While the radio sets were in the making, an exciting incident occurred in town that drew the boys into a series of adventures. An automobile running wild and dashing through the windows of a paint and hardware store in the town gave Bob and Joe an opportunity to rescue the occupant, a Miss Nellie Berwick, and to learn her story of having been swindled out of some property by a rascal. How by the means of radio they got on the track of the scoundrel and forced him to make restitution, how they overcame all the machinations of their enemies and came out ahead in the competition, is told in the first volume of this series, entitled: “The Radio Boys’ First Wireless; Or, Winning the Ferberton Prize.”
Shortly after Bob had won the first prize and Joe the second, the radio boys went down to Ocean Point on the seacoast to spend the summer. A colony had been established there by several of the Clintonia families, including those of the radio boys, and they had great fun on the beach and in the surf. Here too they made marked advances in their knowledge of radio, in which they were greatly helped by Brandon Harvey, the wireless operator at the Ocean Point sending station. How they repaid this by pursuing and capturing the man who had assaulted him and looted the safe at the station, what exciting adventures they met with in the pursuit and capture, how their knowledge of radio enabled them to send help to a ship in peril on which their own families were voyaging, are told in the second volume of this series, entitled: “The Radio Boys At Ocean Point; Or, The Message that Saved the Ship.”
Their summer at Ocean Point was further marked by a gallant rescue of two young vaudeville performers who had been run down by reckless thieves in a stolen motor boat. How they finally brought these men to justice, how they managed to bring congenial employment to a crippled friend, and how in doing this they found scope for their own talents in the fascinating work of radio broadcasting, are told in the third volume of this series entitled: “The Radio Boys At the Sending Station; Or, Making Good in the Wireless Room.”
And now to return to the boys, who found themselves in the woods on the roof of the porch of the cottage where they had taken refuge from the pursuit of the bear.
That refuge promised to be only a temporary one and exceedingly precarious. The roof was none too strongly built in the first place, and had fallen into decay from stress of weather and lack of repairs. Already there was an ominous creaking as it sagged crazily under the weight of the four boys.
Beneath them was the bear, who looked up at them, his jaws slavering and his little red eyes flaming. He was an enormous beast, capable of tearing any one of them in pieces if he once got them within his clutches.
“If we only had a gun!” groaned Bob, as a terrifying rumbling came from the throat of the bear.
“I’d rather have a stick of dynamite to throw at his feet and blow him into kingdom come,” muttered Joe, as he gingerly shifted his position to find a more solid support than the part of the roof that was sagging under him.
“‘If wishes were horses, beggars might ride,’” remarked Herb. “The question is what are we going to do?”
“Seems to me the question is what is the bear going to do?” put in Jimmy.