THE FOREST RANGER
Some days later Bob and Herb and Joe were on their way to Bob's house to
do a little experimenting on the latter's set, when they were surprised
at the alacrity with which Jimmy turned a corner and came puffing up to
them.
"Say, fellows!" he yelled, as he came within earshot, "I've got some
mighty interesting news for you."
"Let's have it," said Bob.
"It's about the snowball Buck fired through the window," panted Jimmy,
falling into step beside them. "I met a man who's staying up at the
Sterling House. He says Buck's the boy who did it, all right."
"How does he know?" all of the others asked with interest.
"Saw Buck pick up a stone and pack the snow hard around it," said Jimmy
importantly. "He saw it himself, so we've got one witness for our side,
all right."
"That's good," said Bob, adding, with a glint in his eye: "Say, wouldn't
I like to get my hands on Buck, just for about five minutes!"
"Well, you won't have a chance," said Jimmy, enjoying being the bearer
of so much news. "Buck's gone with his father to a lumber camp up in
Braxton woods."
"How do you know all this?" inquired Herb curiously. "You seem to be
chock full of information to-day."
"Oh, a little bird told me," said Jimmy, looking mysterious. However, as
Herb made a threatening motion toward him, he hurried to explain. "I met
Terry Mooney," he said. "I told him I knew all about who put the stone
in the snowball and I told him that our crowd was going to make his look
like two cents. He laughed and said swell chance we'd have. Said Buck
had gone to the lumber camp with his father and that he and Carl Lutz
were going to join him in a day or two. Just like Buck to run away when
he knows there's a good licking coming to him!" added Jimmy, with a
sneer.
"Oh, well, what do we care?" said Joe. "At least we sha'n't have those
fellows around spoiling all the fun."
"I'm glad you found out about the snowball just the same," said Bob
thoughtfully. "Every little bit helps when we have to fight against that
crooked gang of Buck's."
"Here's hoping," said Herb fervently, "that they stay away all the rest
of the spring."
By this time the lads had reached Bob's house. It was Saturday
afternoon, and as the boys crowded noisily into the hall Bob noticed
that his father was in the library and that he seemed to have company.
He was starting upstairs with the other lads when his father came out of
the library and called to him.
"Come on in for a few minutes, boys," he said. "I have a friend here who
is a man after your own hearts," and his eyes twinkled. "He's interested
in radio."
The boys needed no second invitation, for they never missed an
opportunity of meeting any one who could tell them something about the
wonders of radio.
Mr. Layton's guest was lounging in one of the great chairs in the
library, and from the moment the boys laid eyes on him they knew they
were going to hear something of more than usual interest.
The stranger was big, over six feet, and his face and hands were like a
Cuban's, they were so dark. Even his fair hair seemed to have been burnt
a darker hue by the sun. There was a tang of the great out-of-doors
about him, a hint of open spaces and adventure that fascinated the radio
boys.
"This is my son, Mr. Bentley," said Mr. Layton to the lounging stranger,
still with a twinkle in his eye. "And the other boys are his inseparable
companions. Also I think they are almost as crazy about radio as you
are."
The stranger laughed and turned to Bob.
"I've been upstairs to see your set," he said, adding heartily: "It's
fine. I've seldom seen better amateur equipment."
If Bob had liked this stranger before, it was nothing to what he felt
for him now. To the radio boys, if any one praised their radio sets,
this person, no matter who it was, promptly became their friend for
life.
"I'm glad you think it's pretty good," Bob said modestly. "We fellows
have surely worked hard enough over it."
"This gentleman here," said Mr. Layton to the boys, "ought to know quite
a bit about radio. He operates an airplane in the service of our
Government Forestry."
"In the United States Forest Service?" cried Bob, breathlessly, eyeing
the stranger with increasing interest. "And is your airplane equipped
with radio?"
"Very much so," replied Mr. Bentley. "It seems almost a fairy tale--what
radio has done for the Forest Service."
"I've read a lot about the fighting of forest fires," broke in Joe
eagerly. "But I didn't know radio had anything to do with it."
"It hadn't until the last few years," the visitor answered, adding, with
a laugh: "But now it's pretty near the whole service!"
"Won't you tell us something about what you do?" asked Bob.
Mr. Bentley waved a deprecating hand while Mr. Layton leaned back in his
chair with the air of one who is enjoying himself.
"It isn't so much what I do," protested this interesting newcomer, while
the boys hung upon his every word. "It is what radio has done in the
fighting of forest fires that is the marvelous, the almost unbelievable,
thing. The man who first conceived the idea of bringing radio into the
wilderness had to meet and overcome the same discouragements that fall
to the lot of every pioneer.
"The government declared that the cost of carrying and setting up the
radio apparatus would be greater than the loss occasioned every season
by the terribly destructive forest fires. But there was a fellow named
Adams who thought he knew better."
"Adams!" repeated Bob breathlessly. "Wasn't he the fellow who had charge
of the Mud Creek ranger station at Montana?"
The visitor nodded and gazed at Bob with interest. "How did you know?"
he asked.
"Oh, I read something about him a while ago," answered Bob vaguely. He
was chiefly interested in having Mr. Bentley go on.
"I should think," said Herb, "that it would be pretty hard work carrying
delicate radio apparatus into the lumber country."
"You bet your life it is," replied Mr. Bentley. "The only way the
apparatus can be carried is by means of pack horses, and as each horse
can't carry more than a hundred and fifty pounds you see it takes quite
a few of the animals to lug even an ordinary amount of apparatus.
"The hardest part of the whole thing," he went on, warming to his
recital as the boys were so evidently interested, "was packing the
cumbersome storage batteries. These batteries were often lost in
transit, too. If a pack horse happened to slip from the trail, its pack
became loosened and went tumbling down the mountain side----"
"That's the life!" interrupted Jimmy gleefully, and the visitor smiled
at him.
"You might not think so if you happened to be the one detailed to travel
back over the almost impassable trails for the missing apparatus,"
observed Mr. Bentley ruefully. "It wasn't all fun, that pioneer
installation of radio. Not by any means."
"But radio turned the trick just the same," said Bob slangily. "I've
read that a message that used to take two days to pass between ranger
stations can be sent now in a few seconds."
"Right!" exclaimed Mr. Bentley, his eyes glinting. "In a little while
the saving in the cost of forest fires will more than pay for the
installation of radio. We nose out a fire and send word by wireless to
the nearest station, before the fire fairly knows it's started."
"But just what is it that you do?" asked Joe, with flattering eagerness.
"I do scout work," was the reply. "I help patrol the fire line in cases
of bad fires. The men fighting the fire generally carry a portable
receiving apparatus along with them, and by that means, I, in my
airplane, can report the progress of a fire and direct the distribution
of the men."
"It must be exciting work," said Herb enviously. "That's just the kind
of life I'd like--plenty of adventure, something doing every minute."
"There's usually plenty doing," agreed Mr. Bentley, with a likable grin.
"We can't complain that our life is slow."
"I should think," said Bob slowly, "that it might be dangerous,
installing sets right there in the heavy timber."
"That's what lots of radio engineers thought also," agreed Mr. Bentley.
"But no such trouble has developed so far, and I guess it isn't likely
to now."
"Didn't they have some trouble in getting power enough for their sets?"
asked Joe, with interest.
"Yes, that was a serious drawback in the beginning," came the answer.
"They had to design a special equipment--a sort of gasoline charging
plant. In this way they were able to secure enough power for the
charging of the storage batteries."
Bob drew a long breath.
"Wouldn't I have liked to be the one to fit up that first wireless
station!" he cried enthusiastically. "Just think how that Mr. Adams must
have felt when he received his first message through the air."
"It wasn't all fun," the interesting visitor reminded the boys. "The
station was of the crudest sort, you know. The first operator had a box
to sit on and another box served as the support for his apparatus."
"So much the better," retorted Bob stoutly. "A radio fan doesn't know or
care, half the time, what he's sitting on."
"Which proves," said Mr. Bentley, laughing, "that you are a real one!"
And at this all the lads grinned.
"But say," interrupted Joe, going back to the problem of power, "weren't
the engineers able to think up something to take the place of the
gasoline charging stations?"
"Oh, yes. But not without a good deal of experimenting. Now they are
using two hundred and seventy number two Burgess dry batteries. These,
connecting in series, secure the required three hundred and fifty-volt
plate current."