THRASHING THE BULLIES
Doctor Dale manipulated the knobs for a few seconds, and suddenly
they all heard the announcer from WEAF speaking.
“The next number on our program will be a violin solo,” announced
the sonorous voice, and the Radio Boys leaned back, prepared to hear
something good.
But they were disappointed. Before a single note could come floating
in through the horn, the slight sibilant sound of the apparatus
ceased abruptly. The set had suddenly “gone dead,” and, try as he
might, the doctor could not coax a sound from it.
“That’s very strange,” he said, after trying in vain to get some
result. “Suppose you try it, Bob. Maybe you’ll have better fortune.”
Bob was no more successful than the pastor had been, and after a few
minutes he looked at Doctor Dale with a puzzled frown between his
eyes.
“That’s one of the queerest things I ever knew to happen to a radio
set,” he said. “I guess we’d better go over the connections, and
make sure that everything is tight.”
This they did, but everything seemed to be in perfect order. All the
connections were neatly soldered in place, and it was easy to see
that the trouble did not lie here.
“Well,” said Bob, at last, “it seems plain enough that the set
itself is all right, unless one of the transformers has burned out.
That’s so unlikely, though, that I think we’d better take a look at
the antenna. Perhaps the trouble is in that or in the leading-in
wire.”
“That’s easy to find out,” remarked Joe, and they all went outdoors
and around to the back of the house. Doctor Dale had a powerful
little electric flashlight, and by the aid of this they could see
that the antenna wire was all right. Having made sure of this,
Doctor Dale turned the brilliant little shaft of light on the house,
and followed the course of the leading-in wire down the wall. This
wire entered the house through one of the dining-room window frames,
and as the light neared this point, the doctor uttered an
exclamation.
“There’s our trouble!” he cried. “The wire is broken just outside
the window. I wonder what made it do that.”
“It does seem rather queer,” said Bob. “It looks to be a pretty
heavy wire, and there’s no strain on it at that point.”
“Yes, but it’s always the unexpected thing that happens, especially
in radio,” remarked Joe. “Probably a couple of us could hang on that
wire and it wouldn’t break, and yet it snaps with nothing but its
own weight to hold up. Let’s splice it and give the set another
try-out.”
They were about to follow Joe’s advice, when suddenly Bob’s keen
ears caught the sound of a suppressed laugh coming from the
direction of Doctor Dale’s garage. Not only that, but he thought he
recognized the voice, and suddenly the cause of the wire’s
mysterious failure flashed over him. He had recognized the sound of
Carl Lutz’s voice in the laugh, and a wave of hot anger surged up in
him. His first impulse was to make a dash for the garage, but
suddenly he thought of a better plan, and by an effort pretended
that he had heard nothing.
“Come on into the house and get some tools,” he said, in his usual
tone of voice. “It won’t take a minute to twist the ends together
and put a drop or two of solder over the splice. We’ll have it fixed
up for you, Doctor Dale, inside of five minutes.”
They all went into the house, and Doctor Dale went upstairs to get a
couple of pairs of pliers and some tape. While he was gone, Bob
swiftly outlined his plan to his friends.
“That wire was deliberately cut by Buck, or possibly Carl Lutz,” he
said. “I heard Carl’s mean laugh while we were outside. I was
nearest to the garage, and I suppose that’s why I was the only one
to hear it. Now, it’s pretty dark tonight, and we don’t want that
pair to get away scot free if we can help it. My idea is to go out
the front door, which they can’t see from where they are hiding, and
then spread out and surround the garage. We ought to catch one of
them, anyway, and then it will be up to us to teach him not to cut
leading-in wires. How does that plan strike you?”
“It sounds fine,” ejaculated Joe. “Up and at ’em, fellows. The
sooner we start, the better I’ll like it. There’s a possibility they
may have gone even by this time,” and at the thought his face fell.
“No danger of that,” Bob reassured him. “They’ll hang around for the
fun of watching us mending the wire. They’d enjoy that so much that
they’re sure to wait.”
Knowing Looker and his friend as they did, the Radio Boys thought
this highly probable, and without further words they proceeded to
put Bob’s plan into effect. As silently as Indians they stole out of
the house and approached the garage. This was quite a large
building, and was surrounded by shrubbery, so that it made an ideal
hiding place.
Everything was so quiet that the boys began to fear that Carl and
Buck had taken the alarm and gone away, when suddenly the stillness
was broken by a startled exclamation, followed by a crash of some
heavy body falling.
What had happened was that Jimmy, while feeling his way along in the
pitch darkness, had inadvertently tripped over some projecting
object, which proved to be Buck Looker’s leg. The exclamation was
uttered by Buck, and the crash was the result of Jimmy’s falling
through an evergreen plant and landing against the wall of the
garage.
Immediately all was uproar and confusion.
At the first alarm, Buck and Carl had jumped to their feet and
started as fast as their legs could carry them toward the street.
Unluckily for them, both Bob and Joe were converging on the garage
from that direction, and Buck and his friend ran squarely into their
arms. By this time they were so near the street that the light from
an arc lamp illuminated the scene, and by its aid Bob and Joe
proceeded to administer summary justice on the meddlesome youths.
The latter did not want to fight, but when they saw that there was
no escape, they put up a defense that was not to be despised. They
were both big fellows, but Bob and Joe were so indignant and furious
over this last uncalled for outrage that the two bullies would have
had little chance in any event.
Nevertheless, for a few minutes the fight was fast and furious. Just
at its height Joe slipped on the wet grass, and while he was down
both Buck and Carl concentrated on Bob. Only for a moment, however,
and then Herb, who had come running up by this time, stepped in and
sent Carl reeling back under a fusillade of blows, while Bob pressed
Buck hard, driving him back toward the garage. It would have gone
hard with Buck and his friend had not Doctor Dale appeared on the
scene just then. He was hatless and greatly alarmed at the uproar in
his usually peaceful garden.
At sight of him, the Radio Boys paused for a moment, and Buck and
Carl took advantage of this momentary respite to make a dash for the
street. Herb and Joe, who was now on his feet again, started in
pursuit, but Bob called them back.
“We’ve given them something to remember us by, fellows,” he said.
“Besides, I think we owe some explanation to Doctor Dale. He must
think we’ve gone crazy.”
“I must admit that it looks somewhat that way,” the doctor said.
“Who were those two fellows that I saw running away just now? Were
they burglars?”
“No, sir. Those were the fellows that cut your leading-in wire,”
said Bob, quietly.
“Cut it!” exclaimed the doctor, in amazement. “Who would want to do
such a thing as that?”
“They weren’t doing it to you, sir; that is, not directly,”
explained Bob. “They wanted to make us trouble. They must have seen
us go into your house, and they thought that would be a fine trick
to play.”
“Then they were your old friends, Buck Looker and Carl Lutz?”
“Yes, sir. But I don’t think they’ll try it again very soon,”
answered Bob.
“We taught them a lesson that they’ll be likely to remember for a
while,” added Herb.
“Well,” said Doctor Dale, “as a rule I don’t believe in fighting,
but I am a believer in swift justice, so I won’t lecture you boys.
If you hadn’t administered punishment in your own way, I might have
taken some other steps. As it is, I imagine it will be wiser just to
let the matter drop. Was Jimmy in the battle, too?”
“Not very much, I wasn’t,” said that lad, who had been ruefully
rubbing various portions of his anatomy. “I was too busy picking
myself out of the remains of an evergreen tree to do any fighting. I
pretty nearly knocked a hole in the side of your garage with my
head, Doctor Dale.”
“It sounded like a young earthquake,” grinned Joe. “It was just luck
that you didn’t scare them away, Doughnuts. Next time, see that you
leave the garage and the shrubbery alone, so that the fighting men
won’t be deprived of your help.”
“Huh,” sniffed the fat boy. “It took me to find them, didn’t it?
Probably you’d be looking for them yet, if it hadn’t been for me.”
“Well, however that might have been, I think you boys had better
come into the house and repair some of the damage to your clothes,”
said Doctor Dale, with a twinkle in his eyes. “I’m expecting a
friend to visit me this evening, who may have an interesting
proposition to put up to you. You’d better hurry, too, as he is
likely to be here at any moment now.”
“What is the proposition?” asked Joe, as they turned toward the
house.
“I’m not going to tell you now, but I don’t mind saying that it has
something to do with an automobile tour. Does that interest you?”
and he smiled as he looked from one eager face to the other.