THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS
[Illustration: A blue streak crackled between the terminal and the
bear’s nose.]
THE RADIO BOYS SERIES
(Trademark Registered)
THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS
OR
THE GREAT FIRE ON SPRUCE MOUNTAIN
BY
ALLEN CHAPMAN
AUTHOR OF
THE RADIO BOYS’ FIRST WIRELESS
THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING A VOICE
RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE
RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER, ETC.
WITH FOREWORD BY JACK BINNS
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
BOOKS FOR BOYS
By Allen Chapman
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE RADIO BOYS SERIES
(Trademark Registered)
THE RADIO BOYS’ FIRST WIRELESS
Or Winning the Ferberton Prize
THE RADIO BOYS AT OCEAN POINT
Or The Message that Saved the Ship
THE RADIO BOYS AT THE SENDING STATION
Or Making Good in the Wireless Room
THE RADIO BOYS AT MOUNTAIN PASS
Or The Midnight Call for Assistance
THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING A VOICE
Or Solving a Wireless Mystery
THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS
Or The Great Fire on Spruce Mountain
THE RAILROAD SERIES
RALPH OF THE ROUNDHOUSE
Or Bound to Become a Railroad Man
RALPH IN THE SWITCH TOWER
Or Clearing the Track
RALPH ON THE ENGINE
Or The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail
RALPH ON THE OVERLAND EXPRESS
Or The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer
RALPH THE TRAIN DISPATCHER
Or The Mystery of the Pay Car
RALPH ON THE ARMY TRAIN
Or The Young Railroader’s Most Daring Exploit
RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER
Or The Wreck at Shadow Valley
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York
Copyright, 1923, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
The Radio Boys with the Forest Rangers
FOREWORD
By Jack Binns
There are two aspects of radio as a vital factor in saving life and
property which are very vividly brought out in this interesting
volume of the Radio Boys Series—namely its use in connection with
the patrol work in detecting forest fires, and the regular
international ice patrol in the dangerous waters of the north
Atlantic. So splendidly have these two functions of radio been
developed, that they have become accepted as commonplace in our
lives, and it is only by such stories as “The Radio Boys with the
Forest Rangers” that we are awakened to their importance.
Another interesting account in this volume is the detailing of the
experimental work recently carried out at the Schenectady
broadcasting station, when the voice which was radiated through the
ether was actually reproduced from an ordinary moving picture film.
Just think of the marvel of this. _The words of the speaker were
photographed_ on a film, and held in storage for several weeks,
before the streaks of light were re-converted into electric
impulses, and then transferred into faithful reproduction of speech
in a million homes. How great are the possibilities thus unfolded to
the immediate future. Here we have a record that is better than that
of the phonograph, because there will be no scratchiness from a
needle in its reproduction to mar the original tones.
The period over which the Radio Boys Series has been produced has
seen the most remarkable all-around development of radio in history.
Now upon the publication of the latest volume in the series there
comes the announcement that a Hungarian scientist has been
successful in transmitting an actual picture of a current event as
it is occurring.
We are upon the very threshold of TELEVISION—the system which
converts the etheric vibrations that correspond to vision, and
translates them into impulses of electric energy which can be
radiated through space, and picked up by specially designed radio
receivers. The system of course can also be applied to telegraph and
telephone wires.
The development of this promising invention means that in the near
future we will be able to see the person to whom we are speaking,
whether we use the ordinary telephone or the wireless telephone as a
means of communication. This truly is an age of radio wonders!
Jack Binns
CONTENTS
I. A Sudden Alarm
II. Almost a Tragedy
III. Quick Work
IV. Radio, the Fire-Conqueror
V. The Wonderful Science
VI. Thrashing a Bully
VII. Good Riddance
VIII. At Risk of Life
IX. Off for Spruce Mountain
X. The Falling Bowlder
XI. Forest Radio
XII. The Ice Patrol
XIII. Winning Their Spurs
XIV. The Crouching Wildcat
XV. An Underground Mystery
XVI. Swallowed up by the Darkness
XVII. An Old Enemy
XVIII. Pinned Down
XIX. Fire
XX. A Terrible Battle
XXI. Plunged in the Lake
XXII. Fighting Off the Bears
XXIII. A Desperate Chance
XXIV. The Blessed Rain
XXV. Snatched from Death
THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS
CHAPTER I
A SUDDEN ALARM
“Say, fellows!” exclaimed Bob Layton, as he bounded down the school
steps, three steps at a time, his books slung by a strap over his
shoulder, “what do you think——”
“We never think,” interrupted Herb Fennington. “At least that’s what
Prof. Preston told our class the other day.”
“Speak for yourself,” broke in Joe Atwood. “As for me, thinking is
the best thing I do. I’ve got Plato, Shakespeare and the rest of
those high-brows beaten to a frazzle.”
“Sure thing,” mocked Jimmy Plummer. “But don’t think because you
have notions in your head that you’re a whole department store.”
Bob surveyed his comrades with a withering glare.
“When you funny fellows get through with your per-per-persiflage——”
he began.
“Did you get that, fellows?” cried Jimmy. “Persiflage! Great! What
is it, Bob? A new kind of breakfast food?”
“I notice it almost choked him to get it out,” remarked Joe, with a
grin.
“Words of only one syllable would be the proper size for you
fellows,” retorted Bob. “But what I was going to say was that I just
heard from Mr. Bentley. You know the man I mean, the one that we saw
at my house some time ago and who gave us all that dope about forest
fires.”
“Oh, you mean the forest ranger!” broke in Joe eagerly. “Sure, I
remember him. He was one of the most interesting fellows I ever
met.”
“I’ll never forget what he told us about radio being used to get the
best of forest fires,” said Herb. “I could have listened to him all
night when once he got going.”
“He’s a regular fellow, all right,” was Jimmy’s comment. “But what
about him? When did you see him?”
“I haven’t seen him yet,” explained Bob. “Dad got a letter from him
yesterday. You know dad and he are old friends. Mr. Bentley asked
dad to remember him to all the radio boys, and said to tell us that
he was going to give a talk on radio and forest fires from the
Newark broadcasting station before long and wanted us to be sure to
listen in.”
“Will we?” returned Joe enthusiastically. “You bet we will! But
when’s the talk coming off?”
“Mr. Bentley said that the exact date hadn’t been settled yet,”
replied Bob. “But it will be some time within the next week or ten
days. He promised to let us know in plenty of time.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for a farm,” chimed in Jimmy. “But if it’s great
to hear about it, what must it be to be right in the thick of the
work as he is? Some fellows have all the luck.”
“Perhaps there are times when he doesn’t think it luck,” laughed
Bob. “Half a dozen times he’s just escaped death by the skin of his
teeth. But look, fellows, who’s coming.”
The others followed the direction of Bob’s glance and saw a group of
three boys coming toward them. One, who seemed to be the leader, was
a big hulking fellow with a pasty complexion and eyes that were set
too close together. At his right was a boy slightly younger and on
the outside another, younger yet, with a furtive and shifty look.
“Buck Looker, Carl Lutz and Terry Mooney!” exclaimed Bob. “I haven’t
come across them since we got back from the woods.”
“Guess they’ve kept out of our way on purpose,” remarked Joe. “You
can bet they’ve felt mighty cheap over the way you put it over on
them in the matter of those letters.”
“‘There were three crows sat on a tree,’” chanted Jimmy.
“‘And they were black as crows could be,’” finished Herb.
The objects of these unflattering remarks had caught sight of the
four boys, and as at the moment they were at a corner, they
hesitated slightly, as though they were minded to turn down the side
street. But after conferring for a moment, they kept on, their
leader assuming a swaggering air. And whereas before the three had
been simply conversing as they came along, they now began a
boisterous skylarking, snatching each other’s caps and knocking each
other about.
Just as they came abreast of the other group, Buck gave Lutz a
violent shove and sent him with full force against Joe, who was
nearest. The latter was taken unawares and almost knocked off his
feet.
Joe had a quick temper, and the malicious wantonness of the act made
his blood boil. He rushed toward Buck, who backed away from him, his
face gradually losing the grin it wore.
“What did you mean by that?” demanded Joe, clenching his fist.
“Aw, what’s the matter with you?” growled Buck. “How did I know he’d
knock against you? It was just an accident. Why didn’t you get out
of the way?”
“Accident nothing,” replied Joe. “You’re the same sneak that you
always were, Buck Looker. You planned that thing when you stopped
and talked together. And now something’s going to happen to you, and
it won’t be an accident, either!”
He advanced upon Buck, who hurriedly retreated to the middle of the
street and looked about him for a stone.
“You keep away from me, Joe Atwood, or I’ll let you have this,” he
half snarled, half whined, stooping as he spoke and picking up a
stone as big as his fist.
“You coward!” snapped Joe, still advancing. “Don’t think that’s
going to save you from a licking.”
Just then a sharp warning came from Bob.
“Stop, Joe!” he cried. “Here comes Dr. Dale.”
A look of chagrin came into Joe’s face and a look of relief into
Buck’s, as they saw the pastor of the Old First Church turning a
corner and coming in their direction. Fighting now was out of the
question.
“Lucky for you that he turned up just now,” blustered Buck, his old
swagger returning as he felt himself safe. “I was just going to give
you the licking of your life.”
Joe laughed sarcastically, and before the biting contempt in that
laugh Buck flushed uncomfortably.
“Stones seem to be your best friends,” said Joe. “I remember how you
used them in the snowballs when you smashed that plate-glass window.
And I remember too how you tried to fib out of it, but had to pay
for the window just the same.”
By this time Dr. Dale was within earshot, and Buck and his
companions slunk away, while Joe picked up his books and rejoined
his comrades.
The doctor’s keen eyes had seen that hostilities were threatening
but now that they had been averted he had too much tact and good
sense to ask any questions.
“How are you, boys?” he greeted them, with the genial smile that
made him a general favorite. “Working hard at your studies, I
suppose.”
“More or less hard,” answered Bob. “Though probably not nearly as
hard as we ought to,” he added.
The doctor’s eyes twinkled.
“Very few of us are in danger of dying from overwork, I imagine,” he
said. “But I’ve known you chaps to work mighty hard at radio.”
“That isn’t work!” exclaimed Joe. “That’s fun.”
“Sure thing,” echoed Herb.
“I’ll tell the world it is,” added Jimmy.
“We can’t wait for a chance to get at it,” affirmed Bob.
“Seems to be unanimous,” laughed the doctor. “I feel the same way
myself. I never get tired of it, and I suppose the reason is that
something new is turning up all the time. One magical thing treads
close on the heels of another so that there’s no such thing as
monotony. There isn’t a week that passes, scarcely a day in fact,
that something doesn’t spring up that makes you gasp with
astonishment. Your mind is kept on the alert all the time, and
that’s one thing among many others that makes the charm of radio.”
“I see that they’re using it everywhere in the Government
departments,” remarked Bob.
“Every single one of them,” replied the doctor. The President
himself has had a set installed and uses it constantly. The head of
the army talks over it to every fort and garrison and camp in the
United States. The Secretary of the Navy communicates by it with
every ship and naval station in the Atlantic and Pacific as far away
as Honolulu and the Philippines. The Secretary of Agriculture sends
out information broadcast to every farmer in the United States who
happens to have a radio receiving set. And so with every other
branch of the Government.
“That reminds me,” he went on, warming to his subject, as he always
did when he got on his favorite theme, “of a talk I had the other
day on the train with a man in the Government Air Mail Service. He
was a man, too, who knew what he was talking about, for he was the
first man to fly the mail successfully both ways between New York
and Washington on the initial air mail run.
“He told me that plans are now on foot to fly mail across the
continent, daily, both ways, in something like twenty-four hours.
Just think of that! From coast to coast in twenty-four hours! That’s
five times as fast as an express train does it, and a hundred times
as fast as the old pioneers with their prairie schooners could do
it.
“But in order to do this, a gap of about a thousand miles must be
flown at night. And here is where the radio comes in. In order to be
able to find his way in the dark, the flier uses his ears instead of
his eyes. He wears a radio-telephone helmet that excludes the noise
of the motor. A coil of wire is wound on his plane and is connected
to a radio receiving set on board. Along his route at stated
intervals are transmission stations whose signals come up to the
aviator. When the pilot’s direction finder is pointed toward these
stations that mark out his path the signals are loudest. The minute
he begins to get off his path, either on one side or the other, the
signals begin to get weaker.
“Now, you see, all that the pilot has to do is to keep along the
line where the signals are loudest. If he goes a little to the right
and finds the signals getting weaker, he knows he must shift a
little back to the left again until he gets on the loudest sound
line. The same process has to be followed if he gets off to the
left. You see, it’s just as if the plane were running along a
trolley line miles below it. Only in this case the trolley line
instead of being made of wire is made of sound. That loudest sound
line will stretch right across the continent, and all the flier has
to do is to run along it. If he does this, he’ll get to his
destination just as certainly as does the train running along the
rails that lead to the station.”
“It’s wonderful!” exclaimed Bob.
“Sounds like witchcraft,” commented Joe.
“You see how easy that makes it for the aviator,” resumed the
doctor. “It may be as black as Egypt, but that makes no difference
to him. He may be shrouded in fog, but that can’t bewilder him or
shunt him off his course. He can shut his eyes and get along just as
well. All he’s got to do is not to go to sleep. And when the dawn
breaks he finds himself a thousand miles or so nearer to his
destination.”
“Suppose he gets to his landing field in the night time or in a
heavy fog,” said Joe thoughtfully. “How’s he going to know where to
come down?”
“Radio attends to that too,” replied the doctor. “At each landing
place there will be a peculiar kind of radio transmission aerial,
which transmits vertically in the form of a cone that gains diameter
as it goes higher. At a height of about three thousand feet above
the field, such a cone will have a diameter of nearly half a mile.
In other words this sound cone will be like a horn of plenty with
the tip on the ground and its wide opening up in the air. The pilot
will sail right into this wide mouth of the horn which he will
recognize by its peculiar signal. Then he will spiral down on the
inside of the cone, or horn, until he reaches the tip on the ground.
This will be right in the middle of the landing field, and there he
is safe and sound.
“But here I am at my corner,” Dr. Dale concluded. “And perhaps it’s
just as well, for when I get to talking on radio I never know when
to stop.”
He said good-by with a wave of his hand while the four boys looked
after him with respect and admiration.
“He’s all to the good, isn’t he?” said Bob.
“You bet he is!” agreed Joe emphatically.
“He’s—Hello! what’s the matter?”
A sudden commotion was evident up the street. People were running
excitedly and shouting in consternation.
The boys broke into a run in the direction followed by the crowd.
“What’s happened?” Bob asked, as he came abreast of a panting
runner.
“There’s been an explosion up at Layton’s drug store,” the man
replied. “They say an ammonia tank burst and everybody up there was
killed.”
Bob’s face grew ashen.
“My father!” he cried, and ran toward the store in an agony of grief
and fear.