Belding’s excitement was growing momentarily. He seized Sparks’ pencil and wrote under the row of letters swiftly and surely:
“Colodia—Help—Redbird—L.B.”
The chief nodded. “‘L. B.’ being your sister’s initials, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” cried George breathlessly. “Lilian Belding.”
“Get over there on the bench. Jim will give you the harness. Listen in and see what you can make of it now,” said Sparks, himself excited.
George slid on to the bench and Jim handed him the receivers and strap. The youth fitted the discs to his ears, settled himself on the seat, and opened the key. As usual the static sputtered in the receivers for a little. He tuned down to the short waves and the strange, grating sounds began.
It was very bad Morse—clumsy and irregular; but that it was Morse, Belding was confident. There was something wrong either with the sender or with the instrument sending.
Belding seized the pad of scratch paper and poised his pencil. For a few moments the “ghost talk” ceased. Was it all over for the time? He waited impatiently, growing hot and cold with nervousness.
There were plenty of other wave-sounds in the air, had he cared to listen to them. But he knew the monotonous and rasping letters—on a lower plane, even, than the commercial waves—were carried only at the level to which he had tuned the instrument.
Suddenly: “Colodia! Colodia! Colodia!”