"I shouldn"t have let them do it." It was Mrs. Salper who told the story. The two girls were still too shaken from their adventure to say anything. All they could think of was the comforting shelter of a room and an open grate fire.
"They wanted to climb up that little hill to see what was on the other side of it," the lady went on to explain. "I didn"t want them to, for I saw that the snow was deep. But they were in wild spirits, wouldn"t listen to me, said I didn"t need to come if I didn"t want to--which I didn"t!--and off they went.
"When they had nearly reached the top Edna started to fall----"
"No, it was Ruth, Mother," corrected the girl, showing the first sign of returning interest.
"Well, it doesn"t matter," said Mrs. Salper, with a sigh. "The result was the same. One of them clutched at the other and they both toppled down the hill. Their fall must have loosened a ma.s.s of the drifted snow and it came down on top of them. Heavens!" she shuddered at the memory. "It seemed as if the whole mountain side were falling on top of them! I thought they would be completely buried!"
"Well, we were, almost," said Ruth, chafing her cold hands to bring the circulation back into them. "Anyway," she added with a stiff smile, "I feel almost as frozen as if I had been!"
CHAPTER XVI
THE MODERN MIRACLE
"I bet you"re cold," said Bob, sympathetically. "Never mind, we"ll have you warmed up in a jiffy now."
As a matter of fact, the big hotel was even then looming before them, and in a moment more they entered its doors, to find to their delight that a roaring fire was burning in the grate of the big living room.
The two girls rushed to it joyfully, holding out their chilled hands to the blaze, snuggling to its warmth like two half-frozen kittens.
They happened to have the big room all to themselves at that moment, and, after having drawn chairs up to the fire for Mrs. Salper and the girls, the boys excused themselves and hurried back to the spot where they had dropped their bags of nuts when the cry for help had interrupted them in their occupation.
"Never do to lose the fruits of our labor," said Herb, grinning, as he picked up his own particular bag.
The other boys did likewise, and they were soon hurrying back to the hotel again, talking excitedly about the rescue of the Salper girls.
"It"s mighty lucky we happened to be near enough to hear the cries for help," said Joe, soberly. "It would have been pretty hard for them to have forced their way through those drifts alone, half numbed as they were."
"Yes," agreed Bob. "It"s pretty nice to think of them warm and snug before the fire just now."
"Queer," observed Jimmy as they neared the house, "that we should have been talking about them just at the time the thing happened."
"Queer," said Herb patronizingly, "but not half so queer, Doughnuts, as the modern miracles that happen every day----"
"Take radio, for instance," finished Bob, and they entered the hotel laughing.
They found the two girls recovered from their fright and quite a good deal happier than they had been a few minutes before. They regarded the radio boys with interest, and it was clear that the girls and Mrs.
Salper had been talking about them during their absence.
"You"re often called the "radio boys," aren"t you?" challenged Edna, as the boys drew chairs up to the fire.
"Why, I guess so," said Bob, with a smile. "Lots of folks call us that."
"Dad was up at the radio station the other day and the operator there was enthusiastic about you," said Ruth Salper, in her direct way.
"Said that if you kept on the way you were going, you would soon know more about radio than he does himself."
"That"s mighty nice of him, but I"m afraid he was boosting us too high," replied Bob, trying hard not to show how pleased he was.
"That fellow at the station has forgotten more about radio than we ever knew," added Joe modestly, but in his heart he was as pleased at the praise as Bob was. It is always nice to receive commendation from some one who is an authority.
"You"re very modest," teased Edna gaily. "But when dad says anything nice about anybody he generally means it. He doesn"t say nice things very often----" She caught a glance of reproof from her mother and bit her lip penitently.
"You mustn"t say unkind things about your father, Edna," said Mrs.
Salper, gently. "You know he is worn to death with business worries.
If we could once succeed in making him forget his responsibilities, he would be as jolly and fun-loving as he used to be."
"Yes, dad used to be no end of fun," said Ruth, adding, with a fierce little frown and a clenching of her fists; "I just wish I could get hold of whoever"s worrying him so. I"d give them something to worry about for a change."
Then, seeming to realize that the boys might not be interested in her personal affairs--though as a matter of fact they were interested, extremely so--the girl tactfully turned the conversation to something which she thought might interest them.
"Could we see your radio set?" she asked, impulsively. "We"d just love to have you tell us about it. As much as we could understand," she added, with a smile for the boys.
Mrs. Salper protested feebly, but so eager were the boys to show off their set to the girl radio fans that her opposition was overcome almost at once.
Then followed a happy hour during which the radio boys talked learnedly of condensers and amplifiers and different kinds of receivers until the admiration of the girls mounted almost to awe.
"My, but it sounds worse than Greek!" cried Edna Salper once, as she bent absorbedly over the apparatus that worked such miracles and bore such high-sounding names. "This is the tuning apparatus, isn"t it?"
she asked, gingerly touching the wire coil. "It seems almost impossible that you can tune to any wave length with this thing, just as the piano tuner can tune the wires of his instrument to the proper sound vibration."
"It--the whole thing--seems impossible," added Ruth, while Mrs. Salper found herself quite as interested as her daughters.
"Yes, that"s the way it seemed to us at first," agreed Bob, his eyes shining. "When Doctor Dale told us we could make a set for ourselves we could hardly believe him. But it didn"t seem a bit hard once we got started and learned the hang of it."
"You mean to say that you made this set yourselves?" asked Mrs.
Salper, with interest.
"Oh, this is nothing. We"ve made lots of "em," said Jimmy proudly, at which Herb promptly kicked him under the table. The injured Jimmy glared at his a.s.sailant, but the others were too much interested in the subject to notice him.
"You see this is a comparatively small set," Bob explained.
"But we"re working on a powerful apparatus now," broke in Joe eagerly.
"And when we have that in working shape we"ll be able to send as well as receive."
"Well, I think you"re just as smart as father said you were," said Ruth, and at this candid compliment the confused boys thought it time to change the subject.
"How about listening in a while?" suggested Bob, struck by a sudden inspiration. "We ought to be just about in time to catch the afternoon concert--if there is one. Would you like to find out?"
"Would we?" cried Edna, enthusiastically. "Indeed we would!"
"Just try us," added Ruth happily.
So the boys showed them how to fit the head-phones, not using the loudspeaker they had made from the phonograph horn, and adjusted the tuning apparatus to the proper wave length, and the girls answered to the thrill of catching music magically from the ether just as the boys had done on that never-to-be-forgotten evening when their first concert had reached them over the wires of their first receiving set.
Crude it seemed to them now in the light of later improvements, but an instrument of magic it had been to them that night.