“Why not make an electric grid out of some of it?” asked Bob. “The wire is a fine gauge, and the electricity from the batteries will heat it red hot in a few seconds. We can mount it on a few insulators and cook as many fish as we like. How does that strike you, Jimmy?”
“Hooray! Just what the doctor ordered!” responded that individual. “You rig up the stove, Bob, and I’ll get hold of a couple of fish and clean them. See which will be ready first.”
“What do you think of the radio set now, Buck?” inquired Herb. “You thought we couldn’t cook with it, but in about ten minutes we’ll show you that we can. Maybe after a while we’ll make a fan out of you. Although it hardly seems possible. It takes brains to understand radio.”
“Aw, I could understand it if I wanted to,” growled Buck.
But there was little conviction in his tone. He and his cronies had consistently scoffed at radio, and told everybody who would listen to them that it was just a fad and not a serious science. And they had said it so often, that they had actually come to believe it.
Now, in a short space of time, Buck had seen how that same radio set that he had scoffed at had been utilized to fend off the bears, and he was about to see it utilized to cook their food. Concerning the latter he was still skeptical, however. He suspected that the Radio Boys were just trying to fool him, but this idea was somewhat shaken when he saw the business-like way in which Jimmy proceeded to scoop up two fat fish and clean them.
Meanwhile, Bob and Joe had been busy on the raft and had strung several coils of thin resistance wire across some flat porcelain insulators. Then they connected one end to one of the storage battery terminals, and connected the other end to a small knife switch, which was in turn connected to the other terminal of the battery. Now everything was ready to test their impromptu stove, and while the others looked on expectantly, Bob closed the switch.
The result was too good. They had not strung enough resistance wire to cut down the amperage sufficiently, and a second after Bob closed the switch the wires sprang to a white heat and a second later one strand melted, breaking the circuit before Bob even had time to open the switch.
“Good night!” exclaimed Herb, while Buck Looker viewed this practical demonstration of electricity’s heating power with astonishment writ large on his face. “You’d better stick about three times as much resistance into that circuit. Bob. Those batteries are sure full of juice.”
“I guess you’re right,” admitted Bob. “If we’d had a pencil and a table of resistances we could have calculated the right length of wire to an inch, but since we haven’t any such convenient things along, we’ll have to get the right length by experiment.”