A RADIO CALL THAT FAILED
"Of course," Amy said composedly, "if worse comes to worst, we can send
the news by radio that the yacht is sinking and bring to our rescue
somebody--somebody----"
"Yes, we can!" exclaimed Burd Alling. "A revenue cutter, I suppose?
Don't you suppose the United States Government has anything better to
do than to look out for people who don't know enough to look out for
themselves?"
"That seems to be the Government's mission a good deal of the time,"
replied Dr. Stanley, with a smile. "But you don't think it will
be necessary to call for help, do you, Darrington?" he asked the
sober-looking owner of the yacht.
"Well, the fire's out, that's sure----"
"You bet it is!" growled Burd. "It had to be out, there's so much water
in the hold."
"But we are not sinking!" cried Amy.
"Lucky we're not," said Burd. "The radio doesn't work."
"Why, how you talk," Nell said admonishingly. "You would scare us if
we did not know you so well, Burd."
"You don't know the half of it!" exclaimed the young fellow. "Fuel is
getting low, too. Skipper wants us to work the pump by hand. That means
Darry and me to 'man the pumps.'"
"And we can help," said Jessie, cheerfully. "If the skipper thinks he
needs to make more steam for the engines, why can't we all take turns
at the pump?"
"Sounds like a real shipwreck story," her chum observed, but doubtfully.
"It will cause a mutiny," declared Burd. "I didn't ship on the
_Marigold_ to work like Old Bowser on the treadmill. And that is about
how I feel."
"You can get out and walk if you don't like it," Darry reminded him.
"And I suppose you think I wouldn't. For two cents----"
Just then the yacht pitched sharply and Burd almost lost his footing.
The waves were really boisterous and occasionally a squall of rain
swooped down and, with the spray, wet the entire deck and those upon it.
Jessie was not greatly afraid of the elements or of what they could
do to the yacht. But she was made anxious by the repetition of the
statement that the radio was out of order. Originally the _Marigold_
had had a small wireless plant, with storage batteries. Signals by
Morse could be exchanged with other ships and with stations ashore
within a limited distance.
But when Darry had bought the radio receiving set he had disconnected
the broadcasting machine and linked up the regenerative circuit with
the stationary batteries. As he had explained to Jessie, both systems
could not be used at once.
They had found that neither the receiving set nor the old wireless set
worked well. It looked as though the boys had overlooked something in
rigging the new set and the radio girls quite realized that in this
emergency a general and perhaps a thorough overhauling of the wires and
connections would be necessary to discover just where the fault lay.
Jessie called Amy, and they went up into the little wireless room
behind the wheelhouse where everything about the plant but the
batteries were in place. This was a very different outfit from that in
the great station at the old lighthouse on Station Island, which they
had visited several days before.
"If we only knew as much as that operator does about wireless," sighed
Jessie to her chum, "there might be some hope of our untangling all
this and finding out the trouble."
"He said he had been five years at it and didn't know so very much,"
Amy reminded her dryly.
"Oh, there will always be something new to learn about radio,
of course," her chum agreed. "But if we had his training in the
fundamentals of radio, we would be equipped to handle such a mess as
this. To tell you the truth, Amy, I think these two boys have made a
cat's cradle of this thing."
"And Darry spent more than a year aboard a destroyer and was trained to
'listen in' for submarines and all that!"
"An entirely different thing from knowing how to rig wireless,"
commented Jessie, getting down on her knees to look under the shelf to
which the posts were screwed. "Oh, dear!" she added, as she bumped her
head. "I wish this boat wouldn't pitch so."
"So say we all of us. What can I do, Jess?"
"Not a thing--for a moment. Let me see: The general rules of radio are
easily remembered. The incoming oscillations that have been intercepted
by the antenna above the roof of the house are applied across the grid
and filament of the detector tube----"
"That's this jigger here," put in Amy, as Jessie struggled up again.
"Yes. That is the tube. Through the relay action of the tube, an
amplified current flows through the plate circuit--_here_. Now," added
Jessie thoughtfully, "if we couple this plate circuit back--No! This
is a simple circuit. It is like our old one, Amy. We can't get much
action out of this set. It is not like the new one we are putting in
the bungalow."
"Well, the thing is, can we use it?" Amy demanded. "Can you link the
power, or whatever you call it, up with the sending paraphernalia and
get an S O S over the water?"
"Goodness, Amy! don't talk as though you thought we were really in
danger."
"Humph! I see the Reverend, as Nell calls him, out there with his coat
off, in his shirt-sleeves, taking a turn with Burd at the pumps. They
have rigged it for man power and are saving steam for the engines."
"Let me see!" cried Jessie, peering out of the clouded window too.
"You'd never think he was a minister. Isn't he nice?"
Amy began to laugh. "Are all ministers supposed to be such terrible
people?"
"No-o," admitted Jessie, going back to the radio set. "But good as they
usually are, we have the very best minister at the Roselawn Church, of
any."
"Yep. So we must plan to save him if anything happens," giggled Amy.
"Let's open the switch and see if we can get anything," her chum said
reflectively, picking up the head harness.
"You mean _hear_ if we can get anything," corrected Amy.
"Never mind splitting hairs, my dear. Is that the switch? Yes. Now!"
She put on the rigging, but all she got out of the air, as she sadly
confessed, were sounds like an angry cat spitting at a puppydog.
"It isn't just static," she told Amy. "You try it. There is something
absolutely wrong with this thing. See! We don't get a spark."
"If we did we couldn't read the letters."
"I believe I could read some Morse if it came slowly enough," said
Jessie, nodding. "But it is sending, not receiving, I am thinking of,
Amy Drew."
Amy began to look more serious. Jessie was harping on a possibility she
did not wish to admit was probable. She went out and, hunting up Darry,
demanded to know just how bad he thought they were off, anyway.
"Well, Sis, there is no use making a wry face about it," the collegian
said. "But you see how hard the Reverend and Burd are working, and
they can't keep ahead of the water. The poor old _Marigold_ really is
leaking."
"Is she going to sink? Can't we get to land--somewhere? Can't we go
back to the island?"
"Shucks, Sis! You know we are miles from Station Island. We are off
Montauk--or we were this morning. But we are heading out to sea
now--sou'-sou'east. Can't head into this gale. She pitches too much."
"And--and isn't there any help for us, Darry Drew?"
"We don't need any help yet, do we?" he demanded pluckily. "She is
making good weather of it----"
Just then the yacht rolled so that he had to grab the rail with one
hand and Amy with the other, and both of them were well shaken up.
"Woof!" gasped Darry, as they came out of the smother of spray.
"Oh!" exploded Amy. "I swallowed a pail of water that time. Ugh! How
bitter the sea is. Now, Darry, I guess we'll have to send out signals,
sha'n't we?"
"How can we? I've tried the old radio already. She is as dumb as the
proverbial oyster with the lockjaw."
"Jessie is going to fix it," said Amy, with some confidence.
"Yes she is! She's some smart girl, I admit," her brother observed.
"But I guess that is a job that will take an expert."
"You just see!" cried Amy. "You think she can't do anything because
she's a girl."
"Bless you! Girls equal the men nowadays. I hold Jessie as little less
than a wonder. But if a thing can't be done----"
"That is what you think because you tried it and failed."
"Huh!"
"We radio girls will show you!" declared Amy, her head up and preparing
to march back to her chum the next time the deck became steady.
But when she started so proudly the yacht rolled unexpectedly and Amy,
screaming for help, went sliding along the deck to where Dr. Stanley
and Burd were pumping away to clear the bilge. She was saturated--and
much meeker in deportment--when Burd fished her out of the scuppers.