At just the place in the pipe that Joe had grabbed there was a band
running around it, perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. It was smooth and
slippery, but yet gave more support to his clutching hands than would
have been afforded by the pipe itself. To this precarious support poor
Joe clung with desperation that was rapidly becoming despair as he felt
his arms tiring and his hands slipping. A glance below had told him what
awaited him if he fell on that pile of rocks.
Simultaneously with the breaking of the pipe Bob had flung himself at
full length on the roof, with his arm extended over the edge. His feet
felt around frantically and found a cleat in the roof in which he
gripped his toes. Reaching as far as he could over the edge with one
hand and holding on with the other, he found that he could just reach
Joe's hands with his own.
If the roof had been flat, he might have been able by sheer strength to
pull his friend up. But it was sloping, and, as he lay, his feet were
considerably higher than his head. So he had no purchase, no way to
brace himself and pull upward. As it was, he had to dig his toes tightly
against the cleat just to sustain the weight of his own body.
There was imminent danger that if he even grasped Joe's hand the added
weight would pull him over the edge of the roof. But this did not deter
him for a second. He reached down and caught Joe around one of his
wrists.
"I can't pull you up, Joe," he panted; "but I can hold on to you until
help comes."
He lifted up his voice to shout for help, when just at that instant Herb
Fennington and Jimmy Plummer turned the corner of the barn. They were
talking and laughing gaily together, but stopped short with a cry of
alarm as they saw the terrible plight of their friends.
"Quick! Quick!" cried Bob. "Get the ladder and put it up. Quick!"
There was no need of his frantic adjuration, for Jimmy and Herb
understood instantly the tragedy that impended. They ran for the ladder,
and with some difficulty, for it was long and heavy, put it up alongside
the barn and close to Joe's swaying figure.
Then Herb, who was the stronger of the two, ran up the rungs until he
was directly opposite his comrade.
"I'll hold on to one arm, Joe," cried Bob. "Let go the pipe with the
other and give it to Herb."
Joe did as directed and the two boys swung him over to the ladder. He
felt for the rung with his feet, and when they were firmly planted on
it, Herb placed one of his hands on another rung and Bob followed suit.
Then while Jimmy held the ladder at the foot to keep it from slipping,
Joe and Herb made their way slowly to the ground and Bob came after.
They seated Joe on a box that stood nearby, and his comrades crowded
around him; joyful beyond words at his narrow escape, clasping his hands
and slapping him on the back.
Joe was gasping under the muscular and nervous strain that he had
undergone in the few minutes that had seemed to him like ages, but he
rallied gamely and tried to joke.
"I said I was going to get down off that roof quick," he said. "But I
came mighty near coming down quicker than I wanted to. I can't thank you
fellows enough."
And while they stand around him jubilating over his rescue, it may be
well, for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volume of
this series, to tell who the Radio Boys were and what had been their
adventures up to the time this story opens.
Bob Layton was a stalwart, vigorous youth of fifteen years, who lived in
the thriving town of Clintonia, a city of about ten thousand population
and located some seventy-five miles from New York City. His father was a
prosperous druggist and chemist, esteemed and respected, and a leader in
the civic life of the town. Bob was tall for his years, of dark
complexion, with merry, flashing eyes. He was a leader in baseball,
football, and the other athletic sports in which boys of his age
delight. He was frank, truthful, courageous and a general favorite.
His special chum was Joe Atwood, son of a prominent doctor of Clintonia.
Joe differed from Bob in being fair-skinned instead of dark. But the
qualities of character of both boys were such as to make them close
friends, and where one was to be found the other was seldom very far
away. Joe, however, was impulsive, and his temper was of the "hair
trigger" variety that required frequent curbing from his cooler-headed
chum.
Of the many friends they had in town, the chief perhaps were Herbert
Fennington and Jimmy Plummer. Herbert, or Herb, as he was usually
called, was the son of a merchant, and was an easy-going, good-natured
boy who was not especially fond of work, but who had an unusual liking
for jokes and conundrums. He was slightly younger than Bob and Joe, but
not enough to make much difference. Jimmy Plummer, the youngest of the
four, was the son of a carpenter. He was jolly, fat, and round, with an
appetite that made him the subject of good-natured jesting on the part
of the other boys. He had been nicknamed "Doughnuts" because of his
special fondness for that toothsome delicacy, and he did his best to
live up to the name.
The boys were always much together, but of late their association had
become still closer because of their common interest in the wonders of
the wireless telephone. The marvelous features of this great invention
had caught fast hold of their youthful imaginations, and they were soon
so much absorbed in it that almost everything else was forgotten, or at
least had to take second place.
Two things happened at almost the same time that increased their
enthusiasm in this subject. One was a talk given to them on radio
discoveries by Dr. Amory Dale, the pastor of the Old First Church of
Clintonia, who had a scientific turn of mind and was most keenly
interested in radio. The inspiration he gave them by his talk, together
with practical object lessons on the making of radio sets, had an
importance that could hardly be overestimated.
Shortly after this the member of Congress from the district in which
Clintonia was included, Mr. Ferberton, offered prizes open for
competition to all the boys of the district for the best radio sets made
by the boys themselves. As the first prize was for a hundred dollars and
the second for fifty, they were well worth trying for, and Bob, Joe, and
Jimmy set to work in earnest to win one of them. Herb, owing to his
natural indolence, did not enter into the competition, a circumstance
that he afterward regretted.
They had a good many troubles and misadventures about this time, owing
chiefly to the malice of Buck Looker, a bully of the town, who, together
with his cronies, Carl Lutz and Terry Mooney, almost as bad as himself,
did all they could to hinder the radio boys in their plans. Jimmy's set
was stolen by them on one occasion and on another Bob detected Buck
trying to destroy his aerial at night, and gave the bully the trouncing
that he richly deserved.
A curious accident that happened in the town opened to the boys a
mystery that seemed difficult of solution and set their feet on the path
of exciting adventures. How they rescued a girl whose automobile had run
wild and dashed through the windows of a store, what they learned of her
story and how they got on the track of a rascal who had swindled her,
and what part the radio played in the unraveling of the plot, are
narrated in the first book of this series, entitled: "The Radio Boys'
First Wireless; Or, Winning the Ferberton Prize."
It did not take Joe long to recover from the shock he had had when he
found himself suspended in midair over the rocks that had been gathered
for the repairing of the foundation of the barn. Bob's danger also had
been great, and all felt that they had reason for being profoundly
grateful over the happy outcome of the adventure.
"You just came in time, fellows," said Bob. "Joe is no featherweight,
and my arm was getting numb. A minute or two more and we'd both have had
a tumble that I hate to think about."
"That shows what good judgment we had in picking just the right time to
come," replied Jimmy, winking slily at Herb. "It takes some brains to be
Johnny-on-the-spot just when you're needed. Not a minute too late, not a
minute too soon----that's my motto."
"I'll admit that you took good care not to get here too soon," replied
Bob, with a laugh. "Where have you been all the afternoon? Why did you
leave Joe and me to hold the bag?"
"Look at his pockets and you'll find the answer," said Joe, pointing to
suspicious bulges in Jimmy's jacket pockets.
"That's all the credit a fellow gets when he tries to be generous,"
complained Jimmy, in an aggrieved tone, as he emptied the pockets in
question of half a dozen doughnuts. "Here I wait until the doughnuts are
made so that I can bring along a lot for you fellows, and what do I get?
Nothing but abuse. I was just crazy to help you fellows put up that
aerial, but I sacrificed my own feelings and waited for the doughnuts so
that you could have some."
"Those doughnuts were cooking three hours ago," retorted Joe.
"How do you know?" asked Jimmy.
"Because I smelled them as I came past your house," replied Joe.
"Oh, that was the first batch," explained Jimmy. "Most of those have
gone by now."
"What became of them?" grinned Bob.
"How do I know?" countered Jimmy. "My father and mother have pretty good
appetites. Then of course I sampled one or two. Mother would have
thought I didn't like her cooking if I hadn't. And if there's anything I
won't do it's to hurt my mother's feelings. We never have more than one
mother, you know," he added virtuously.
"Sampled one or two!" sniffed Joe. "One or two dozen you mean."
"How did you fellows come to get in such a fix?" queried Herb. "Did the
ladder fall down?"
"It did not," returned Bob with emphasis. "It was taken down while we
weren't looking by somebody who wanted to play a trick on us. And I can
come pretty near to guessing who did it, too," he added.
"Why not come right out with it?" said Joe, his face flushing with
indignation. "It was Buck Looker and his gang who did it. I'm just as
sure of it as though I had seen them. It's no thanks to them that I'm
not dead or a cripple this minute."
"That explains something that Jimmy and I noticed just before we came
up," said Herb eagerly. "We saw Buck and Lutz hot-footing it down one
street and Terry Mooney down another. I thought they were having a race
around the block or something like that."
"That just proves what I said," declared Joe. "They were waiting around
to gloat over the hole they thought they had put us in. Then when they
saw that one or both of us were going to be smashed on the rocks and
perhaps killed, they got scared and lit out so as to be as far away as
possible when the thing happened. Then they couldn't be suspected of
being mixed up in it. It's all as clear as daylight, and it adds another
tally to the score we have against those fellows."
"Oh, well, a yellow dog is a yellow dog, and he acts according to his
nature," said Bob. "But now since you fellows are here, come up the
ladder and take a look at the aerial and see what kind of job we've made
of it."
Herb and Jimmy followed him up the ladder and were loud in their praises
of the new contrivance.
"Couldn't have done it better myself," said Jimmy patronizingly. "I
didn't worry about my not being here, for I had the fullest confidence
in you and Joe. I knew you'd get it up all right."
He avoided the pass that Bob made at him, and after the boys had
gathered up the tools and left everything shipshape, they came down the
ladder and rejoined their comrade.
"I guess it's home for us now," said Herb.
"And mighty glad I am that none of us has to be carried home," put in
Bob.
"You bet," remarked Joe, as he rose to go. "Do you remember what you
said, Bob, about finishing that job if it took a leg? Well, it came
pretty near to taking one--or two--or perhaps even worse than that."