THE GLIMPSE THROUGH THE WINDOW
The sun was just climbing above the treetops when the radio boys and Frank Brandon set out over the forest road, to the accompaniment of a full chorus of lusty feathered singers. Robin and starling and thrush combined to make the dewy morning gladsome, and the boys whistled back at them and wished Larry Bartlett were there to learn some new notes.
“This would be just his dish,” commented Herb. “After he got warmed up, you wouldn’t be able to tell him from the birds.”
“The only difference is, that he’s better,” declared Joe. “If he were here now, he’d be teaching the dicky birds a new song or two. That boy is certainly a wonder.”
“He’s very clever,” acknowledged Brandon. “He’s getting along wonderfully well at the broadcasting station, and I understand he’s had several good offers from the big vaudeville circuits.”
“Why doesn’t he accept one?” questioned Joe.
“He hasn’t fully recovered from the effects of the accident yet. And, besides, he says he likes the radio work better. He can stay in one place, and cut out all the traveling. That seems to be a strong consideration with him.”
“I don’t know that I can blame him,” commented Bob. “I should think that continual jumping around from place to place would get on anybody’s nerves.”
“Still, it gives one a fine chance to see the country,” argued Frank Brandon. “If any of you fellows ever get into radio work in a commercial way, the chances are you won’t be able to ‘stay put’ in one place very long.”
“There’s one great advantage about traveling, anyway,” said Jimmy.
“What’s that, Doughnuts?” queried Joe. “I should think that with your restful nature you’d rather stay in the same place and grow old and fat in perfect comfort.”
“Oh, that part of it is all right,” admitted Jimmy. “But don’t forget that different parts of the country have different kinds of cooking. In New York the specialty is shore dinners; go a little South, and you get fried chicken and corn pone cooked by guaranteed southern mammies; go up North, and you get venison steaks; in the West they’ll feed you mutton chops as big as a plate. And so it goes.”
“You’ve even forgotten some places,” laughed Bob. “How about a steaming dish of beans in Boston?”
“Yes, or frijoles and chile con carne in New Mexico,” suggested Herb.
“Cease, cease!” groaned Jimmy. “Why talk about such things when we’re such a long way from them? Every time you mention something new it makes me feel hungrier.”
“Hungrier!” exclaimed Mr. Brandon. “Why, it’s hardly half an hour since we finished breakfast!”
“What has breakfast got to do with it?” demanded the insatiable Jimmy. “That’s past and done with. It’s time to think of lunch, now.”
“You win,” laughed Brandon. “Your capacity will make you famous some day.”
“It’s made him famous already—at least, up here,” Bob informed the radio inspector. “Didn’t you know that he is the undisputed champion pie eater of the camp?”
“No, I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least to hear it,” said Brandon, with a smile. “How did he gain his laurels?”
Then Bob told him about the contest, and when he had finished Mr. Brandon laughingly congratulated Jimmy.
“I always had a sneaking idea that you could do it,” he admitted. “But after my experience with lumbermen’s appetites, I realize that you must have been on your mettle all the way.”
“It was rather hard at the end,” admitted Jimmy, “but take it all together it was a real pleasure. That cook sure does know how to make good pies,” and an expression of blissful reminiscence spread over his round countenance.
“He made a regular pig of himself, but we knew he would, and that’s why we had such confidence in him,” said Joe.
“Nothing of the kind!” protested Jimmy. “You know you fellows got me into it in the first place. You fixed it all up, and I only went in as a favor to you. But I might know better than to expect gratitude from this bunch.”
“You’ll find it in the dictionary,” Joe informed him. “You ought to be grateful to us for providing you with a feed like that. It would have cost you a lot of money to buy all those pies back home.”
“I think he came well out of it, at any rate,” interposed the radio man. “But we must now be getting somewhere near that cabin, and we’d better go as quietly as we can. We know that there are two of the gang hanging out in it, and there’s no telling how many more there may be.”
“Not so very near the cabin yet,” answered Bob. “Nearer that tree to which they had the receiving set attached.”
Nevertheless, they advanced as silently as possible, keeping a sharp lookout for any sign of the black-moustached stranger and his friend. The woods seemed devoid of human presence other than their own, however, and they saw nothing to arouse suspicion until at length they reached the tree to which the receiving set was fastened. Frank Brandon examined this with interest. The box was securely locked, but the radio man drew a big bunch of various-sized keys from his pocket.
“I want to see what’s in this box, but first I think we’d better post sentries,” he said, in a low voice. “Suppose you go back a few hundred feet the way we came, Jimmy. You go the same distance in the other direction, Herb. And Joe can go a little way up the path that leads toward the cabin. You can stay here and help me get this box open, Bob. If any of you hear some one coming, imitate a robin’s note three times, and then keep out of sight. We don’t want the crooks to suspect yet that anybody is on their trail.”
The three radio boys scattered to their appointed posts, and Frank Brandon proceeded to try key after key in the lock. He had to try fully a dozen before at last the lock clicked and the door of the box swung open.
Inside was a complete radio receiving set, with vacuum tube detector and batteries in perfect working order. Between the roots of the tree an iron pipe had been driven into the earth to act as a ground. The antenna was strung from top to bottom of the tree on the side away from the path, and there was nothing to differentiate the box from an ordinary wire telephone set, except that it was slightly larger. There were a number of regular wire telephones scattered throughout the woods, to aid in fighting forest fires, so that anybody traveling along the path would have been unlikely to give this outfit more than a passing glance, if they noticed it at all. Had the radio boys not chanced to see the black-moustached man listening, with wireless headphones over his ears, the fact that the box contained a wireless receiving outfit might never have been discovered.
Brandon and Bob went carefully over every article of the equipment. They were on the lookout for another notebook such as the boys had found in the cabin, but there was nothing of the kind in the box. When they were satisfied of this, Mr. Brandon carefully replaced everything as he had found it, and snapped the lock shut.
“So much for that!” he exclaimed. “Now, let’s get hold of the others and we’ll see what that mysterious cabin looks like.”
Joe and Herb and Jimmy were soon recalled from their sentry duty, and all set out along the path to the cabin. When they got close to the clearing the three sentries were again posted, while Bob and the inspector made a detour through the woods so as to approach the cabin on the side away from the path, where there was little likelihood of those inside keeping a lookout. Very cautiously they advanced from the concealment of the woods, Frank Brandon with his right hand on the butt of a deadly looking automatic pistol. They crept close to the wall of the cabin, and listened intently for some sign of life within.
That there was at least one man in the cabin, and that he was still sleeping, soon became evident, for they heard the heavy breathing of one sound asleep. Mr. Brandon cautiously raised himself as high as the window, and peered within. From this position he could not see the sleeper, however, and he and Bob moved silently to the other side of the shack. From there they commanded a good view of the interior, and could plainly see the sleeping man, who was the same whom the boys had first encountered the day before.
His black-moustached face was toward them, and Brandon gave a start of recognition, while his fingers tightened on his pistol. For a few moments he stood tense, evidently deciding what to do. Then he beckoned to Bob to follow, and made for the path where the others anxiously awaited them.
“I know that man in there!” exclaimed Brandon excitedly. “He is known as ‘Black’ Donegan, on account of his black hair and moustache. He’s wanted by the police of New York and Chicago, and I guess other cities, too. We could easily get him now, but if we did, the chances are the rest of the gang would take alarm, and we’d miss the chance of bagging them and getting back Mr. Fennington’s stolen property. It’s hard to say what is the best thing to do.”
But on the instant a plan occurred to Bob, and he lost no time in communicating it to the others.