THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE ICEBERG PATROL
[Illustration: THEY LOOKED IN WONDER AT THE FLEET OF ICEBERGS.]
THE RADIO BOYS SERIES
(Trademark Registered)
THE RADIO BOYS WITH
THE ICEBERG PATROL
OR
MAKING SAFE THE OCEAN LANES
BY
ALLEN CHAPMAN
AUTHOR OF
THE RADIO BOYS’ FIRST WIRELESS
THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS
RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE
RALPH, THE TRAIN DISPATCHER, ETC.
WITH FOREWORD BY
JACK BINNS
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
BOOKS FOR BOYS
By Allen Chapman
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE RADIO BOYS SERIES
(Trademark Registered)
THE RADIO BOYS’ FIRST WIRELESS
Or Winning the Ferberton Prize
THE RADIO BOYS AT OCEAN POINT
Or The Message that Saved the Ship
THE RADIO BOYS AT THE SENDING STATION
Or Making Good in the Wireless Room
THE RADIO BOYS AT MOUNTAIN PASS
Or The Midnight Call for Assistance
THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING A VOICE
Or Solving a Wireless Mystery
THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS
Or The Great Fire on Spruce Mountain
THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE ICEBERG PATROL
Or Making Safe the Ocean Lanes
THE RAILROAD SERIES
RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE
Or Bound to Become a Railroad Man
RALPH IN THE SWITCH TOWER
Or Clearing the Track
RALPH ON THE ENGINE
Or The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail
RALPH ON THE OVERLAND EXPRESS
Or The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer
RALPH, THE TRAIN DISPATCHER
Or The Mystery of the Pay Car
RALPH ON THE ARMY TRAIN
Or The Young Railroader’s Most Daring Exploit
RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER
Or The Wreck at Shadow Valley
RALPH AND THE MISSING MAIL POUCH
Or The Stolen Government Bonds
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York
Copyright, 1924, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
The Radio Boys with the Iceberg Patrol
FOREWORD
By Jack Binns
All of the wondrous possibilities of radio are covered in this
thrilling tale which deals with the latest adventures of The Radio
Boys. It is a story well told, particularly in connection with the
description of the collision at sea which precipitated the
experience of the boys in the field of ice.
Of all the uses to which radio has been put, there is none more
important than that in conjunction with the annual ice patrol in the
steamship lanes of the Atlantic. Night and day the vessels from the
various civilized nations engaged in this work vie with each other
in devotion to duty in order that their efforts will save lives and
property from danger on the high seas. Their sole medium of warning
is the modern wonder of the world—radio.
The escapades of the boys in this book are extremely thrilling, but
not particularly more so than is actually possible in every day life
upon the seven seas.
Its appearance is extremely appropriate, because it is coincident
with the announcement that the Coast Guard cutters, _Tampa_ and
_Modoc_, are now under orders to proceed to the region east of
Newfoundland’s rugged shores where the ice from Greenland is swept
down upon the frigid Labrador current across the steamship lanes to
annihilation in the warmer southern waters. For the next three
months these two vessels will go through the experiences detailed in
“The Radio Boys with the Iceberg Patrol.”
The history of this patrol dates from the disaster which overtook
the giant liner Titanic in April 1912, when that ill-fated ship
struck the submerged ledge of an iceberg in mid-ocean on her maiden
voyage. The gaping wound in her side was so large that she sank
within thirty-five minutes after striking the iceberg, and more than
1,500 of her passengers and crew were drowned.
As a result of this appalling disaster a conference was called at
which representatives of all maritime nations participated in
London, and there the rules for this iceberg patrol were agreed
upon. Every year from March until the end of July these vessels are
engaged in their humane work, and since that fateful day in 1912,
hundreds of steamships, large and small, have been saved from a
similar fate by the timely warnings of Radio.
Jack Binns
CONTENTS
I. The Cry for Help
II. A Narrow Escape
III. The Naval Captain
IV. The Iceberg Patrol
V. Buffeted by the Gale
VI. Tuning In
VII. Thrashing the Bullies
VIII. A Crash in the Darkness
IX. A Night of Uncertainty
X. Snatched from the Sea
XI. An Unexpected Meeting
XII. Bound for the Ocean Lanes
XIII. The Derelict
XIV. Blown to Bits
XV. Consternation
XVI. The Radio Warning
XVII. Rending the Giant Berg Asunder
XVIII. A Glorious Panorama
XIX. Wireless Wonders
XX. In Stately Procession
XXI. By a Hair’s-breadth
XXII. Startling News
XXIII. In Deadly Peril
XXIV. Trapped
XXV. In the Nick of Time
THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE ICEBERG PATROL
CHAPTER I
THE CRY FOR HELP
“Say, fellows, whom do you think I got a letter from?” cried Bob
Layton, as he ran out of his front gate to meet a group of boys who
were coming down the street.
“From the President of the United States, judging from the way
you’re all worked up about it,” replied Joe Atwood, with a grin.
“My guess would be the King of England,” chimed in Jimmy Plummer.
“Quit your kidding!” exclaimed Bob. “They don’t know that I’m alive,
and don’t care whether I am or not. The letter came from Paul
Bentley.”
That Paul Bentley’s name was one to conjure with was evident from
the keen interest that leaped into every face.
“Paul Bentley!” cried Joe. “What does he have to say? How are things
going with the old scout?”
“Is he coming to Clintonia?” asked Herb Fennington, eagerly.
“No such luck,” Bob replied to the last question. “Say, maybe he
wouldn’t get a welcome if he did! No, he’s still up in the Spruce
Mountain district, fighting fires. Says they had a big one a couple
of weeks ago, almost as bad as the one in which we fellows came so
near to losing our lives.”
“It must have been a lallapaloozer then,” affirmed Jimmy. “I never
believed anything could be nearly as bad as that. Gee, I feel hot
flashes whenever I think of it. And I think of it pretty often, too.
Sometimes I wake up in the night and begin sniffing around for
smoke.”
“Same here,” chimed in Joe. “Whenever there was a fire in town I
used to like to run to it. But not any more! I’ve had enough of
fires to last me a lifetime.”
“We did have a pretty tough fight for life,” assented Bob. “What
with the fire on one hand and the bears on the other, we had a
mighty sight more of excitement than we bargained for.”
“Yet that’s what we went to Spruce Mountain to get,” observed Joe
Atwood.
“We got it all right,” remarked Jimmy. “And yet, since we got out of
it safely, I’m mighty glad we had the experience. And leaving the
fire out of the account, what a whale of a good time we had! Good
air, good eats, good company. Everything was good.”
“Everything?” queried Herb, with a tinge of skepticism.
“Sure!” declared Jimmy, stoutly. “Point out anything that wasn’t.”
“How about Buck Looker and Carl Lutz?” asked Herb, with a grin.
“They were good too,” asserted Jimmy. “Good for nothing. But, after
all, they didn’t do us any real harm, though they tried hard enough.
And I guess the scare they got in the fire took some of the meanness
out of them.”
“I don’t know about that,” remarked Joe dubiously. “Buck was
frightened ’most to death, and he was ready to promise almost
anything. But probably that didn’t change his real nature. If he
should get a chance to do us a bad turn, he’d probably do it, just
as he always has. You’ve heard that old saying that the leopard
can’t change its spots, haven’t you? Buck sure had a lot of spots.”
“Talk about angels, and they appear!” exclaimed Herb. “Here they
come now.”
The four boys looked in the direction that Herb Fennington
indicated, and saw two boys of about their own age coming down the
street. The larger of the two was a heavily built, hulking fellow,
with eyes set too close together and a look of the bully standing
out all over him. The other was not so large in bulk, but quite as
tall. His complexion was pasty and there was a furtive look about
him that was anything but prepossessing.
“Fallen angels,” muttered Joe, in reply to Herb’s last remark. “I’ll
bet at this moment they’re cooking up some low-down trick or other.
They wouldn’t be happy if they weren’t. That’s their conception of
having a good time.”
The two newcomers were coming along facing each other and tossing a
baseball between them. The slenderer one, Carl Lutz, had his back
toward the four friends, while the heavier one, Buck Looker, was
facing them.
Just as they got about twenty feet from Bob Layton and his friends,
Buck threw the ball well to one side of Lutz. Even at that, the
latter could easily have stopped it, if he had wanted to. He made
only a half-hearted offer at it, however, and the ball went swiftly
past him and struck Jimmy Plummer full in the pit of the stomach.
The ball was hard thrown, and it doubled Jimmy up promptly. With a
cry of pain, he fell to the sidewalk.
Bob sprang toward him to pick him up, while Joe glared wrathfully at
Buck.
“That was a nice thing to do, wasn’t it?” he demanded.
“Aw, how could I help it!” growled Looker, not exhibiting the
slightest compunction nor offering to go to Jimmy’s assistance. “He
ought to have kept his eyes open and gotten out of the way.”
“I believe you did it on purpose,” broke in Herb.
“You can believe what you like,” snarled Buck. “How could I help it
if Carl didn’t stop the ball?”
“It’s mighty funny that the first wild throw should come just as we
were passing by,” observed Joe.
“And that it should be such a swift one,” added Herb. “You were just
tossing the ball until you got near us. Then you let out with all
your might. And Lutz didn’t even try to stop it.”
“I did make a try for it,” growled Lutz, though the look in his eyes
did not bear out his statement.
They attempted to pass by, but Bob Layton barred the way.
“Just wait a minute,” he said. “Are you badly hurt, Jimmy?” he
added, addressing his companion, whom he had helped to his feet.
“It—it knocked the breath out of me, and it hurt like the mischief,”
gasped Jimmy, whose face was white and who spoke with difficulty.
“But I guess I’ll be all right in a little while.”
“Now, look here, Buck Looker,” said Bob, with a steely look in his
eyes, before which both Buck and Lutz drew back. “I had hoped that
we had got through with this kind of thing from you and your gang.
Do you remember what you promised when we saved your life in the
forest fire? You told us on your knees that you’d cut out all the
dirty tricks that you had been trying to put over on us for the last
year or two. Yet here you are, right after you’ve got back, doing
the same old thing.”
“I tell you I didn’t do this on purpose,” muttered Buck, with a
scowl.
“Look me straight in the eye and say that again,” demanded Bob.
Buck tried to, but before Bob’s steady gaze his eyes wavered and
fell, and his words fell away into an inarticulate growl.
“Aw, what right have you to put me through the third degree?” he
snarled. “I’ve told you once that I didn’t mean to, and that settles
it.”
“No, it doesn’t settle it,” cried Joe, whose temper was of the
hair-trigger variety. “I’m going to give you a thrashing right here
and now.”
He made a move to throw off his coat, but Bob laid a restraining
hand on his arm.
“Not this time, Joe,” he counseled. “Every dog, you know, is
entitled to one bite. We’ll let this go for Buck’s first bite since
he got back. It isn’t a dead certainty that he did it on purpose,
though I believe he did. But I tell you this straight, Buck Looker,
and you paste it in your hat. If anything like this happens again,
you won’t get the benefit of the doubt, and I’ll give you the worst
licking that you ever got in your life. I’ve thrashed you before,
and you know that I can do it again. Now skip along before I change
my mind and trim you right on the spot.”
Buck looked at first as though he were going to resent Bob’s words
and tone, but a look at the latter’s fists that had involuntarily
clenched themselves, made him think better of it, and, picking up
the ball which, obeying his will, had caused the mischief, he and
his crony slunk away, favoring the group with a malignant stare that
told he was only biding his time to attempt some further rascality.
“A precious pair of rascals,” remarked Herb, disgustedly, as they
watched the retreating figures.
“Oh, my prophetic soul!” exclaimed Joe. “What did I tell you when I
saw them coming? Didn’t I say they were cooking up something as they
came along? I tell you they’re hopeless.”
“I’m afraid they are,” agreed Bob, regretfully. “I really thought
that after we’d saved Buck’s life and after all his tears and
promises, he might reform. But you can’t make a silk purse out of a
sow’s ear. Buck’s yellow through and through.”
“We ought to have let the bears get him when they were clawing at
the raft,” declared Herb. “What hasn’t that fellow and his gang
tried to do to us? Tried to smash our radio sets and a dozen other
things!”
“Feeling better, Jimmy?” inquired Bob, as the four chums resumed
their interrupted walk.
“A little bit sore at the pit of my stomach, but the pain’s going
away,” replied Jimmy. “It certainly knocked me out for a minute.
Thought I’d never be able to breathe again.”
“We’ll just mark that up as another tally in our score against Buck
Looker,” said Bob. “And now let’s try to forget that beauty and talk
of something pleasanter. Did you fellows read about that radio test
by the airplane mail pilot? It was in this morning’s paper.”
None of the others had noticed the item, but as they were all radio
fans of the thirty-third degree, they were interested at once.
“Tell us about it,” urged Joe, echoed by the others.
“You see,” explained Bob to his eager auditors, “the post-office
department has been having a lot of trouble communicating from the
ground to the mail planes and from the mail planes to the ground. In
order to have the planes carry as little weight as possible, the
radio apparatus they’ve carried has been of reduced size and the
antenna facilities have had to be limited, too, so that the range of
the aerial set hasn’t been great enough to bring about the best
results.
“Then, too, it’s been hard to reach the speeding plane from the
ground. This has been due to the noise of the engine and the local
interference picked up by the receiver from the ignition and other
electrical circuits of the motor.
“But now they’ve established at the Omaha field a one-thousand-watt
transmitter, especially designed for the postal authorities, that
has a range of from three hundred to five hundred miles in the day
time and up to one thousand miles at night. And as none of the
flying fields is more than five hundred miles from another, the
field superintendents are able to keep in touch with the planes at
almost any moment they are in flight.”
“Sounds good,” commented Joe. “But has it actually worked?”
“To the queen’s taste,” affirmed Bob. “One of the pilots tried it
out yesterday between Omaha and North Platte. While traveling at the
rate of one hundred and twenty miles an hour on a three-hour trip,
the pilot kept up a conversation with the superintendents of two
stations, and they could hear each other as plainly as if they had
been in the next room. What do you think of that?”
“Dandy,” replied Herb. “Just think what that will mean to the pilot,
especially in fog or storm. It won’t be necessary for him to see the
light from the air-mail fields so as to be able to land. The
superintendent can give him his location to a dot, and he can come
down with his eyes shut.”
“Another triumph for radio!” exclaimed Joe. “I tell you, fellows,
there’s no limit to the possibilities of that wonderful science. One
thing follows so closely on the heels of another that a fellow gets
dizzy trying to keep up with it.”
“It’s as though one were living in fairyland,” agreed Jimmy. “I have
to pinch myself sometimes to see if I’m dreaming.”
“We surely are living in an age of miracles,” declared Bob. “I’ve
given up thinking anything was impossible. I don’t give the merry
ha-ha to anything, no matter how unlikely it sounds. Nothing can
happen more wonderful than what’s taking place every day in radio.
You can tell me that some day we’ll be talking to the men on Mars—if
there are any men there—and I won’t be the one to say we can’t.”
“In other words, you’re ready to fall for anything,” laughed Jimmy,
who had by this time recovered from the effect of the blow and was
his own jolly self again. “But now, to get down to earth again,
suppose you tell us where we’re going. We’re a long way from home.”
“It’s that appetite of Jimmy’s that’s beginning to talk now,” gibed
Herb. “He knows it’s getting near supper time, and he doesn’t need
any watch to tell him so. That stomach of his is a regular
chronometer.”
“It came near having the works knocked out of it this afternoon,”
chaffed Joe. “But I see that it’s still ticking. After all, it is
getting rather late. Suppose we turn around and beat it for home.”
“You’ve come so far, you might as well come a little farther,” urged
Bob. “I’ve an errand to do for my father at Mr. Baker’s house. It’s
only about half a mile farther on.”
“Now I know why Bob spun us that yarn about the air-mail pilot,”
laughed Herb. “He wanted company, and he tried to keep us so
interested that we wouldn’t notice how far we were going.”
“Dead wrong,” declared Bob, in denial. “It wouldn’t be worth going
to all that trouble to beguile you innocent boobs. But come along
now and we’ll be there in a jiffy.”
They swung around a turn in the road, and Bob, who was slightly in
advance, gave a startled exclamation.
“Look! Look!” he cried.
The others looked, and turned white in consternation.
What they saw was a large automobile that had crashed through a
fence alongside the road and was rolling down into a deep gully,
while from it rose loud yells for help.