The Radio Detectives

by A. Hyatt Verrill

results we can go to work and make a good outfit on the same principle.”

Rawlins was almost as excited as the boys when the day came to test the new device and at Tom’s suggestion was to go down alone with the receiver in his helmet while the boys remained on the dock and attempted to communicate with him.

“We’ll try receiving under water first,” said Tom. “If it works we’ll get it into good shape and then get busy on the under-water sending set.”

So, with the compact but complicated little set inside his helmet, which was specially made to accommodate it, and with the receivers clamped over his ears, Rawlins backed down the ladder while the boys, feeling like explorers about to set foot on some new and unknown land, watched his head disappear beneath the surface of the river.

It was little wonder that they were wildly excited for now, in a few moments, they would know beyond question whether their ideas had been right and whether all their work and trouble had been thrown away or they had made an advance in radio which might revolutionize under-sea work.

At first the boys had not fully realized what

the success of their efforts would mean and had gone into it enthusiastically merely as something new and strange.

But as soon as Rawlins had explained the possibilities which a successful under-sea radio telephone would open up, they understood how much might hinge on the triumph or failure of their plans.

“Why,” Rawlins had exclaimed, “think what it will do if it works! A man can go down and walk about any place he chooses and yet can talk back and forth with men on a ship or on shore. In wrecking, he could go all through a ship with no danger of getting his life-line or air-hose tangled and he could direct the fellows on the tug or lighter, telling them just where to lower chains or tackle or anything else. And think what it would mean in time of war! Why, a man could walk out from shore anywhere, go under a ship and fasten a mine to her and blow her up and hear all that was going on aboard the enemy’s ship. And just think what a dangerous sort of spy a man would be—out of sight under the sea and yet able to hear all the talk and messages of the enemy! I

tell you, boys, up to now diving’s been like blind man’s work—mostly feeling and signaling by jerks on a line. Of course the ordinary phone was a big advance, but with that you still had to trail a wire along and there was a visible connection between the diver and the surface. With my suits and your radio the country that owned the secrets would be mighty near masters of the sea, I’ll say.”