THE HIDDEN WIRELESS
“Wires!” exclaimed McBride and Ferris together.
“Yes, wires. They come out of a little hole that’s been bored through
the clapboards. Unless I miss my guess they run along that big limb and
on up the tree trunk. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Great guns!” exclaimed Micky excitedly. “You don’t think it’s
a—wireless!”
“That’s exactly what I do mean. You know as well as I do that ever since
the U-boats showed up along the coast last summer, they’ve suspected
that a hidden wireless was giving them information about ships and
things. Don’t you remember the talk Mr. Wendell gave at the meeting a
few weeks ago when he said that secret service men were busy hunting for
it, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack? He told us we
must report the least thing that seemed suspicious. Jove! If this should
be it, and we should the ones to find it!”
“I hated that fat man from the first,” said Ritter viciously. “I was
sure there was something queer about him.”
“There is, all right,” agreed Cavvy with conviction. “If he isn’t
running a secret wireless, he’s doing something else underhand.
Otherwise why is he living in this tumbledown ruin away from everything?
Why didn’t he answer our knocking until we pretty near broke the door
down? There’s something crooked about him, you can bank on that.”
“Gee-whiz! I’ll bet you’re right, Cavvy!” exclaimed McBride. “What are
you going to do? Tell Mr. Wendell, or the police?”
Cavanaugh’s face took on a faintly troubled expression. “I don’t see how
we can do either just yet,” he answered. “You see, we really don’t
_know_ anything. There’s nothing but those wires to go on. If I could
only get up that tree I’d be sure one way or another.”
“But you can’t do that,” said Ferris quickly. “He’d be sure to see you.”
“Not after dark,” returned Cavvy pointedly.
“What!” protested Ritter, his face falling. “Wait all that time! Why,
it’d be ages. And we’d probably get wet to the skin. The rain can’t hold
off much longer.”
“You give me a pain, Rit,” said Micky scathingly. “What the dickens does
a little rain matter when we’ve got a chance like this? You oughtn’t to
howl. You’re so well padded you wouldn’t feel it. Besides, it won’t be
long at all. It’ll be good and dark by half past five on a night like
this. I’m game to stay, Cavvy. So’s Champ, aren’t you, old kid?”
Ferris acquiesced, though not quite with McBride’s eager impulsiveness.
The woods were cold and dreary and the possibilities ahead of them did
not fill him with delight. But he was too keen an admirer of Jimmy
Cavanaugh to risk losing the other’s good opinion. Finally, with the
other three against him, Ritter gave in, though with much grumbling and
complaint, and a good deal more secret apprehension, and leaving the
path they found a more secluded spot back in the undergrowth in which to
pass their vigil.
This did not prove so long or so tedious as some of them expected. They
were wrought-up and excited, and there were plans to make and
possibilities to discuss. Moreover, the early twilight, hastened by the
lowering clouds, fell swiftly. Long before six it was quite dark. Twenty
minutes later Cavvy decided that it was time to move.
Cautiously they crept out of the bushes and felt their way along the
path. It was spooky business, this stealing through the darkness, and
more than one heart beat faster at the thought of what might lie before
them. At the edge of the clearing they paused, trying to make out the
lines of the old house through the gloom. A cold sleety drizzle had
begun to fall, and with a shiver Ritter turned up his mackinaw collar.
Cavanaugh, in advance, took a few more steps forward and then stopped
again. Of a sudden, out of the blackness before them, came a faint,
wavering glow of light. For a second or two they failed to place it.
Then the vague outlines of a window sprang up in the darkness, only to
fade again as the light flickered, died out, to reappear presently in
another window on the upper floor.
“He’s moving around up there,” whispered Cavvy. “I guess it’s safe
enough. Champ, you and Rit stay here. Better get off the path a little;
he might come out. Mind you don’t run into the pond. Come ahead, Micky.”
Ritter and Ferris stumbled gropingly from the path, the former giving
another shudder at the thought of blundering into that slimy pool. The
other two disappeared instantly into the shadows.
They moved cautiously, and as they neared the house even their
occasional stealthy whispers ceased. The light remained stationary in
the window near the corner where they had first glimpsed the fat man’s
face. This was no proof that he also was there, but some chance had to
be taken, and Micky found no slight comfort in the heft of the stout
stick in his hand.
At the rear of the building, under the shadow of the great pine, not a
ray of light relieved the gloom. The boys felt their way past the closed
door and on to the woodshed. Here McBride helped his friend to the low
roof and then retired a little way to keep watch according to agreement.
Slowly and carefully Cavanaugh edged his way along the roof, thankful
for the rubber soles which gave him some slight hold on the slippery
surface. Without them he would certainly have slid off, for there was
nothing to take hold of with his hands, and he had constantly to feel
ahead for holes and weak spots in the rotten shingles.
Reaching the tree, he stood upright, steadying himself against the
trunk. He had noted that afternoon the projecting stub of a broken limb
which gave him his first foothold. Thence, with the aid of a similar
butt and a curious, unexpected projection which felt like a wooden cleat
nailed to the trunk, he gained the lowest crotch.
It was ticklish business, climbing through the dark with only his sense
of feeling to guide him, and Cavvy breathed a sigh of relief as he threw
one leg across the solid branch. A moment later his fingers touched the
wires and his heart leaped exultingly. There they were exactly as he had
imagined them—two heavy insulated wires snugly fastened to the limb with
staples, and in such a position as to be quite invisible from the
ground. His eager fingers traced them to the trunk where they turned
upward just as he thought they might.
“It _is_ a wireless!” he muttered excitedly. “It can’t be anything
else.”