The girls worked all the forenoon. When one end of the aerial was attached properly to the tower, Amy ran in and upstairs to her chum’s room and dropped a length of rope from one of the windows. Jessie came down from her perch and attached the house-end of the aerial to the rope. When Amy had the latter hauled up and fastened to a hook driven into the outside frame of Jessie’s window, the antenna was complete.
At that (and it sounds easy, but isn’t) they got it twisted and had to lower the house-end of the aerial again. While they were thus engaged, a taxi-cab stopped out in front. Amy, leaning from her chum’s window, almost fell out in her sudden excitement. 38
“Oh, Jess! They’ve come!” she shouted.
“What do you mean?” demanded Jessie. “We were not expecting anybody, were we?”
“You weren’t, but I was. I forgot to tell you,” cried Amy. “They just went around Long Island and came up the East River and through Hell Gate and got a mooring at the Yacht Club, off City Island.”
“Who are you talking about?” gasped her chum, wonderingly.
“Darry––”
“Darry!” ejaculated Jessie with mixed emotions. She glanced down at her overalls. She was old enough to want to look her best when Darrington Drew was on the scene. “Darry!” she murmured again.
“Yes. And Burd Alling. They telephoned early this morning. But I forgot. Here they come, Jess!”
Jessie Norwood turned rather slowly to look. She felt a strong desire to run into the house and make a quick change of costume.