“Sho did!” Lem Hicks’ voice was fervent. “And, boy, when you brought radio down here, you done something!”
CHAPTER XI
A MYSTERIOUS CALL
The winter following the Sargon Valley flood was a busy one for Lee Renaud. The spectacular success of his little “pencil line” radio outfit brought him considerable newspaper notice. He even had offers from one or two radio concerns for the outright purchase of his portable model.
But both his staunch friends, Dr. Pendexter and Captain Bartlot, advised against the sale of his rights in the little mechanism he had invented. It was in a crude state now but, developed and improved, it might have the makings of a fortune in it, especially if it could be advertised in a big way.
So Lee sent in an application to Washington to have his model patented, and then dropped back once more into the oblivion of King’s Cove, and hard work.
The mysterious pencil line that had acted in the place of a wire connection, and so had saved his and Bartlot’s lives, had proved to Lee Renaud that there were many hitherto undreamed-of agencies for radio improvement. The boy longed to experiment in a big way with those crystal detectors that act as the electric ear of radio—such as zincite, and bornite, and silicon-antimony. But working with what materials he had, Lee improved his little machine until instead of a mere ten-or twenty-mile reach, he stretched its sending power to a hundred, then to two hundred miles.
Lee’s vision grew. He dreamed of radio encircling the earth. Since his own little mechanism had stretched its call to reach on from twenty to two hundred miles, why couldn’t it be improved to reach across frozen wastes of the far north, across jungles, across oceans? Oh, for a chance to study modern radio! A chance to live with one of those splendid, modern sending machines that concerns backed by huge wealth were producing! He had been going it so alone.
It was a blow to young Renaud when he found that Captain Bartlot was leaving the Gulf Coast, going north for an indefinite stay. Lee had come to depend greatly on the encouragement and advice of this tall, bronzed man who, for all of his quiet look, had lived through more hairbreadth adventures than most folk even dream could happen.
It was to place his museum collection, which he had spent the better part of his life in gathering, that Captain Bartlot was going to New York. Before he sailed, though, as a parting gift to Lee Renaud, he laid in the young fellow’s hand a bit of odd-looking stone in a tiny box.
“That doesn’t look like much of a gift to a fellow who has stood by you on the 'burning deck,’ or rather on the sinking housetop,” he said with a laugh. “But if you happen to want to turn it into a bit of money for your experimenting, the Brant-Golden Jewelry Company over in Tilton would likely be interested in it.”