"We won't worry about how it's made if it only works," said Joe, "and I guess it will do that all right."
"We'll hope so, anyway," said Bob. "But there's only one way to find out, and that's to hook our set up and see if we get signals through. And if we do—oh boy!"
"I'll bet it will work like a charm," said Jimmy enthusiastically.
"We haven't got to make much more now, have we?"
"We've got to make a panel and mount all these inventions on it," said Herbert.
"That won't take very long," said Bob. "Of course, we can't do it to-night, but to-morrow's Saturday, and if we get started early we may be able to fix things up so that we can hear something to-morrow night. Saturday night is the time they usually send out the biggest number of musical selections, and if we have luck we may be able to listen in on them."
"Wow!" exclaimed Herb. "Won't that be the greatest thing that ever happened? You can't start too early to suit me."
"Nine o'clock's early enough," said Bob. "Everybody come around here then and we'll make things hum. There's still plenty to do, but we ought to get it finished before that."
The boys were so excited at the prospect of actually operating their set the following evening that they could hardly sit still two minutes at a time. They laughed and joked and speculated on what would be the first thing they would hear through the air, and finally Bob's guests started home in an hilarious mood.
Bob himself cleaned up his bench a bit after the others had gone, and then went upstairs to his bedroom, which had a window in the rear of the house. He had just started to undress when he thought he heard a peculiar noise outside. At once the thought of what Joe had said about his encounter with Buck Looker and his companions leaped into his mind, and he crossed swiftly to the window and looked out.
It had been cloudy all the evening, but now, the clouds were beginning to break away, allowing bursts of moonlight to shine through at intervals. When Bob first looked out of the window, the moon was obscured by a ragged patch of cloud and he could barely make out the dim outline of the barn. But as the cloud passed on and the moon began to shine through the thinning fringe of vapor, Bob saw an indistinct figure on the roof, and as the moon came out more strongly he could see that the figure was tinkering with the end of the aerial that was fastened to the barn.