“It hadn’t until the last few years,” the visitor answered, adding, with a laugh: “But now it’s pretty near the whole service!”
“Won’t you tell us something about what you do?” asked Bob.
Mr. Bentley waved a deprecating hand while Mr. Layton leaned back in his chair with the air of one who is enjoying himself.
“It isn’t so much what I do,” protested this interesting newcomer, while the boys hung upon his every word. “It is what radio has done in the fighting of forest fires that is the marvelous, the almost unbelievable, thing. The man who first conceived the idea of bringing radio into the wilderness had to meet and overcome the same discouragements that fall to the lot of every pioneer.
“The government declared that the cost of carrying and setting up the radio apparatus would be greater than the loss occasioned every season by the terribly destructive forest fires. But there was a fellow named Adams who thought he knew better.”
“Adams!” repeated Bob breathlessly. “Wasn’t he the fellow who had charge of the Mud Creek ranger station at Montana?”
The visitor nodded and gazed at Bob with interest. “How did you know?” he asked.
“Oh, I read something about him a while ago,” answered Bob vaguely. He was chiefly interested in having Mr. Bentley go on.
“I should think,” said Herb, “that it would be pretty hard work carrying delicate radio apparatus into the lumber country.”
“You bet your life it is,” replied Mr. Bentley. “The only way the apparatus can be carried is by means of pack horses, and as each horse can’t carry more than a hundred and fifty pounds you see it takes quite a few of the animals to lug even an ordinary amount of apparatus.