"What car do you take, Dick?" asked one of the boys.
"I don't think I'll take any," said Dick. "I'll just run around the corner with this lady," he said, indicating Migwan, "and then I'll walk the rest of the way."
"Isn't it pretty far?" asked some one else.
"Not the way I go," answered Dick. "I take the short cut through the railway tunnel." Joe Lanning's eyes gleamed suddenly.
The good-nights were all said and Sahwah shut the door and set the furniture straight before she went to bed. "Didn't your friends stay rather late?" asked her mother from upstairs.
"No," said Sahwah, "I don't think so, it's only—why, the clock has stopped," she finished after a look at the mantel, "I don't know what time it is."
"Get the time from the telephone operator," said her mother, "and set the clock."
Sahwah picked up the receiver. There was a strange buzzing noise on the wire. "Zig-a-zig, ziz-zig-zig-a-zig, zig-g-g, zig-g-g, zig-g-g-g." Puzzled at first, she soon recognized what it was. It was the sound of Joe Lanning's wireless. Joe lived directly back of Sahwah on the next street, and the aerial of his wireless apparatus was fastened to the telephone pole in the Brewsters' yard. Joe was "sending," and the vibrations were being picked up by the telephone wires and carried to her ear when she had the receiver down. Sahwah understood the wireless code the boys used, and, in fact, had both sent and received messages. She knew it was Joe's custom to listen for the time every night as it was flashed out from the station at Arlington, and then send it to his friend Abraham Goldstein, a young Jewish lad in the class, who also had a wireless. Then the two would send each other messages and verify them the next day. "Oh, what fun," thought Sahwah; "I can get Arlington time to-night." She asked the operator to look up a new number for her to keep her off the line and then got out paper and pencil to take down the message as it went out. As she deciphered it she gasped in astonishment. She had expected a message something on this order: "Hello, Abraham—how are you?—Arlington says ten bells—How's the weather in your neck of the woods?" Instead the words were entirely different. She could not believe her eyes as she made them out. "Albright going through railway tunnel—hold him up—get notebook away—keep Brewster out of game." Her senses reeled as she understood the meaning of the message. That Joe was plotting against her when he pretended to be a friend cut her to the quick. For a moment her lip quivered; then her nature asserted itself. There was a thing to do and she must do it. Dick must be kept from going through the tunnel. Turning out the lights downstairs, she crept noiselessly out of the house, found her brother's bicycle on the porch and pedaled off after Dick. She knew exactly the way he would take. From Migwan's house he would go up Adams to Locust Street and from there to ——th Avenue, and keep on going until he came to the dark tunnel. Sahwah nearly burst with indignation when she thought of Joe's cowardly conduct. He was calmly getting Abraham to do the dirty work for him, so he would never be suspected of having anything to do with it in case Dick recognized Abraham. She could see how the thing would work out. Abraham lived just the other side of the tunnel. All he would have to do would be to stand in the shadow of the tunnel, jump out on Dick as he came through, seize the notebook from his hand, and run away before Dick knew what had happened. There would be no need of fighting or hurting him. But Joe's end would be accomplished and Washington would lose the game. The fact that he was a traitor to the school hurt Sahwah ten times worse than the injury he was trying to do her. "Even if his cousin is on the other side, he belongs to Washington," she repeated over and over to herself.
Down Locust Street she flew and along deserted ——th Avenue. It was bitterly cold riding, but she took no notice. Far ahead of her she could see Dick walking briskly toward the fatal tunnel. Pedaling for dear life she caught up with him when he was still some distance from it. "Whatever is the matter?" he asked, startled, as she flung herself breathless from the wheel beside him.
"The notebook," she said. "Joe's trying to get it away from you. He's got Abraham Goldstein waiting in the tunnel to snatch it as you go by."