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

“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 régime 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 nobody.

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 – ”

“We’re a bunch of nuts,” finished Jimmy, decidedly.

“Maybe,” retorted Bob. “But at this time, even a bunch of nuts might be better than nothing.”

“We’ve been studying the code,” said Joe thoughtfully. “We might be able to handle it all right. It isn’t the first time, if we’re not experts. Of course we can do it.”

“But not for old Salper,” said Herb. “He’s so impatient he’d make us forget in five minutes everything we ever knew.”

“Maybe,” said Bob again, adding, stoutly: “But I’m game to make a try at it anyway. There’s no one else to do it, and Mr. Salper stands to lose his wife and a lot of money besides if some one doesn’t help him out.”

“Well, let’s make him the proposition,” suggested Joe, pausing and looking back at the Salper house. “I’m with Bob in this thing.”

“So say we all of us,” sang Herb cheerily, as they turned back.

“So long as Bob’s the goat,” finished Jimmy.

They found Mr. Salper in the living room of the bungalow, savagely smoking a cigar. He scarcely looked at the boys when the girls let them in, and Bob was forced to speak his name before he gave them his attention.

“Well, what is it?” he said gruffly, his tone adding plainly: “What are you doing here anyway? I wish you’d get out.”

The tone made Bob mad, as it did the other boys, and when he spoke his own tone was not as pleasant as usual.

“We’ve decided to try to help you out, if we can, Mr. Salper,” he said, and the man looked at him with a mixture of surprise and incredulity.

“In what way?” he asked, in the same curt tone.

“We know something about sending and receiving messages by radio,” Bob went on, getting madder and madder. “And we thought maybe we might get a message through for you to a doctor and to your brokers, as well. Of course,” he added, modestly, “we haven’t had very much experience – ”

Bob was too modest to say anything about how he had once sent messages to some ships at sea, (as related in detail in “The Radio Boys at Ocean Point,”) and how he had tried to send on other occasions.

“Experience be hanged!” cried Mr. Salper, so suddenly that the boys jumped. “You mean to tell me you can operate that radio contraption?”

“I think so,” said Bob, still modestly. “We haven’t done much along that end of it – ”

“You’ll do,” cried Mr. Salper, while Edna and Ruth stared at him with tear-reddened eyes. “Are you ready to go with me right away to the station?”

The boys nodded and the older man shrugged into his great coat, reaching quickly for his cap.

“Take care of your mother,” he said to the girls. “I’ll stop on my way over to the hotel and send a nurse over for her. I hear there are two of them there. Don’t see why the physician there didn’t send some one to take his place if he had to leave.”

In a moment the radio boys found themselves once more in the freezing air of the out-of-doors, being hurried along by the erratic Mr. Salper.

Poor Jimmy suffered on that forced march. Although he uttered no word of protest, his face was purple and his breath came in little puffing gasps before they had reached the hotel.

Once there, they had a little respite, however, while Mr. Salper went to arrange about having a nurse sent over to his wife. Jimmy waited in the hotel lobby in a state nearing collapse while the other boys went up to inquire once more about their friend, the operator.

They found him no better – worse, if anything – and their faces were very solemn when they rejoined Jimmy in the lobby.

“Guess it will be nip and tuck if he gets through at all,” said Bob, anxiously. “I don’t see why such hard luck had to pick him out for the victim.”

“I suppose they’ll appoint another operator right away,” suggested Herb.

“I suppose so,” agreed Jimmy. “But it will be hard to get any one for a week or more on account of the heavy weather.”

“And in a week’s time without communication with the outside world a lot of Mr. Salper’s money will probably have gone up in smoke,” said Joe.

“Yes, it’s us on the job all right,” said Bob, looking a bit worried. “I only hope we can live up to what’s expected of us.”

“All right, boys,” said Mr. Salper, on returning, in his eyes the preoccupied look of the man of affairs. “If you can help me out of this fix, I will surely be deeply in your debt.”

These genial words – almost the first that they had heard from the self-absorbed man – warmed the boys’ hearts and they resolved to do the best they could for him, and, through him, for his daughters.

When they reached the station they found it deserted save for one man who sat at a desk, humped over in a dispirited fashion, reading a magazine.

At the entrance of Mr. Salper and the boys he looked up, then got up and came over to them as though he were glad of their companionship.

“How do you do, Mr. Salper?” he said, addressing the older man with marked respect. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Nothing, unless you can work this contrivance,” returned Mr. Salper, with a comprehensive wave of his hand toward the cluttered radio table.

“I’m sorry,” said the other, a frown of anxiety lining his forehead. “The operator is sick, and because of the heavy weather it is doubtful if we shall be able to secure another one within the week.”

“A week!” cried Mr. Salper. “That amount of time, my friend, may very easily spell ruin for me. It is necessary that I communicate with New York immediately. Are you ready, boys?”

The man looked with surprise, first at the radio boys and then back to Mr. Salper.

“Am I to understand – ” he began, when Mr. Salper cut him short with an imperative wave of the hand.

“These boys,” he said, “know something of radio. How much they know I am about to find out.

“Are you ready?” he asked, sharply, as the boys still hesitated. “A delay of even a few minutes would be regrettable.”

The boys looked at each other, and since no one else made a move to approach the apparatus, Bob saw that it was up to him. And right there he realized the great difference that there is between theory and practice. Of course they had had some practice in sending and they were fairly familiar with the code, but never before had they been called upon to make use of their knowledge in such a matter as this.

Then too, Mr. Salper was not the kind of person to inspire self-confidence. He was a driver, and it is hard to do good thinking when one is being driven.

However, having gone so far, there was no possibility of backing out and with a show of confidence, Bob approached the apparatus. The man who had addressed Mr. Salper regarded him with not a little distrust. He had heard of the radio boys, as who at Mountain Pass had not, but he certainly did not think them competent to send a message of any importance.

And at that moment, neither did Bob.

“Will you send your message phone or code?” he asked, looking up at Mr. Salper inquiringly. “We can do either here.”

Mr. Salper hesitated for a moment, then with a significant glance at the other man, who was hovering curiously near, he snapped out, “Code.”

“Do you know the letters of the station to be called?” asked Bob.

The broker consulted a notebook which he took from his pocket.

“Call HRSA,” he returned. “That is our Stock Exchange station,” he explained. “They ought to be on the job while the Exchange is open. They will relay a message to my brokers.”

Joe was standing beside Bob and saw that his chum’s hand trembled somewhat as he took hold of the ticker.

“Don’t get rattled, Bob,” he whispered. “Take your time and don’t let him scare you. Remember, it’s you that’s doing the favor.”

Bob grinned, and then began sending out the call. Across the ether traveled the letters HRSA and the call was presently caught up in New York and then another message was relayed to the office of a well-known brokerage firm.

“Hey, Bill,” called a well-dressed young man seated at a desk in the far end of the office. “Here’s WBZA calling us. These are the letters of the station at Mountain Pass – ”

“Where the Honorable Mr. Gilbert Salper is taking his rest cure,” finished another man, flinging away his cigarette and coming to stand beside his partner. “Do you suppose it’s the old boy himself calling?”

“We’ll soon find out,” returned the other, and without delay sent in a message to the New York sending station. In a few seconds they were being radioed into the ether.

Bob’s face beamed as he transcribed the dots and dashes into words. The message read thus:

“WBZA heard from. HRSA awaiting message.”

Mr. Salper, who had been striding up and down, hurried to Bob’s side in answer to the lad’s hail. The other boys were peering eagerly over Bob’s shoulder.

“I’ve reached HRSA and through them H. & D.,” explained the young operator proudly. “H. & D. are waiting for your message.”

“Fine! Fine!” cried Mr. Salper, and his face showed great enthusiasm. “Those are my brokers, Hanson and Debbs. Got ’em right off the reel, didn’t you, boy? Great work! Can you get my message through at once?”

“I don’t know of anything to stop me,” answered Bob. It seemed too good to be true that he had picked up the right station so quickly.

“Send this, then,” Mr. Salper directed. And in a firm hand he wrote down the following message:

“Mohun is a crook and plots to ruin me. Find out his scheme and check him.

Gilbert Salper.”

CHAPTER 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?”