The Secret Wireless | Page 7

were to play no inconspicuous part in the stirring days to
come, and who were to make known to the country at large the name of
the Camp Brady Wireless Patrol.
CHAPTER IV
THE SCENE OF ACTION
As the conductor shouted "All aboard!" the little group of boys on the
station platform suddenly parted, and the four who had stood in the
centre of the ring, vigorously shaking hands, now moved hastily toward
the train and scrambled up the steps. The conductor waved his signal to

the engine-driver and swung aboard. The locomotive bell began to ring,
there was a hissing of steam, and a puffing of the great locomotive, and
the train slid gently forward. On the car platform stood the four
departing members of the wireless patrol, waving fond farewells to
their less fortunate members. Then they turned and entered the coach,
with the cheers of their comrades ringing in their ears, their hearts
beating with high determination to give all that they had of strength and
skill and courage and patience to the grim task that lay ahead of them.
In no time Central City was lost from sight. The familiar fields and
woods vanished. The country grew strange. Soon they were passing
through a region entirely unknown to them. But so busy was each boy
with his thoughts that he hardly noticed what at other times would have
held his closest attention; for the pictures in each mind were just as
unfamiliar as the landscape through which they were speeding.
"What was to be the nature of their work?" each boy was asking
himself. "Would they sit and listen in, as they had done at Camp Brady,
or would they be set to roving about, trying to pick out suspicious
characters, or detect suspicious acts? And what would New York be
like? What was there about this great, roaring city of men that was so
attractive, that drew such multitudes to it, that grew with such uncanny
swiftness? What was New York like, anyway?"
And almost before they knew it, the train rolled into a tunnel, dived
under a great river, and emerged again in a huge yard far below the
level of the streets, that was filled with many tracks and closed in with
enormous walls of cement. Then the train ran into a great shed and
came to rest. The boys left the coach, mounted a long flight of iron
steps and found themselves in the city of their dreams--New York.
And there, at the gateway, was their beloved captain. They swarmed
about him and grasped his hand. Then Captain Hardy led them to a
corner of the waiting-room that offered a little privacy, and there they
sat down in a group, close to one another, to talk over the business that
had brought them again together.
"As I wrote you in my letter, Henry," said Captain Hardy, "I was not at

all hopeful that your plan would meet with official encouragement. But
I had promised you that I would mention it to the Chief of the Radio
Service and I did so. It didn't take him a minute to decide on it. To my
surprise he said he wanted you. 'I haven't a bit of doubt,' said he, 'that
the country's full of secret German wireless outfits. They are probably
of small sending power and operate in unusual wave lengths. It is
almost impossible for our regular service to detect them. In fact I don't
know how we are ever going to locate them unless we organize the
amateurs all over the country so that they can listen in and catch
practically everything that goes through the air. We are not able to do
that yet, but I shall be very glad to have the help of your boys. I've been
mighty interested in the way they handled that affair at Elk City. They
are experienced and have good sense. They should be very useful to
Uncle Sam.'" Dr. Hardy paused and smiled. "You see," he went on, "the
Chief has kept pretty close watch of you boys. He knows all about the
affair at Elk City." And Captain Hardy smiled affectionately at his
charges.
"What are the Radio Chief's instructions?" asked Roy. "What are we to
do?"
"The Radio Service," replied Captain Hardy, "has no agencies for
making arrests and detecting crime. So we shall work under the
direction of the secret service and in coöperation with the police. And
our first duty is to make ourselves known to both."
"If the Chief of the Radio Service wanted the wireless patrol," said Roy,
"why did you telegraph for just the four of us? And why are we in New
York instead of Washington?"
"You couldn't be of any use in Washington," said Captain Hardy,