The Secret Wireless | Page 7

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 co?peration 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, "but you may be of a great deal of service here. You see New York is a difficult place to guard. This is our principal port. It is so vast that it is next to impossible to watch all of it, and there are hundreds of thousands of Germans or people of German descent living here. The Radio Chief needs sharp eyes and ears as well as trained fingers just now, and he knows that you boys combine these qualifications. He suggested that I send for four of you and see what you could accomplish. I chose you four because you have shown the greatest ability along the lines necessary."
A flush of pleasure glowed in each of the faces before him. For a moment Willie Brown forgot where he was, forgot the crowd and the great station and the strange sights and sounds about him, forgot even why he was in New York,