The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice; Or, Solving a Wireless Mystery

THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING

A VOICE

THE RADIO BOYS SERIES

(Trademark Registered)

THE RADIO BOYS

TRAILING A VOICE

OR

SOLVING A WIRELESS MYSTERY

BY

ALLEN CHAPMAN

AUTHOR OF

THE RADIO BOYS’ FIRST WIRELESS

THE RADIO BOYS AT MOUNTAIN PASS

RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE

RALPH ON THE ARMY TRAIN, ETC.

WITH FOREWORD BY

JACK BINNS

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

FOREWORD

Within a comparatively short time after this volume is published the human voice will be thrown across the Atlantic Ocean under conditions that will lead immediately to the establishment of permanent telephone communication with Europe by means of radio.

Under the circumstances therefore the various uses of radio which are so aptly outlined in it will give the reader an idea of the tremendous strides that have been made in the art of communicating without wires during the past few months.

Of these one of the most important, which by the way is dealt with to a large extent in the present volume, is that of running down crooks. It must not be forgotten that criminals, and those criminally intent are not slow to utilize the latest developments of the genius of man, and radio is useful to them also. However, the forces of law and order inevitably prevail, and radio therefore is going to be increasingly useful in our general police work.

Another important use, as outlined in this volume, is in the detection of forest fires, and in fact generally protecting forest areas in conjunction with aircraft. With these two means hundreds of thousands of acres can now be patrolled in a single day more efficiently than a few acres were previously covered.

Radio is an ideal boy’s hobby, but it is not limited to youth. Nevertheless it offers a wonderful scope for the unquenchable enthusiasm that always accompanies the application of youthful endeavor, and it is a fact that the majority of the wonderful inventions and improvements that have been made in radio have been produced by young men.

Since this book was written there has been produced in this country the most powerful vacuum tube in the world. In size it is small, but in output it is capable of producing 100 kilowatts of electrical power. Three such tubes will cast the human voice across the Atlantic Ocean under any conditions, and transmit across the same vast space the world’s grandest music. Ten of these tubes joined in parallel at any of the giant transmitting wireless telegraph stations would send telegraph code messages practically around the world.

“Count on yours truly too,” chimed in Herb Fennington. “I got stirred up about radio a little later than the rest of you fellows, but now I’m making up for lost time. Slow but sure is my motto.”

“Slow is right,” chaffed Jimmy Plummer. “But what on earth are you sure of?”

“I’m sure,” replied Herb, as he deftly slipped a bit of ice down Jimmy’s back, “that in a minute you’ll be dancing about like a howling dervish.”

His prophecy was correct, for Jimmy both howled and danced as he tried vainly to extricate the icy fragment that was sliding down his spine. His contortions were so ludicrous that the boys broke into roars of laughter.

“Great joke, isn’t it?” snorted Jimmy, as he bent nearly double. “If you had a heart you’d lend a hand and get this out.”

“Let’s stand him on his head,” suggested Joe. “That’s the only thing I can think of. Then it’ll slide out.”

Hands were outstretched in ready compliance, but Jimmy concluded that the remedy was worse than the presence of the ice and managed to keep out of reach.

“Never mind, Jimmy,” said Bob consolingly. “It’ll melt pretty soon, anyhow.”

“Yes, and it’ll be a good thing for Jimmy to grin and bear it,” added Herb brightly. “It’s things like that that develop one’s character.”

“‘It’s easy enough to be pleasant, when life moves along like a song, but the man that’s worth while, is the man who can smile when everything’s going dead wrong,’” quoted Joe.

Jimmy, not at all comforted by these noble maxims, glared at his tormentors, and at last Bob came to his relief, and, putting his hand inside his collar, reached down his back and brought up the piece of ice, now greatly reduced in size.

“Let’s have it,” demanded Jimmy, as Bob was about to throw it away.

“What do you want it for?” asked Bob. “I should think you’d seen enough of it.”

“On the same principle that a man likes to look at his aching tooth after the dentist has pulled it out,” grinned Joe.

“Don’t give it to him!” exclaimed Herb, edging away out of reach, justly fearing that he might feel the vengeance of the outraged Jimmy.

“You gave it to him first, so it’s his,” decided Bob, with the wisdom of a Solomon, as he handed it over to the victim.

Jimmy took it and started for Herb, but just then Mr. Preston, the principal of the high school, came along and Jimmy felt compelled to defer his revenge.

“How are you, boys?” said Mr. Preston, with a smile. “You seem to be having a good time.”

“Jimmy is,” returned Herb, and Jimmy covertly shook his fist at him. “We’re making the most of the snow and ice while it lasts.”

“Well, I don’t think it will last much longer,” surmised Mr. Preston, as he walked along with them. “As a matter of fact, winter is ‘lingering in the lap of spring’ a good deal longer than usual this year.”

“I suppose you had a pleasant time in Washington?” remarked Joe inquiringly, referring to a trip from which the principal had returned only a few days before.

“I did, indeed,” was the reply. “To my mind it’s the most interesting city in the country. I’ve been there a number of times, and yet I always leave there with regret. There’s the Capitol, the noblest building on this continent and to my mind the finest in the world. Then there’s the Congressional Library, only second to it in beauty, and the Washington Monument soaring into the air to a height of five hundred and fifty-five feet, and the superb Lincoln Memorial, and a host of other things scarcely less wonderful.

“But the pleasantest recollection I have of the trip,” he went on, “was the speech I heard the President make just before I came away. It was simply magnificent.”

“It sure was,” replied Bob enthusiastically. “Every word of it was worth remembering. He certainly knows how to put things.”

“I suppose you read it in the newspaper the next day,” said Mr. Preston, glancing at him.

“Better than that,” responded Bob, with a smile. “We all heard it over the radio while he was making it.”

“Indeed!” replied the principal. “Then you boys heard it even before I did.”

“What do you mean?” asked Joe, in some bewilderment. “I understood that you were in the crowd that listened to him.”

“So I was,” Mr. Preston answered, in evident enjoyment of their mystification. “I sat right before him while he was speaking, not more than a hundred feet away, saw the motion of his lips as the words fell from them and noted the changing expression of his features. And yet I say again that you boys heard him before I did.”

“I don’t quite see,” said Herb, in great perplexity. “You were only a hundred feet away and we were hundreds of miles away.”

“And if you had been thousands of miles away, what I said would still be true,” affirmed Mr. Preston. “No doubt there were farmers out on the Western plains who heard him before I did.

“You see it’s like this,” the schoolmaster went on to explain. “Sound travels through the air to a distance of a little over a hundred feet in the tenth part of a second. But in that same tenth of a second that it took the President’s voice to reach me in the open air radio could have carried it eighteen thousand six hundred miles.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Jimmy. “Eighteen thousand six hundred miles! Not feet, fellows, but miles!”

“That’s right,” said Bob thoughtfully. “Though I never thought of it in just that way before. But it’s a fact that radio travels at the rate of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second.”

“Equal to about seven and a half times around the earth,” observed the principal, smiling. “In other words, the people who were actually sitting in the presence of the President were the very last to hear what he said.

“Put it in still another way. Suppose the President were speaking through a megaphone in addition to the radio and by the use of the megaphone the voice was carried to people in the audience a third of a mile away. By the time those persons heard it, the man in the moon could have heard it too—that is,” he added, with a laugh, “supposing there really were a man in the moon and that he had a radio receiving set.”

“It surely sounds like fairyland,” murmured Joe.

“Radio is the fairyland of science,” replied Mr. Preston, with enthusiasm, “in the sense that it is full of wonder and romance. But there the similarity ceases. Fairyland is a creation of the fancy or the imagination. Radio is based upon the solid rock of scientific truth. Its principles are as certain as those of mathematics. Its problems can be demonstrated as exactly as that two and two make four. But it’s full of what seem to be miracles until they are shown to be facts. And there’s scarcely a day that passes without a new one of these ‘miracles’ coming to light.”

He had reached his corner by this time, and with a pleasant wave of his hand he left them.

“He sure is a thirty-third degree radio fan,” mused Joe, as they watched his retreating figure.

“Just as most all bright men are becoming,” declared Bob. “The time is coming when a man who doesn’t know about radio or isn’t interested in it will be looked on as a man without intelligence.”

“Look here!” exclaimed Jimmy suddenly. “What’s become of my piece of ice?”

He opened his hand, which was red and wet and dripping.

“That’s one on you, Jimmy, old boy,” chuckled Joe. “It melted away while you were listening to the prof.”

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” said Herb complacently. “Jimmy meant to put that down my back.”

“Oh, there are plenty of other pieces,” said Jimmy, as he picked one up and started for Herb.

Herb started to run, but slipped and fell on the icy sidewalk.

“You know what the Good Book says,” chaffed Joe. “The wicked stand on slippery places.”

“Yes, I see they do,” replied Herb, as quick as a flash, looking up at him. “But I can’t.”

The laugh was on Joe, and Herb felt so good over the retort that he did not mind the fall, though it had jarred him considerably. He scrambled to his feet and brushed off his clothes, while Jimmy, feeling that his comrade had been punished enough, magnanimously threw away the piece of ice that was to have been the instrument of his vengeance.

“The reason why I wanted you fellows to be sure to be on hand to-night,” resumed Bob, as they walked along, “was that I saw in the program of the Newark station in the newspaper this morning that Larry Bartlett was down for an entirely new stunt. You know what a hit he made with his imitations of birds.”

“He sure did,” agreed Joe. “To my mind he had it all over the birds themselves. I never got tired listening to him.”

“He certainly was a dabster at it,” chimed in Jimmy.

“Now he’s going in to imitate animals,” explained Bob. “I understand that he’s been haunting the Zoo for weeks in every minute of his spare time studying the bears and lions and tigers and elephants and snakes, and getting their roars and growls and trumpeting and hisses down to a fine point. I bet he’ll be a riot when he gives them to us over the radio.”

“He sure will,” assented Herb. “He’s got the natural gift in the first place, and then he practices and practices until he’s got everything down to perfection.”

“He’s a natural entertainer,” affirmed Bob. “I tell you, fellows, we never did a better day’s work than when we got Larry that job at the sending station. Not only was it a good thing for Larry himself when he was down and out, but think of the pleasure he’s been able to give to hundreds of thousands of people. I’ll bet there’s no feature on the program that is waited for more eagerly than his.”

By this time the boys had reached the business portion of the town and the short spring day was drawing to a close. Already lights were beginning to twinkle in the stores that lined both sides of the street.

“Getting near supper time,” remarked Bob. “Guess we’d better be getting along home. Don’t forget to come—Gee whiz!”

The ejaculation was wrung from him by a snowball that hit him squarely in the breast, staggering him for a moment.

Bang! and another snowball found a target in Joe. It struck his shoulder and spattered all over his face and neck.

“That felt as though it came from a gun!” he exclaimed. “It’s the hardest slam I ever got.”

“Who did it?” demanded Bob, peering about him in the gathering darkness.

Halfway up the block they saw a group of dark figures darting into an alleyway.

“It’s Buck Looker and his crowd!” cried Jimmy. “I saw them when they ran under that arc light.”

“Just like that crowd to take us unawares,” said Bob. “But if they’re looking for a tussle we can accommodate them. Get busy, fellows, and let them have something in return for these two sockdolagers.”

They hastily gathered up several snowballs apiece, which were easily made because the snow was soft and packed readily, and ran toward the alleyway just in time to see Buck and his crowd emerging from their hiding place.

There was a spirited battle for a few minutes, each side making and receiving some smashing hits. Buck’s gang had the advantage in that they had a large number of missiles already prepared, and even in the excitement of the fight the radio boys noticed how unusually hard they were.

“Must have been soaking them in water until they froze,” grunted Jimmy, as one of them caught him close to the neck and made him wince.

As soon as their extra ammunition was exhausted and the contending forces in this respect were placed more on a footing of equality, Buck and his cronies began to give ground before the better aim and greater determination of Bob and his comrades.

“Give it to them, fellows!” shouted Bob, as the retreat of their opponents was rapidly becoming a rout.

At the moment he called out, the progress of the fight had brought the radio boys directly in front of the windows of one of the largest drygoods stores in the town.

In the light that came from the windows Bob saw a snowball coming directly for his head. He dodged, and——

Crash! There was the sound of splintering glass, and the snowy missile whizzed through the plate glass window!

There was a moment of stupor and paralysis as the meaning of the crash dawned upon the radio boys.

Buck and his crowd had vanished and were footing it up the fast-darkening street at the top of their speed.

The first impulse of the radio boys was to follow their example. They knew that none of them was responsible for the disaster, and they were of no mind to be sacrificed on behalf of the gang that had attacked them. And they knew that in affairs of that kind the ones on the ground were apt to suffer the more severely.

They actually started to run away, but had got only a few feet from the scene of the smash when Bob, who had been thinking quickly, called a halt.

“None of this stuff for us, fellows,” he declared. “We’ve got to face the music. I’m not going to have a hunted feeling, even if we succeeded in getting away. We know we didn’t do it and we’ll tell the plain truth. If that doesn’t serve, why so much the worse for us. But at any rate we won’t be despising ourselves as cowards.”

As usual, his comrades accorded him the leadership and fell in with his plan, although it was not without many misgivings that they awaited the coming of the angry proprietor of the place, who had already started in pursuit of them, accompanied by many others who had been attracted by the crash and whose numbers were being rapidly augmented.

“Here are the fellows that smashed my window!” cried Mr. Larsen, the proprietor of the drygoods store, rushing up to them and shaking his fist in their faces. “Where are the police?” he shouted, looking around him. “I’ll have them arrested for malicious damage.”

And while he faced them, gesticulating wildly, his face purple with anger and excitement, it may be well for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volumes of this series to tell briefly who the radio boys are and what had been their adventures before the time this story opens.

The acknowledged leader of the boys was Bob Layton, son of a prosperous chemist of Clintonia, in which town Bob had been born and brought up. Mr. Layton was a respected citizen of the town and foremost in its civic activities. Clintonia was a thriving little city of about ten thousand population, situated on the Shagary River, about seventy-five miles from the city of New York.

Bob at the beginning of this story was about sixteen years old, tall and stalwart and a clean-cut specimen of upstanding American youth. He was of rather dark complexion and had a pair of eyes that looked straight at one. Those eyes were usually merry, but could flash with indignation when circumstances required it. He was never on the lookout for trouble, but was always ready to meet it half way, and his courageous character together with his vigorous physique had made him prominent in the sports of the boys of his own age. He was a crack baseball player and one of the chief factors of the high school football eleven. No one in Clintonia was held in better liking.

Bob’s special chum was Joe Atwood, son of the leading physician of the town. Joe was fair in complexion and sturdy in makeup. He and Bob had been for many years almost inseparable companions, Bob usually acting as captain in anything in which they might be engaged, while Joe served as first mate. The latter had a hot temper, and his impulsiveness sometimes got him into trouble and would have involved him in scrapes oftener if it had not been for the cooler head and steadying influence of Bob.

Two other friends of the boys who were almost always in their company were Herb Fennington, whose father kept a large general store in the town, and Jimmy Plummer, son of a respected carpenter and contractor. Herb was of a rather indolent disposition, but was jolly and good-natured and always full of jokes, some of them good, others poor, which he frequently sought to spring on his companions.

Jimmy was a trifle younger than his mates, fat and round and excessively fond of the good things of life. His liking for that special dainty had gained him the nickname of “Doughnuts,” and few of such nicknames were ever more fittingly bestowed.

Apart from the liking that drew them together, the boys had another link in their common interest in radio. From the time that this wonderful new science had begun to spread over the country with such amazing rapidity, they had been among the most ardent “fans.” Everything that they could read or learn on the subject was devoured with avidity, and they were almost constantly at the home of one or the other, listening in on their radio sets and, lately, sending messages, in the latter of which they had now attained an unusual degree of proficiency.

In decided contrast to Bob and his friends was another group of Clintonia youth, between whom and the radio boys there was a pronounced antipathy. The leader of this group was Buck Looker, a big overgrown, hulking boy, dull in his studies and a bully in character. His two special cronies were Carl Lutz, a boy of about his own age, and Terry Mooney, both of them noted for their mean and sneaking dispositions. Buck lorded it over them, and as his father was one of the richest men in the town they cringed before him and were always ready to back him up in any piece of meanness and mischief.

The enthusiasm of Bob and his friends for radio was fostered by the help and advice of the Reverend Doctor Dale, the clergyman in charge of the Old First Church of Clintonia, who, in addition to being an eloquent preacher, was keenly interested in all latter-day developments of science, especially radio. Whenever the boys got into trouble with their sets they knew that all they had to do was to go to the genial doctor and be helped out of their perplexities.

An incident that gave a great impetus to their interest in the subject was the offering of prizes by Mr. Ferberton, the member of Congress for their district, for the best radio sets turned out by the boys of his congressional district by their own endeavors. Bob, Joe, and Jimmy entered into this competition with great zest. Herb with his habitual indolence kept out of it.

While the boys were engrossed with their radio experiments an incident happened in town that led them into many unexpected adventures. An automobile run by a visitor in town, a Miss Nellie Berwick, got out of her control and dashed through the window of a store. Bob and Joe, who happened to be at hand, rescued the girl from imminent peril, while Herb and Jimmy did good work in curbing the fire that followed the accident.

How the boys learned of the orphan girl’s story, got on the track of the rascal who had tried to swindle her and forced him to make restitution; what part the radio played in bringing the fellow to terms; how they detected and thwarted the plans of Buck Looker and his cronies to wreck their sets; are told in the first volume of this series entitled: “The Radio Boys’ First Wireless; Or, Winning the Ferberton Prize.”

That summer the chums went to Ocean Point on the seashore, where many of the Clintonia folks had established a little bungalow colony of their own. What adventures they met with there; what strides they made in the practical work of radio; how they were enabled by their knowledge and quick application of it to save a storm-tossed ship on which members of their own families were voyaging; how they ran down and captured the scoundrel Cassey who had knocked out with a blackjack the operator at the sending station and looted his safe—these and many more incidents are narrated in the second volume of this series entitled: “The Radio Boys at Ocean Point; Or, The Message That Saved the Ship.”

While the summer season was yet at its height, the boys had occasion to rescue the occupants of a rowboat that had been run down by men in a stolen motor boat. The two rescued youths proved to be vaudeville actors, and the boys grew very friendly with them. The injury that crippled one of them, Larry Bartlett; the false accusation brought against him by Buck Looker; the way in which the boys succeeded in getting work for Larry at the sending station, where his remarkable gift of mimicry received recognition; how they themselves were placed on the broadcasting program, and the clever way in which they trapped the motor-boat thieves; are told in the third volume of the series, entitled: “The Radio Boys at the Sending Station; Or, Making Good in the Wireless Room.”

The coming of fall brought the boys back to Clintonia, where, however, the usual course of their studies was interrupted by an epidemic that made necessary for a time the closing of the schools. This gave the radio boys an opportunity to make a trip to Mountain Pass, a popular resort in the hills. Here they came in contact with a group of plotters who were trying to put through a nefarious deal and were able to thwart the rascals through the use of radio. By that same beneficent science too they were able to save a life when other means of communication were blocked. And not the least satisfactory feature was the utter discomfiture they were able to visit upon Buck Looker and his gang. These and many other adventures are told in the fourth volume of the series, entitled: “The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass; Or, The Midnight Call for Assistance.”

And now to return to the radio boys as they stood facing the angry storekeeper amid a constantly growing throng of curious onlookers. They had been in many tighter fixes in their life but none that was more embarrassing.

“I’ll have them arrested!” the storekeeper repeated, his voice rising to a shrill treble.

“Now look here,” replied Bob. “Suppose you cut out this talk of having us arrested. In the first place, we didn’t break your window. In the second place, if we had it wouldn’t be a matter of arrest but of making good the damage.”

“All right then,” said Mr. Larsen eagerly, catching at the last word. “Make good the damage. It will cost at least two hundred dollars to replace that window.”

“I think you’re a little high,” returned Bob. “But that doesn’t matter. I didn’t say that we’d make the damage good. I said that if we’d broken it, it would be a matter of making good. But we didn’t break it, and that lets us out I’ll say.”

“It’s easy to say that,” sneered the merchant. “How do I know that you didn’t break it? It would of course be natural for you to try to lie out of it.”

“It wouldn’t be natural for us to lie out of it,” replied Bob, controlling his temper with difficulty. “That isn’t our way of doing things. Why do you suppose we stayed here when it would have been perfectly easy for us to get away? It wasn’t a snowball we threw that broke your window. It was one thrown by the fellows we were fighting with.”

“Always the other fellow that does it!” replied the storekeeper angrily. “Who was that other fellow or fellows then? Tell me that. Come on now, tell me that.”

Bob kept silent. He had no love for Buck Looker and his gang, who had always tried to injure him, but he was not going to inform.

“See,” said Mr. Larsen, misunderstanding his silence. “When I ask you, you can’t tell me. You’re the fellows that did it, all right, and you’ll pay me for it or I’ll have you put in jail, that’s what I’ll do.”

“I saw the fellows who were firing snowballs in this direction,” spoke up Mr. Talley, a caterer, pushing his way through the throng. “I nearly bumped into them as they were running away. Buck Looker was one of them. I saw his face plainly and can’t be mistaken. The others I’m not so sure of, but I think they were Carl Lutz and Terry Mooney.

“For my part, Mr. Larsen,” he continued, “I don’t see how a snowball could break that heavy plate-glass window, anyway. My windows are no heavier, and they’ve often had snowballs come against them without doing any harm. Are you sure it wasn’t something else that smashed the glass?”

“Dead sure,” replied Larsen. “Come inside and see for yourself.”

He led the way into his store, and Mr. Talley, the boys, and a number of others crowded in after him.

“Look,” said Larsen, pointing to a piece of dress goods that had been hanging in the window. “See where the snow has splashed against it? There’s no question that a snowball did it. You can see the bits of snow around here yet if you’ll only look.”

This was true and the evidence seemed conclusive. But just then Bob’s keen eyes detected something else. He stooped down and brought up quite a large sharp-edged stone which still had some fragments of snow adhering to it and held it up for all to see.

“Here’s the answer,” he said. “This stone was packed in the snowball, and that is why it smashed the window!”