AN UNEXPECTED STUDENT.
“Open the door!”
Joe spoke in an authoritative voice as he rattled the portal of the hut.
It was locked inside, and at the first turn of the handle the crackling
and sputtering of the spark had ceased.
“Hurry up, now,” hailed Joe again as a scuffling sound followed his
first order, but no audible reply issued from within.
“It can’t be old Israel and his crowd,” thought the boy as he listened,
“and it can’t be those two rascals who were here this afternoon. Either
one of those lots would have flung the door open long ago and rushed out
on me. Who in the world can it be, then? Somebody trying to play a joke?
They’ll find it a pretty unpleasant one.”
Joe waited a minute or two and then as no move was made by whoever was
within to open the hut door, he hailed again in an angry voice.
“You’d better obey. It will be all the worse for you if you don’t.”
Footsteps sounded inside and Joe gripped his oar, prepared to bring it
down with a crash on the head of whoever appeared. He was not going to
take any chances. There followed the sounds of fumbling with a lock and
the next minute the door opened. Out stepped a figure so utterly unlike
any one that Joe had expected to see that he almost dropped his oar in
his astonishment.
The intruder who had caused Joe so much disquietude was a slender
stripling of a youth of not more than fifteen. He had a pale, studious
face, big, frightened eyes and walked with a limp.
“Don’t hit me! Don’t!” he begged as he saw Joe standing there with lips
grimly compressed and the oar raised ready to strike.
“Caught you right in the act, haven’t I?” spoke Joe, as fiercely as he
could.
“Yes, sir,” said the lad in a thin, wavering voice.
“What do you mean by trespassing here?” demanded Joe.
The lad stammered something and Joe, touched in spite of himself by the
youth’s wan, pale look, spoke more kindly.
“I’m not an officer or a judge,” he said, “but I’m in charge here, and
you are trespassing on private property.”
The boy looked alarmed.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” he said, “I suppose I’d better get out.”
“Tell me what you came here for before you do that,” said Joe. “I’m
interested in knowing.”
“I didn’t think there’d be any harm. I came over in my sailboat.”
A sudden thought struck Joe.
“Is this the first time that you’ve been here?” he demanded.
“No,” confessed the lad, hanging his head; “I’ve often come over here
when you were all away.”
“And you thought that was the case to-night?”
The lad nodded.
“But what object brought you?”
The boy’s eyes kindled and his pale cheeks flushed.
“I love the wireless,” he said, speaking more firmly; “I wanted to use
it and I had no other opportunity.”
“You can operate?”
The boy nodded and once more his eyes brightened.
“Yes, a little bit. I’m not very good at it yet.”
“You’re good enough to sign your name ‘_Nemo_,’ though, aren’t you?”
shot out Joe on a hazard. A conviction had been growing in his mind that
this sickly-looking lad must be the “Nemo” who had so mystified them.
The stranger’s face turned crimson. He hung his head and looked
embarrassed.
“How did you guess it?” he asked, after a considerable pause. And then
he went on, “It’s no use beating about the bush. My name is Jim
Dolliver; I come from Powell’s Cove. My dad is a small rancher and
hasn’t much use for me because with this game foot I’m not able to do
much work. I begged him to let me take up wireless telegraphy and make a
future for myself, but he says that it’s ‘all foolish rot.’ I heard
about you boys building this plant out here, and one night when I knew
you weren’t here I sneaked over in my boat and began practice on a real
key. You see I’d learned the Morse alphabet and the theory of wireless
at home and practiced with a home-made key. I found it came easier than
I expected, and the habit of coming over here kind of grew on me. That
night when I got the call for Goat Island, I just couldn’t help
answering it, but I got scared and cut off. It was wrong of me, I know,
to sneak in and use your apparatus this way, but I just couldn’t help
it.”
“And what are you going to do now?” asked Joe, watching the lad keenly.
“Say good-bye, I guess; that is, if you don’t arrest me for trespassing.
I’ve always been very careful with your instruments, and I know I
haven’t injured them, but I see now that I ought never to have come here
at all.”
He was starting toward the beach, but Joe detained him.
“Look here, sonny,” he said, “I don’t see why there should be any
objection to your using our plant for practice if you want to. Of
course, I’d have to consult my chums and——”
“Then you’re not angry?”
“Not a bit. I think you’ve shown a whole lot of grit and pluck in taking
all the pains you have to get real practice on a real wireless set. I
mean to tell Nat and Ding-dong—those are my chums—about you, and we’ll
see what can be done.”
“Oh, that’s awfully good of you!”
“Not a bit, and now you’d better be getting back home. It’s quite a sail
from here to Powell’s Cove, and your folks will be wondering where you
are.”
“I haven’t got any folks, only just my dad,” was the pathetic reply;
“and dad, he don’t take no account of where I go. He’s got a friend
stopping with him, though, that’s powerfully interested in you fellows
over here.”
“Is that so?” asked Joe rather indifferently.
“Yes, he’s always talking about you and about the wireless. From what
I’ve heard him telling dad, he hasn’t got much use for you, either.”
“How is that, Jim?”
“Why, he says that you are interfering busybodies, and that if it wasn’t
for you, he’d be out of the country by this time instead of having to
hide his head.”
Joe grew suddenly interested.
“What sort of a looking fellow is this friend of your father’s, and when
did he come to stop with him?” he asked.
“Oh, about two weeks ago. I don’t like him a bit. He’s got a big, black
beard and looks at you ever so fiercely. He don’t go out much, and
whenever there’s a rig or anything coming along the road, he beats it
for the cellar. ’Pears to me like he’s scared of something, and——Why!
what’s the matter?”
There was reason for the question, for Joe had suddenly developed a wild
fit of excitement and was clasping Jim Dolliver’s hand.
“Your coming here to-night was the best thing that ever happened, Jim,”
he cried. “Gracious,” he added to himself, “there isn’t a doubt in the
world but that Jim’s father’s friend is Miles Minory.”