“Well, for nearly three weeks, at odd and unexpected times, with no sense or reason to it, no call or ‘sine,’ abruptly and mysteriously zip! the wires have gone, and in floats a jumbled, erratic message.”
“As how?” propounded Ben.
“‘Donner.’ That always, first. It may be an explanation, it may be a name, it may mean nothing, but all the same splutter—splutter! on she comes. At first it was spelled out slowly, lamely, sometimes wrong, and then corrected as if an amateur beginner was at the other end of the line.”
“And that was all—‘Donner’” questioned Ben, aggravatingly consumed with curiosity.
“Not after a few days. Then ‘Donner’ began to add something of a message. That, too, was a jumble, wrong dots and dashes and all that. Finally, though, this queer crank of a sender began to say something about a boy.”
“A boy?” murmured the engrossed Ben.
“It looked as if he was trying to describe some one. However, as I say, his sending was so faulty that not much could be made out of it. It got clearer, but no more coherent and enlightening. I tried to trace the sender. So did others on the circuit. I got in touch with Seagrove.”
“What did they say? Mr. Edson?” asked Tom.
“They confessed themselves fully as much puzzled as I was. The last three or four days ‘Donner’ has gotten into action trying to tell something about money. First it was a hundred dollars, then two hundred, then five, and about an hour since the same old string of jangled talk came in over the receiver: ‘Donner boy—a thousand dollars.’”
“How strange,” commented Tom.