CHAPTER XV
A BATTLE OF WITS
This news came as a distinct shock not only to Bud, who discovered it, but to the others of his party.
"Are you sure it's cut?" asked Nort, hurrying into the shack after his cousin, who had come to the door to make the announcement.
"Well, it's dead, anyhow," Bud answered. "I can't raise Diamond X. And it sounds as if it were cut. Or, rather, it doesn't sound at all. It's just dead."
"Maybe the battery's given out, or there's a loose connection somewhere," suggested Dick. "Let's take a look. I know a little about telephones."
They tested the battery, to find that it was sufficiently strong to have transmitted signals provided everything else was in working order.
But this remained to be seen. However, as the boys made test after test, in their limited way, they came ever nearer to the conclusion that the wire was, indeed, cut. For no answer came to the repeated turnings of the crank, though Bud did succeed in making his own bell ring. The reason for his first failure had been a loose wire connection, which Dick remedied.
But, even after this, no answer came to the repeated turnings of the crank.