The Radio Girls on the program

The Roselawn chums listened in that evening to a fine concert from one of the more distant sending stations. It did seem, as Amy said, as though it was a good thing that Mark Stratford had plunged with his aeroplane through the aerial and forced the girls to restring it. At least, the sounds from Jessie’s receiving set were much clearer than before.

“No atmospherics and little interference from other sending stations,” Jessie declared. “Wait. Let me tune in on Stratfordtown. Perhaps they are sending something good, too.”

She knew the wave length of the Stratford Electric Company plant, and after adjusting the “cat’s whisker” on the detector she moved the tuning slides with care. Into their ears there came gradually a mellow voice singing one of the girls’ favorites, a selection from a lesser grand opera.

“Madame Elva!” gasped Amy. “I would know her voice if—if I heard it in my dreams!”

“So it is,” breathed Jessie.

But she would not speak again until the selection was finished. Then she said:

“I hope mother and the other ladies get Madame Elva on that hospital program. And if we get on it, too, dear, won’t it be great?”

“I should say! Think of being able to say that we sang and recited on the same program with Madame Elva! Oh, my!”

Amy was always enthusiastic about anything she undertook. In the morning she was over at the Norwood house very early and in boating costume. The girls had a canoe on Lake Monenset and they knew pretty well how both to paddle and sail it. When they went down to the boatlanding belonging to the Norwood place a steady breeze ruffled the lake. It was, as Amy declared, “a gorgeous morning.”

“Tell you what, Jessie, honey,” said the flyaway. “Let’s have Bill get out the sail and step the mast for us. It is a fine sailing breeze. We can make Dogtown at a fast clip.”

Jessie was pleased with the proposal. They called the gardener’s boy and had him bring the leg-o’-mutton sail from the boathouse. The long canoe was rigged to carry two sails; but the girls never used but one. This Bill stepped forward, and while Jessie held the steering paddle, Amy got in amidships to tend sheet.

The canoe moved out from the landing sluggishly. Jessie had to paddle on both sides to push it into the wind. But when the canoe was out of the shelter of the shore, the first swoop of the breeze filled the canvas and almost yanked the sheet out of Amy’s hand.

“Who! Old Boreas almost had me that time,” cried the gay-hearted girl. “Now we’re speeding, Jess!”

Jessie held to the paddle with both hands. She sat so she could see to starboard of the bellying sail, and she did not notice what Amy was doing. She soon began to realize, however, that the breeze was not as steady as she had at first thought and that it was growing momentarily stronger.

The canoe heeled over a little and she counteracted this with the paddle. But the strain grew more intense. Spray began to drift in over them. Monenset Lake was deep at this point. Although both Jessie and her chum could swim, the former thought that she did not want to be plunged into the water at this point, and with her clothes on.

“Perhaps we had better drop the sail, Amy,” cried Jessie. “The wind is coming in puffs.”

“Oh, let’s keep on. The puffs are just right,” the other responded. “They are driving us right for Dogtown landing.”

“Goodness!” breathed Jessie, half-frightened “But we don’t want to be carried ashore there and smash the canoe. Be ready with the sheet, Amy, when we go about.”

“Oh—oh—all right!” gasped her chum, suddenly very busy.

There was a moment of silence.

“What are you trying to do?” cried Jessie.

“I—can’t unknot it, Jess!” wailed Amy suddenly.

“What is the matter?” gasped Jessie, in some excitement. “What can’t you do? Look out, Amy! You’ll have the canoe over.”

“I—can’t—unknot it!” shrieked the other girl again.

“The sheet!” cried Jessie. “Don’t tell me you have been so foolish as to tie that sheet?”

“All right. I won’t tell you. But I have,” replied her chum, evidently trying with all her ingenuity to untie the snarl into which she had recklessly allowed the rope to get.

The sheet-rope governed the management of the sail. Knotted to a cleat at Amy’s hand when they first got aboard, the strain of the wind-filled sail had now pulled it so tight that the girl’s fingers could not manage it at all.

Her brother, Darry, and Burd Alling, his chum, had taught both Jessie and Amy to make certain naval knots which could be slipped easily in an emergency like this. But Amy had forgotten all about that. She had wound the end of the sheet about the cleat and tied a “hard” knot.

“Wish I had a knife!” wailed the careless girl. “Oh, Jessie! pay off so as to take the strain off the rope. Maybe——”

But just then another burst of wind swooped down upon the canoe. The latter shot ahead, its nose buried in foam, traveling so fast that Jessie was really frightened.

“Wait! Wait till it’s quiet,” she shouted to Amy.

If she changed the course of the canoe then, or tried to, Jessie realized that the craft would shoot sidewise to the wind and in all probability the boom would swing over and the weight of the canvas would capsize the light craft. It was a ticklish situation.

Amy was still crying out with alarm. Jessie tried to hold the steering paddle firm. And all the time the canoe tore on, through, rather than over, the rising waves. The spray continued to come inboard in sheets. The girls were saturated.

Finally Jessie saw ahead, and very close to them, the decayed float beside the dock at Dogtown, with the several unpainted shacks behind it that made up the village. The cluster of houses seemed to be shooting right toward them.

“Cut it! Cut it! If I could only cut it!” shouted Amy in despair.

“You might as well talk about biting it off,” her chum declared, with considerable disdain.

But Amy did not hear this. And there was little time to do anything or hear anything or say anything. Another fierce puff of wind—a veritable squall—swooped down upon the canoe!

Amy shrieked again. Even Jessie lost what little courage remained to her. Driven by the blast, the canoe shot head on into the old float. There was a terrific crash!