The Treasure-Train | Page 8

as well tell Kennedy to let us go and let the thing go through.
It involves more than us."
Kennedy had been standing back a bit, carefully keeping them all
covered. He glanced a moment out of the corner of his eye at Maude
Euston, but said nothing.

It was a terrible situation. Had Lane really been in it? That question
was overshadowed by the mention of her father. Impulsively she turned
to Craig.
"Oh, save him!" she cried. "Can't anything be done to save my father in
spite of himself?"
"It is too late," mocked Mrs. Labret. "People will read the account of
the robbery in the papers, even if it didn't take place. They will see it
before they see a denial. Orders will flood in to sell the stock. No; it
can't be stopped."
Kennedy glanced momentarily at me.
"Is there still time to catch the last morning edition of the Star,
Walter?" he asked, quietly. I glanced at my watch.
"We may try. It's possible."
"Write a despatch--an accident to the engine--train delayed--now
proceeding--anything. Here, Dugan, you keep them covered. Shoot to
kill if there's a move."
Kennedy had begun feverishly setting up the part of the apparatus
which he had brought after Whiting had set up his.
"What can you do?" hissed Mrs. Labret. "You can't get word through.
Orders have been issued that the telegraph operators are under no
circumstances to give out news about this train. The wireless is out of
commission, too--the operator overcome. The robbery story has been
prepared and given out by this time. Already reporters are being
assigned to follow it up."
I looked over at Kennedy. If orders had been given for such secrecy by
Barry Euston, how could my despatch do any good? It would be held
back by the operators.
Craig quickly slung a wire over those by the side of the track and

seized what I had written, sending furiously.
"What are you doing?" I asked. "You heard what she said."
"One thing you can be certain of," he answered, "that despatch can
never be stolen or tapped by spies."
"Why--what is this?" I asked, pointing to the instrument.
"The invention of Major Squier, of the army," he replied, "by which
any number of messages may be sent at the same time over the same
wire without the slightest conflict. Really it consists in making wireless
electric waves travel along, instead of inside, the wire. In other words,
he had discovered the means of concentrating the energy of a wireless
wave on a given point instead of letting it riot all over the face of the
earth.
"It is the principle of wireless. But in ordinary wireless less than
one-millionth part of the original sending force reaches the point for
which it is intended. The rest is scattered through space in all directions.
If the vibrations of a current are of a certain number per second, the
current will follow a wire to which it is, as it were, attached, instead of
passing off into space.
"All the energy in wireless formerly wasted in radiation in every
direction now devotes itself solely to driving the current through the
ether about the wire. Thus it goes until it reaches the point where
Whiting is--where the vibrations correspond to its own and are in tune.
There it reproduces the sending impulse. It is wired wireless."
Craig had long since finished sending his wired wireless message. We
waited impatiently. The seconds seemed to drag like hours.
Far off, now, we could hear a whistle as a train finally approached
slowly into our block, creeping up to see what was wrong. But that
made no difference now. It was not any help they could give us that we
wanted. A greater problem, the saving of one man's name and the
re-establishment of another, confronted us.

Unexpectedly the little wired wireless instrument before us began to
buzz. Quickly Kennedy seized a pencil and wrote as the message that
no hand of man could interfere with was flashed back to us.
"It is for you, Walter, from the Star," he said, simply handing me what
he had written on the back of an old envelope.
I read, almost afraid to read:
Robbery story killed. Black type across page-head last edition,
"Treasure-train safe!" McGRATH.
"Show it to Miss Euston," Craig added, simply, gathering up his wired
wireless set, just as the crew from the train behind us ran up. "She may
like to know that she has saved her father from himself through
misunderstanding her lover."
I thought Maude Euston would faint as she clutched the message. Lane
caught her as she reeled backward.
"Rodman--can you--forgive me?" she murmured, simply, yielding to
him and looking up into his face.

II
THE TRUTH DETECTOR
"You