CHAPTER II
Tragedy or Joke?
The three boys discussed vacation plans along the line suggested by Hal for half an hour, and then Cub said:
"We can't get any further on this subject to-night. It's nearly 8 o'clock; Let's go in the radio room and listen to some opera music for a while."
He led the way into an adjoining apartment, a veritable radio laboratory. Two years before, as a wireless amateur, Cub had built for himself in this room an elaborate sending and receiving set, and he proved to be one of the first, boy though he was, to appreciate the outlook for the radiophone, even before "the craze" had gripped the country. He soon had his father almost as much interested in the subject as himself, so that the question of financing his latest radio ambition was no serious obstacle. An early result of this active interest on his part was the addition of a receiving amplification with which he could listen in to messages from major-power stations in the remotest parts of the country. Indeed, under favorable conditions, he had picked up messages from as far distant points as Edinburgh, Scotland, and Australia.
Cub sat down at the table and tuned to 360 meters. The other boys seated themselves comfortably and waited with a kind of luxurious contentment for the beginning of the program, which came in a few minutes. They "sat through" the entire Westinghouse program and then Cub began to "tune up and down" to find out what else was going on in the air. The room for several minutes was resonant with a succession of squeaks, squawks, whines, growls, dots-and-dashes, whistles, and musical notes. Suddenly he gave a start that aroused the curiosity of his friends and made them more attentive to his actions.
"Did you get that?" he shouted.
"No," replied Bud and Hal, in chorus, springing forward.
Cub was tuning excitedly back and forth about a certain, or uncertain, wave length, which he had lost.
"Put on your 'phones," he said, putting on his own. "You may not get it through the horn. I'm sure I got an SOS, very faint. I'm going to try to get it again."
Bud and Hal did as directed and listened with quite as much eagerness as that which was evident in Cub's manner. Several minutes elapsed before the search was rewarded. Then at last, in fairly distinct, although faint, vibrations came the distress signal again. All three heard it, and this time Cub caught the wave "on the knob" and did not let it go.
The operator sending the distress signal was evidently pleading desperately for attention, which nobody, it seemed, was willing to give to him. Several times he repeated his SOS, following each repetition with his own private call and wave length. Then he broadcast the following message in explanation of his appeal for help:
"I am marooned on island in Lake of Thousand Isles. I landed here from a motor boat with wireless outfit. Lake thieves stole my boat and left me here with outfit and little food. Will starve in few days if I don't get help. My call is V A X."
"Cracky!" exclaimed Bud excitedly. "Isn't that a thriller! He's an amateur and in trouble. We're in honor bound to help him."
"How?" demanded Cub derisively. "What can we do here nearly two hundred miles away from him?"
"We might get word to some police or lake patrol that'll go and take him off," Hal suggested.
"He's a Canadian," objected Cub. "Didn't you get his Canadian call? We'd have the time of our life getting a Government station to pay any attention to us hams. But listen, somebody's calling him."
All three listened-in eagerly, expectantly, wonderingly. Apparently this fellow also was a Canadian amateur, although he failed to identify himself.
"Oh, come off, you can't get by with that Robinson Crusoe stuff in this twentieth century," he "jeered" with all the pep he could put into his spark. "Some joke you're trying to play. What kind of publicity stunt is this, anyway?"
"No publicity," was "Crusoe's" reply. "I'll starve if I don't get help. You're doing your best to kill me. Keep out, I won't talk to you any more."
"I will not keep out," declared the other. "You're an imposter. I'm protecting the public."
"Whew!" ejaculated Cub, wiping his brow and snapping over the aerial switch. "I'm going to find out something about this."
A moment later his right hand was working the sending key with the speed and skill of an expert, while blue flames leaped over the gap with spiteful alphabetic spits. Hal and Bud watched him eagerly, and, with a skill indicating long and studied practice, read the message their lanky friend shot through the ether.
First he tuned for a few moments and then sent the call which had accompanied the first Canadian's "SOS". Then he threw back the switch and received a speedy answer. There seemed to be an almost spasmodic eagerness in the manner in which he sent his acknowledgment.
"I heard your call for help," was Cub's next cast. "Who was that fellow that snapped you up so sassy?"
"I don't know," answered the professed castaway. "I've been trying to get help for more than a day, and he always breaks in and queers my call. He makes everybody think I'm putting up a prank."
"Where is your island?" asked Cub.
"Somewhere in the Thousand Islands. That's the best I can locate it. I've never been here before. Where are you?"
"At Oswego, New York."
"What's your call?"
"A V L."
"Can you do anything for me?"
"I don't know what I can do unless I try to interest somebody near you by wireless. I'll send out a broadcast in any manner you may suggest. But you can do that just as well as I."
"I have done it over and over, but it does not do any good," said "Crusoe". "That evil genius of mine always manages to queer me. Finally I got so desperate that I sent out an SOS."
"And committed a radio crime," broke in the alleged evil genius. "Don't you know the rules governing that distress signal?"
"There he is again," "Crusoe" dot-and-dashed.
"Who are you?" demanded Cub.
"I am Canadian amateur," was the reply. "That fellow who sent the distress signal is a Canadian college student trying to put over a college prank. I am on his trail to prevent him. We have a wager up; if he induces anybody to go to his rescue, I lose."
"That is not true," interposed the sender of the SOS.
"What is your call?" Cub inquired.
"Yes, give it to him, and tell him what college I am from," proposed the "fellow on the island".
"One of the conditions of our wager is that I must not reveal my identity," returned the anonymous amateur. "He's bound by like terms. He does not dare give you his name and address."
"That fellow is insane or a villain," declared "Crusoe". "I do not know who he is, but if I starve to death, he'll be a wanton murderer. My name is Raymond Flood. I am not a college student. I am a high school student at Kingston."
"Is his name Raymond Flood?" was Cub's next query intended for the anonymous amateur.
"No," was the latter's reply.
"What is it?"
"Under terms of our wager, I must not reveal his name and he must not reveal mine."
"Whew!" exclaimed Cub, addressing his two friends, who removed the phones from their ears, the better to hear him. "Can you beat that?"
"We sure have hit a sensation of some sort," Hal declared.
"What'll we do?"
"I don't know what under the sun to do," Cub replied. "I don't like to pass him up, for fear he may be telling the truth; and yet, I don't like to be the victim of a joke."
"I tell you what to do," Bud suggested, without any seriousness of intent, however. "Make a dash over the lake in your father's motor boat and rescue this Robinson Crusoe."
"By Jiminie, Bud!" exclaimed Cub enthusiastically! "You've hit the nail on the head. Our vacation problem is solved. That's what we'll do, all of us. I don't care whether it's a joke or a tragedy; we'll make a voyage of discovery over that way and see if we can't find Crusoe's island. What say you, fellows?"