THE ESCAPED CONVICT
The boys saw a good deal of Adam McNulty in the days that followed, and
the change in the old man was nothing short of miraculous.
He no longer sat in the bare kitchen rocking and smoking his pipe,
dependent upon some passer-by for his sole amusement. He had radio now,
and under the instruction of the boys he had become quite expert in
managing the apparatus. Although he had no eyes, his fingers were
extraordinarily sensitive and they soon learned to handle the set
intelligently.
His daughter Maggie, whose gratitude to the boys knew no bounds, looked
up the radio program in the paper each day and carefully instructed her
father as to just when the news reports were given out, the story
reading, concerts, and so forth.
And so the old blind man lived in a new world--or rather, the old world
which he had ceased to live in when he became blind--and he seemed
actually to grow younger day by day. For radio had become his eyes.
Doctor Dale heard of this act of kindness on the part of the boys and he
was warm in his praise.
"Radio," he told the boys one day when he met them on the street, "is a
wonderful thing for those of us that can see, but for the blind it is a
miracle. You boys have done an admirable thing in your kindness to Adam
McNulty, and I hope that, not only individuals, but the government
itself will see the possibilities of so great a charity and follow your
example."
The boys glowed with pride at the doctor's praise, and then and there
made the resolve that whenever they came across a blind person that
person should immediately possess a radio set if it lay within their
power to give it to him.
On this particular day when so many things happened the boys were
walking down Main Street, talking as usual of their sets and the
marvelous progress of radio.
Although it was still early spring, the air was as warm almost as it
would be two months later. There was a smell of damp earth and pushing
grass in the air, and the boys, sniffing hungrily, longed suddenly for
the freedom of the open country.
"Buck and his bunch have it all their own way," said Herb discontentedly.
"I wouldn't mind being up in a lumber camp myself just now."
"Too early for the country yet," said Jimmy philosophically. "Probably
be below zero to-morrow."
"What you thinking about, Bob?" asked Joe, noticing that his chum had
been quiet for some time.
"I was thinking," said Bob, coming out of his reverie, "of the
difference there has been in generators since the early days of
Marconi's spark coil. First we had the spark transmitters and then we
graduated to transformers----"
"And they still gave us the spark," added Joe, taking up the theme.
"Then came the rotary spark gap and later the Goldsmith generator----"
"And then," Jimmy continued cheerfully, "the Goldsmith generator was
knocked into a cocked hat by the Alexanderson generator."
"They'll have an improvement on that before long, too," prophesied Herb.
"They have already," Bob took him up quickly. "Don't you remember what
Doctor Dale told us of the new power vacuum tube where one tube can take
care of fifty K. W.?"
"Gee," breathed Herb admiringly, "I'll say that's some energy."
"Those same vacuum tubes are being built right now," went on Bob
enthusiastically. "They are made of quartz and are much cheaper than the
alternators we're using now."
"They are small too, compared to our present-day generators," added Joe.
"You bet!" agreed Bob, adding, as his eyes narrowed dreamily: "All the
apparatus seems to be growing smaller these days, anyway. I bet before
we fellows are twenty years older, engineers will have done away
altogether with large power plants and cumbersome machinery."
"I read the other day," said Joe, "that before long all the apparatus
needed, even for transatlantic stations, can be contained in a small
room about twenty-five feet by twenty-five."
"But what shall we do for power?" protested Herb. "We'll always have to
have generators."
"There isn't any such word as 'always' in radio," returned Bob. "I
shouldn't wonder if in the next twenty or thirty years we shall be able,
by means of appliances like this new power vacuum tube, to get our power
from the ordinary lighting circuit."
"And that would do away entirely with generators," added Joe
triumphantly.
"Well, I wouldn't say anything was impossible," said Herb doubtfully.
"But that seems to me like a pretty large order."
"It is a large order," agreed Bob, adding with conviction: "But it isn't
too large for radio to fill."
"Speaking of lodging all apparatus in one fair-sized room," Joe went on.
"I don't see why that can't really be done in a few years. Why, they say
that this new power vacuum tube which handles fifty K. W. is not any
larger than a desk drawer."
"I see the day of the vest-pocket radio set coming nearer and nearer,
according to you fellows," announced Herb. "Pretty soon we'll be getting
our apparatus so small we'll need a microscope to see it."
"Laugh if you want to," said Bob. "But I bet in the next few years we're
going to see greater things done in radio than have been accomplished
yet."
"And that's saying something!" exclaimed Joe, with a laugh.
"I guess," said Jimmy thoughtfully, "that there have been more changes
in a short time in radio than in any other science."
"I should say so!" Herb took him up. "Look at telephone and telegraph
and electric lighting systems. There have been changes in them, of
course, but beside the rapid-fire changes of radio, they seem to have
been standing still."
"There haven't been any changes to speak of in the electric lighting
systems for the last fifteen years or more," said Bob. "And the
telephone has stayed just about the same, too."
"There's no doubt about it," said Joe. "Radio has got 'em all beat as
far as a field for experiment is concerned. Say," he added fervently,
"aren't you glad you weren't born a hundred years ago?"
The boys stopped in at Adam McNulty's cabin to see how the old fellow
was getting along. They found him in the best of spirits and, after
"listening in" with him for a while and laughing at some of his Irish
jokes, they started toward home.
"I wish," said Bob, "that we could have gotten a line on Dan Cassey. It
seems strange that we haven't been able to pick up some real clue in all
this time."
For, although the boys had caught several other mysterious messages
uttered in the stuttering voice of Dan Cassey, they had not been able to
make head nor tail of them. The lads liked mysteries, but they liked
them chiefly for the fun of solving them. And they seemed no nearer to
solving this one than they had been in the beginning.
"I know it's a fool idea," said Herb sheepishly. "But since we were the
ones that got Cassey his jail sentence before, I kind of feel as if we
were responsible for him."
"It's pretty lucky for us we're not," remarked Joe. "We certainly would
be up against it."
On and on the boys went. Presently Joe began to whistle and all joined
in until suddenly Jimmy uttered a cry and went down on his face.
"Hello, what's wrong?" questioned Bob, leaping to his chum's side.
"Tripped on a tree root," growled Doughnuts, rising slowly. "Gosh! what
a spill I had."
"Better look where you are going," suggested Herb.
"I don't see why they can't chop off some of these roots, so it's better
walking."
"All right--you come down and do the chopping," returned Joe, lightly.
"Not much! The folks that own the woods can do that."
"Don't find fault, Jimmy. Remember, some of these very roots have
furnished us with shinny sticks."
"Well, not the one I tripped over."
It was some time later that the boys noticed that they had tramped
further than they had intended. They were on the very outskirts of the
town, and before them the heavily-wooded region stretched invitingly.
Jimmy, who, on account of his plumpness, was not as good a hiker as the
other boys, was for turning back, but the other three wanted to go on.
And, being three against one, Jimmy had not the shadow of a chance of
getting his own way.
It was cool in the shadows of the woods, and the boys were reminded that
it was still early in the season. It was good to be in the woods, just
the same, and they tramped on for a long way before they finally decided
it was time to turn back.
They were just about to turn around when voices on the path ahead of
them made them hesitate. As they paused three men came into full view,
and the boys stood, staring.
Two of the men they had never seen before, but the other they knew well.
It was the man whose voice they had been trailing all these weeks--Dan
Cassey, the stutterer!