The Radio Boys at the Sending Station.

by Allen Chapman, et al.

FOREWORD BY JACK BINNS

Since this volume was written an epoch making invention has been announced to the radio world. It is the super-regenerative system developed by E. H.

Armstrong, the wizard of Columbia University. This system is bound to revolutionize the art of wireless communication in every branch, and is in itself the most important discovery since Marconi put into operation the first crude form of wireless apparatus.

I am mentioning this fact because there is the romance of youth overcoming every obstacle placed before it tied up in the history of Armstrong's remarkable achievements, and the story of this romance should stand forward as an incentive to American boyhood.

Fifteen years ago when radio amateurs first began to send out wireless telegraph messages, the federal authorities in Washington were at a loss to devise some means that would regulate them. It was then that a bright official conversant with radio said: "Put 'em down below 200 meters, and they'll soon die out."

He knew perfectly well that it was almost impossible to operate on those low wave-lengths with the apparatus in existence at that time--hence his sardonic proposal. The amateurs, however, refused to "die out." Faced with the inexorable regulation, they set to work to devise apparatus which would operate successfully. Among them was E. H. Armstrong, a youth who at that time was attending Columbia.

It was a really lucky thing for the world that the official in Washington thought of his clever scheme to kill the amateurs, because it provided just the incentive needed to set Armstrong to work. The result has been that within ten years he has produced three epoch-making inventions, any one of which would have been a remarkable life achievement in itself.

Such, briefly is the story of one radio boy overcoming difficulties, but of course in this case it is a real story. It emphasizes the fact that even in these highly developed and organized times there is always an opportunity for boys to improve upon existing conditions, and since this is the theme of the adventures of "The Radio Boys," I am very glad to write the foreword to the series.

[Signature: Jack Binns]

THE RADIO BOYS AT THE SENDING STATION

CHAPTER I

THE COLLISION

"Isn't it a grand and glorious feeling?" exclaimed Bob Layton, a tall stalwart lad of fifteen, as he stretched himself out luxuriously on the warm sands of the beach at Ocean Point and pulled his cap a little further over his eyes to keep out the rays of the sun.

"I'll tell the world it is," agreed Joe Atwood, his special chum, as he burrowed lazily into the hollow he had scooped out for himself. "You don't have to put up any argument to prove it, Bob. I admit it from the start."

"Same here," chimed in Herb Fennington, sprawled out in a fashion which if certainly inelegant was quite as certainly comfortable. "Take it from me, it's great. I could die loafing like this."

"Seems to be unanimous," remarked Bob, "although I haven't heard Jimmy's musical voice mixing into the conversation and he's usually right there with the talk. I wonder----"

Just then he was interrupted by a vigorous snore proceeding from a fourth member of the group, a fat round-faced boy slightly younger than the others, who was lying on his back a few feet away.

The boys broke into a laugh.

"There's the answer," chuckled Herb. "Trust Jimmy to go to sleep on the slightest provocation. There's only one thing he can do better, and that is eating."

"He sure is no slouch at either," laughed Joe. "The seven sleepers of Ephesus had nothing on Jimmy. And if he went into a doughnut-eating contest, I'd back him to my last dime."

"It's no wonder that's he's tired," said Bob, coming to the defense of the unconscious Jimmy. "If either of you fellows had had the tussle he had with the waves that night when he was hanging on to the broken bridge expecting every minute to be his last, you wouldn't be feeling any too lively, you can bet your boots."

"Right you are," admitted Herb. "That was a tough fight. It makes the cold chills run up and down my back now when I think of it. I don't think there'll be many times in Jimmy's life when he'll come so near death and yet side-step it."

"You were pretty close to it yourself, Bob," put in Joe. "Your chances of getting by didn't seem to be worth a plugged nickel. Of course you're stronger than Jimmy and could have kept up longer if you'd been swept away, but I don't believe there's any one living that could have bucked that torrent."

"I'll admit that I felt mighty good when I got my feet on solid ground again," said Bob. "There's no denying that that was a pretty strenuous night, what with fighting the waves and Dan Ca.s.sey too. But we beat them both and came through all right."

"Talking of Ca.s.sey," said Joe, "I saw the rascal this morning when I went into the town to attend to a little business for my father. I wasn't far from the jail and I dropped in to see just what arrangements had been made for his trial. The warden was glad to see me--you know he's been pretty strong for us since we saved the police the work of getting their claws on Ca.s.sey--and as he was just about to make the rounds he asked me to go along. So I had a chance to see Ca.s.sey behind the bars."

"I suppose he was glad to see you?" remarked Bob, with a grin.

"Tickled to death," laughed Joe. "I'm just as popular with him as poison ivy. He got just purple with rage and shook the bars of his cell as though he were trying to break them to get at me. He tried to tell me what he thought of me, but he stuttered so much that he couldn't get it out. I suppose he's stuttering yet."

"It's not surprising that he's sore at us," said Bob. "That's twice we've put a spoke in his wheel; once when he tried to swindle Miss Berwick in the matter of that mortgage and again when he blackjacked Harvey and looted his safe. We sure have been a jinx for him."

"And he isn't the only one who has it in for us," said Joe, as he caught sight of three boys of about their own age who were pa.s.sing by, and who in pa.s.sing cast looks of dislike on the little group on the sands. "There's a sweet bunch--I don't think."

The others followed the direction of Joe's glance and had no trouble in agreeing with him.

"That Buck Looker is sure bad medicine," remarked Bob. "And Lutz and Mooney who hang out with him are just about as bad. They're all tarred with the same brush."

"They're a blot on the landscape--or perhaps I should say seascape," put in Herb.

"Where every prospect pleases, And only man is vile,"

chanted Joe. "Do you notice how everybody steers clear of them? Outside of each other, not one of them has a friend in the whole colony."

"It's a wonder we haven't had a run in with them before this," ruminated Herb.

"I guess Buck doesn't want any of our game," Joe rejoined. "He's already had one licking from Bob, and it was only the b.u.t.ting in of Mr. Preston that saved him from getting another one from me. But I have a hunch that he'll get it yet. My knuckles are itching, and that's a bad sign--for Buck."

"You'll get the chance all right," predicted Herb. "Ten to one they're framing up some low-down game to play on us whenever they find an opening.

Maybe they'll try to put our radio set out of commission, just as they stole Jimmy's set and tried to wreck Bob's aerial."

"They're welcome to try," said Bob carelessly. "Though they ought to be cured of that idea when they remember how they flivvered the other times.

But talking of radio reminds me that we ought to get busy with that lightning arrester we were talking about."

"What has lightning done that it ought to be arrested?" joked Herb.

For answer, Bob scooped up a handful of sand and threw it at the scoffer.

Herb ducked adroitly and the sand pa.s.sed over his head and fell full on Jimmy's mouth, which at the moment happened to be open.

There was a terrific coughing and sputtering, as Jimmy came up to a sitting posture with a quickness that was quite foreign to his nature.

"Who--who the mischief did that?" he demanded, as soon as he could speak, glaring indignantly from one to the other of his comrades, who at first had been alarmed for fear he would choke but now were convulsed with laughter.

"I did," confessed Bob, as he tried to restrain his untimely mirth. "But I didn't mean to, old scout. Herb here had just gotten off one of his horrible jokes, and I was trying to make the punishment fit the crime. I'm awfully sorry."

"You look it," snorted Jimmy, still trying to get the remainder of the sand out of his mouth. "You look as though your heart was broken, sitting there and grinning like a monkey."