A MYSTERIOUS CALL
The winter following the Sargon Valley flood was a busy one for Lee
Renaud. The spectacular success of his little "pencil line" radio outfit
brought him considerable newspaper notice. He even had offers from one
or two radio concerns for the outright purchase of his portable model.
But both his staunch friends, Dr. Pendexter and Captain Bartlot, advised
against the sale of his rights in the little mechanism he had invented.
It was in a crude state now but, developed and improved, it might have
the makings of a fortune in it, especially if it could be advertised in
a big way.
So Lee sent in an application to Washington to have his model patented,
and then dropped back once more into the oblivion of King's Cove, and
hard work.
The mysterious pencil line that had acted in the place of a wire
connection, and so had saved his and Bartlot's lives, had proved to Lee
Renaud that there were many hitherto undreamed-of agencies for radio
improvement. The boy longed to experiment in a big way with those
crystal detectors that act as the electric ear of radio--such as
zincite, and bornite, and silicon-antimony. But working with what
materials he had, Lee improved his little machine until instead of a
mere ten-or twenty-mile reach, he stretched its sending power to a
hundred, then to two hundred miles.
Lee's vision grew. He dreamed of radio encircling the earth. Since his
own little mechanism had stretched its call to reach on from twenty to
two hundred miles, why couldn't it be improved to reach across frozen
wastes of the far north, across jungles, across oceans? Oh, for a chance
to study modern radio! A chance to live with one of those splendid,
modern sending machines that concerns backed by huge wealth were
producing! He had been going it so alone.
It was a blow to young Renaud when he found that Captain Bartlot was
leaving the Gulf Coast, going north for an indefinite stay. Lee had come
to depend greatly on the encouragement and advice of this tall, bronzed
man who, for all of his quiet look, had lived through more hairbreadth
adventures than most folk even dream could happen.
It was to place his museum collection, which he had spent the better
part of his life in gathering, that Captain Bartlot was going to New
York. Before he sailed, though, as a parting gift to Lee Renaud, he laid
in the young fellow's hand a bit of odd-looking stone in a tiny box.
"That doesn't look like much of a gift to a fellow who has stood by you
on the 'burning deck,' or rather on the sinking housetop," he said with
a laugh. "But if you happen to want to turn it into a bit of money for
your experimenting, the Brant-Golden Jewelry Company over in Tilton
would likely be interested in it."
Some weeks later, when a tall, dark-haired youngster, who had made the
twenty-mile trip to Tilton on horseback, slid the tiny box with the bit
of stone in it across the jeweler's counter, the Mr. Brant, of
Brant-Golden, undid the wrappings rather diffidently, emptied the
contents into his hand with a careless flip--then indulged in a shout
and a sort of Indian-dance leap that jounced his pince-nez clear off his
dignified nose.
"Why--er--ah! An ancient Egyptian balas-ruby, cut octahedronal!" He
balanced it on his palm, turned it so that the facets caught the light,
now pale rose, now deepening to orange. "Don't see one in a hundred
years over here. Must be the stone Jan Bartlot was telling me about.
Say, young man, I'll give you five hundred dollars for it!"
Lee Renaud opened his mouth--shut it. He was too surprised to say
anything.
"Eight hundred, then, if it's real!" Mr. Brant mistook Lee's silence of
pure surprise as negation of his first offer. Then, as if afraid the
strange ruby might melt in his hand, the jeweler dashed into his testing
room.
The balas-ruby was real, a semi-precious stone. It was the peculiar
ancient Egyptian glyph, or inscription sign, cut into its back that gave
the stone its triple value.
His head still reeling with amazement, Lee rode back to the Cove with a
check in his pocket--the first eight hundred dollar check he had ever
seen in his life.
He had not dreamed that Captain Bartlot was making him such a gift. The
money was a wonderful boon. Not all of it went into radio
experimentation, however. A part of the sum re-roofed Great-uncle Gem's
leaking old mansion. Another part went to Lee's mother back in the North
Alabama city of Shelton. And there were still some funds left to invest
in the costly experimental material young Renaud had longed for. He
pushed on continually with his work of trying for distance, trying to
amplify the weak sounds that traveled from far places on the mighty push
of electrically generated waves that needed to be magnified and
regenerated before the human ear could hear them.
Great-uncle Gem was wrapped up in Lee's work. Every experiment held his
keenest interest.
"Gadzooks!" snorted the old gentleman. "This radio business has added
ten years to my life. I was just drying up and aging for the lack of
interest in something."
Night after night, old Gem sat before the radio Lee had built for him,
keeping in touch with the world without moving out of his armchair.
"Eh, what's that now?" Gem Renaud waved his cane at a queer-looking
metal tube Lee was bringing in from his workshop. This was a brass
cylinder some ten inches long by two inches thick. Caps of a silvery
metal closed the ends, and a roll of fine wire was attached to each cap.
In his other hand, Lee carried a compact wooden case.
"Just a new type storage cell and some selenium plates for aerial wave
catchers that I want to try out on your radio."
Lee dropped down beside the mechanism and set to work. For an hour and
more, he tapped and screwed and soldered.
"There, that's sort of like it!" He cut on the switch and leaned
forward, tense, listening.
Clear as a bell, purer and with less static interference than ever
before, music from a distant station rolled through the room.
"It's those selenium plates," jubilated young Renaud. "They catch the
waves better than any other aerial going!"
Far into the night, he and old Gem sat tinkering, trying this station
and that, enjoying themselves hugely. It was along toward midnight that
they picked up a strange message out of the air.
"Renaud of the Radio, do you want to go to the Arctic?"
Just that; nothing more.