"Look!" he cried. "Didn"t I tell you that radio was the best ever?
Just cast your eye on that aerial. You don"t see that trailing on the ground, do you?"
For a moment the other radio boys failed to grasp the significance of his words. Then they let out a great shout of triumph. For what Bob had said was true. Where other means of communication with the outside world failed, radio stood firm.
The aerial was there, towering as serenely against the slaty sky as though there was no such thing as a snowstorm. The great marvel of radio! For no wires, other than the antenna, were needed to carry its messages to the farthermost parts of the world!
For a moment the boys were awed as the real significance of the modern miracle was borne home to them. It was magnificent, it was inspiring merely to have the privilege of living in such an age.
"Well, Mr. Salper doesn"t need to worry," said Joe, at last. "There"s always radio on the job if he wants to get a quick message through to New York."
"It"s queer he didn"t think of it," agreed Bob, adding, as the intense cold struck still more deeply into his bones: "Come on in, fellows.
I"d like to see what the operator has to say to all this excitement."
"You bet," said Jimmy, adding fervently: "And it will give us a chance to thaw out."
When the boys reached the room which had become so familiar to them, they found that here too, the old regime had been interrupted. Several men were gathered in the far corner of the room, talking earnestly, and the long table where the operator could be seen daily bending earnestly over his beloved apparatus was vacant. The operator himself was nowhere to be seen.
Sensing something unusual, the boys came forward hesitantly. At sight of them one of the men detached himself from the group of his companions and came quickly over to them. The boys did not know his name, but his face was familiar to them.
"A most unfortunate thing has happened," burst out this man nervously, without even an attempt at a preface. "The operator here has been taken very ill with a fever and we are at a loss to find any one who can take his place in this emergency."
The modesty of the radio boys was such that at that moment no thought of the possibility of their being able to take the experienced operator"s place entered their heads. They were earnestly sorry for the misfortune which had overtaken their friend, and they told the man so. It seemed to them that the latter was rather disappointed about something, and he listened to their words of sympathy absently. After a moment he left them and rejoined his companions at the other end of the room.
"Say, that"s tough luck," said Jimmy, his round face comically long.
"I knew that fellow would get into trouble if he didn"t take more exercise."
Bob fumbled with the familiar apparatus on the table, his face troubled.
"If he"s out of his head with fever, he must be pretty sick," he muttered, as though talking to himself. "And that means that he won"t be able to attend to radio for a good long time to come."
"And with telegraph and telephone wires all down, that"s pretty much of a calamity," added Joe, his eyes meeting Bob"s with a look of understanding.
"Say!" cried Herb, suddenly seeing what they were driving at, "that knocks out Mr. Salper"s last chance of getting even with those crooks."
"Yes," said Bob, soberly, "I guess the game"s up, as far as he"s concerned."
"Let"s go over to the hotel and inquire for the sick man," Joe suggested, adding hopefully, "maybe he isn"t as sick as they make out."
The operator had a room at the hotel, and the boys had been there once or twice to talk over points on radio with him and so they knew exactly where to go.
However, if they had treasured any hope that Bert Thompson"s sickness had been exaggerated, they were promptly undeceived. No one was allowed to speak to him, the nurse at the hotel told them, adding, in her briskly professional manner, that it would be no use to speak to him anyway, since he was delirious and recognized n.o.body.
But before they went, softened by their real concern, she said, quite kindly, that as soon as the patient was able to receive visitors at all she would let them know.
They thanked her and went out into the freezing air again. The snow had stopped and the wind had died down completely but in the atmosphere was a deadly chill, a biting cold that seemed to penetrate to their very marrow.
"Suppose we go to the Salpers," Bob suggested. "Mrs. Salper and the girls may need help, for I imagine Mr. Salper isn"t in a very pleasant mood."
"I wonder," said Joe, as with common consent they turned in the direction of the Salper home, "if Mr. Salper has heard yet that even the radio is out of business."
"Give it up," said Herb, while Jimmy added, with a grin: "I"d hate to be the one to break the news to him."
But, as it happened, that was just what they had to do. They saw Mr.
Salper coming and tried to pretend that they did not, but he would have none of it.
He made for them directly, with a scowl on his face as fierce as if they had been the cause of all his trouble.
"This is a fine business, isn"t it?" he asked, waving his hand in the direction of the snow-weighted wires. "No telegraph, no telephone--only the radio left. I"m on my way to the station to try to get the message through, though that operator is a stubborn young donkey and has before this refused to send messages for me."
Herb and Jimmy made frantic motions to Bob to keep quiet, for they saw that he was about to tell the news. And Bob did.
"I"m sorry, Mr. Salper," he said quietly. "But the operator at the wireless station has become suddenly very ill and there"s no one there to operate the apparatus."
For a moment Mr. Salper simply glared while the news sank home. Then he gazed wildly about him as though to escape from his own worrisome thoughts. Then the fierce scowl returned to his face and he made an angry motion toward the boys.
"The operator sick!" he muttered. "And not a doctor up here!"
The boys started and looked at him queerly.
"Do you need a doctor?" asked Bob quickly, thinking immediately of Mrs. Salper and the girls. "Is some one sick?"
"Yes," snapped Mr. Salper. "My wife is sick, very sick. And if I can"t get any sort of word through, even by radio----" He paused and his mouth looked as though he were grinding his teeth.
He turned back toward his house, and the boys accompanied him with some vague idea of at least offering their sympathy, even if they could not do anything to help.
They found Edna and Ruth nearly frantic with fright.
"Mother is dreadfully ill," said Edna, between sobs. "Her hands and face are burning up and she talks queerly. I"m afraid it"s pneumonia, and if she doesn"t get a doctor pretty quick she"ll d-die!" And with a sob she fled into the room where the sick woman lay.
The boys felt awkward, and, since there was nothing they could do to help, deeply concerned over the trouble of these friends of theirs.
"There"s some good in Mr. Salper, anyway," said Joe, as they tramped along. "He was so worried over Mrs. Salper that he didn"t mention those Wall Street scoundrels."
"I reckon it"s worrying him just the same," said Jimmy.
"If only there was something we could do----" began Bob, then stopped short, a great idea leaping to his eyes. "Say, fellows, what"s the matter with our sending that message?"
CHAPTER XXII
PUTTING IT THROUGH
The boys stared at him for a moment as though he had gone suddenly crazy. Then the light of adventure dawned in their eyes, and they grinned joyously.
"Say, old boy," said Joe in an awed voice, "that sure is some swell idea. But do you think we could swing it? We know a lot about receiving, but when it comes to sending----"