The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border | Page 3

to a considerable
height and well clear of surrounding objects.
Such a set should be constructed at a minimum of cost and may later,
after you have become familiar with the operation of radio appliances,
easily be converted into a set of much greater range by the use of a
vacuum tube as detector and may even, by slight changes, be given the
much desired regenerative effects.
CHAPTER I
A CRY IN THE AIR
"Well, Bob, here we are again. And no word from Jack yet."
"That's right, Frank. But the weather has been bad for sending so great
a distance for days. When these spring storms come to an end the static
will lift and well stand a better chance to hear from him."
"Righto, Bob. Then, too, the Hamptons may not have finished their
station on time."
The other shook his head. "No, Jack wrote us they would have
everything installed by the 15th and that we should be on the lookout
for his voice. And when he says he'll do a thing, he generally does it. It
must be the weather. Let's step out again and have a look."
Taking off their headpieces, the two boys opened the door of the
private radiophone station where the above conversation took place and
stepped out to a little platform. It was a mild day late in June, and the
sandy Long Island plain, broken only by a few trees, with the ocean in
the distance, lay smiling before them. A succession of electrical storms

which for days had swept the countryside in rapid succession
apparently had come to an end. The clouds were lifting, and there was
more than a promise of early sunlight to brighten the Saturday holiday.
The boys looked hopefully at each other.
"Looks better than it has for days, Frank."
"That's right."
A few moments more they chatted hopefully about the prospects, then
re-entered the station.
Frank Merrick and Bob Temple were chums, a little under 18 years of
age each. It was their bitterest regret that they had been too young to
take any part in the World War some years before. Frank was dark,
curly-haired, of medium height and slim, but strong and wiry. Bob was
fair and sleepy-eyed, a fraction under six feet tall and weighed 180
pounds. A third chum and the leader of the trio was Jack Hampton, 19
years of age. He had gone to New Mexico several months before with
his father, a mining engineer.
All three boys were sons of wealthy parents, with country estates near
the far end of Long Island. Frank's parents, in fact, were dead, and he
lived with the Temples. Mr. Temple was his guardian and administrator
of the large fortune left by his father, who had been Mr. Temple's
partner in an exporting firm with headquarters in New York City. Jack
Hampton also was motherless.
The boys were keenly interested in scientific inventions, and were
given every facility by Mr. Temple and Mr. Hampton for indulging
their hobbies. Such indulgence required considerable sums of money,
but the men believed the boys were worth it. In fact, both gentlemen
were scientifically inclined themselves, and were able to give the boys
much valuable advice.
When Mr. Hampton decided to go to Texas and New Mexico as the
representative of a group of "independent" oil operators engaged in a

bitter war with the Oil Trust known as the "Octopus," Jack begged so
hard to be permitted to go along that his father let him quit Harrington
Hall Military Academy two months before the end of the term.
It was agreed that when school ended, June 28, Frank and Bob should
join Jack in the Southwest for their summer vacation. The two boys
owned an airplane in which they hoped to make the trip when the time
came. Mr. Temple, however, was dubious about letting them attempt to
make so long a flight alone.
"But, Dad," Bob would argue, whenever the matter was discussed,
"we'll be all right. We've made lots of flights without any accidents.
We're as capable as anybody. You know yourself what the instructors
up at Mineola told you. You say we are too young to fly away alone.
But look at the young fellows that got to be 'aces' in the War! Not much
older than we are now."
It must be confessed that Mrs. Temple thought little of the matter one
way or the other. She had so many social duties to take up her time that
there was little left for the boys. Accordingly, the boys had only Mr.
Temple to persuade and they felt pretty certain of doing that in time. So
the last two months of school were spent in poring over maps and
routes, and in studying up on