But Dave took up a headpiece and began adjusting the tuner knob. In a moment he tapped Mr. Temple on the bowed shoulder.
"Listen here," he said, and clapped the headpiece over Mr. Temple's ears.
Similar anxieties to those ruling at the Hampton radio station had been in control at the cave during the evening hours.
Frank had been frightfully anxious as the hours wore on with no word from the boys. The flight to the ranch was a short one of only fifty miles. Surely, if they had been successful, Jack and Bob long ere this would have called him by radio in accordance with their agreement.
The poor boy stamped up and down the cave in such a fret that Tom Bodine and Roy Stone made repeated efforts to calm him, but without success. They began seriously to fear the effect of this anxiety upon his system, already fevered by the several hard fights through which he had gone in the last thirty-six hours.
Mr. Temple's call had done nothing to assuage Frank's anxiety. If anything it had increased it. As he put aside the headpiece, he looked so woebegone that Tom Bodine went up to him and laid an arm over his shoulder.
"Now, look here, kid," he began.
But before he could proceed, Frank's glance caught the light flashing in the signal bulb, and he leaped to the headpiece and microphone with a glad cry.
"Father, we are all right. Mr. Hampton is freed."