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Read Ebook: The Motor Rangers' Wireless Station by Goldfrap John Henry Wrenn Charles L Charles Lewis Illustrator
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Ebook has 1167 lines and 54679 words, and 24 pages
THE MOTOR RANGERS' WIRELESS STATION
THE WIRELESS ISLAND.
The drowsy calm of a balmy afternoon at the Motor Rangers' wireless camp on Goat Island was abruptly shattered by a raucous, insistent clangor from the alarm-bell of the wireless outfit. Nat Trevor, Joe Hartley and Ding-dong Bell, who had been pretending to read but were in reality dozing on the porch of a small portable wood and canvas house, galvanized into the full tide of life and activity usually theirs.
"Something doing at last!" cried Nat. "It began to look as if there wouldn't be much for us on the island but a fine vacation, lots of sea-breeze and coats of tan like old russet shoes."
"I ter-told you there'd be ser-ser-something coming over the a-a-a-a-aerials before long," sputtered Ding-dong Bell triumphantly, athrill with excitement.
"What do you suppose it is?" queried Joe Hartley, his red, good-natured face aglow.
"Don't go up in the air, Joe," cautioned Nat, "it's probably nothing more thrilling than a weather report from one of the chain of coast stations to another."
"Get busy, Ding-dong, and find out," urged Joe Hartley; "let's see what sort of a message you can corral out of the air."
But young Bell was already plodding across the sand toward a small timber structure about fifty yards distant from the Motor Rangers' camp. Above the shack stretched, between two lofty poles, the antennae of the wireless station. Against these the electric waves from out of space were beating and sounding the wireless "alarm-clock," an invention of Ding-dong's of which he was not a little proud.
Ding-dong had become inoculated with the wireless fever as a result of the trip east which the Motor Rangers had taken following their stirring adventures in the Bolivian Andes in Professor Grigg's air-ship--which experiences were related in the fourth volume of this series, The Motor Rangers' Cloud Cruiser. On their return to California--where all three boys lived, in the coast resort of Santa Barbara--nothing would suit Ding-dong but that they take a vacation on Goat Island and set up a wireless plant for experimental purposes.
"I want to try it and away from home where a bunch of fellows won't be hanging about and joking me if I make a fizzle," he explained.
Directly Ding-dong reached the hut housing the apparatus, he flung himself down before the instruments and hastily jammed the head-piece, with its double "watch-case" receivers, over his ears. He picked up a pencil and placing it conveniently above a pad of paper that was always kept affixed to the table holding the sending and receiving appliances, he began to send a storm of dots and dashes winging out in reply to the wireless impulse that had set the gong sounding.
Against his ears came a tiny pattering so faint as to be hardly distinguishable. Yet the boy knew that the instruments must be "in tune," or nearly so, with whatever station was sending wireless waves through space, else the "alarm" would not have been sprung.
He adjusted his instruments to take a longer "wave" than he had been using. Instantly the breaking of the "wireless surf" against the antennae above the receiving shed became plainer.
The young operator thrilled. The first message that had come to the island was an urgent one.
He turned to the others.
"You see what I've got," he said indicating the pad and speaking perfectly plainly in his excitement; "what are we going to do about it?"
"Well?" queried Ding-dong.
"Di-di-didn't I ter-ter-tell you so!" puffed Ding-dong triumphantly, as the three lads set out at top speed for their hut to obtain some necessary clothing and a few provisions for their run to the vessel that had sent out the wireless appeal for help.
A PASSENGER FOR THE SHORE.
Through the speaking tube came up the young engineer's answer, "All ready when you are, captain."
Nat jerked the engine room bell twice. A tremor ran through the sturdy sixty-foot craft. Her fifty-horse-power, eight-cylindered motor began to revolve, and with a "bone in her teeth" she ran swiftly out of the cove, headed around the southernmost point of the island and was steered by Nat due westward to intercept the steamer that had flashed the urgent wireless.
Nat, his cheeks glowing and his eyes shining, held the wheel in a firm grip, his crisp black hair waved in the breeze and his very poise showed that he was in his element. Joe, clutching the rail beside him, was possessed of an equal fervor of excitement. The Motor Rangers all felt that they were on the threshold of an adventure; but into what devious paths and perils that wireless message for aid was to lead them, not one of them guessed. Yet even had they been able to see into the future and its dangers and difficulties, it is almost certain that they would have voted unanimously to "keep on going."
"She's a beauty," fervently agreed Joe, with equal enthusiasm; "and what we've been through on board her, Nat!"
"I should say so. Remember the Magnetic Islands, and the Boiling Sea, and the time you were lost overboard?"
Chatting thus of the many adventures and perils successfully met that their conversation recalled to their minds, the two young Motor Rangers on the bridge of the speeding motor craft kept a bright lookout for some sign of the vessel that had sent the wireless appeal into space.
Nat was the first to catch sight of a smudge of smoke on the horizon. "That must be the steamer! There, dead ahead!"
"Motor boat, ahoy!" he cried, placing his hands funnel-wise to his mouth, "did you come off in response to our wireless?"
"We did, sir," was Nat's rejoinder. "What is the trouble?"
"A job with a good lot of money in it for you fellows," was the response. "Range in alongside the gangway and Dr. Adams, the ship's surgeon, will explain to you what has happened."
The vessel's surgeon, a spectacled, solemn-looking young man, came down the gangway stairs.
"This is a matter requiring the utmost haste," he said; "the man who has been injured must be taken to a shore hospital at once."
"We'll take the job. That's what we came out here for," rejoined Nat briskly. "Who is your man and how was he hurt?"
"His name is Jonas Jenkins of San Francisco. As I understand it, he is a wealthy man with big interests in Mexico. He booked passage for Mazatlan. Early to-day he was found at the foot of a stairway with what I fear is a fracture of the skull."
"It was an accident?" asked Nat, for somehow there was something in the voice of the ship's doctor which appeared to indicate that he was not altogether satisfied that Jonas Jenkins' injury was unavoidable.
The doctor hesitated a minute before replying. Then he spoke in a low voice:
"I have no right to express any opinion about the matter," he said, "but certain things about the case impressed me as being curious."
"For instance?"
The question was Nat's.
"The fact that Mr. Jenkins' coat was cut and torn as if some one had ripped it up to obtain from it something of value or importance."
"You mean that you think Mr. Jenkins was pushed down the flight of stairs and met his injury in that way?"
"That's my theory, but I have nothing but the tear in the coat to base it on."
The surgeon was interrupted at this point by the appearance at the top of the gangway of a singular-looking individual. He was tall, skinny as an ostrich and had a peculiar piercing expression of countenance. His rather swarthy features were obscured on the lower part of his face by a bristly black beard.
"Are these young men going to take Mr. Jenkins ashore?" he asked in a dictatorial sort of tone.
"That is our intention," was Nat's rejoinder.
"Where are you going to land him?"
The words were ripped out more like an order than a civil inquiry. Nat felt a vague resentment. Evidently the black-bearded man looked upon the Motor Rangers as boys who could be ordered about at will.
"We are going to run into Santa Barbara as fast as our boat will take us there," was Nat's reply.
"I want to go ashore with you," declared the stranger. "I received word early to-day by wireless that makes it imperative that I should return to San Francisco at once. Land me at Santa Barbara and name your own price."
"This isn't a passenger boat," shot out Joe.
"We only came out here as an accommodation and as an act of humanity," supplemented Nat. His intuitive feeling of dislike for the dictatorial stranger was growing every minute.
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