The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass: or, The Midnight Call for Assistance
TextCHAPTER XXIII – THE MIDNIGHT CALL
Skillfully Bob tapped out the message and in an inconceivably small space of time it had been received by the station HRSA and relayed to H. & D. The boys would have been interested if they could have known the sensation caused by the few words.
“Oh, boy!” cried Hanson, of the firm of Hanson and Debbs. “I’ve suspected this slick fellow Mohun for a long time. Now with Salper’s authority we can go in and clean him out.”
“Salper wouldn’t make an accusation of that sort,” said Debbs thoughtfully, “if there wasn’t something in it. He’s had some sort of inside tip all right.”
“Well,” returned the other briskly, “we’ll let the old man know we’re on the job, and then get busy.”
Accordingly, a few minutes later Bob received and transcribed this message:
At the confidence contained in the message Mr. Salper straightened his shoulders as if a great load had been lifted from them and held out a friendly hand to Bob.
“I can’t tell you what you have done for me,” he said, cordially. “Of course I’m not safe yet from the crooked work of these men, but at least Hanson and Debbs have been warned to look out. And that’s two-thirds of the battle.”
“I’m mighty glad we’ve been able to help,” said Bob, adding earnestly: “If there’s anything else we can do please call on us. Mrs. Salper – ”
He paused, for at mention of his wife’s name the relief disappeared from Mr. Salper’s face and in its place was the old worried frown.
“Yes – my wife,” he muttered, and, without another word to the boys, turned and stalked out of the room. The man, who had all this time lingered near them, turned and went out after Mr. Salper and the boys were left alone.
“Say, you sure did turn the trick that time,” said Herb admiringly. “If they succeed in getting those crooks, Mr. Salper will love you all the rest of his life.”
“It was more luck than anything else,” Bob repeated. “Imagine getting that station first throw out of the box.”
“Never mind,” said Joe, adding truthfully: “No one else about this place would have been able to do as much.”
They lingered for a while, talking over the exciting events of the day and tinkering with the complicated apparatus.
“Did you hear the latest prediction of Marconi?” asked Joe. “He says that he has positive proof that in the near future a radio set will be perfected which will send messages entirely around the world.”
“Yes,” said Bob eagerly. “He even declares that we’ll be able to put a sending and receiving set side by side on the same table and receive the messages that a moment before we’ve sent out.”
“It only takes a second of time too,” said Herb. “Imagine sending messages completely around the world at such speed. If Marconi didn’t say it could be done, I sure wouldn’t believe it.”
“We’ll be talking with Venus or Mars pretty soon,” said Bob. “Marconi says he has already received messages that don’t come from anywhere on the earth.”
Although they said little about it, the boys were elated at Bob’s success with the code, and it was surely a pleasant thought that they had helped Mr. Salper, if only that they might make Mrs. Salper and the girls happy. They had even, despite his usual gruffness, begun to feel a sort of liking for Mr. Salper himself.
During the long snow-bound afternoon they thought often of Mrs. Salper and wondered if she were better. They wanted to inquire, but they were afraid of making themselves a nuisance.
Toward evening they strolled over to the hotel to ask after the operator and found to their delight that he was better. The nurse, who had become very friendly toward them, said she thought the trouble had been checked in time and that the sick man’s recovery, though it might be slow, was sure.
With hearts lightened on that score they went home. After dinner at the hotel they spent some time tinkering with their set. One time they noticed that in a vacuum tube was a pale blue glow, and Joe was at a loss to know how to account for it.
“We’ve got too high a voltage on the B battery,” said Bob, after a moment of study.
“But how would that affect it?” asked Herb, interested.
“Why,” answered Bob, thoughtfully, “the high voltage causes a sort of electrical breakdown of the gas in the tube and it’s apt to affect the receiving.”
“Say, Bob’s getting to be a regular blue stocking,” commented Jimmy admiringly. “We’ll have to get a move on to catch up with him.”
“You bet you will,” said Herb, with insulting emphasis on the pronoun. However, Jimmy was too interested to notice.
“Let’s reduce the voltage, Bob,” Joe was saying eagerly. “We’ll test out the theory.”
“It isn’t a theory,” replied Bob, as he reduced the voltage and the blue glow disappeared as though by magic. “You can see for yourself that it’s a fact.”
This discussion led to others, and they sat for some time eagerly experimenting with their set. It was just as well that they did for they had just gone over to their cottage and thus were able to answer quickly the imperative summons that came to them a few minutes later.
In response to a knock on the door they found Mr. Salper standing outside in the bitter night air looking so white and shaken that they were startled.
He came just inside the door and spoke in quick, jerky sentences like a man talking in his sleep.
“My wife is dangerously ill,” he said. “She seems so much worse tonight that there is imperative need of a doctor. There is no doctor up here, and in this weather it would take too long to summon one. The trained nurse who is with her suggests that we try to get in touch with a doctor by radio and ask his advice. The idea is far-fetched, but it seems about our only hope. If that fails – ” he paused and Joe broke in eagerly.
“My father’s a doctor, Mr. Salper,” he said, and there was pride in his voice.
“A doctor, eh?” returned the broker quickly. “Oh, if only he were here!”
“I don’t see how you are going to get hold of your father,” broke in Herb. “He’s in Clintonia. Even if he got our message, through Doctor Dale or somebody else with a receiving set, he couldn’t send any message here.”
“But he isn’t in Clintonia!” shouted Joe, eagerly. “He went to Newark, New Jersey, to attend some sort of medical convention and see if he couldn’t find out more about the epidemic that hit Clintonia.”
“Newark!” came simultaneously from Joe’s chums.
“Why, the big radio sending station is there!” exclaimed Bob.
“Why can’t you send a message to that station and ask them to get hold of your father?” broke in Jimmy.
“Maybe I could do it,” announced Joe. And then he looked at Bob. “Perhaps you had better do the sending. You’ll probably have to call them in code.”
Bob was willing, but first he went up to tell his mother and father where he and his chums were going and beg them not to worry if they did not come back soon.
On the way to the radio station they stopped at the Salper bungalow, where the calm-faced nurse was waiting for them. She had left the Salper girls in charge of their mother, giving them minute instructions as to what to do, and was going with Mr. Salper in the hope that they might possibly secure medical advice by radio.
The station was finally reached. It looked deserted and gloomy at that hour of the night, and as Bob sent a call for help vibrating through the ether he felt a creepy sensation, as though he were, in some way, dealing with ghosts.
There was just the slightest chance in the world that they would reach Doctor Atwood. Just a chance, but if they did not take that chance Mrs. Salper would die.
For a long time they tried while the nurse sat quietly in the shadows and Mr. Salper strode up and down, up and down, his face drawn and white, his usually elastic step heavy and dragging.
Again and again went out the call for the Newark station. Minute after minute passed, and still Mr. Salper walked up and down uneasily.
“I guess you’ll have to give it up – ” Herb was beginning when suddenly Bob motioned for silence. The radio was speaking, and he was taking down the message as well as he was able.
“I’ve got Newark!” the young operator cried excitedly. “Now I’ll put in a call for your father, Joe. Where is he staying?”
“At the Robert Treat Hotel.”
Once more Bob went to work rather excitedly and even a little clumsily, yet his message went through. In reply he received another, stating that Dr. Atwood had been called by telephone and would be at the sending station inside of fifteen minutes.
“And the best of it is, he is to radiophone,” added Bob to Joe. “So you can talk to him direct.”
After that the minutes passed slowly, both for Mr. Salper and the boys. They thought the end of the wait would never come. But at last the words so eagerly awaited reached them.
There was no mistaking it, even though static interfered and the tuning was not good – Dr. Atwood’s voice, cheery, reassuring, helpful. In his joy at the sound of it, Joe shouted aloud.
“Hello, WBZA,” came the voice. “If this is Joe talking, give me the high sign, my boy.”
During the message Bob had tuned in the right frequency and, with static eliminated one might have thought the speaker was in the same room.
Then there followed a battle with death that the boys would remember as long as they lived. As soon as Doctor Atwood was made to understand the nature of the service asked of him, he became immediately his brisk, professional self.
The nurse, instantly alert herself, gave him a description of the case and it was wonderful as soon as the connection was switched off to hear his kindly voice responding, giving full directions for the care of the patient. He declared that he would be on call all during the night and requested that some one call him every hour – oftener, if it became necessary – to report the progress of the patient.
The nurse hurried off, accompanied by Mr. Salper, and for the rest of the night the boys kept busy, marking a trail between the Salper cottage and the radio station, taking reports from the nurse and carrying directions from Doctor Atwood.
It seemed strange and weird, yet wonderful and soul-stirring, this tending of a patient by a doctor many miles away. Once, during the night, hope almost failed. Mrs. Salper scarcely breathed and lay so still that Edna and Ruth were sure the end had come. They clung to each other sobbing, while Mr. Salper strode up and down, up and down the room as though if he stopped he would die too.
Then came another message from Doctor Atwood. The nurse followed his directions and once more hope came back to the Salper home. The patient rallied, stirred, and for that time at least, the danger was past.
So dawn came at last and Joe and the two younger boys went back to their cottage to try to catch a few hours of sleep. Bob remained at the station, declaring that he felt not at all tired and as soon as the other boys had rested they could come to his relief.
A hard vigil that for Bob. In spite of all he could do, his head would nod and his heavy eyelids close, to be jerked open next moment by the arrival of some one from the Salper home or a message from Doctor Atwood.
News of the struggle had spread all over Mountain Pass, and people watched with admiration and interest the brave fight that was being made for a woman’s life. And sometimes it seemed that, despite all their efforts, the struggle must end in failure.
All that day the battle waged and the next night – the boys taking turns at the radio board, untiring in their determination not to lose. And Doctor Atwood was as determined as they.
And then, on the morning of the second day came news that the patient had passed the much-dreaded crisis and, with the most careful nursing, was sure to recover.
“She’ll be all right now,” came Doctor Atwood’s cheery voice. “It’s been a hard pull, but she’s past the danger point now. Keep in touch with me, boys, so that, in case of a relapse, I can tell you what to do.”
Joe turned to the boys with the light of pride and affection in his eyes.
“That’s some dad I’ve got!” he said.
Later, when the boys walked over to the Salper home to offer congratulations, the girls received them with literally open arms.
“You’ve saved mother’s life!” cried Ruth, with a catch in her voice.
“And we love you for it!” added Edna gratefully. “You just wait till mother knows!”
CHAPTER XXIV – A PLOT THAT WENT WRONG
“So far, so good,” breathed Bob happily, as the boys were discussing the news that Mrs. Salper had passed the crisis and was now probably on the road to recovery. “That’s one thing we can set down to the credit of radio.”
“And it’s not the only thing of the same sort,” put in Joe. “Do you remember what Mr. Brandon told us of that ship with thirty men and no doctor on board, where twenty-four of the men were down with a mysterious disease? The captain got a message by wireless to shore telling of his plight, and one of the best doctors in New York City went to the radio station there and got in touch with the captain. He talked to him by radio for hours, had him describe just the symptoms, and then told the captain just what to do. A couple of days later the captain wirelessed in that he had followed directions and that all of the men had recovered and were fit for duty.”
“Yes,” said Herb, “and about that other case, too, where a man had an infected hand and they were afraid he was going to have lockjaw. A doctor on land told the captain how to treat it and the man got along all right.”
“Trust radio, and you won’t go wrong,” summed up Bob. “On land and sea it’s right on the job.”
“I only hope it will be as effective in saving Mr. Salper’s money,” observed Joe.
“I think very likely it will,” replied Bob. “He’s about as keen as they make them, and now that he knows what those rascals are plotting against him it’s dollars to doughnuts that he’ll get the best of them. Their only chance was in taking him by surprise and putting over that deal while his back was turned. And now that he’s got in touch with his brokers I guess the game is up.”
“I wonder how long it will be before we know how it turned out,” conjectured Herb.
“Oh, probably not more than two or three days,” replied Bob. “Things move pretty fast in Wall Street when a fight is on for control.”
“I hope he comes out on top,” observed Joe. “He’s a good deal of a crab, and I was mighty sore at him when he landed on us the way he did the day we were coming up here. Acted as though he thought we ought to be shot at sunrise. But since that time I’ve seen a good deal about him to like and I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a regular fellow after all.”
“You can tell by the fondness that the girls have for him that he can’t be so bad,” said Bob. “That’s a pretty good sign to go by. They know him better than any one else except his wife, and she seems to think, too, that the sun rises and sets in him.”
“I want him to come out ahead not only for his own sake but because I want to see that fellow Mohun downed,” put in Jimmy. “I’m sore at him right down to the ground. I don’t like his eyes, I don’t like his voice, I don’t like his teeth, I don’t like his character – ”
“Outside of that, though, I suppose he’s all right,” suggested Joe, grinning. “He seems to be just about as popular with you as a rattlesnake.”
“That’s what he reminds me of, anyway,” admitted Jimmy.
“Talking of rattlesnakes,” put in Herb, “here come three of them now,” and he indicated Buck Looker, who, with Lutz and Mooney, was coming along the road. For some time now the Looker crowd had kept out of the radio boys’ way.
“I wonder what trick they’re up to now,” said Bob, as he saw that the bunch had their heads together in earnest conversation.
“No knowing,” answered Joe; “but it’s a safe bet that it’s something cheap and low down. Buck would think the day was wasted if he didn’t have something of the kind on hand.”
The groups passed each other without speaking, though Buck darted a look at Bob in passing that had in it the usual malignance, mingled with a touch of triumph.
“Did you see that look?” queried Herb, with interest. “Seemed as if he had something up his sleeve.”
“I know what it meant well enough,” answered Bob, with a shade of soberness. “My dad was telling me that he’d been notified that a suit had been started against him and the fathers of you other fellows by Mr. Looker to recover the value of the cottage that he said we set on fire.”
“That’s all bunk!” cried Herb indignantly. “He couldn’t prove it in a hundred years. A lawsuit, eh? Huh!”
“Dad doesn’t think Looker has much of a case,” replied Bob. “Still, he says that you can never tell what a man like Looker and the kind of lawyer he would hire may do. Of course we can’t get away from the fact that we were in the house the day before it burned, and that looks bad. We know we didn’t set it on fire, but nobody else knows we didn’t. At any rate, even if Looker loses his case, our folks will have to hire lawyers and lose a lot of time in attending court, so that all in all it makes a pretty bad mess.”
“So that’s what Buck was looking so tickled about!” exclaimed Joe. “I’d like to wipe that look off his face.”
“It might be a little satisfaction,” laughed Bob. “But it wouldn’t help us win the lawsuit.”
By this time their walk had taken them near the vicinity of the radio station; and as they approached it they caught sight of Mr. Salper pacing back and forth in a state of impatience.
“Seems to be stirred up about something,” remarked Joe.
“Did you ever see him when he wasn’t?” laughed Jimmy.
At this moment Mr. Salper caught sight of the boys and came hastily toward them.
“I want some messages sent and taken,” he said, in his usual abrupt way, though there was none of the sharpness in his voice that had usually been in evidence when he spoke to them. “I wonder if you could do this for me,” and his eyes rested inquiringly upon Bob.
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Salper,” replied the latter, and the whole group went into the wireless room.
“I suppose you have permission to use this plant?” came from Joe.
“Oh, yes. If it hadn’t been for that I couldn’t have used it as I did those other times,” answered the broker.
Bob seated himself at the sending key and, following the financier’s directions, got in touch with the Wall Street house that had figured in the previous communications.
For an hour or more there was an interchange of messages that were mostly nonunderstandable to Bob and his friends who listened with the keenest interest. There was talk of stocks and bonds and of consolidations and controls and proxies and a host of other things that bore on financial deals.
At the beginning, Mr. Salper sat with furrowed brows and an air of intense concentration. But as the answers came in to his various inquiries, his brow gradually cleared and he relaxed somewhat in his chair.
Finally there came an answer that stirred him mightily. He jumped to his feet and slapped his thigh.
“I’ve got him!” he cried jubilantly. “By Jove, I’ve got him!”
CHAPTER XXV – SOLVING THE MYSTERY
Just whom Mr. Salper had got the radio boys could not tell with certainty, but they had a shrewd suspicion that Mohun was the hapless individual.
The financier walked happily and springily about the office, chuckling to himself, and Jimmy declared afterward that if they had not been there he would have danced a jig.
At last, when he had given sufficient vent to his elation, Mr. Salper turned to Bob.
“I’m sure I can’t tell you how I thank you,” he declared, with a cordiality and heartiness that they had never yet seen in him. “This matter was one of the most important that has come to me in the whole course of my life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were involved in it, and I’d surely have lost out if I hadn’t had your services in this extremity. And now I’m going to prove my gratitude. A check – ”
“No, thank you, Mr. Salper,” interrupted Bob hastily. “We don’t want money for the service we’ve been to you. It’s been exciting and interesting work for us, and I, at least, have been more than paid in the experience I’ve got through sending.”
“Well then I’m going to get you the finest radio set that money can buy,” persisted Mr. Salper.
“Not even that, thank you,” returned Bob, smiling. “It’s awfully good of you, and we appreciate it, but we’ve learned more of radio by building our own sets than we possibly could have done in any other way. If you want to send a check to the Red Cross or some other society of the kind, it would suit us better than anything else.”
“You’re a stubborn young rascal,” said Mr. Salper, with a smile, “and I suppose I’ll have to let you have your way. But just bear in mind that you boys have a friend in me for life, and if I can ever be of service to any of you in business or anything else, let me know and I’ll be only too glad to do it.”
He bade them good-by and went off briskly toward his bungalow to tell his family of the news that had lifted such a heavy burden from his brain and heart.
The third day after the episode at the radio station the radio boys had gone further afield than usual and came upon a little shack that had evidently been used by workmen as a place for storing their tools. It was little more than a shed, and the boys, bestowing on it only a casual glance, had come nearly abreast of it when Bob, who was slightly in advance, heard a voice that he recognized as that of Buck Looker.
He stopped dead in his tracks, and his companions did the same as he held up his hand in warning.
“We certainly did put it over on those boobs all right,” Buck was saying, and the remark was followed by laughs of satisfaction.
“Yes, but we’re not yet out of the woods,” came the voice of Carl Lutz, with a touch of uneasiness in the tone. “Suppose when they put us on the stand to testify that we found Bob Layton and the other fellows in the cottage the evening before it burned, their lawyer asks us if we were in it too?”
“Well, let them ask,” replied Buck. “All we’ll have to do is to deny it. We know they were in it. They don’t know we were in it. Who knows that we slipped in later and sat there until nearly midnight smoking cigarettes?”
With a bound Bob was at the door of the shack.
“I know it!” he cried. “I didn’t know it till just this minute, but now I know it by your own confession.”
“We all heard it,” echoed Joe, as he, with Herb and Jimmy, followed Bob into the shack.
Consternation and conscious guilt was written on every one of the three faces.
Buck was the first of the cronies to recover some measure of self-possession.
“Think you’ve put something over, don’t you?” he sneered. “Well, you’ve got another think coming to you. This won’t do you a bit of good in court. I’ll simply swear that I didn’t say anything of the kind and that you’ve made up the story out of whole cloth. It’ll be simply my word against yours, and you’d be interested witnesses trying to help your fathers out by cooking up this story. So what are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll show you what we’re going to do about it!” cried Joe, starting forward.
But Bob stopped him.
“Wait a minute, Joe,” he said. Then he turned to Buck. “Do you mean to say,” he demanded, “that you’d take a solemn oath in court to tell the truth, and then go on the stand and swear to a downright lie?”
The contempt in his tone stung Buck into fury.
“You can put it any way you like,” he shouted. “I’m simply not going to let you get the best of me. Who cares for the old confession as you call it? You can have as many of those as you like and it won’t do you any good. Here’s another one now for good measure. We were in the house late that night. We were smoking cigarettes. Probably that’s what caused the fire to break out later. I tell you these things just because it won’t do you any good. In court I’ll deny that I ever said them. You’ll say I did. But the court will know that you have as much interest in lying as I have, and it’ll just be a standoff. You’d have to have a disinterested witness, and that you haven’t got.”
“Oh, yes, they have,” came a voice from the doorway, and Mr. Salper stepped into the shack.
An exclamation of delight broke from the lips of the radio boys, while Buck and his cronies slunk back in terror and confusion.
“I was out taking a stroll,” explained Mr. Salper, “and as I heard loud voices coming from the shack I stepped up to see what was the matter. I was just in time to hear the full confession of this estimable young man” – here he turned a withering glance on Buck – “and while I’m here, I guess I’ll take it down.”
He drew from his pocket a notebook and a fountain pen and wrote rapidly, while Buck and his companions looked at each other like so many trapped animals.
In a few minutes Mr. Salper had finished. Then he read in a clear voice just what he had written. It was a complete confession similar to that which Buck had made, with date and place affixed. He handed this over to Buck with the fountain pen, with a crisp demand that he sign it.
Buck hesitated as long as he dared, but with those keen eyes used to command fixed upon him from beneath Mr. Salper’s beetling brows, he finally signed his name, and Lutz and Mooney shamefacedly followed suit.
“I guess that will settle the law case,” Mr. Salper remarked, with a smile, as he handed the precious document to Bob, who folded it carefully and put it in his breast pocket. “Now perhaps we would better go and leave these worthy young gentlemen to their meditations. I don’t think they’ll be especially pleasant ones.”
The radio boys left the shack, followed by the black looks of the discomfited conspirators.
“You certainly came along in the nick of time, Mr. Salper,” said Bob. “We’re very grateful to you.”
“I’m glad if I’ve been able to be of service to you,” replied Mr. Salper. “It’s only paying back in small measure what you’ve done for me. The bulk of the obligation is still on my side.”
It was a happy group of radio boys that returned to the Mountain Rest Hotel that afternoon.
“Adventures have surely crowded in on us lately,” remarked Bob.
“More than they ever will again,” prophesied Joe.
But that he had not foretold the future correctly will be seen by those who read the following volume of this series, entitled: “The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice; Or, Solving a Wireless Mystery.”
That very night they sent the news of the confession to Dr. Atwood with the request that he would communicate the tidings to the fathers of the rest of the boys. The lawsuit, of course, was dropped at once, and Buck and his cronies slunk home in disgrace.
“Radio is lots of work, but it’s also lots of fun,” remarked Joe that night, as they sat late reviewing the events of the day.
“Radio,” repeated Bob. “It’s more than fun. It’s excitement. It’s romance. It’s adventure. It’s life!”