“Now, you listen with this and try to pick him up,” instructed Frank. “Keep turning the aërial about in this way and, as soon as you hear him, write down what he says. We’ll listen too, whenever we have a chance, and will let you know. Then, if you haven’t picked him up, you can turn the loop until you do. Too bad you haven’t a sending set so you could tell us.”
“But he’ll hear you and quit,” objected Henry, “and how can I hear you if I don’t happen to have the loop pointed your way or am listening to this fellow?”
Frank looked puzzled. “Gee!” he ejaculated, “I hadn’t thought of that.
“Oh, that’s easy,” declared Tom. “You’ll hear us over the other set with the loud-speaker you have. That works with a regular aërial and is
entirely separate from this set. And we’ll arrange a code so he won’t know what we’re talking about. Let’s see, I guess we’d better use the phone and not send dot and dash, we’ll just say ‘we’ve got the message’ and you’ll know what it means.”
“No, that’s no good,” declared Frank. “That’s not a bit mysterious or exciting. We’re radio detectives, you know. We must have something like a password or code or something. Say, let’s begin with ‘loop,’ then Henry’ll know we mean him. We’ll say ‘loop, be ready to receive.’”
“Yes, and have him know something’s wrong when we don’t begin to send anything,” said Tom.
“I have it!” exclaimed Henry, “Say, ‘loop, coming over,’ and then any one’ll think you are telling me you are coming over here. But say, how’ll I get your message if I don’t sit at my set and tune to you?”
“That’s easy,” said Frank. “Just as soon as we get home to Tom’s we’ll begin to send and you listen and tune until you get us good and loud and then mark your knobs so you can set ’em whenever you want to hear us. Then ring us by regular phone and tell us it’s O. K.”
Thus, all being arranged, Tom and Frank went up town and as soon as they reached Tom’s room began to send calls for Henry as they had agreed. Very soon the telephone bell rang and Tom ran to the instrument.