“There’s no doubt about it,” said Joe. “Radio has got ’em all beat as far as a field for experiment is concerned. Say,” he added fervently, “aren’t you glad you weren’t born a hundred years ago?”
The boys stopped in at Adam McNulty’s cabin to see how the old fellow was getting along. They found him in the best of spirits and, after “listening in” with him for a while and laughing at some of his Irish jokes, they started toward home.
“I wish,” said Bob, “that we could have gotten a line on Dan Cassey. It seems strange that we haven’t been able to pick up some real clue in all this time.”
For, although the boys had caught several other mysterious messages uttered in the stuttering voice of Dan Cassey, they had not been able to make head nor tail of them. The lads liked mysteries, but they liked them chiefly for the fun of solving them. And they seemed no nearer to solving this one than they had been in the beginning.
“I know it’s a fool idea,” said Herb sheepishly. “But since we were the ones that got Cassey his jail sentence before, I kind of feel as if we were responsible for him.”
“It’s pretty lucky for us we’re not,” remarked Joe. “We certainly would be up against it.”
On and on the boys went. Presently Joe began to whistle and all joined in until suddenly Jimmy uttered a cry and went down on his face.
“Hello, what’s wrong?” questioned Bob, leaping to his chum’s side.
“Tripped on a tree root,” growled Doughnuts, rising slowly. “Gosh! what a spill I had.”
“Better look where you are going,” suggested Herb.