“Where is yacht Sea King?”
Jack flashed the bearings as he had received them earlier in the day, and then repeated his former question. But no reply came. For an instant the lad thought he had got out of tune with the wireless mystery, but although he ran the gamut of the tuning coil, nothing more came. For all that was further heard of him, X. Y. Z. might have been as intangible as the atmosphere out of which he had projected his questions.
For half an hour or more Jack persisted in his endeavors to reach X. Y. Z. again, but finally gave it up as a bad job. Grounding his current, he laid down his head band and swung in his chair.
“Lost him?” inquired Tom.
“I’d rather say that he lost us,” responded Jack, “it must have been a deliberate cut-out. One second he was coming strong and then—silence. How do you figure it, Tom?”
“I don’t attempt to. I give it up, unless X. Y. Z. is some sort of a wireless lunatic.”
Jack gave a rather mirthless laugh.
“Hardly. Or, if so, I begin to fear there is some method in his madness. You notice that he only seemed to want to find out the exact position of the Sea King?”
He indicated the writing pad on which the entire conversation was recorded, as was the young inventor’s wont.
Tom nodded.