The ship’s commander rose to his feet. He was fully six feet tall and large of frame. His hair was black, and heavy, bushy, black brows almost hid his dark, piercing eyes. His nose was large and hawk-like. So weather-beaten was his skin that it seemed almost like leather. For a moment he uttered not a word, as he looked Roy over from head to foot. Then, in a tone of utter disgust, he said, “You—a wireless man! Bah! A wireless babe! I’ll see about this quick,” and he stalked angrily from the cabin.
“Wireless man! Bah!” repeated the captain as he hurried down the stairway. “Thirty years I’ve sailed the seas and the only wireless I ever saw was God’s lightning. Yet I never lost a man or a ship. The owners have ordered it, and I suppose I’ll have to put up with their newfangled machines. But I’ll be hanged if I’ll have an infant in arms to work ’em. That’s flat. I’ll tell those Marconi people what’s what.” And he bustled angrily off to the telephone in the office at the shoreward end of the pier shed.
Meantime Roy stood in the captain’s cabin, disheartened and disconsolate. No wonder he felt downhearted. The man he must please had taken a dislike to him at the very outset. He did not know what to do, so he did nothing. With a heart like lead he waited for the return of Captain Lansford. Presently that irate individual came storming back.
“Get up to the wireless house,” he said roughly. “I’ve got to keep you for three months until a new class is ready. But I don’t need any wireless to run my ship by, so don’t you come bothering me. Good-day, sir.”
“Good-day, sir,” echoed Roy, but the echo was very faint indeed. Disconsolately he stepped from the captain’s cabin, found his way to the wireless house, and shut the door tight behind him. For the moment his courage was almost gone. Sick at heart, he sat down to think over the situation.
CHAPTER II
THE SECRET OF SUCCESS
“It’s the same old story,” muttered Roy to himself, after a time. “I wonder if they will ever stop saying ‘You’re only a boy.’ That’s what they said at Camp Brady. Yet the wireless patrol ran down the dynamiters when the state police couldn’t find them. That’s what they said here in New York when we were searching for the secret wireless. Yet we found it, even if we were boys. That’s what Captain Lansford says now. Shall I ever be old enough to escape it?”
Yet it was fortunate for Roy that he was but nineteen. At nineteen one possesses the resiliency of youth. One rebounds like a rubber ball. It was so with Roy. A while longer he sat, his head buried in his hands, his heart full of woe. Hardly could he keep the tears back. Then the buoyancy of youth asserted itself.