The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass: or, The Midnight Call for Assistance

But it so happened that the lads were not discovered. The door of the shack was on the opposite side from them, and either the men were too lazy to search carefully or they were too confident of the obscurity of their meeting place. At any rate, they went to the door, looked around, and, finding no one within sight, evidently decided that they had been mistaken in thinking they had heard a suspicious noise and reëntered the shack without searching further.

“You’re crazy, Mohun,” the boys heard one of them remark, in an irritable voice. “You’re letting your imagination – and your nerves – run away with you.”

“Well, this deal is enough to get on anybody’s nerves,” was the grumbled reply, evidently from the person addressed as Mohun. “If we don’t put it across pretty quick I’m going to quit. I’ve told you too much delay would be fatal.”

The boys glanced at each other, and the relief they had felt at not being discovered was closely followed by huge excitement as they became more and more certain that they were on the verge of making an important discovery.

They crowded closer to the window though, mindful of how close they had come to discovery, they were careful to make not the slightest sound.

Bob, who was closest to the window, could, by exercising the greatest caution, peer into the shadows of the room. He put out his hand as a warning to Joe, who was crowding him closely.

“Don’t push,” he said, in the merest whisper. “I have a notion this is going to be good.”

So had the other boys, but they were mad clean through at the fate that prevented their getting a glimpse into the tumbled-down shanty. However, they held back, knowing that if they were too eager they would spoil everything. Discovery then would mean that they would never hear the secret these men were about to disclose.

The old shack had evidently once been lived in, for it was fitted up with furniture of a crude sort. Along one side of the room ran two long bunks, one above the other, and on the walls were some old dilapidated-looking pictures, evidently cut out of magazines or news periodicals.

There was a three-legged, rickety table in the center of the room, and about this the conspirators – for such they were – were gathered. Two of the men had chairs, patently home-made, for seats, while the third, who sat facing Bob, had merely an empty wooden box turned on end.

It was this last fellow who was now speaking and who had been addressed by the name of Mohun. He was short and of fair complexion, with protruding, horsey teeth that stuck out disagreeably over his lip.

Another of the trio was a giant of a fellow, tall, dark and heavy-browed, while the third, who sat with his back to Bob, was of slighter build, but nearly as tall.

Mohun seemed to be the leader of the party, for now he was leaning across the rickety table, talking earnestly and emphasizing his remarks with blows of his fist upon it.

“I tell you, Merriweather,” he said, addressing the giant, “this is our time to act. You are merely pussy-footing when you ask delay. I am convinced that delay means suicide.”

Jimmy, catching the last word, gasped involuntarily and Bob nudged him warningly.

“Keep still,” he hissed. “This sure is going to be good!”

The two other men looked uncertain but the fellow called Mohun was pushing the point home.

“This is our chance,” he cried vehemently. “Salper is out of the way for the present, but we never know when he may take the notion to go back to the old job. They say he is getting mighty restive already.”

At the mention of Mr. Salper’s name Bob fell back in his amazement and landed on Joe’s foot, whereupon the latter emitted a squeak of pain that he immediately stifled.

“Did you hear that?” demanded Bob in an excited whisper, without a thought for poor Joe’s foot. “They’re talking about Mr. Salper.”

Eagerly he turned back to the window while Herb whispered in an awed tone:

“Maybe they’re going to murder the old fellow.”

“Say, keep still, can’t you?” said Bob impatiently, as he strained his ears to catch the lowered tones of the three men.

Herb subsided, and the four of them waited with bated breath to find out what these three conspirators had to do with Gilbert Salper.

“Maybe you’re right, Mohun,” the tall man with the craggy brows answered reluctantly. “But I can’t help thinking that to strike now is a poor move.”

“In two or three weeks we’ll have everything just as we want it,” added the man who sat with his back to Bob. “We’ll have a sure thing then, while now – ”

The man called Mohun threw up his hands in a gesture of despair.

“Pussy-footing again!” he cried disgustedly. “What kind of gamblers are you, anyway, to wait until you have a sure thing before you test your luck? Don’t you know that the big deals down on the Street that have been successful have been put through because the fellows doing it had nerve?”

“Yes, but not many of the deals have been as big or as important as this,” said the giant quietly.

“All the more reason to strike quickly,” argued Mohun, with heat, adding in a lowered tone: “I tell you this absence of Salper from Wall Street is the chance of a lifetime. It’s the thing we’ve been waiting for. With him on the Street we haven’t a chance for our lives. With him away, we have everything in our own hands. Now it’s up to you whether we make the most of our luck, or throw it in the rubbish heap.”

“But Salper is up here for an indefinite length of time,” argued the man with his back to Bob. “It is said he will stay at least a month, maybe two. And a week – two at the outside – is all we need to make sure of relieving him of some of his ill-gotten wealth.”

The man laughed noisily at this poor attempt at humor, and Mohun glanced nervously about him.

“Better look out,” he said, peevishly. “You never can tell who’s listening. They say the trees have ears around this way.”

“Your nerves are getting the best of you, I think,” cried the big man. “Just because you’ve got cold feet is no reason why we should take the chance of losing out on the biggest deal we’ve had the chance of handling for many a day. Get a good sleep, man, and you’ll think the way we do, tomorrow.”

For a moment it seemed as though Mohun were about to spring upon the big man and Bob held his breath, expecting a struggle. Mohun’s face turned a brick red and his lips drew back from his protruding upper teeth as though in a snarl. His hands clenched, he took a step toward the bigger man who had half risen from his chair.

“Then I’ll tell you one thing, you pussy-footers!” he cried furiously. “If this deal isn’t pulled through by the end of a week and if by that time we haven’t our hands on a good chunk of Salper’s money, then I’m through. Do you hear that? I quit!”

CHAPTER XIX – ON GUARD

The radio boys had heard enough. Silently they tiptoed from their vantage point, putting off the tremendous desire to exclaim about what they had heard until they had put a good distance between themselves and the shack.

Then they overflowed with wonder and excitement.

“Say, wait till we spring this news on Mr. Salper!” cried Herb. “The man will near go off his head.”

“Gosh, you couldn’t blame him,” said Joe, in an awed tone. “I wouldn’t like to have those three fellows after my hard-earned cash myself.”

“Then he was right when he thought there was somebody after his money,” said Bob, striding along so swiftly in his excitement that poor Jimmy had hard work to keep up with him. “We thought he was kind of crazy, but I guess he knew what he was talking about all the time.”

“But I say, you got all the best of it, Bob,” said Herb. “Why couldn’t you let the rest of us get a glimpse of some honest-to-goodness sharpers?”

“They weren’t much to look at,” said Bob, with a frown. “That man they called Mohun was one of the ugliest scoundrels I’ve ever seen.”

“Was he any worse than Cassey?” asked Jimmy, curiously.

“If he was he must have been going some,” added Herb, with conviction.

“I guess nobody could be much worse than Cassey,” said Bob, frowning at the memory of the stuttering scoundrel’s evil acts. “But he’s just as bad. When he jumped at that big fellow with the bushy eyebrows I thought he was going to bite him. He has teeth that stick away out over his under lip.”

“Must be a beauty,” commented Herb.

“I say,” said poor Jimmy, fairly running in his effort to keep up with the other boys, “you’re not going toward the hotel, Bob. May I ask where you are going?”

“Why, Doughnuts, you shouldn’t have to ask,” broke in Joe, before Bob could respond. “Don’t you know there is only one place where we could be going after hearing such rotten news as we’ve just heard?”

“We’re going to the Salpers, of course,” finished Herb, with a condescending air that irritated the plump and puffing Jimmy.

“Well, you needn’t be so fresh about it,” he grumbled, rubbing his empty stomach ruefully. “It’s nearly dark – ”

“And it’s dinner time,” added Joe, with a grin. “How well we know you, Doughnuts.”

“Well,” grumbled Jimmy, grinning reluctantly, “I don’t see why the Salpers can’t wait till we can get something to eat.”

“It won’t take us long,” said Bob, who had been thinking hard as they tramped along. “We’ll just stop in and tell them what we’ve heard and then go on. I don’t suppose there is anything that we can do.”

“I guess Mr. Salper will do all that’s necessary when he finds his money threatened,” said Joe significantly.

“I reckon he’s had a hunch that something of this kind has been going on for a long time – in fact, he as much as told us so,” said Bob. “But I guess these rascals were so clever he couldn’t put his finger on them.”

“I wonder what kind of deal they were talking about,” mused Herb.

“It was a crooked one, anyway,” said Bob, decidedly. “All you had to do was to look at them to know that.”

The little shack in the woods was a long way from the Salper place, and so, in spite of their hurry, the boys did not reach it until just on the edge of dark.

The entire family was gathered in the living room of the Salper cottage, even Mr. Salper himself, and the boys threw their bomb right into the midst of them.

Mr. Salper had seemed inclined, as he usually did, to draw apart by himself, but at the very beginning of the boys’ story, he evinced an almost fierce interest.

He questioned them minutely while the girls and Mrs. Salper listened wonderingly.

“You said the name of one of the men was Mohun?” he asked, throwing away the cigar he had been smoking and bending earnestly toward Bob. “What did he look like?”

The disagreeable impression the man had made upon him was still so vivid that Bob had no trouble at all in giving a graphic description of the fellow.

Mr. Salper’s face grew blacker and blacker as he listened and he pulled out another cigar, biting off the end of it viciously.

“That’s the fellow I’ve been suspecting all along,” he said, finally. “Slick fellow, that Mohun. Whenever a man gets too eager to do things for you I’ve learned to suspect him. Yet, closely as I’ve watched this man, I haven’t been able to get a thing on him. As far as we could find out, he was perfectly square. But, by Jove, this puts an entirely new face on things.”

He paused for a moment, puffing hard on his cigar while the others all watched him anxiously. The ill humor which had been hanging over him for so long seemed magically to have vanished. Now that his suspicions had been so unexpectedly justified, bringing with them the need for action, the broker was a different man, entirely. His brow had cleared and there was an eager light in his keen eyes.

“You fellows have done me the greatest of possible services,” he said, turning to the radio boys – he had forgotten up to that time to thank them for what they had done. “If you could know what it means to me to have this information – ”

He broke off, running his hand excitedly through his hair, his eyes gazing unseeingly out of the window.

“I must act and act quickly,” he muttered, after a minute. “There is surely no time to lose. You said this man Mohun was urging haste?” he added, turning to Bob.

The latter nodded. “Said he’d quit if they didn’t get a move on, or words to that effect,” he told his questioner, and Mr. Salper smiled a preoccupied smile in response.

“Then Mohun will get what he wants. He has a way of getting what he wants,” he said, again with that air of speaking to himself. “I’m glad to know it’s Mohun – very glad!”

Although Bob had given as good a description as was possible of the other two men who had been in the shack with Mohun, Mr. Salper did not recognize them.

“Probably a couple of dark horses,” he said, and dismissed the subject. Evidently, to him, Mohun was the most important of the rascals and the one it was necessary to deal with at once.

After repeated thanks from Mr. Salper and outspoken gratitude on the part of Mrs. Salper and the girls, the boys managed to get away.

They hurried on toward the Mountain Rest Hotel, talking excitedly of what had happened.

“That was sure just dumb luck,” remarked Joe as he sniffed of the cold brisk air and began to realize that he was very hungry. “Our happening on that little shack just as we did,” he added in response to an enquiring look from Bob.

“You bet,” agreed Herb. “That was the time our luck was running strong. It will do me good if those scoundrels get come up with, especially the one with the big teeth.”

“Oh, stop talking and hurry up,” begged Jimmy, who, in his eagerness to get back to the hotel and dinner, was actually leading the others. “It seems ten miles to the house when your poor old system is crying aloud for grub.”

They laughed at him but followed his example just the same, for they had been tramping many hours and their appetites were never of the uncertain variety.

But just before they reached the welcome lights of the cottage they realized to their surprise that it was snowing again. So fast were the flakes coming that by the time they reached the door of the hotel they were well powdered with them.

“Hooray!” shouted Herb. “We sure are getting our money’s worth of snow this winter.”

“You bet,” agreed Bob, adding happily: “And this one looks like a ‘lallapaloosa.’”

CHAPTER XX – BROKEN WIRES

True to Bob’s prediction, the snowstorm proved to be a fierce one even for this season of unusual snows, and when the boys awoke the next morning they found that the ground had taken on an extra covering and the branches of the trees were weighted down with the heavy fall.

“Say, fellows, look what’s here!” cried Joe as he roused his mates, sleepy-eyed from their comfortable beds. “Old Jack Frost sure was busy last night.”

“Guess he thinks it’s Thanksgiving,” Bob agreed as he hurried into his clothes, keeping one eye on the frosty landscape and fairly aching to make part of it. “Hurry up, fellows, let’s go out and have a snow fight.”

“You’re on,” agreed Joe, and then began the race to see who would get from their cottage to the hotel and to the breakfast table first.

They arrived there – at the breakfast table, that is – at one and the same time and ate as ravenously as though they had not broken their fast in a week. Mr. and Mrs. Layton watched them and smiled, wishing that they might once more eat with such lusty appetites.

Before the boys had finished breakfast, it had begun to snow again, making the landscape appear more than ever blizzardy and bleak. Eagerly the boys buttoned up heavy sweaters, prepared to fight the storm to a finish.

It seemed that they were not the only ones whom the storm had lured forth. There were a number of people gathered in front of the hotel and, since they seemed rather excited about something, three of the boys joined them to find out what the fuss was all about, Jimmy remaining behind for the time being to take a nail from his shoe.

“The telegraph wires are all down,” said a man in response to Bob’s question. “There’s a man been raving around here like a crazy man, declaring he has to send a telegram. Nobody can seem to make him understand that since the wires are all down such a thing is impossible.”

“He might telephone,” Joe suggested, but the man who had been their informant took him up quickly.

“They’re down too,” he said. “We’re as marooned here, as far as any communication with the outside world is concerned, as though we were stranded on an island in the midst of the ocean. This storm has done considerable damage.”

“I should say so,” remarked Joe, as the gentleman turned to some one else and the boys started on a tour of the place to look over the prospect. “I’ll call it some damage to knock down both telephone and telegraph wires at one fell swoop.”

“That talk about our being just as badly off for communication with the outside world as though we were on an island isn’t quite correct,” observed Herb. “That fellow seemed to forget all about trains.”

“I suppose he meant quick communication,” said Bob. “We could send a message by wire in an hour or less, while it would take two or three times that time to send the same message by rail.”

“That’s so,” agreed Herb, staring up at the wires which had fallen beneath their weight of snow. “I’d hate to have to get a message through for any reason just now. But look,” he added, pointing to the hotel. “Our aerials are still up anyway.”

“I wonder who the fellow was who was so anxious to telegraph,” said Joe, after a few minutes. “He must think himself in bad luck.”

Bob brought his gaze from the damaged wires and stared at the boys, and at Jimmy who just then came puffing up.

“Say, I bet that was Mr. Salper,” Bob said. “Don’t you remember last night that he said he must get a message through to his broker first thing in the morning?”

“By Jove, the storm knocked it clear out of my head!” exclaimed Joe. “Say, I feel sorry for him, all right.”

“Wish we could help him some way,” said Herb anxiously. “It would never do to let that fellow Mohun and his pals get off with the filthy lucre just when we thought we’d double-crossed them so nicely.”

“I guess that’s where Mr. Salper would agree with you,” said Jimmy, with a grin. “Especially since the filthy lucre belongs to him.”

They walked on in silence for a few moments, chagrined at the thought that the storm had played so into the hands of Mr. Salper’s enemies.

They had learned from Mr. Salper the night before that Mohun of the protruding teeth was not the kind of man to let a golden opportunity pass. He would rush the “deal” through while Salper was out of town, and, from the latter’s impatience, they had gathered that the next few hours would, in all probability, be the crucial time.

“Burr-r-r!” cried Jimmy suddenly, wrapping his arms as far as they would go about his chubby body and shivering with the cold. “This weather sure does make a fellow wish for a fur overcoat. The thermometer must have gone down twenty degrees over night.”

“Hear who’s talking!” scoffed Herb. “With all that fat on your bones, Doughnuts, you haven’t a chance in the world of feeling cold.”

“I suppose you know more than I do about it – not being me,” retorted Jimmy, scathingly. “I’d just like you to feel the way I do; that’s all.”

“Well, it isn’t what you might call unpleasantly hot,” observed Bob. “I must say I’m not sweltering, myself.”

“Guess it isn’t much colder than this up at the North Pole,” agreed Joe, as he turned his sweater collar up higher about his ears. “Might as well rig up as an Eskimo and be done with it.”

“Reminds me of that Norwegian, Amundsen,” said Bob. “He sure intends to discover the North Pole with all the fancy trimmings, this time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Herb, with interest.

“Do you mean to say you haven’t read about it?” demanded Jimmy, indulgently. “Why, he’s the fellow who is going to have his ship all dressed up with wireless so that when he smashes his ship against the North Pole he can let everybody know about it.”

“It’s a great idea, I call it,” said Joe, enthusiastically. “Up to this time, explorers haven’t had any way of communicating with the outside world, and so if they got in trouble they just had to get out of it the best way they could or die in the attempt.”

“While now,” Bob took him up eagerly, “his wireless messages will be picked up by hundreds of stations all over the world and in case of need ships and teams of huskies and even aeroplanes can be rushed to his rescue.”

“Exploring de luxe,” murmured Herb, with a comical look. “Pretty soon there won’t be any such thing as adventure because there won’t be any danger. We’ll have radio to watch over us and keep us from all harm.”

“It’s all right for you to talk that way,” said Jimmy. “But I bet if you were one of these explorer chaps you’d be mighty glad to have something watch over you and help you out of a tight fix.”

“Yes, I guess those fellows need all the help they can get,” agreed Bob, soberly. “It isn’t any joke to be away out there with hundreds of miles of ice and water between them and civilization.”

“They say even the sledges are to be equipped with radio,” Joe broke in. “So that they can keep in touch with the ship all the time and through the medium of the powerful sending set aboard the boat the ship itself can be kept in constant touch with the outside world.”

“There are planes too, equipped with radio,” added Bob. “And they say each plane is outfitted with skids so that it can land safely on the ice.”

“I should think there would be danger in that,” remarked Jimmy, rubbing his hands vigorously to set the blood circulating again. “They say the ice is awfully rough and bumpy and spattered with small hills of ice. I should think a pilot would have a jolly time trying to make a landing under those conditions.”

“They intend to cut out the ice about the ship so as to make landing possible,” explained Bob. “And in the other places the skids help them to make a sure landing. Say, wouldn’t I like to make one of that expedition!” he added, with enthusiasm.

“I wonder how long they expect this expedition to take,” said Herb. The idea of exploring the arctic with radio as a companion was a fascinating one to him and at that moment he would have made one of Amundsen’s hardy crew, if such a thing were possible, with the greatest joy.

“They expect it will take them five years, maybe six.” It was Bob who answered the question. “Their idea is to travel as far as possible north before the ice gets thick. Then when the floes close in about them they will drift with the ice over the pole – or, at least, that’s what they hope to do.”

“What gets me,” said Jimmy plaintively, “is how they are going to know when they get to the pole anyway.”

Herb made a pass at him which the fat boy nimbly avoided.

“Why, you poor fish,” said the former witheringly, “you sure will be a full-sized nut if you ever live to grow up. I suppose if you got to the North Pole you’d expect to see a clothes pole with the clothes line wrapped around it, ready for use.”

CHAPTER XXI – A SUDDEN INSPIRATION

Unconsciously their feet had carried the radio boys in the direction of the radio station and now they were surprised to find themselves confronted by the building itself.

“We’ve come some way,” Herb began with a chuckle, but Bob cut him short excitedly.

“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.”