[Illustration: There was a sudden blinding flash from the instruments
and a blaze of blue, hissing fire filled the room.]
THE OCEAN WIRELESS BOYS AND THE LOST LINER
BY
CAPTAIN WILBUR LAWTON
AUTHOR OF “THE BOY AVIATORS’ SERIES,” “THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS’ SERIES,”
“THE OCEAN WIRELESS BOYS ON THE ATLANTIC,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES L. WRENN
NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1914
BY HURST & COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—AT SEA ONCE MORE
CHAPTER II—WIRELESS CONVERSATIONS
CHAPTER III—A STRANGE REQUEST
CHAPTER IV—A PECULIAR COINCIDENCE
CHAPTER V—THE INTERRUPTED MESSAGE
CHAPTER VI—A DARING FEAT
CHAPTER VII—QUARTERMASTER SCHULTZ VOLUNTEERS
CHAPTER VIII—SAFE ONCE MORE
CHAPTER IX—THE MIDNIGHT INTRUDER
CHAPTER X—A MESSAGE IN SECRET CODE
CHAPTER XI—WHAT SAM HEARD
CHAPTER XII—A SUDDEN ALARM
CHAPTER XIII—A DOSE OF SLEEPING POWDER
CHAPTER XIV—THE WINKING EYE
CHAPTER XV—SECRET SIGNALS AT DAWN
CHAPTER XVI—S. O. S.
CHAPTER XVII—A DERELICT OF THE SKIES
CHAPTER XVIII—A LEAP FOR A LIFE
CHAPTER XIX—A CALL IN THE NIGHT
CHAPTER XX—TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER XXI—A TALE OF THE SEA
CHAPTER XXII—A DECOY MESSAGE
CHAPTER XXIII—FALSE FRIENDSHIP
CHAPTER XXIV—KIDNAPPED
CHAPTER XXV—SAM, A TRUE FRIEND
CHAPTER XXVI—A WICKED PLAN
CHAPTER XXVII—IN THE LION’S MOUTH
CHAPTER XXVIII—A CLIMB FOR LIFE
CHAPTER XXIX—FREEDOM ONCE MORE
CHAPTER XXX—IN SEARCH FOR A CLEW
CHAPTER XXXI—LOOK FOR A WHITE HORSE
CHAPTER XXXII—A BOLD ROBBERY
CHAPTER XXXIII—JARROLD AGAIN
CHAPTER XXXIV—BAD NEWS FOR THE COLONEL
CHAPTER XXXV—JARROLD GETS FRANTIC
CHAPTER XXXVI—ADRIFT
CHAPTER XXXVII—THE IRONY OF FATE
CHAPTER XXXVIII—A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
CHAPTER XXXIX—JACK’S RADIO
CHAPTER XL—THE ANSWER TO THE WIRELESS CALL
CHAPTER I
AT SEA ONCE MORE
The West Indian liner, _Tropic Queen_, one of the great vessels owned by
the big shipping combine at whose head was Jacob Jukes, the New York
millionaire, was plunging southward through a rolling green sea about
two hundred miles to the east of Hatteras. It was evening and the bugle
had just sounded for dinner.
The decks were, therefore, deserted; the long rows of lounging chairs
were vacant, while the passengers, many of them tourists on pleasure
bent, were below in the dining saloon appeasing the keen appetites
engendered by the brisk wind that was blowing off shore.
In a small steel structure perched high on the boat deck, between the
two funnels of the _Tropic Queen_, sat a bright-faced lad reading
intently a text-book on Wireless Telegraphy. Although not much more than
a schoolboy, he was assistant wireless man of the _Queen_. His name was
Sam Smalley, and he had obtained his position on the ship—the crack
vessel of the West Indies and Panama line—through his chum, Jack Ready,
head operator of the craft.
To readers of the first volume of this series, “The Ocean Wireless Boys
on the Atlantic,” Jack Ready needs no introduction.
Here he comes into the wireless room where his assistant sits reading in
front of the gleaming instruments and great coherers. Jack has been off
watch, lying down and taking a nap in the small sleeping cabin that,
equipped with two berths, opens off the wireless room proper, thus
dividing the steel structure into two parts.
“Hello, chief,” said Sam Smalley, with a laugh, as Jack appeared; “glad
you’re going to give me a chance to get to dinner at last. I’m so hungry
I could eat a coherer.”
“Skip along then,” grinned Jack; “but it’s nothing unusual for you to be
hungry. I’ll hold down the job till you get through, but leave something
for me.”
“I’ll try to,” chuckled Sam, as he hurried down the steep flight of
steps leading from the wireless station up on the boat deck to the main
saloon.
“Well, this is certainly a different berth from the one I had on the old
_Ajax_,” mused Jack, as he looked about him at the well-equipped
wireless room; “still, somehow, I like to look back at those days. But
yet this is a long step ahead for me. Chief wireless operator of the
_Tropic Queen_! Lucky for me that the uncle of the fellow who held down
the job before me left him all that money. Otherwise I might have been
booked for another cruise on the _Ajax_, although Mr. Jukes promised to
give me as rapid promotion as he could.”
Readers of the first volume, dealing with Jack Ready and his friends,
will recall how he lived in a queer, floating home with his uncle, Cap’n
Toby. They will also recollect that Jack, who had studied wireless day
and night, was coming home late one afternoon, despondent from a
fruitless hunt for a job, when he was enabled to save the little
daughter of Mr. Jukes from drowning. The millionaire’s gratitude was
deep, and Jack could have had anything he wanted from him.
All he asked, though, was a chance to demonstrate his ability as a
wireless man on the _Ajax_, a big oil tanker which had just been
equipped with such an outfit. He got the job, and then followed many
stirring adventures. He took part in a great rescue at sea, and was able
to frustrate the schemes of some tobacco smugglers who formed part of
the crew of the “tanker.” This task, however, exposed him to grave
danger and almost resulted in his death.
At sea once more, after the smugglers had been apprehended and locked
up, Jack’s keen wireless sense enabled him to solve a problem in
surgery. The _Ajax_ carried no doctor, and when one of the men in the
fireroom was injured, and it appeared that a limb would have to be
amputated, a serious question confronted the captain, who, like most of
his class, possessed a little knowledge of surgery, but not enough to
perform an operation that required so much skill.
The injured man was a chum of Jack’s, and he did not want to see him
lose a limb if it could be helped, or have his life imperiled by
unskillful methods. Yet what was he to do? Finally an idea struck him.
He knew that the big passenger liners all carried doctors. He raised one
by means of the wireless and explained the case. The injured man was
carried into the wireless cabin and laid close to the table. Then, while
the liner’s doctor flung instructions through space, Jack translated
them to the captain. The result was that the man was soon out of danger,
but Jack kept in touch with doctors of other liners till everything was
all right beyond the shadow of a doubt.
This feat gained him no little commendation from his captain and the
owners. Next he was instrumental in saving Mr. Jukes’ yacht which was on
fire at sea. In the panic Mr. Jukes’ son Tom, who was the apple of the
ship-owning millionaire’s eye, was lost. By means of wireless, Jack
located him and reunited father and son.
His promotion was the result, when the regular operator of the _Tropic
Queen_ went west to receive a big legacy left him. As the services of
the retiring operator’s assistant had been unsatisfactory, Jack was
asked to find a successor to him. He selected an old school chum, Sam
Smalley, who had owned and operated a small station in Brooklyn and was
an expert in theory and practice. The ship had now been at sea two days,
and Sam had shown that he was quite capable of the duties of his new
job.
An old quartermaster passed the door of the wireless cabin. He poked his
head in.
“Goot efenings, Yack,” he said, with easy familiarity. “How iss der
birdt cage vurking?”
This was Quartermaster Schultz’s term for the tenuous aërials swung far
aloft to catch wide-flung, whispered space messages and relay them to
the operator’s listening ears.
“The bird cage is all right,” laughed Jack. “Dandy weather, eh?”
The old man, weather-beaten and bronzed by the storms and burning suns
of the seven seas, shook his head.
“Idt is nice now, all righdt,” he said, “but you ought to see der
glass.”
“The barometer? What is the matter with it?”
“Py gollys, I dink der bottom drop oudt off idt. You may have vurk
aheadt of you to-night.”
“You mean that we are in for a big storm?”
“I sure do dot same. Undt ven it comes idt be a lollerpaloozitz. Take my
vurd for dat. Hark!”
The old quartermaster held up a finger.
Far above him in the aërials could be heard a sound like the moaning
bass string of a violin as the wind swept among the copper wires.
“Dot’s der langwitch of Davy Chones,” declared Schultz. “Idt says, ‘Look
oudt. Someding didding.’ I’fe heardt idt pefore, undt I know.”
The old man hurried off on his way forward, and Jack emitted a long
whistle.
“My, won’t there be a lot of seasick passengers aboard to-night! The
company will save money on breakfast to-morrow.”
Just then Sam came back from dinner and Jack was free to go below to his
meal. He was about to relinquish the instruments when there came a
sudden call.
“To all ships within three hundred miles of Hatteras: Watch out for
storm of hurricane violence.
“Briggs, Operator Neptune Beach U. S. Wireless Service.”