Читать книгу The Radio Boys with the Forest Rangers; Or, The great fire on Spruce Mountain - Chapman Allen - Страница 3

Table of Contents

“Say, fellows!” exclaimed Bob Layton, as he bounded down the school steps, three steps at a time, his books slung by a strap over his shoulder, “what do you think——”

“We never think,” interrupted Herb Fennington. “At least that’s what Prof. Preston told our class the other day.”

“Speak for yourself,” broke in Joe Atwood. “As for me, thinking is the best thing I do. I’ve got Plato, Shakespeare and the rest of those high-brows beaten to a frazzle.”

“Sure thing,” mocked Jimmy Plummer. “But don’t think because you have notions in your head that you’re a whole department store.”

Bob surveyed his comrades with a withering glare.

“When you funny fellows get through with your per-per-persiflage——” he began.

“Did you get that, fellows?” cried Jimmy. “Persiflage! Great! What is it, Bob? A new kind of breakfast food?”

“I notice it almost choked him to get it out,” remarked Joe, with a grin.

“Words of only one syllable would be the proper size for you fellows,” retorted Bob. “But what I was going to say was that I just heard from Mr. Bentley. You know the man I mean, the one that we saw at my house some time ago and who gave us all that dope about forest fires.”

“Oh, you mean the forest ranger!” broke in Joe eagerly. “Sure, I remember him. He was one of the most interesting fellows I ever met.”

“I’ll never forget what he told us about radio being used to get the best of forest fires,” said Herb. “I could have listened to him all night when once he got going.”

“He’s a regular fellow, all right,” was Jimmy’s comment. “But what about him? When did you see him?”

“I haven’t seen him yet,” explained Bob. “Dad got a letter from him yesterday. You know dad and he are old friends. Mr. Bentley asked dad to remember him to all the radio boys, and said to tell us that he was going to give a talk on radio and forest fires from the Newark broadcasting station before long and wanted us to be sure to listen in.”

“Will we?” returned Joe enthusiastically. “You bet we will! But when’s the talk coming off?”

“Mr. Bentley said that the exact date hadn’t been settled yet,” replied Bob. “But it will be some time within the next week or ten days. He promised to let us know in plenty of time.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for a farm,” chimed in Jimmy. “But if it’s great to hear about it, what must it be to be right in the thick of the work as he is? Some fellows have all the luck.”

“Perhaps there are times when he doesn’t think it luck,” laughed Bob. “Half a dozen times he’s just escaped death by the skin of his teeth. But look, fellows, who’s coming.”

The others followed the direction of Bob’s glance and saw a group of three boys coming toward them. One, who seemed to be the leader, was a big hulking fellow with a pasty complexion and eyes that were set too close together. At his right was a boy slightly younger and on the outside another, younger yet, with a furtive and shifty look.

“Buck Looker, Carl Lutz and Terry Mooney!” exclaimed Bob. “I haven’t come across them since we got back from the woods.”

“Guess they’ve kept out of our way on purpose,” remarked Joe. “You can bet they’ve felt mighty cheap over the way you put it over on them in the matter of those letters.”

“‘There were three crows sat on a tree,’” chanted Jimmy.

“‘And they were black as crows could be,’” finished Herb.

The objects of these unflattering remarks had caught sight of the four boys, and as at the moment they were at a corner, they hesitated slightly, as though they were minded to turn down the side street. But after conferring for a moment, they kept on, their leader assuming a swaggering air. And whereas before the three had been simply conversing as they came along, they now began a boisterous skylarking, snatching each other’s caps and knocking each other about.

Just as they came abreast of the other group, Buck gave Lutz a violent shove and sent him with full force against Joe, who was nearest. The latter was taken unawares and almost knocked off his feet.

Joe had a quick temper, and the malicious wantonness of the act made his blood boil. He rushed toward Buck, who backed away from him, his face gradually losing the grin it wore.

“What did you mean by that?” demanded Joe, clenching his fist.

“Aw, what’s the matter with you?” growled Buck. “How did I know he’d knock against you? It was just an accident. Why didn’t you get out of the way?”

“Accident nothing,” replied Joe. “You’re the same sneak that you always were, Buck Looker. You planned that thing when you stopped and talked together. And now something’s going to happen to you, and it won’t be an accident, either!”

He advanced upon Buck, who hurriedly retreated to the middle of the street and looked about him for a stone.

“You keep away from me, Joe Atwood, or I’ll let you have this,” he half snarled, half whined, stooping as he spoke and picking up a stone as big as his fist.

“You coward!” snapped Joe, still advancing. “Don’t think that’s going to save you from a licking.”

Just then a sharp warning came from Bob.

“Stop, Joe!” he cried. “Here comes Dr. Dale.”

A look of chagrin came into Joe’s face and a look of relief into Buck’s, as they saw the pastor of the Old First Church turning a corner and coming in their direction. Fighting now was out of the question.

“Lucky for you that he turned up just now,” blustered Buck, his old swagger returning as he felt himself safe. “I was just going to give you the licking of your life.”

Joe laughed sarcastically, and before the biting contempt in that laugh Buck flushed uncomfortably.

“Stones seem to be your best friends,” said Joe. “I remember how you used them in the snowballs when you smashed that plate-glass window. And I remember too how you tried to fib out of it, but had to pay for the window just the same.”

By this time Dr. Dale was within earshot, and Buck and his companions slunk away, while Joe picked up his books and rejoined his comrades.

The doctor’s keen eyes had seen that hostilities were threatening but now that they had been averted he had too much tact and good sense to ask any questions.

“How are you, boys?” he greeted them, with the genial smile that made him a general favorite. “Working hard at your studies, I suppose.”

“More or less hard,” answered Bob. “Though probably not nearly as hard as we ought to,” he added.

The doctor’s eyes twinkled.

“Very few of us are in danger of dying from overwork, I imagine,” he said. “But I’ve known you chaps to work mighty hard at radio.”

“That isn’t work!” exclaimed Joe. “That’s fun.”

“Sure thing,” echoed Herb.

“I’ll tell the world it is,” added Jimmy.

“We can’t wait for a chance to get at it,” affirmed Bob.

“Seems to be unanimous,” laughed the doctor. “I feel the same way myself. I never get tired of it, and I suppose the reason is that something new is turning up all the time. One magical thing treads close on the heels of another so that there’s no such thing as monotony. There isn’t a week that passes, scarcely a day in fact, that something doesn’t spring up that makes you gasp with astonishment. Your mind is kept on the alert all the time, and that’s one thing among many others that makes the charm of radio.”

“I see that they’re using it everywhere in the Government departments,” remarked Bob.

“Every single one of them,” replied the doctor. The President himself has had a set installed and uses it constantly. The head of the army talks over it to every fort and garrison and camp in the United States. The Secretary of the Navy communicates by it with every ship and naval station in the Atlantic and Pacific as far away as Honolulu and the Philippines. The Secretary of Agriculture sends out information broadcast to every farmer in the United States who happens to have a radio receiving set. And so with every other branch of the Government.

“That reminds me,” he went on, warming to his subject, as he always did when he got on his favorite theme, “of a talk I had the other day on the train with a man in the Government Air Mail Service. He was a man, too, who knew what he was talking about, for he was the first man to fly the mail successfully both ways between New York and Washington on the initial air mail run.

“He told me that plans are now on foot to fly mail across the continent, daily, both ways, in something like twenty-four hours. Just think of that! From coast to coast in twenty-four hours! That’s five times as fast as an express train does it, and a hundred times as fast as the old pioneers with their prairie schooners could do it.

“But in order to do this, a gap of about a thousand miles must be flown at night. And here is where the radio comes in. In order to be able to find his way in the dark, the flier uses his ears instead of his eyes. He wears a radio-telephone helmet that excludes the noise of the motor. A coil of wire is wound on his plane and is connected to a radio receiving set on board. Along his route at stated intervals are transmission stations whose signals come up to the aviator. When the pilot’s direction finder is pointed toward these stations that mark out his path the signals are loudest. The minute he begins to get off his path, either on one side or the other, the signals begin to get weaker.

“Now, you see, all that the pilot has to do is to keep along the line where the signals are loudest. If he goes a little to the right and finds the signals getting weaker, he knows he must shift a little back to the left again until he gets on the loudest sound line. The same process has to be followed if he gets off to the left. You see, it’s just as if the plane were running along a trolley line miles below it. Only in this case the trolley line instead of being made of wire is made of sound. That loudest sound line will stretch right across the continent, and all the flier has to do is to run along it. If he does this, he’ll get to his destination just as certainly as does the train running along the rails that lead to the station.”

“It’s wonderful!” exclaimed Bob.

“Sounds like witchcraft,” commented Joe.

“You see how easy that makes it for the aviator,” resumed the doctor. “It may be as black as Egypt, but that makes no difference to him. He may be shrouded in fog, but that can’t bewilder him or shunt him off his course. He can shut his eyes and get along just as well. All he’s got to do is not to go to sleep. And when the dawn breaks he finds himself a thousand miles or so nearer to his destination.”

“Suppose he gets to his landing field in the night time or in a heavy fog,” said Joe thoughtfully. “How’s he going to know where to come down?”

“Radio attends to that too,” replied the doctor. “At each landing place there will be a peculiar kind of radio transmission aerial, which transmits vertically in the form of a cone that gains diameter as it goes higher. At a height of about three thousand feet above the field, such a cone will have a diameter of nearly half a mile. In other words this sound cone will be like a horn of plenty with the tip on the ground and its wide opening up in the air. The pilot will sail right into this wide mouth of the horn which he will recognize by its peculiar signal. Then he will spiral down on the inside of the cone, or horn, until he reaches the tip on the ground. This will be right in the middle of the landing field, and there he is safe and sound.

“But here I am at my corner,” Dr. Dale concluded. “And perhaps it’s just as well, for when I get to talking on radio I never know when to stop.”

He said good-by with a wave of his hand while the four boys looked after him with respect and admiration.

“He’s all to the good, isn’t he?” said Bob.

“You bet he is!” agreed Joe emphatically.

“He’s—Hello! what’s the matter?”

A sudden commotion was evident up the street. People were running excitedly and shouting in consternation.

The boys broke into a run in the direction followed by the crowd.

“What’s happened?” Bob asked, as he came abreast of a panting runner.

“There’s been an explosion up at Layton’s drug store,” the man replied. “They say an ammonia tank burst and everybody up there was killed.”

Bob’s face grew ashen.

“My father!” he cried, and ran toward the store in an agony of grief and fear.