CHAPTER XVIII—THE TOY BALLOONS
==============================

“There’s another one—that makes six.”

“Six what, Ben?”

“Balloons.”

Tom walked to the window where Ben had
been sitting, looked at the sky, made out a tiny
blue dot sailing aerially seawards, and observed:

“Oh, you mean toy balloons?”

“Yes. There must be a picnic somewhere.
Funny thing, too. I noticed they all had a card or
a tag attached to the trailing strings.”

“Perhaps it is some advertising stunt,” suggested
Tom.

He resumed the reading of a technical wireless
book he had received from New York, while Ben
continued idly looking from the tower window.

Affairs at Station Z had settled down to routine.
They had learned no results as yet from
the mysterious appearance of Bill Barber at the
tower the evening before. Suddenly Ben broke
out with the words:

“There comes Bill Barber, now.”

Tom awaited the appearance of the former
captain of the Black Caps with some curiosity.
He pointed to a chair as the Barber boy came up
through the trap door.

“What’s the news, Bill?” inquired Tom casually.

Bill’s broad mouth expanded Into a grin. He
chuckled serenely.

“Haven’t heard anything about last night?”

“Not a word.”

“You will if you go down Fernwood way.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, there’s two fellows keeping themselves
mighty scarce. When they walk they wobble,
and when they talk they squabble.”

“Do I happen to know the parties?” inquired
Tom, but already guessing their identity.

“I reckon you do,” answered Bill. “Making
no bones about it, the fellows are Mart Walters
and Bert Aldrich.”

“I thought so,” put in Ben. “They were up
to tricks, were they?”

“They were up to queering you fellows,” replied
Bill, “and I learned of it. I knew yesterday
they were coming down here after dark to
wreck your wireless plant. I owed that cad,
Aldrich, something, and I reckoned to pay off
two scores at one and the same time. I lay in
wait.”

“And they showed up?” inquired the interested
Ben.

“Yes, about nine o’clock. They tried to get
up through the trap door, me watching them.
They couldn’t make it, and then they went down
to the beach and got an armful of big flat stones.
Aldrich was to go up that tree yonder and Mart
was to pass up the stones to him. He calculated
to throw through the tower windows and smash
your outfit.”

“I see you didn’t let them, Bill,” suggested
Tom.

“Not I. Both barrels of the shotgun were
loaded to the muzzle with pepper and salt. Just
as they got under the tree I let both triggers go.
It took them around the knees.”

“I hope you didn’t cripple them,” said Tom.

“Oh, they could walk,” replied Bill with a
guffaw,—“just walk. I understand that Aldrich
has thrown up his hands and is going to call the
game closed.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going back to Boston some time between
now and to-morrow night. I guess Miss Morgan
has turned the cold shoulder on him. Well, he’s
a good one if he gets away with the eleven dollars
and seventy-five cents he owes me for work on
the yacht, and good hard work at that.”

Bill Barber hung around for about an hour.
He seemed to be glad of an excuse to visit the
tower. He was mightily interested in the wireless
outfit, and he seemed pleased to be in Tom’s
company.

“Bill is not so bad a fellow after all,” remarked
Ben, as their visitor departed. “What a shame!
that Aldrich, with all the money he brags about,
cheating him out of his honest wages.”

“I think Bill is likely to get it,” said Tom.
“He is a determined and a dangerous fellow,
too, when he is once aroused.”

“I can see that,” replied Ben.

“He has proven himself a good friend to us,”
observed Tom.

“Grace Morgan doesn’t seem to have much
use for Aldrich. I suppose he’ll try to break in
and bid her good-by. I hear she is going away
for a month or two.”

“She has gone already,” said Tom, with a
conscious flush.

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yes, she left for Albion this morning, where
her aunt resides. They take the steamer *Olivia*
this evening down the coast. They are going to
a Virginia Summer resort.”

“You seem pretty well informed as to Miss
Morgan’s movements,” observed Ben with a wink.

“Why, yes, I saw her last evening,” replied
Tom. “We are very good friends, you know,
and I am naturally interested in her plans.”

Tom did not tell his chum that in his breast
pocket reposed a dainty little card bearing the
southern address of Grace, nor that she had
made him promise to write her often about the
progress he made with “that delightful wireless.”

“I say, there is another one of those balloons,”
exclaimed Ben suddenly; “a red one this time.
She’s lighting. No, she isn’t. Yes, she is, but
in the water. Tom, I’m curious about the tags
all of those balloons seem to have attached to
them; I’m going to make a try to get one.”

Ben bolted from the tower. Tom went to the
window to watch his manœuvres. Ben reached
the shingly beach, and was reaching out into the
water with a long tree branch, trying to hook in
the now exhausted balloon without getting his
feet wet.

“He’s got it,” tallied Tom, keeping track of
his movements. “Well,” he inquired a minute
later, as Ben reappeared in the tower, “what
does it amount to?”

“There has been some pencilled writing on the
back of the tag,” explained Ben, “but the water
has blurred it out.”

“Whose tag is it?”

“Tom,” said Ben, “what do you think? It’s
one of your own cards!”

“Mine?” exclaimed Tom in surprise.

“Yes—look at it.”

Tom took the soaked piece of cardboard. He
regarded it in some wonder.

“Why, Ben,” he said finally, “you are quite
right. This is one of the cards I printed when I
went into the amateur printing line last Summer.”

“I knew I’d seen it or its like before,” observed
Ben.

“It’s strange,” ruminated Tom, turning the
card over and over in his hand in a puzzled way.
“Say, though,” he cried with a quick start, “I
gave a lot of those cards to Harry Ashley.”

“When?” asked Ben.

“Last week. I was cleaning up my desk at
the house, and threw away about two hundred of
them as useless into the waste basket. Harry
picked them up and asked for them.”

“And you gave them to him?”

“That’s it. He said one side was blank, and
he liked to carry something with him he could
scribble on when he took the fancy.”

“Why, then,” declared Ben, getting very much
excited, “that card comes from Harry!”

“It looks that way,” admitted Tom.

“Of course that is it,” insisted Ben. “It’s
Harry who has been sending up those balloons.”

“But how could he do that?”

“There’s the mystery, like all the mysteries
we’ve been running across lately,” said Ben.
“Don’t you see, Tom, he had some writing on the
back of those cards?”

“It’s all washed out now.”

“Yes, I see it is. See here, he is in trouble
somewhere, and trying to send us word. Don’t
you think we had better get out and try and find
some balloon that has dropped on land, or chase
one and run it down?”

“Well, that might be a good way,” replied
Tom slowly, as though he was thinking deeply on
some matter. “But perhaps we can do it easier.”

“How?”

“By trying to decipher the writing on this
card.”

“But you can’t!” exclaimed Ben half impatiently,
as he held up the dripping pasteboard.
“You can’t read it. Try for yourself. Might
as well try to read in the dark.”

“I know you can’t read it now,” assented Tom,
“for the water has about soaked off the black
marks of the pencil. But there may be a way of
bringing back the writing.”

“How? Do you think Harry used some kind
of invisible ink? I’ve read of prisoners sending
secret messages to their friends written with some
chemical that would not show unless it was heated,
or something like that. Say!” he cried with sudden
interest, “do you mean that way, Tom?”

“Well, no, not exactly. Harry didn’t use ink.
He used a common lead pencil, from all appearances,
and the water has soaked the black marks
off. But you know when you use a pencil on paper,
it always makes little depressions in the surface,
corresponding to the shape of the letters. Did
you ever put a piece of paper on top of another
piece, and write on the top sheet?”

“Of course I have.”

“Then you’ve probably noticed that on the
second sheet there would be marks by which the
writing could be read, even though the black pencil
characters did not show.”

“Of course. I see what you mean.”

“I thought you would. I mean to dry out this
card, and then, in a good light, we ought to be able
to tell what the marks are. In that way we can
decipher what Harry wrote even though the black
marks are gone.”

“Good! Let’s do it. That’s easier than chasing
after a balloon. Here, I’ll dry the card.”

He reached for it, and approached the window
on the sill of which the sun just then shone
brightly.

“That’s it!” cried Tom. “Meanwhile I’ll get
out a magnifying glass to use on the card when it’s
dry. With that we ought to be able to read what
it says, even if the impressions are very faint.”

“Say, there’s class to us all right,” observed
Ben with a laugh. “Maybe we can get a job
somewhere, reading secret messages for the government.
That would be excitement, and——”

“Here’s some new excitement,” announced
Tom, with a glance from the window.

“Wonder what’s up now?” speculated Ben,
as he too took a look. “It’s Bill Barber come
back, and he’s making for here on the run.”

CHAPTER XIX—A STARTLING MESSAGE
===============================

“I’ve come back again,” announced the Barber
boy, bursting upon Tom and Ben breathlessly.

“I see you have,” said Tom pleasantly.

“Got something to show you. Maybe it’s not
important, but I thought it was, so I hurried
here.”

“You are doing me a lot of favors, Bill,” said
Tom.

“Glad to,” declared Bill. “Here it is,” and
he extended a wrinkled-up object as he spoke.

“Why,” cried Ben, peering curiously, “it’s
another of those toy balloons!”

“Yes,” assented Bill. “They’ve been flying
around half the morning. After I left here I ran
across a crowd of youngsters chasing two sailing
aloft. One of the boys had a bow and arrow, and
was trying to hit one and bring it down. I’m
some on shooting, and asked him for the bow.
Missed the first time. Next time, though, the
arrow went through the balloon, busted it, and
sailed to the ground with it.”

“And this is it?” questioned Tom.

“Yes. The little fellows ran after it and
fought over it. I happened to see the tag, and
was kind of curious about it. By the time I got
it, though, the mob had trampled it in the mud,
and their feet had torn away half of it. Here’s
what’s left of it. Your name is on it, Tom, and
that and the reward——”

“What reward?” inquired Ben quickly.

“It’s on the back of the card,” replied Bill.

“Ben,” said Tom inspecting it, “this is another
of my old cards.”

“What’s written on the back, Tom?” inquired
Ben eagerly.

Tom held the card so Ben could read it as well
as himself. A part of the card was gone, and
some of the pencilled words it had originally
contained were blurred and vague. What was
left of it read:

“Take this to Tom Barnes and get ten dollars
reward. Tom: I am a prisoner—two bad men—about
thirty miles—in the—at—in lion’s cage—*Harry
Ashley*.”

Tom scanned the card again and again. Ben
noted his serious studious manner. Finally Tom
turned to their visitor.

“Bill,” he said, “you get the reward. I
haven’t the money with me, but any time to-morrow
you call here and get it.”

“Oh, I don’t want any reward,” declared Bill.

“You get it just the same,” insisted Tom firmly.

“I’ll have to be getting along,” said Bill.
“I’m watching that launch for Aldrich to put
in an appearance. It’s eleven dollars and seventy-five
cents or a licking for him, I can tell you.”

“I think I know where those balloons came
from,” said Tom to Ben, when Bill had departed.

“Where, Tom?”

“A circus.”

“How so?”

“Those fragments of sentences on the card
lead me to believe that the message should read
about this way: ‘I am a prisoner in the hands of
two bad men about thirty miles from Rockley
Cove, in the circus at Wadhams, shut up in the
lion’s cage.’”

Ben was on his feet in a bound, his face flushed
with excitement.

“I’ll bet you’ve solved it, Tom. And there
is a circus at Wadhams just now. Why, it’s just
the place where these toy balloons would be likely
to be on sale. And the mention of a lion’s cage!
That fits to a circus, too! I don’t understand,
though, how Harry has managed to send the balloons
aloft, if he was shut up somewhere
prisoner.”

“We won’t try to guess that out now,” said
Tom. “Here is certainly a big clue. Harry
is an ingenious fellow, and somehow has managed
to float these messages. I want you to stay here
alone for a spell.”

“Where are you going?” inquired Ben.

“To report to my father instanter,” replied
Tom; and he was off speedily.

It was the middle of the afternoon before Tom
returned. Ben was anxiously awaiting him.

“What’s the program?” he asked eagerly.

“You are to go up to the house at once, Ben.
My father has the team hitched up and is waiting
for you. A hired man is going, too, and the constable.
Telephone your folks from the house
that you may be away till morning. When you do
come back, report here right away.”

“All right, Tom.”

“Storm signals are out, and one of us will
have to stay on duty to-night.”

The sky had been overcast all the morning.
Long before dusk the forewarnings of a heavy
storm were discoverable, and Tom realized an
impending occasion when he was expected to exercise
unusual vigilance.

At dark one of the field hands came to the
tower with a warm supper sent by Tom’s mother.
He chatted with Tom for half an hour and left
in a wild flurry of wind and rain.

By eight o’clock the full fury of the gale broke
on land, already dangerous at sea, as Tom had
noticed for some time previous. The wind arose
to a hurricane, the rain came in sheets, and at
times the thunder and lightning became terrific.

Tom was in constant readiness for service.
His ear was close to the receiver. He knew
from experience what these tempestuous nights
meant for those at sea.

Suddenly there was a sharp series of sputtering,
crackling sounds. Then the receiver gave:
“y-3——y-3——y-3.”

Tom thrilled. It was the first time in his experience
as a wireless operator that the signal
most dreaded had come into Station Z, for the
quickly repeated letter and its accompanying numeral
meant that some vessel at sea was in dire
distress.

Tom clapped the receiver to his ear, and, even
before it was in place he noted the clicking of the
diaphragm, which told that the electric current was
operating through the magnets. Then came a
snap, as when a central telephone operator accidently
“rings the bell” into one’s ear. It was
as though all the powerful current had concentrated
itself into the receiver.

“Great Scott!” cried Tom. “With this storm
I may get a shock if I’m not careful!”

He looked to his instruments, and glanced at
the connections. They seemed to be in perfect
order, and he was as well safeguarded as was
possible.

There was a silence, and then more of the
pounding in the receiver. The lad was forced to
move it away from his ear, for it nearly deafened
him.

“This is fierce!” he cried, as a terrific clap of
thunder, following a vivid lightning flash, seemed
fairly to shake the tower.

The instrument acted incoherently for the
minute succeeding, and Tom could not make out
the message that was coming. He sprang to the
ropes that connected a tackle with the aerials
aloft and ran the netting up into tune.

“She’s coming clear now,” said Tom.

“Y-3, off Garvey Rocks,” ran the message.
“Machinery broken and drifting. Send help.
Steamer *Olivia*.”

Tom recoiled with a shock. The *Olivia!*! That
was the steamer upon which Grace Morgan and
her aunt were passengers!

CHAPTER XX—THE LAUNCH
=====================

Tom held his nerves steady, although he was
somewhat shaken. His first business was to
send a response to the ship in distress. He did
not know what the facilities might be for receiving
on board the steamer, but he followed usage.
He had no means of knowing what other stations
had caught the flying cry for help. The lifesaving
station was twenty miles to the north.
Station Z was the nearest wireless to Garvey
Rocks by some thirty miles, and everything depended
on him in the present crisis.

Tom ran to the window and looked out at the
storm. It was truly a fearful night. The strong
blast was bending the trees almost to the ground
and sending the gravel scudding along the beach
like hailstones.

Aloft the heavens were one constant glow of
liquid fire, and the thunder crashes reverberated
as in a hollow vault. The sea was lashed into a
tremendous fury, the waves sweeping mountain
high and breaking with a detonating roar that
added to the babel of the night.

“I wish Ben was here,” murmured Tom in deep
concern. He could picture the disabled steamer
vividly in his mind’s eye, the more readily because
his fond girl friend was in peril.

“Y-3”—again the call came, less distinct this
time, but more frantic and urgent—”ship aleak
and sinking.”

“Will get help to you somehow,” flashed back
Tom.

He was in a tremor. Amid the strain of undue
excitement Tom’s thoughts ran rapidly. Only
for a moment, however, did he remain inert and
undecided.

“Something must be done!” he cried, in an
excess of frantic anxiety and apparent helplessness.
“But what? There is not a boat on the
beach that could live in those waters—except the
*Beulah*!”

The addendum was a shout. Tom sprang to
his feet, electrically infused with a sudden suggestion.

*Beulah* was the name of the big pretentious
gasoline launch in which Bert Aldrich had arrived
in state at Rockley Cove. He had bragged mightily
concerning its possibilities. Tom had seen
him do things with it, too. The *Beulah* was a
wonder as to speed and staunchness. A thrilling
resolution fixed our hero’s mind. He would
arouse the people, reach Aldrich and influence
him to loan the boat for an attempted rescue at
sea.

Tom was down the trap ladder in one reckless
slide. He ran down the shore buffeted, yet
helped along by the powerful hurricane blast. Bert
Aldrich was a guest at the home of Mart Walters
and that was the prospective destination of the
resolute young wireless operator.

Tom came in sight of the pier where the *Beulah*
was moored. He could make out her outlines dimly.
She was hugging the pier fitfully, tossing to
and fro.

“Why,” exclaimed Tom with a gasp of glad
discovery, “some one is on board!”

Only for a moment to his vision, apparently inside
the cabin of the restless tugging craft, a flicker
of radiance showed. It suggested the lighting
of a match and then its extinguishment. The
indication of occupancy of the launch was enough
for Tom. He diverged from the road, lined the
beach, ran down the pier, and jumped aboard the
*Beulah*.

Rounding the cabin Tom recoiled with a shock.
Some one had leaped from the covert of a deep
shadow and pinned his arms behind him.

“Got you at last, have I?” shouted a determined
voice in his ears.

“Hold on,” demurred Tom struggling violently.

“No, you don’t! I’ve got you, Bert Aldrich,
and we’re going to have a settlement of that eleven
dollars and seventy-five cents right here and now.”

“I’m not Bert Aldrich! Don’t you know me,
Bill?”

“Tom Barnes!”

“Yes.”

The Barber boy let Tom go as if he were a hot
coal.

“Say, excuse me, will you?” he stammered.

“That’s all right, Bill. What are you doing
here in this storm?”

“Waiting. Can’t you guess—waiting to nail
Bert Aldrich.”

“It isn’t likely he will show up such a night as
this.”

“He’s a coward, but he’d risk a good deal to
get away without meeting me. And what are
you doing here, Tom Barnes?”

Instantly Tom was recalled to the urgency of
the moment. The discovery of Bill Barber aboard
the launch suggested a change in his plans.

“Bill,” he asked quickly, “do you understand
running this craft?”

“Do I understand?” stormed Bill; “say, if anybody
but you asked me that I’d knock him down.”

“Something of an expert, are you?”

“Do you want to try me?”

“Just that, Bill,” rejoined Tom seriously.
“Listen.”

Briefly but graphically Tom recited the cause of
his visit to the launch. He had Bill literally on
fire with excitement and energy by the time he had
concluded.

“See here, Tom Barnes,” cried Bill, “there’s
no time to lose!”

“That is certain, Bill.”

“The steamer is in danger.”

“Just as I told you.”

“Off Garvey Rocks?”

“Yes.”

“When we get afloat we can probably make
out her lights?”

“Probably.”

“You want me to help you get to the *Olivia*?”

“We’ve got to.”

“I’m your man.”

“I suppose Aldrich will resent our appropriation
of his launch.”

“Let him,” said Bill with a laugh. “I’ll take
out that eleven dollars and seventy-five cents in
the use of the *Beulah*. See? All aboard! Follow
me!”

The Barber boy made a dash for the engine
room of the launch followed by the young wireless
operator.

CHAPTER XXI—BRAVING THE STORM
=============================

A violent gust of wind drove Tom up against
Bill as the latter led the way through the cabin
doorway. It was with difficulty that the door was
forced shut after them.

“Stand still—hold on to something to steady
yourself,” ordered Bill. “I’ll have things fixed
up in a minute or two.”

Tom heard his companion grope about the
room. Almost instantly a match was flared and
a lamp with a broad reflector illumined the place
brilliantly.

“Now then!” added Bill, all vim and activity.

He threw open a locker, and from its depths
he fished out two rubber coats and caps.

The two boys resembled old tars in their tarpaulin
trim. The excitement of the moment was
intense, but every move they made was progress,
and their nerves and courage were as steady as
steel.

“Can you manage the steering gear?” inquired
Bill.

“I’ve tried it on some smaller boats than this,”
replied Tom.

“Well, I can do the rest—provided the storm
let’s us. Br—r!”

Even at anchorage the launch was swinging like
an eggshell in a tempest. Bill set the lights.
Then he pointed to the seat at the side of the
craft next to the engine.

“She sparks automatically,” he explained,
touching a button, and there was a whistling whir.
“You control with the lever—understand?”

“Perfectly,” answered Tom.

“I can pilot anywhere inside of fifty miles,”
boasted Bill. “Garvey Rocks, you said?”

“Yes.”

Bill took his place at the wheel. Tom released
the shore tackle. Then he was down in his seat
firmly planted. The *Beulah* made a leap like
some marine leviathan bounding out of captivity.

Tom had never had much experience with a
launch, but it was sufficient, with Bill’s constantly
shouted directions, to enable him to run the engine.
The thought crossed his mind that he
would have the indignant ire of Bert Aldrich to
face on his return. It flitted quickly as the peril
of the *Olivia* and his loyal girl friend aboard of
the steamer recurred to him with intensified urgency.

One plunge, obliterating all shore outlines,
seemed to whirl them into a vortex of battling,
unrestrained elements. The first splash of spray,
dense and blinding, covered Bill like a veil. A
great wave sent the craft hurtling along like an
arrow. Tom realized that they were bent on a
desperately dangerous venture.

“We can’t line the shore; we must get out further
from land,” Bill shouted back.

Bill, once past danger of sandbars and breakers,
had turned the course due southeast. On
every calculation of knowledge of locality and distances,
this it seemed would be sure to bring them
in direct range of Garvey Rocks. For half an
hour they drove ahead, neither speaking a word.
Then Tom fixed his eye on some moving lights
shorewards. They inspired a sudden thought,
and setting the lever at steady speed he crept forward
on hands and knees along the slippery deck.

“Bill!” he shouted hoarsely.

“Hello—what’s the row?” challenged Bill,
amazed that Tom had deserted his post of duty.

“Made out any lights ahead?”

“Not yet.”

“Neither have I. There’s some ashore,
though.”

“What of it?” questioned Bill.

“They are of the coaling station at Brookville.
I am sure some craft is there.”

“Suppose so.”

“We had better advise them of our errand. It
may be a big steam tug. Two are better than one,
and the *Olivia* may be in a desperate fix.”

“If she’s really on the rocks she’s stove bad
long before this,” was the discouraging rejoinder
of Bill, sending a chill through Tom’s frame.

“We could never pull the steamer off the rocks,
but a larger craft might,” suggested Tom.

“What are you getting at?” asked Bill.

“I think we had better make Brookville and
get the boat there, whatever it is, in service.”

“You’re the boss, Tom,” said Bill simply.

Tom made his way back to his seat. Soon the
launch described a circle, which, masterly as was
the manœuvre, sent the craft careening at a perilous
angle. Then they headed straight for shore.

They came alongside a steam tug just through
coaling at the dock at Brookville. The boat did
not have steam up, and was moored safely for the
night. Men were moving about the deck with
lanterns, making things trim and safe. Tom had
caught a grapnel on the rail of the tug and secured
it. Then he swung aboard the tug.

He ran up to a man arrayed like himself in
foul weather costume, who stood steadying himself
at a hawser post, and who was giving orders
to the others. The man stared strangely at Tom’s
sudden appearance.

“Captain,” shot out Tom tersely.

“That’s me. Where did you come from? Oh,
I see,” and he caught sight of the outlines of the
launch. “What’s the trouble?”

Tom briefly, rapidly explained the situation. In
an instant he realized that he was fortunate in
finding just the kind of a man he needed. The
tug captain listened to him in breathless interest.
When Tom had concluded he rested his hand on
his shoulder in a friendly way.

“You’re a good one, lad, whoever you are,”
he said. “Sorry we’re shut down, but we’ll set
about steaming up in a jiffy. Garvey Rocks, you,
said?”

“Yes, sir—know them?”

“Like a book. We’ll be on your trail inside
of half an hour.”

“It’s all right!” shouted Tom, as he regained
the launch. “Make straight for the steamer,
now, Bill.”

“No time to lose either,” was the snappy response.

The fresh start gave Bill his bearings more
clearly than ever.

“I can’t miss it,” he declared. “Speed her
up, Tom.”

The young wireless operator gazed anxiously
and eagerly ahead as they dashed forward. No
lights yet showed, but he knew that the shore line
described a circular sweep just beyond Brookville.
They might not be far enough out at sea
yet to give them a clear view of the waters. His
anxiety, however, grew to dismal forebodings as
ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed by, and the
same blank unbroken blackness loomed ahead.

Suddenly Tom, who had been watching the
motor, called out to his companion:

“Say, Bill, you’d better come back here a
minute.”

“What for? I can’t leave the wheel, unless
it’s something important.”

“Well, it’s important all right. I don’t like the
way this machinery is acting. It doesn’t seem to
be sparking right, if I’m any judge.”

“Great Scott! I hope nothing goes wrong in
this blow. Wait a second. I’ll be with you. I’ll
lash the wheel. I guess it will be safe for a little
while to keep on a straight course.”

Tom heard Bill tossing ropes about as he
picked up some to lash the wheel. Then he staggered
into the motor room, being tossed from side
to side by the pitching of the launch.

Hardly had he reached the side of the young
wireless operator, than, with a sigh and a moan—a
sort of apologetic cough—the motor ceased
working.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Bill. “There she goes!
I should say something *was* the matter.”

“What is it?” asked Tom.

“Don’t know yet. I’ll have to take a look. It
may be the ignition, or the carburetor, or any of
half a hundred things that can happen to a gasoline
motor. I’ll have to take a look.”

“Should I have called you sooner?” asked
Tom. “It was acting queer for several minutes.
First it would go fast and then slow.”

“Well, I guess coming in any sooner wouldn’t
have done much good. I’ll take a look now.
You’d better help me. Get the lantern and bring
it closer. We won’t need any one at the wheel
when we aren’t moving.”

The launch was now drifting about at the
mercy of the wind and waves. She fairly wallowed
in the water, and it was no easy task to
keep one’s footing, to say nothing of trying to
get a balky motor back into commission. But
the two set about their task bravely, while the
storm raged about them.

First Bill tested the ignition system. Something
was evidently wrong with that, for there
came no responsive buzz in the coil when he
threw the fly wheel over to make the connections.

“Maybe it’s the make-and-break,” he suggested.
“I’ll tinker with that.” Which he did,
tightening and loosening the spring, separating
and bringing nearer the contact points. But it
was useless. There was no buzz.

“Are the batteries all right?” asked Tom.

“I’ll test ’em,” was the laconic answer, and
in a few minutes the announcement came:
“They’re good and strong. If I can get her to
start on the batteries I can swing her over onto
the magneto, and we’ll be all right. But I can’t
get a spark.”

“How about the plugs?” asked Tom.

“I’ll try them next. Oh, there are plenty of
things to try.”

“And not much time to do ’em in,” added
Tom grimly, as he held the lantern where the
gleam would fall best for his companion. “This
is fierce, to be delayed this way when there are
men and women—yes, maybe children, too—who
need saving!”

“Can’t help it!” cried Bill. “We’re doing the
best we can.”

With a quick motion he unscrewed the spark
plugs from the cylinder heads.

“Here’s trouble already, Tom,” he cried.
“They’re all sooted up. Now I’ve got to soak
’em in gasoline and——”

“Maybe there are some spare ones aboard!”
suggested the young wireless operator. “Let’s
take a look. It’s going to be hard work to clean
these old ones in this blow. Besides, I don’t like
the idea of fooling with gasoline in an open can,
and with a lantern so close.”

“Neither do I. We’ll see if we can’t find
some extra plugs.”

Together they began to rummage through the
lockers of the boat. Tossed about as they were,
slammed from side to side as the waves pitched
the launch, they spent a hard fifteen minutes in
the hunt.

“I don’t believe there are any,” said Bill
despondently.

“Here’s a box we didn’t open!” cried Tom,
as he saw a small one down in the bottom of a
port locker. “Let’s try that!”

In another instant he had the cover off. There,
in the beams of the lantern, he saw the gleam of
white porcelain.

“Spark plugs!” cried Tom.

“New ones!” added Bill. “This is great.
Now we’ll move!”

Quickly he adjusted the wires, but, before
screwing the plugs in the top of the cylinders he
tested them to see if there was no other break in
the ignition system.

As the wheel was swung over there came a
welcome buzz from the coil, and a tiny blue flame
leaped from point to point of the spark plug, as it
lay on top of the cylinder head.

“Hurray!” yelled Tom, above the roar of the
wind.

“That’s it!” shouted Bill. “Now to see what
happens!”

The plugs were inserted, screwed tight, and
then came the test. Steadying themselves as best
they could in the rocking boat they turned the flywheel
over, Tom having thrown in the battery switch.

There was the tell-tale buzz, which told of the
working of the spark plug—a buzz and a hum,
but there was no welcoming explosion. No hearty
puff from the cylinders that indicated the gasoline
mixture being set off by the spark.

“Hum!” mused Bill, as he paused to contemplate
the silent motor.

“Something wrong, still?” asked Tom anxiously,
gazing off across the dark expanse of water for
a possible sight of a flickering light that would
tell of the ill-fated *Olivia*. But he saw nothing.

“Well, we’ll try once more,” exclaimed Bill.
“Hold the lantern closer, Tom, so I can see how
the timer works.”

The young wireless operator obeyed. Once
more the buzz and hum told of the perfect working
of the ignition system—and yet not perfect
either, for the motor was still silent, and the
launch was drifting about more helpless than
ever.

“Suppose you try, Tom,” suggested Bill.
“Maybe you’ll have better luck than I had.”

Tom handed his companion the lantern, and
grasped the wheel, for there was little use in trying
the automatic starter in such a condition as
was the machinery now.

But Tom had no better success, though he
strained and tugged, giving the wheel many
revolutions.

“Say!” suddenly exclaimed Bill. “The gasoline!
Didn’t we shut it off when we started to
see what the trouble was?”

“We sure did,” agreed Tom.

“And we didn’t turn it on again, I’ll wager.
Look at the tank valve.”

“That’s right!” cried Tom. “Here she
comes now.”

Waiting a moment for the carburetor to fill,
Bill once more swung the wheel over. They
waited anxiously to see if it would continue, but
with a wheeze it gave up as soon as the muscular
impetus stopped.

“Carburetor troubles!” muttered Bill. “And
that’s the worst kind to have in a storm. Well,
there’s no help for it. Here goes to adjust it.”

As is well known, many carburetors require
a different adjustment in rainy weather than in
dry. It was so in this case. Bill screwed and unscrewed
the air valve and readjusted the butterfly
automatic. He admitted more gasoline, then
less, giving a richer and then a thinner mixture.
After each adjustment he tried the motor, but
it was not until after about ten trials that, when
both were on the point of giving up, suddenly the
motor started.

“Hurray!” cried Tom.

“It’s about time,” murmured Bill. “She’s
working better than ever now, though,” he said,
as he listened to the machinery. “I’ll go take
the wheel now. Watch her carefully, Tom,” and
he went to the helm again. Once more they were
under way, and their anxious eyes peered through
the blackness.

The storm had been bad, but now it was worse.
The swift dash of the rain formed a kind of mist.
Tom’s heart sank as he heard Bill at the wheel
utter a kind of impatient groan.

“What’s amiss?” he shouted to the pilot.

“Something’s wrong—no lights, and I may
have missed my course. We’ll have to strike
shore again, Tom,” said Bill.

“Can’t we avoid wasting the time?” inquired Tom.

“There may be no chance for the ship to show
lights,” suggested Bill, in his broad blunt way.
“Maybe the *Olivia* has gone down.”

“Oh, surely not that!” cried Tom. “There—there!”

“Good!” chorused Bill, in a gladsome shout;
“it must be the *Olivia*!”

Directly ahead, but high up in the air, a brilliant
rocket had pierced the gloom of the tempestuous
night.

CHAPTER XXII—THE RESCUE
=======================

Tom hailed the unmistakable signal of distress
from the steamer *Olivia* with energy and hope.

“I think I understand why we saw no lights,”
he remarked. “The steamer must have driven
into the breakers beyond what they call the North
Sentinel.”

“That must be it,” assented Bill. “Now Tom,
get to your lever.”

Bill tackled the wheel with renewed vigor and
Tom braced up magically. At all events, he reflected,
the *Olivia* had not yet gone down. They
would be in time for a rescue. The heavy wind,
the pelting rain, the erratic gyrations of the
launch, were as nothing to him now. The thought
that he might be able to save precious human lives
inspired him with courage.

A second rocket sailed through the mist-laden
air a few minutes later. Bill, in high animal spirits,
amid his excitement kept shouting out like a
schoolboy driving a bicycle.

“Go it! Whoop-la! There’s a dive for you!
Beats automobiling!”

“Hurrah!” broke in Tom.

“She’s there,” echoed Bill.

“Yes, the *Olivia* at last,” cried Tom.

Veering slightly to southeast, the launch came
in sight of the bobbing ship’s lights. One, a bulkhead
reflector, was quite clear and guiding.

“Go cautiously now, Bill,” warned our hero.

“I’ll give you speed signals,” responded Bill.
“One—two, slow up.”

“All right.”

Tom knew from having visited the Garvey
Rocks more than once in the past that they were
nearing dangerous waters. Somehow, however,
he had confidence in his pilot. Bill was daring,
and more than once the keel of the *Beulah* grazed
some obstruction. But Bill shouted back to Tom
each time that he knew his route, and would bring
about no disaster through recklessness.

They were now so near to the steamer that they
could make out her situation quite clearly.

“She’s stove in!” declared Bill. “Her fires are
out, and there must be a leak. Look at her now,
Tom—she’s rolling.”

The condition of the *Olivia* was a precarious
one—Tom discerned this at a glance. She had
fallen over slightly on one side. The lights on
deck showed a number of passengers huddled at
a slanting bow, clinging to a cable which had been
strung from rail to rail, to prevent them from
falling or rolling when a particularly heavy billow
would cause the once staunch ship to quiver and
topple.

Another rocket went up. It was followed by a
ringing cheer. The launch, slowing down, came
directly into the strong central focus of the bulkhead
reflector. Those working about the ship,
clinging to this and that as they moved about,
paused to stare at the staunch little craft of rescue.
The passengers huddled together lost their
terror and a babel of excited, hopeful, joyous
voices sounded out.

“Oh Tom!—Tom!”

The young wireless operator thrilled with an
emotion he could not analyze. In an instant he
recognized the voice of Grace Morgan. Could
she have been thinking of him, that the recognition
was so prompt; or, despite his unusual garb
and the clumsy oilcloth cap, did the powerful reflector
glow bring out his features in strong relief?

“Ease her!” shouted Bill, and his very soul
seemed centered in working the wheel to prevent
both collision and retreat.

“Throw them a cable!” roared the trumpet
tones of the captain of the steamer.

Tom caught the coiling end of the rope and secured
it, allowing a play of a few feet between the
two craft.

“Drop the ladder!” came the next order.

“The women first!” shouted one of the
steamer officers. “Get back, there!”

There was light enough for Tom to see a portly,
fussy old man press close to the rail, vehemently
shouting out that he would sue the steamship
company if they did not instantly get him to
dry land. He uttered a howl of despair as he was
ignominiously bundled out of the way.

“I can’t—I won’t, I shall faint!” shrieked a
rasping feminine voice, as a staunch sailor was
compelled to carry her down the swaying ladder.

She wriggled like an eel as Tom grabbed her
and forced her into the cabin of the launch, going
instantly into hysterics as she landed on a cushioned
seat.

“There are only eight of the ladies,” called
down the captain.

“Hold tight, Aunt Bertha,” Tom heard a familiar
voice speak steadily.

“Oh, dear, I know I shall fall and be
drowned!” wailed the second of the rescued passengers,
whom Tom was sure must be the aunt in
whose charge Grace had started on the present
unlucky voyage.

.. figure:: images/illus-165.jpg
   :align: center

   “YOU BRAVE GIRL!” CRIED TOM IRRESISTIBLY.

“We won’t let you, ma’am,” assured the sailor
at the rail. “Be speedy now. There’s more to
follow.”

The descent of seven of the ladies was accomplished.
Tom had not caught a murmur of protest
or fear from the plucky little maiden who
had waited her turn till the last.

A shriek loud and ringing went up from the
seventh lady, for just as Tom seized her both of
them were nearly hurled into the water. A fearful
gust of wind had driven the launch with a
crash against the hull of the steamer. The same
terrific force gave the steamer a lurch, and she
threatened to turn turtle. As she righted, although
the ladder was flopping about like a whiplash,
Grace sprang past the sailor at the rail, slid
one-half the length of the ladder, was swung out,
and just caught in Tom’s arms as the captain of
the steamer roared out in thunder tones:

“Slip the cable, you lubber, or the launch will
be crushed!”

“You brave girl!” cried Tom irresistibly.

“Oh, Tom, can I help?” inquired Grace.

“Yes, quiet those in the cabin.”

Bill sounded the bell at the wheel and Tom with
lightning speed made a dash for the lever. He
reversed just as the giant hull of the steamer flung
down with crushing force.

“Fire! murder! help! police!” yelled the frantic fat
old man on deck, as his fond hopes vanished
with the receding launch.

“Stand by!” shouted the captain of the
steamer to Tom. “There’s a dozen passengers
left yet.”

“There’s room with crowding, if you can get
them aboard,” reported Tom.

“Life preservers, all!” roared the captain.
“One more lurch like that, and she’ll split in two!
Lower the men passengers.”

“No need,” shouted back Tom just then, as a
dazzling light rounded the North Sentinel.

“The steam tug!” cried Bill.

“That will serve us. We’re all right now,”
declared the captain. “Get the women passengers
ashore.”

With a yell just then a great bulky form came
shooting over the side of the steamer. It was the
fussy old man. Tom barely managed to grasp
something floating behind him, or the suction of
the passing tug would have drawn him under the
swiftly revolving steam screw.

“I’m drowned! I’m dead!” bawled the man,
half choked with salt water, as Tom pulled him to
the deck of the launch, to find that as many as
six life preservers encumbered his bulky form.

The steam tug had approached the *Olivia*, running
her length as if to discover the real merits
of her situation. Preparing to start the launch
into the open sea away from the rocks and then
to run direct for Brookville, Tom and Bill for
a moment were awed into inactivity as a great
shout went up.

The steamer again lurched to one side. A
loud crash sounded above the howling gale, and
the *Olivia* lay a shattered wreck on the rocks.

CHAPTER XXIII—“EVERY INCH A MAN”
================================

“She’s a-goner!” shouted Bill, at the wheel.

“Steady!” cried Tom, at the lever.

The sounds of excitement and alarm among the
passengers still aboard the *Olivia* and her crew
told of a state of new distress and terror. The
launch, now at a safe distance from either tug or
steamer, was instantly put about.

“She can’t hold many more,” declared Bill.

“We can’t see those people drown,” responded
Tom, and shut off the power, while Bill tried to
hold the launch steady.

Tom got a boathook and stood braced against
the cabin, ready to give assistance to any of three
or four men he had seen leap overboard immediately
after the *Olivia* had scuttled. His services were
required, however, only in the case of one
who was driven by a wave directly up to the
launch. The others managed to swim to the
steam tug, and were lifted aboard readily by the
crew over its low sides.

The captain of the *Olivia* shouted out some
quick orders. A cable came whirling across the
deck of the tug. It was caught fast at both ends,
a pulleyed davit was rigged, and the remaining
passengers of the steamer slid along this. When
the captain came last, Tom knew that the steamer
had been abandoned to her fate.

“It’s all right,” he called to Bill.

“Nobody lost?”

“I think not.”

“Then it’s Brookville for us.”

“Yes, quick as you can make it, Bill.”

The storm had somewhat subsided. The *Beulah*
struck a straight course shorewards. Tom,
glancing through the cabin window, observed that
the lady passengers grouped there seemed quieted
down and coherent.

The bulky man passenger with the life preservers
had crawled to the shelter of the stern
platform, and, wedging himself in between two
rods, only occasionally shouted out some mad
threat of a suit against the steamship company.

The dock at Brookville was crowded by residents
of the little town as the *Beulah* drove into
comparatively smooth water in the coaling slip.
Men with lanterns, and some women too, had
braved the rain and wind, alarmed, and anxious
to be helpful when the rumor had spread that a
steamer was aground on Garvey Rocks.

Tom expressed a great sigh of relief as willing
hands caught the cable he threw to the dock. He
shut off the power, and as he passed Bill, grim
and business-like at his post of duty, he bestowed
a hearty smack between the shoulders.

“Good boy!” he cried exuberantly.

Bill chuckled.

“Mean that?” he propounded.

“I certainly do.”

“Some good, then, ain’t I?”

“Bill Barber,” cried Tom with genuine feeling,
“you’re pure gold all through, and every inch a
man!”

The Barber boy thrust out his rough paw of a
hand to grasp that of his comrade in a hearty
grip.

“Tom Barnes,” he said, choking up, and yet
with the echo of a glad cheer in his tones, “I’d
rather hear you say that than—than—yes, than
even get that eleven dollars and seventy-five cents
Bert Aldrich owes me.”

The door of the cabin opened, and Grace
Morgan stood on its threshold.

“Have we landed, Tom?” she asked.

“Yes, Grace, safe and sound.”

“Oh, how glad Aunt Bertha will be! What
are we to do now, Tom?”

“You are to be taken in charge by a lot of
kind people, it looks to me,” responded Tom.

“I will find out their plans, and let you know at
once. Tell the ladies there is no need of their
coming out in the rain until arrangements are
made for their comfort.”

Tom clambered up to the dock. He had to
answer a dozen questions in one breath for as
many excited persons eager for news.

Tom allayed the general suspense by expressing
the conviction that all hands had been saved from
the wreck. Then he gave full attention to a big
man in a raincoat who seemed to be the spokesman
of the community.

“Get the ladies to shelter,” this individual
ordered those at his side. “We can find room
for a couple of them up at our house.”

“I’ll go and get the covered ’bus,” suggested
one of his assistants.

“A good idea.”

In two minutes’ time the proffers of shelter
exceeded the demand of the occasion.

A fog whistle in the distance out at sea came
floating in on the strong breeze.

“That is the steam tug with the other passengers
aboard,” said the big man.

“Yes, sir,” responded Tom.

“How many, do you think?”

“Perhaps fifteen or twenty.”

“They must be provided for,” said the man.
“There’s the hotel. It’s old and rickety and
don’t accommodate half a dozen comfortably;
but it’ll give them a roof, some kind of a shakedown,
and a warm meal to brace them up.”

“How much the cost?” broke in a sudden
voice, and the fat man with the life preservers
trundled into view.

“How much for what?” demanded the other,
staring in astonishment at the odd figure the stout
passenger made with his armor of cork life preservers.

“For lodging and meals. I won’t pay much.
Look at my clothes! All soaked,—and what of
my baggage back on that pesky steamer? I
won’t be robbed! I’ll sue everybody! I shan’t
pay a cent!”

“You won’t have to,” assured the man. “The
hospitality of this town comes free, gratis, for
nothing, on such an occasion as this.”

Tom told Bill of the arrangements in order,
and then reported to Grace. He had never admired
the little lady as much as now, as he noted
her kindly soothing treatment of her nervously-unstrung
aunt, her pretty obliging ways in seeing
to the care of an old lady with a crutch and a
young woman with a frightened child in her arms,
as the ’bus drove up.

“Aunt Bertha is dreadfully nervous,” she said
to Tom. “She says she will abandon the trip
entirely now, will never venture on the water
again, and wants to get to Fernwood right away,
for she knows she is going to be ill.”

“It is quite a trip to your home from here,
Grace,” explained Tom. “I might get a vehicle
somewhere, but the roads must be almost impassable
in places, and the storm isn’t over yet.
If I were you, I would try and induce your aunt
to remain at Brookville till morning. I know
you will both be taken care of by these good
people.”

“I will try and console her to your opinion,”
responded Grace. She gave him a bright look.
“Oh, Tom,” she cried, bursting girl-like into
tears of mingled pride and joy, “you have acted
just—splendid!”

She seized both his hands in her own and smiled
in grateful friendship at him, as he helped her into
the ’bus. Just then those on the dock broke out
into ringing cheers.

“The steam tug!” said Tom, noticing the
craft approach.

There was the excitement of a new landing,
eager questioning, rapid explanations; and Bill,
who had left the launch and mingled with the
crowd, approached Tom, smiling with good nature,
his hands in his pockets, a certain element
of pride and exaltation in his stride.

“Not a person lost,” he reported in glad tones.

“The captain of the *Olivia* is looking for you,
and——”

“That’s the lad,” sounded the voice of the
tug captain, and the man with him who wore a
cap with an official band of gold braid around it,
seized Tom as if he feared he might run away
from him.

“I want you,” he said, his hearty grip catching
Tom’s arm. “Hey, where’s that hotel you’re
going to stow us in?” he hailed to a villager.

“I’ll pilot you there,” was the prompt reply,
and passengers and crew of the *Olivia* followed
the speaker from the dock over to an old dilapidated
building that had been in its palmy days
the hotel of the place.

It was well lighted up, and warmed by two red
hot iron stoves. It had an immense dining room,
and into this the crowd was ushered, and gathered
shiveringly about the great heater in the center
of the room. Adjoining it was a small apartment
which at one time had been an office. It had a
light on a table and some chairs.

“Sit down,” said the steamer captain. “My
friend,” he added, taking out a memorandum
book and a pencil, “do you realize what you have
done for my passengers and crew to-night?”

“How about my comrade, plucky Bill Barber?”
inquired Tom, trying to evade the direct
compliment.

“We’ll come to him in the final settlement,
don’t fret about that,” observed the captain definitely.
“You got the message, you started the
grand old ball rolling that saved twenty lives!”
exclaimed the excited captain. “So the tug
officer tells me. Now, then, a few questions.
Name?”

Tom gave it, and replied in detail to other
inquiries of his companion. In fact, before the
captain had concluded the inquisition he had gathered
from Tom and jotted down the main facts of
a pretty circumstantial account of the start and
finish of the rescue.

“I shall telegraph the outlines of the case at
once to headquarters,” said the steamer captain.
“I shall follow it up with the written report of
your share in the affair. You will hear from the
company in a very substantial way, count on that,
young man. Wait here a few minutes.”

The speaker left Tom and went into the big
room beyond where the rescued male passengers
and crew of the *Olivia* were gathered. He closed
the door after him, but Tom caught the echo of
many voices in animated discussion. He even
made out the cackling, complaining tones of the
man with the life preservers.

When the captain came out he placed in Tom’s
hands a roll of banknotes.

“Hold on——” began Tom.

“No, you do the holding on, young man,” interrupted
the captain cheerfully. “That’s a little
heart-to-heart acknowledgment from the crowd in
there, who wanted to cheer you, but they might
scare the natives. Oh, by the way—I came near
cheating you. Here’s a part of the contribution.”

The speaker burst into a rollicking roar of
laughter as he placed in Tom’s hand a nickel.
Tom smiled inquiringly.

“From the old fat fellow with the life preservers,”
explained the captain.

“Oh,” said Tom, amused, “I understand.”

“Good-by, Barnes,” said the captain, grasping
Tom’s hand till he winced. “I wish I had a boy
like you.”

“You will thank those gentlemen for their
kindness?” asked Tom.

“Oh, they’re the grateful ones,” declared the
captain of the *Olivia*. “I say, Barnes,” he shouted,
after waving adieu to Tom from the door of
the hotel, “look out for that nickel. It may be
real.”

Tom hurried to the dock. He found Bill getting
the launch ready for the return trip. The
storm had almost passed over by this time.

“Is it home, Tom?” inquired Bill.

“Right away,” assented the young wireless
operator, “and the sooner the better. I have
some work at the tower before me.”

“They are going to start back with the tug for
Garvey rocks, I heard them say,” remarked Bill,
as the *Beulah* got under way. “They may be
able to do something with her, at least save something.”

Tom did not talk much on the journey back
to the pier. His mind and his heart were both
full. He had so much to commend his loyal
comrade for, that he did not wish to spoil it by
not choosing just the right time, and saying just
the right words to impress Bill with a sense of
his unaffected worthiness.

Bill insisted on taking him clear down to Sandy
Point. When Tom landed, he remarked:

“If you’re not going home, Bill, I’d like to
see you at the station for a little while.”

“Oh, I’m not going home,” responded the Barber
boy. “There’s that eleven dollars and
seventy-five cents to get from that measly cad,
Bert Aldrich, you know; and I’m going to stick
till I catch him.”

“Forget that, Bill,” advised Tom. “We have
about taken out that eleven dollars and seventy-five
cents in use of the *Beulah*. You come down
to the tower, as I say. I’ve got something better
than eleven dollars and seventy-five cents to interest
you in.”

“Have?” propounded Bill, in his rough blunt
way. “What is it, now?”

“You come and see.”

“All right.”

“That fellow has a grand streak in him,”
ruminated Tom, as the *Beulah* sped on its course
and he made for the station. “He doesn’t seem
to have the least conception of his heroic bravery,
and never thinks of reward. I’ll give him a surprise.”

Tom set at work the minute he reached the
tower. He sent messages to the life-saving station,
briefly detailing the event of the night, and
a routine report to headquarters. Then he took
out the roll of bills the captain of the *Olivia* had
given him.

“One hundred and ninety dollars,” counted
Tom,—“and five cents. There, that’s Bill’s
share,” and he set aside one hundred dollars.
“The nickel we’ll nail up on the wall.”

“Why, what’s all that money?” inquired the
Barber boy, when he came into the tower an hour
later.

“This little heap,” replied Tom, placing in
Bill’s lap a pile of banknotes, “is yours.”

“Mine?” exclaimed Bill in a gasp, staring at
the money in wonder.

“Yours—one hundred dollars! It is your
share of a testimonial given us by the passengers
and crew of the *Olivia*,” and Tom explained the
incident of his interview with the steamer captain
at the Brookville hotel.

A pathetic look came into Bill Barber’s eyes.
He looked at the money and gasped. He glanced
up at Tom and his lips twitched.

“One hundred dollars!” he said slowly, impressively;
“a whole one hundred dollars, and
mine! I can get a new suit—why, Tom, I can
buy a bulldog now, a real bulldog. Oh, crackey!”

Bill looked again at Tom. His tone changed,
a queer longing expression came into his face.
His voice broke.

“Tom Barnes,” he said huskily, “it’s a heap
of a fortune to me, but, more than the money is
what you said to-night—that I was pure gold,
that I was—was every inch a man! Tom, it’s
too much—oh, it, it’s all come on me like a burst
of glory!”

And Bill Barber broke down utterly, and
bawled like a baby.

CHAPTER XXIV—THE KIDNAPPED BOY
==============================

“Well, I see you have made it, Tom?”

“Made what, Dr. Burr?”

“A brave record. I compliment you on it,
my boy. You deserve all they say about you.”

“I don’t understand what you are talking
about, doctor.”

“That will tell you, then,” and with a friendly
smile the Rockley Cove physician pressed upon
Tom a newspaper he had been carrying when he
met his young friend.

Tom was in a great hurry. He told the doctor
so and hastened homewards. It was the morning
after the rescue of those aboard the *Olivia*. Tom
had remained on duty at Station Z all night, and
Bill Barber had insisted on keeping him company.

There had been little of real business to attend
to, but Tom had concluded it was the right time
to look out for disasters, as witness the lucky
reception of the wireless from the ill-fated *Olivia*.

Bill had relieved Tom in watching and sleeping,
and Tom had dozed enough to keep him from
feeling done out, despite the rigorous experience
of the early evening hours.

Just an hour previous Ben Dixon had put in
a dejected and disconsolate appearance at the
tower. The minute Tom caught sight of his face
he knew that his chum had failed in his search
for the missing Harry Ashley.

“No use, Tom,” was Ben’s blunt report.
“Your father and I reached Wadhams and visited
the circus, but we were too late.”

“How too late, Ben?” inquired Tom.

“Harry was gone.”

“Then he had been there?”

“We found that out all right. Twelve hours
earlier, and we would have reached him. There
were two kidnappers, all right, and one of them
answered the description of the fellow you noticed
spying on Harry the day he was in swimming
with the boys.”

“Were they holding Harry a prisoner?”

“A safe and sound one. The men had been
circus peddlers once. They took Harry to an
open, roofless canvas where a lot of truck was
stored. It seems that an old friend of theirs
had charge of it. From all your father could get
this man to say, Brady and Casey—those are the
names of Tom’s kidnappers—made him believe
he was a bad runaway boy they were authorized
and paid for to return to his friends. I don’t
believe that myself. I think the three men were
in cahoots, and that the circus tender was in on
the scheme, whatever it is. Anyhow, in the roofless
tent was a lion’s cage. Its occupant had died
a few days before Harry’s arrival. It was a
safe place to shut the lad in, and they did it.
They sort of partitioned the cage off by itself,
and kept close watch on Harry, so he wouldn’t
raise a rumpus. Brady was away for two days,
I found out, so their plot was working.”

“And what about the toy balloons?” inquired
Tom.

“Why, the way I got it was that one of the
circus peddlers who had a lot of them for sale,
kept his surplus stock in the storage tent. In
some way Harry must have been struck with the
idea of using them as messengers to tell of his
captivity. Anyhow, he managed to reach them
with a stick or string, or in some ingenious way,
and had all night to equip them with the cards.
Brady and Casey let Harry out of the cage, and
took him away in an automobile night before last.”

“You couldn’t find out their destination?”

“The circus keeper declared that he didn’t
know. Your father inquired around of others,
though, and from what he heard he thinks they
were headed for Springville. We weren’t sure.
We decided that Harry would be kept in closer
hiding than ever, and we sort of got discouraged
and gave it up.”

“I won’t give it up!” cried Tom, his eyes
snapping; and preparing to leave the tower at
once. “I’ll find the man I saw at the river if I
have to chase him all over the state.”

“Well, you see, you’d know him by sight, and
we wouldn’t,” submitted Ben.

“I feel it my duty to do all I can to find
Harry,” proceeded Tom. “At any rate, I am
going to try. You stay on duty at the station,
Ben. It simply isn’t in me to remain quiet where
we don’t know what fate may threaten that poor
boy.”

Now, after leaving the tower, Tom had met
Dr. Burr, and hurried homewards. He took a
look at the newspaper the physician had given
him. Its heading told that it was a daily print
from a nearby city, received at Rockley Cove by
a few residents early in the morning.

Tom, as has been said, was in urgent haste, but
one glance at the printed sheet halted him as
suddenly as if it had been a warrant presented
unexpectedly by an officer of the law.

In glaring headlines the feature of the news
of the day, the rescue of the passengers of the
*Olivia*, was indicated. In bold, broad type his
name stood out as the hero of a grand occasion.
Tom’s eye lit up as in the same glaring type he
read also the name of his loyal adherent, Bill
Barber. It was “William Barber,” the dignified
way the paper put it, and Tom was unutterably
glad.

He merely skimmed the three columns of details
that followed. Then he crumpled up the
paper and started on a run for home with the
breathless exclamation:

“It’s wonderful!”

Tom did not mean that the chronicled rescue
was wonderful. He was too modest for that.
What stirred and startled him were the remarkable
evidences of journalistic ability displayed by
the newspaper. He decided that after he and
Bill had left Brookville the captain of the Olivia
must have got in immediate connection with New
York and other places by telegraph.

“He must have had a busy time of it, giving all
those details,” ruminated Tom. “They have
made a big thing of it, sure enough. Well, it will
please father and mother, and as for myself—I
hope I deserve all they say about me.”

Tom reached the house to find that the news
of his part in the rescue of the *Olivia* had preceded
him. When the newspaper was discovered,
every member of the family, even the hired men,
crowded about to stare in wonder at the printed
page over the shoulder of Ted Barnes, who began
to read in a tragic, breathless tone.

Mr. Barnes looked considerably stirred up,
and there was a new respect for the “new-fangled”
wireless in his mind, Tom felt certain.
His mother tremulously clung close to him as
she asked solicitous questions, to be sure that he
had not suffered in limb or health from his hard
battle with the waves.

As soon as things had quieted down somewhat,
Tom took his father aside. He told his parents
of his resolve to go in search of Harry Ashley,
and his father encouraged him.

A hired man was to drive our hero over to
Wadhams in the farm gig. Tom reached that
town about noon. He went at once to the circus,
to find it in confusion. They were dismantling
the show to exhibit in another town, and the man
who knew Brady and Casey had gone forward
with the first contingent.

About to follow, Tom paused. A sudden
thought came to his mind. The two kidnappers
had left Wadhams with Harry in an automobile.
It was scarcely probable that the machine was
their own.

“They must have borrowed or hired it,” reflected
Tom, “most likely the latter. It’s worth
while trying to find out.”

Tom made due inquiries in regard to the location
of public livery garages in the town. There
were three, he ascertained, and he started in to
visit them in turn.

At the first garage he received no encouragement;
at the second one the result was more satisfactory.
The call book of the garage showed
that a machine had been sent to the circus two
nights before, and had made a run to Springville.

“That’s the one,” decided Harry; and questioning
the garage owner, he was soon in touch
with the chauffeur who had made the run.

“I’m the man, and that’s the bunch,” declared
the chauffeur, as soon as Tom had told the object
of his mission.

“Where did you take them?” inquired Tom—“I
mean where in Springville?”

“To the edge of a little city park,” replied
the chauffeur. “They made me stop there to hide
all later trace, I surmised; but it was none of my
business as long as I got my pay.”

“Didn’t you notice the boy they had with
them?”

“I did,” answered the chauffeur. “He was
quite stupid like, as if he’d been doped. I suspected
things weren’t all straight and regular,
but the man I heard called Brady kept telling me
he was a runaway lad who had made all kinds of
trouble and disgrace for his people.”

Tom thanked the man for the information he
had imparted, and at once took the trolley for
Springville, which was about twenty miles distant.
When he arrived he had no definite plan of
action outside of going straight to the local police
in an effort to interest them in his story.

“I’ll look around a bit first, though,” Tom decided.
“I may accidentally run across some hint
or clew that may help me.”

Tom strolled about the place, his eye on the
alert. He had a faithful mental picture of the
ill-favored fellow he had caught spying on Harry
Ashley at Rockley Cove, and was sure he would
recognize the rascal on sight.

He put in two hours in a stroll into such parts
of the city which he fancied a man like Brady
would choose in seeking a refuge. He chased
down two or three persons a view of whose backs
suggested the man for whom he was looking.
He had paused at a street corner as a great jangling
of bells and the shouts and hurryings of the
crowds suggested some pending excitement.

“It’s a fire,” someone shouted, and pointed at
dense volumes of smoke a few blocks away.

Tom started to cross the street in that direction.

Just ahead of him he casually noticed the hurrying
figure of a bulky clumsy-limbed man carrying
a big, old-fashioned carpet bag.

“Hi! Out of the way, there!” shouted a
sharp warning voice, as a fire engine turned the
corner suddenly, bearing directly down upon the
awkward pedestrian.

The man got flustered and made a forward
spring. The satchel he carried slipped from his
grasp. He ran back to rescue it.

The ponderous rushing fire vehicle was fairly
upon him. Tom instantly saw his peril. There
was only one thing to do, and our hero did it
promptly and effectively.

Making a forward dash at top speed, Tom
fairly bunted into the stooping man. With all
his force he struck him, sending him sliding head
over heels into the gutter.

The feet of one of the horses attached to the
fire engine just grazed Tom’s heel, and, striking
the carpet bag, lifted it ten feet in the air. It
landed at the curb broken open, its contents scattering
far and wide.

Tom slid against the prostrate owner of the
satchel, picked himself up, and turned to ascertain
the possible injuries of the man whose life he had
certainly saved.

There was, however, no gratified expression
in the face of the man. In utter concern and
disgust he stared at his scattered possessions,
wildly threw up his hands in a frantic despairing
gesture, and bolted out the echoing word:

“Donner! Donner!”

CHAPTER XXV—TOM ON THE TRAIL—CONCLUSION
=======================================

“Donneer! Donner!”

At the mention of that startling word, Tom
Barnes was instantly convinced that he had made
a great discovery; in fact, he was satisfied that
he had at last discovered one of the “spooks”
of Station Z.

Donner had been a mystery. The owner of the
satchel was quite mysterious in appearance. As
Tom tried to help him to his feet, he noticed that
the man wore a wig and enormous whiskers.
They were false, for the fall had sent them quite
awry.

“Donner,” Tom had learned, was quite a
common word in Germany. It was equivalent
to our own “Thunder!” Tom, however, had
never heard the word used outside of his wireless
experience. To hear it used now by a suspicious
individual in the very city where Harry
Ashley was supposed to be, suggested strangely
to Tom that the odd individual before him might
be the erratic amateur operator, who had been
sending out messages referring to a runaway boy,
one Ernest Warren, with “sun, moon and stars
tattooed on his left shoulder.”

“Are you hurt, sir?” inquired Tom.

The man who had so narrowly escaped destruction
seemed to be more frightened than grateful.
He hurriedly adjusted his facial disguise
and looked about him to see if he was especially
observed. Then he shouted hoarsely, with a despairing
look at the scattered contents of the
satchel:

“My baggage—quick, get it!”

Tom hurriedly collected the articles. He was
amazed at their oddness and variety. There were
one or two articles of clothing, and besides these,
two old-fashioned horse pistols, an ancient dirk,
four or five wigs, and as many false beards and
moustaches. The odd collection suggested an
actor with a limited stage outfit.

The minute Tom handed the satchel to the
man with its contents restored, the latter made a
wild dash down the street. Tom was bound that
he would not lose sight of him, and followed fast
on his heels.

He came upon the fugitive posted in a doorway
and anxiously gazing beyond its shadows along
the street. Tom paused near to him.

“Can I be of any use to you, sir?” he asked,
eager to keep up an acquaintance he felt sure
would lead to some definite results.

“Is anyone following me or watching me?”
inquired the man breathlessly.

“Not at all,” responded Tom reassuringly.
“Everybody is running to the fire.”

“Ah, that is good, most good!” exclaimed the
man in a relieved tone. “The troubles—all at
once. I am all turned around. You are a good
honest boy,” he added, scanning Tom critically.
“You would not bring troubles to a poor old
man?”

“Not I,” declared Tom.

“You would help him?”

“I would be glad to,” said Tom, delighted at
getting more closely into the confidence of his
companion.

“Then you shall earn a dollar. See, I am a
stranger in the city. You must direct me—to
that address.”

The speaker fumbled in a pocket and produced
a card which he handed to Tom. It bore an
address, and below it the words: “Go to section
4. Wait for Brady.”

“What luck!” breathed Tom ardently. “This
man is certainly the mysterious operator, and he is
going to see one of the men who kidnapped Harry
Ashley.”

It took about twenty minutes to reach the address indicated
on the card. Tom pointed out the
restaurant to his companion, who gave him a
dollar bill. Then with a brusque nod and a
searching glance all about him, he entered the
restaurant.

Tom crossed the street and reached a sheltering
doorway. His eyes were fixed on the restaurant.
What should he do next? He had almost decided
to recross the street, enter the place and
attempt to get nearer to the object of his interest,
when a man came around the corner.

“It’s Brady—it is the man I saw at Rockley
Cove,” declared Tom.

Brady wore a hat pulled well down over his
face. His manner was hurried and furtive, like
that of a person suspicious of every passer-by.
He bolted quickly into the restaurant.

“I must do something now—something worth
while,” breathed Tom hurriedly. “There can
be no doubt in the world that those two men
have met here to do something about Harry.
They may go away by some other exit. I’ll do it.”

These last words announced a definite decision
on the part of Tom, as his eye fell upon a policeman
in uniform standing at the nearest street
corner. Tom approached him, full of his plan.

“Officer,” he said politely, “do you ever arrest
a person without a warrant?”

“I’d arrest me own brother on suspicions if
he deserved it,” announced the man in uniform
bluntly.

“I am in trouble,” said Tom rapidly, “and
I wish you would help me.”

“Spake out, me lad,” directed the big bustling
officer.

“A friend of mine, a boy, has been kidnapped.
One of the men who carried him away is in that
restaurant yonder. If you will only take him
and the man with him to the police station, I am
sure I can convince you that they both deserve
arrest.”

Tom briefly narrated the story of the kidnapping.

“Come on, me lad,” ordered the policeman.
“It’s a case for the captain. Sure I’ll take them
in the act. This’ll get in the newspapers, and
Officer Lahey’s name along with it. Show me
the rascals, me young friend, and I’ll do the rest.”

Tom entered the restaurant, the officer following
him. At one side of the place there were half
a dozen partitioned-off compartments. As they
neared the fourth one of the tier Tom heard the
man he had brought there speak out:

“I will only pay the five hundred, as I promised.”

“It’s five thousand, or you never see the boy
again.”

“I arrest both of yez!” here announced the
policeman, stalking into the compartment, and
placing a hand on the shoulder of each of the
two men, who arose in alarm to their feet.

“What’s this?” snapped out Brady.

“Resisting an officer of the law, are yez?”
shouted the policeman, as Brady tried to escape
his clutch, and he shaking the culprit till his teeth
chattered,

“Donner! I am lost!” gasped the other prisoner.

“I say——” protested Brady anew.

“Shut up!” ordered the policeman. “You’ll
have a chance to explain to the captain at headquarters.”

“Aha!” hissed Brady, as, pulled out into the
main room, he for the first time observed Tom.
Evidently he recognized him, for a sullen, surly
look came into his crafty face.

At the door of the restaurant the policeman
paused.

“Go to the second corner, lad,” he directed
Tom, “and tell officer Moore his partner needs
his assistance.”

Tom did as directed, and five minutes later
the prisoners were led down the street, each in
the charge of a stalwart guardian of the law.

When the party reached the station, the
first policeman beckoned to Tom and led him to
the office of the police captain. Tom told his
story in a simple direct way. The captain came
out and looked first at the grotesque figure and
affrighted face of the big man, and then at Brady.

“Ah, it’s you, is it?” exclaimed the police
official, with a start of recognition. “Circus
Jake.”

“I think you are mistaken,” muttered Brady,
in a surly tone.

“Oh, no, I’m not. If you think so, I’ll just
send for your picture from the Rogues’ Gallery,
and go over a few records. Lahey, keep your
eye close on this fellow till I need him. You
two come with me.”

The speaker led Tom and the man with the
big satchel into his private office, and beckoned
both of them to seats after closing the door.

“Now then, young man,” he directed Tom,
“tell your story before this man.”

Tom began at the commencement of the Donner
incident, and followed it up to its present
climax. All through the recital, as reference was
made to Harry Ashley, the old man started,
ejaculated, grimaced and groaned.

“Ah, he was not Harry Ashley, he was Ernest
Warren, the son of my benefactor, my friend!
Did he ever say that I, Blennerhassett, abused
him?”

“He never said anything about you, for we
did not know that he was Ernest Warren,” explained
Tom.

“Now, then, for your story, Mr. Blennerhassett,
if that is your name,” spoke the police
captain.

The old man looked flustered and frightened.
He cast an apprehensive glance out at the street,
an appealing one at the captain.

“The Czar of Russia shall not be told?” he
at length articulated.

“The Czar of Russia?” repeated the official,
with a mystified stare. “What has he got to do
with it?”

“Everything,” declared Blennerhassett, with a
groan. “You will not advise the spies of foreign
governments?” he persisted, very seriously.

The captain evidently concluded that he was
dealing with a lunatic, for he said indulgently:

“Surely not.”

“And no notoriety in the newspapers, so that
I might be trailed down by assassins?”

“Not a word, provided you tell the truth.”

The old man began his story, which was an
interesting one. It seemed he had been a Russian
spy, and a price was set on his head. A fugitive,
he chanced to meet in Germany the father of
Ernest Warren. The latter was very kind to him.
Mr. Warren was a civil engineer engaged on
some large public work. He took sick and died.
He had learned to trust Blennerhassett as a loyal
friend, and had given him all his money with directions
to repair to the United States and take
personal charge of Ernest.

The latter, it seemed, was one of the heirs to
an estate in litigation. It was to the interest of
others after the fortune to have him disappear.
Not only to protect Ernest, but also because he
was fearful the Russian government might hunt
him down personally, Blennerhassett had made
his new home in an isolated old house about fifty
miles up the coast from Rockley Cove.

He never explained to Ernest the cause of
this seclusion and mystery. The lad had rebelled
against such a solitary life, had run away after
accidentally destroying five hundred dollars by
fire, and Blennerhassett, not daring to come out
openly, had surreptitiously visited a nearby wireless
station when its operator was absent, and under
cover had tried to communicate with the outside
world.

He had incidentally come across Brady, and
had started him on a search for the runaway,
promising a five hundred dollar reward for finding
him. The day before the present one a demand
had come from Brady for five thousand
dollars to be brought to Springville at once, or
the boy would never be returned.

“The five hundred dollars Ernest burned up
was his own money,” explained Blennerhassett.
“I love him as my own son. All I ask is that I
find him.”

The police captain opened the door of his office
and called out into the station main room.

“Bring that man in here,” he directed; and
Brady slouched into the private office.

“Now then,” said the captain, “short and
sweet’s the word for you. Think we don’t know
you, eh? I suppose you’re not the man who advertised
a set of parlor furniture by mail for
fifty cents, and a yard of silk for a quarter, and
a plan to save your gas bills for a dollar, and how
to kill cockroaches for a dime?”

“That’s old,” growled the discomfited Brady.

“Why,” explained the police official, “he sent
a toy set of furniture to investors, and a yard of
sewing silk, told them to save their gas bills on
a file, and advised them to get a board and a club
and whack the roaches. Now, sharp and brisk.
You’ve kidnapped this man’s charge. I’ll send
two officers with you to your partner to give him
up. Produce him, and you go free. Otherwise
I’ll telegraph all over the country to find out your
latest schemes, and lock you up for abduction and
extortion in the meanwhile.”

“I’ve done my work for this old man,” blurted
out Brady.

“Yes,” assented Blennerhassett, “and the price
was to be five hundred dollars, not five thousand
dollars. I’ll pay the five hundred.”

“All right,” muttered Brady, “I’ll give in.”

“And I’ll go with him to see that the boy is
all right,” said Blennerhassett.

Brady was released later, for the old man returned
to the police station within an hour. Harry
Ashley, or Ernest Warren, as his real name
was, came in his company.

There was a joyful meeting between Tom and
his friend. It was made still more happy when
Ernest was informed that the estate in which he
was interested had been settled, and his share
was some twenty thousand dollars.

The guardian and his ward accompanied Tom
back to Rockley Cove as guests at the Barnes
homestead. Tom at once repaired to the wireless
station. He put his excitable chum in transports
of delight when he announced the success
of his search for the stolen Harry Ashley.

“Had some visitors here this afternoon,” announced
Ben. “Mart Walters and young Aldrich
came along. Aldrich was hot and furious to know
if you had used his launch. Just as I explained
to them that you had, and thereby saved Grace
Morgan’s life, and they toned down a little, along
came Grace herself. She overheard their squabbling,
and turned her back on them and wouldn’t
speak to them. They sneaked away.”

“Oh, Grace was here?” said Tom, trying to
look only ordinarily interested.

“She was,” replied Ben sprightly, “and spent
a pleasant hour. She made me tell her all about
the way we telegraph. She even made me teach
her certain dots and dashes. Hello! why, there’s
a call from my home wireless outfit.”

The receiver began to buzz and click. Tom
looked suspiciously at his comrade.

“T-o-m B-a-r-n-e-s, y-o-u a-r-e m-z m-x m-y
h-e-r-o. A-u-n-t B-e-r-t-h-a w-a-n-t-s t-o s-e-e
y-o-u. G-r-a-c-e,” came the message.

“H-m,” commented Tom, flushing as his chum
chuckled audibly. “Up to tricks, are you? What
are you laughing at?”

“Why,” smiled Ben seriously, “I was just
thinking what a whole lot the Morgan family
think of you, Tom!”

It took two full weeks for Rockley Cove and
its vicinity to get over the courageous exploit of
Tom Barnes in saving the passengers and crew of
the *Olivia*.

Bill Barber shared in the general commendation.
He appeared on the streets of the village,
chipper, ambitious and well dressed, with
the great desire of his life, a full-blooded bulldog,
at his heels.

He boasted proudly that he had given Bert
Aldrich a receipt in full for the eleven dollars
and seventy-five cents, in lieu of the use of the
*Beulah* the night of the big storm.

“I told him I could loan him a few dollars if
he was so hard up he couldn’t get along,” chuckled
Bill, jingling some coins in his pocket.

The steamship company sent a substantial reward
to both Tom and Bill, and offered the latter
a good position on their line, which he accepted
promptly.

Bert Aldrich sneaked away from Rockley Cove
with his crack launch, without being even permitted
to say good-by to Grace; and Mart Walters
remained in the back of the books of that
offended little lady for a long time to come.

Tom became a regular visitor at the Morgan
home. His ability as a wireless operator had
attracted the attention of headquarters, where he
was offered a good position.

Even his parents were willing that he should
accept it, and for two years Tom worked his way
up to an inspectorship, taking a technical evening
course in a college at New York City.

A new expert operator was put in charge at
Station Z, but Ben was still retained as a helper.
Ernest and old Blennerhassett settled down at
Rockley Cove, and after a year at school the old
Harry Ashley got an appointment as a regular
man at the tower. Blennerhassett gradually
worked out of his foolish fears of foreign enemies.

Both Ben and Ernest were fascinated with the
wireless business, and the frequent visits of Tom
along the circuit encouraged them.

Tom spent nearly half his time at Rockley
Cove. He was a regular visitor at the Morgan
home. One morning Ben came into the tower
with a happy smile on his face. He went at once
to the instrument and called headquarters.

“Why so cheerful, Ben?” inquired Ernest.

“Message.”

“Yes, I know, but what is its purport?”

“Mr. Morgan wishes me to send a society
announcement to the New York press.”

“Indeed?”

“Exactly—the engagement of our sweet little
friend, Grace, to our old time chum, Tom Barnes,
the young wireless operator of Rockley Cove.”

.. class:: center

   THE END

|
|
|

.. class:: center

   :xl:`THE WEBSTER SERIES`

   By FRANK V. WEBSTER

Mr. Webster’s style is very much like
that of the boys’ favorite author, the late
lamented Horatio Alger, Jr., but his tales
are thoroughly up-to-date.

Cloth. 12mo. Over 200 pages each. Illustrated.
Stamped in various colors.

Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.

.. class:: smaller

   | Only A Farm Boy
   |  *or Dan Hardy’s Rise in Life*
   |
   | The Boy From The Ranch
   |  *or Roy Bradner’s City Experiences*
   |
   | The Young Treasure Hunter
   |  *or Fred Stanley’s Trip to Alaska*
   |
   | The Boy Pilot of the Lakes
   |  *or Nat Morton’s Perils*
   |
   | Tom The Telephone Boy
   |  *or The Mystery of a Message*
   |
   | Bob The Castaway
   |  *or The Wreck of the Eagle*
   |
   | The Newsboy Partners
   |  *or Who Was Dick Box?*
   |
   | Two Boy Gold Miners
   |  *or Lost in the Mountains*
   |
   | The Young Firemen of Lakeville
   |  *or Herbert Dare’s Pluck*
   |
   | The Boys of Bellwood School
   |  *or Frank Jordan’s Triumph*
   |
   | Jack the Runaway
   |  *or On the Road with a Circus*
   |
   | Bob Chester’s Grit
   |  *or From Ranch to Riches*
   |
   | Airship Andy
   |  *or The Luck of a Brave Boy*
   |
   | High School Rivals
   |  *or Fred Markham’s Struggles*
   |
   | Darry The Life Saver
   |  *or The Heroes of the Coast*
   |
   | Dick The Bank Boy
   |  *or A Missing Fortune*
   |
   | Ben Hardy’s Flying Machine
   |  *or Making a Record for Himself*
   |
   | Harry Watson’s High School Days
   |  *or The Rivals of Rivertown*
   |
   | Comrades of the Saddle
   |  *or The Young Rough Riders of the Plains*
   |
   | Tom Taylor at West Point
   |  *or The Old Army Officer’s Secret*
   |
   | The Boy Scouts of Lennox
   |  *or Hiking Over Big Bear Mountain*
   |
   | The Boys of the Wireless
   |  *or a Stirring Rescue from the Deep*
   |
   | Cowboy Dave
   |  *or The Round-up at Rolling River*
   |
   | Jack of the Pony Express
   |  *or The Young Rider of the Mountain Trail*
   |
   | The Boys of the Battleship
   |  *or For the Honor of Uncle Sam*

.. class:: center

   CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers, NEW YORK


|
|
|

.. class:: center

   :xl:`THE SADDLE BOYS SERIES`

   By CAPTAIN JAMES CARSON

   12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.

All lads who love life in the open air and a good steed,
will want to peruse these books. Captain Carson knows his
subject thoroughly, and his stories are as pleasing as they are
healthful and instructive.

| THE SADDLE BOYS OF THE ROCKIES
|  *or Lost on Thunder Mountain*

Telling how the lads started out to solve
the mystery of a great noise in the mountains—how
they got lost—and of the things
they discovered.

| THE SADDLE BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON
|  *or The Hermit of the Cave*

A weird and wonderful story of the Grand
Canyon of the Colorado, told in a most absorbing
manner. The Saddle Boys are to the front in a
manner to please all young readers.

| THE SADDLE BOYS ON THE PLAINS
|  *or After a Treasure of Gold*

In this story the scene is shifted to the great plains of the
southwest and then to the Mexican border. There is a stirring
struggle for gold, told as only Captain Carson can tell it.

| THE SADDLE BOYS AT CIRCLE RANCH
|  *or In at the Grand Round-up*

Here we have lively times at the ranch, and likewise the
particulars of a grand round-up of cattle and encounters with
wild animals and also cattle thieves. A story that breathes
the very air of the plains.

| THE SADDLE BOYS ON MEXICAN TRAILS
|  *or In the Hands of the Enemy*

The scene is shifted in this volume to Mexico. The boys
go on an important errand, and are caught between the lines
of the Mexican soldiers. They are captured and for a while
things look black for them; but all ends happily.

.. class:: center

   CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers, NEW YORK

.. vspace:: 5

.. _pg_end_line:

\*\*\* END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOYS OF THE WIRELESS \*\*\*

.. backmatter::

.. toc-entry::
   :depth: 0

.. _pg-footer:

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