“Not bad for an old fellow, eh?” he exclaimed delightedly one day, when he had accomplished the whole thing without any aid from the boys. “If Blackford and I sell out to your father, Bob, I’ll have a little leisure time, and blame it all if I don’t think I’ll do some experimenting and possibly some building myself.”
“You’re pretty badly bitten by the radio bug,” observed his partner.
“I won’t try to deny it,” said the other, emphatically. “The more I think about it, the more wonderful it seems. Besides, it’s got a mighty practical side to it. I was holding on to some shares a few days ago until I learned by way of the radio that they were starting to fall. I sent a telegram to my brokers, they sold out for me just in the nick of time, and I made a profit on the deal instead of having to take a loss. The bottom dropped clean out of the market that same afternoon, and if I’d been holding on to those shares, I would have gotten bumped good and hard.”
The other nodded. “It’s a good investment when you look at it that way,” he admitted.
“Good investment is right,” declared his partner. “I saved a lot more in that deal than the whole radio outfit cost me, and I still own the set.”
“I wonder why the new government wireless station doesn’t do something of the kind,” remarked Mr. Blackford. “They might as well make themselves useful as well as ornamental.”
“Government station!” exclaimed Bob and Joe at once. “Is there a government station at Mountain Pass?”
Mr. Blackford nodded. “I thought you fellows knew about it, or I’d have mentioned it before,” he said. “It was just opened a few weeks ago, and I don’t think they’ve got all their equipment in yet. There’s been some delay in getting the stuff here, I understand.”
“What does the government want of a wireless station away up here?” asked Bob.
“This is the highest point in all the surrounding country and makes an ideal lookout for forest fires,” said his informant. “The station was supposed to be ready for use last summer, but, as I say, was delayed a good deal. But we expect it to be of great service in the future. There have been some disastrous forest fires around here in the last few years, as you probably know.”