The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands | Page 3

what your suggestions were worth. That's my function--get me?--my function."
"Well, I was goin' to vote for Tee-hee's idea," said Bud with slight tone of resentment. "You might 'ave let me get my vote in."
"It wasn't needed, it wasn't needed," Cub ruled. "Two's a majority of three."
"I'm going to vote for it anyway. I think his idea is a dandy."
"Your vote is accepted and recorded as surplus noise."
"Static, you mean," Bud suggested with modest sarcasm.
"To be up to date, yes."
"Tee-hee," laughed Tee-hee.
CHAPTER II
Tragedy or Joke?
The three boys discussed vacation plans along the line suggested by Hal for half an hour, and then Cub said:
"We can't get any further on this subject to-night. It's nearly 8 o'clock; Let's go in the radio room and listen to some opera music for a while."
He led the way into an adjoining apartment, a veritable radio laboratory. Two years before, as a wireless amateur, Cub had built for himself in this room an elaborate sending and receiving set, and he proved to be one of the first, boy though he was, to appreciate the outlook for the radiophone, even before "the craze" had gripped the country. He soon had his father almost as much interested in the subject as himself, so that the question of financing his latest radio ambition was no serious obstacle. An early result of this active interest on his part was the addition of a receiving amplification with which he could listen in to messages from major-power stations in the remotest parts of the country. Indeed, under favorable conditions, he had picked up messages from as far distant points as Edinburgh, Scotland, and Australia.
Cub sat down at the table and tuned to 360 meters. The other boys seated themselves comfortably and waited with a kind of luxurious contentment for the beginning of the program, which came in a few minutes. They "sat through" the entire Westinghouse program and then Cub began to "tune up and down" to find out what else was going on in the air. The room for several minutes was resonant with a succession of squeaks, squawks, whines, growls, dots-and-dashes, whistles, and musical notes. Suddenly he gave a start that aroused the curiosity of his friends and made them more attentive to his actions.
"Did you get that?" he shouted.
"No," replied Bud and Hal, in chorus, springing forward.
Cub was tuning excitedly back and forth about a certain, or uncertain, wave length, which he had lost.
"Put on your 'phones," he said, putting on his own. "You may not get it through the horn. I'm sure I got an SOS, very faint. I'm going to try to get it again."
Bud and Hal did as directed and listened with quite as much eagerness as that which was evident in Cub's manner. Several minutes elapsed before the search was rewarded. Then at last, in fairly distinct, although faint, vibrations came the distress signal again. All three heard it, and this time Cub caught the wave "on the knob" and did not let it go.
The operator sending the distress signal was evidently pleading desperately for attention, which nobody, it seemed, was willing to give to him. Several times he repeated his SOS, following each repetition with his own private call and wave length. Then he broadcast the following message in explanation of his appeal for help:
"I am marooned on island in Lake of Thousand Isles. I landed here from a motor boat with wireless outfit. Lake thieves stole my boat and left me here with outfit and little food. Will starve in few days if I don't get help. My call is V A X."
"Cracky!" exclaimed Bud excitedly. "Isn't that a thriller! He's an amateur and in trouble. We're in honor bound to help him."
"How?" demanded Cub derisively. "What can we do here nearly two hundred miles away from him?"
"We might get word to some police or lake patrol that'll go and take him off," Hal suggested.
"He's a Canadian," objected Cub. "Didn't you get his Canadian call? We'd have the time of our life getting a Government station to pay any attention to us hams. But listen, somebody's calling him."
All three listened-in eagerly, expectantly, wonderingly. Apparently this fellow also was a Canadian amateur, although he failed to identify himself.
"Oh, come off, you can't get by with that Robinson Crusoe stuff in this twentieth century," he "jeered" with all the pep he could put into his spark. "Some joke you're trying to play. What kind of publicity stunt is this, anyway?"
"No publicity," was "Crusoe's" reply. "I'll starve if I don't get help. You're doing your best to kill me. Keep out, I won't talk to you any more."
"I will not keep out," declared the other. "You're an imposter. I'm protecting the public."
"Whew!" ejaculated Cub, wiping his brow and snapping over the aerial switch. "I'm going to