“Well, I win on speed, anyway,” said Jimmy, complacently. “My fish are all ready to be cooked, and I don’t see that your stove is ready to cook them. You’ve got to step lively to beat out your Uncle Jimmy.”
“Guess he’s right, at that, Joe,” admitted Bob. “He’s hung it on us this time, anyway. But this stove’s ready for another test now, and I have a hunch we’ll have better luck this time.”
Once more he closed the switch, and this time the results were all that could be desired. After a few seconds the resistance wire glowed a dull red, then a brighter red, and stayed there, showing that about the proper amount of current was passing through the circuit. Bob placed three more insulators loosely on top of the wires to hold the fish a slight distance away from them, and then the stove was ready.
“Hand over your fish, Doughnuts, and we’ll put a golden brown on them that would make a French chef envious,” said Joe, and as Jimmy complied he placed them over the glowing wires.
“If this blamed smoke weren’t so thick we could smell them cooking pretty soon, and that would make them taste all the better,” lamented Jimmy.
“Never mind the smoke. How about the heat?” demanded Joe. “It feels to me as though I must be cooking almost as fast as those fish. I’m going to take a duck in the lake.”
“You won’t cool off much that way,” Jimmy warned him. “The lake is lukewarm.”
“No, and you won’t get any cleaner,” added Bob. “Just look at that black scum over the water!”
The boys had been working under a constant shower of burning sticks and leaves that dropped steadily into the lake. But by this time they had become so used to this continual bombardment that they scarcely noticed it. Hot bits of charcoal hissed against their clothing, and they brushed them off into the lake with almost as little concern as they would have shown in brushing away a troublesome mosquito. They were badly blistered in many places, especially their hands and faces, but they had become so used to the stinging pain that the Radio Boys did not bother to remark upon it now to each other. Buck was the only one of the little party who complained, and even he did not say very much, being ashamed to when he saw the others showing such fortitude. They kept their clothing wet by frequent dips in the lake, and waited with what patience they could for the fire to burn itself out. There seemed little immediate prospect of this, however, because the trees surrounding the lake were all of giant size, and as time passed on the heat seemed to wax hotter instead of getting less. They were filled with bitterness, however, when they thought of the bungalow and all the valuable timber belonging to Dr. Dale and the church, which they believed was almost certainly on fire by now.
They were roused from these gloomy thoughts by a sputtering and crackling over their impromptu electric stove, which warned them that the fish were rapidly becoming cooked. Jimmy took charge of them at this stage, being a good cook as well as a young man rarely endowed with appreciation of the good things of the table.