The Radio Boys at Ocean Point: or, The Message that Saved the Ship. Chapman Allen
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cottage or mine, I suppose.”
“I’ve got an idea it would be a good thing to put it up in the community hall,” replied Bob. “Then everybody could enjoy it, and there’s a broader and bigger piazza there than any of the cottages have. We’re all like one big family there anyway.”
“That’s a dandy plan,” agreed Joe. “I shouldn’t wonder, too, if we caught a good many messages from ships while we are down there. Almost all the vessels now are equipped with wireless, and we ought to be able to listen in on lots of talk going on with the shore.”
“I only wish we could talk back to them,” said Bob. “I’m keen for the time when we can send messages, as well as listen in on them. But that will be possible, too, before the end of the summer. I’m studying up hard on the code and I know you are too, and we ought to be able to pass our examinations soon and get the right to have a sending station. But look who’s going down the street, Joe!” he exclaimed, interrupting himself suddenly.
Joe followed the direction of his glance and gave a grunt of disgust.
“Buck Looker and his bunch,” he remarked contemptuously. “Carl Lutz and Terry Mooney always trailing along with him! I wonder what low-down thing they’re cooking up now.”
“No knowing,” replied Bob carelessly. “They’ve steered pretty clear of us since we got back that set of Jimmy’s that they took. I have to laugh whenever I think of them rolling over and over in the dark and fighting each other when they thought they were fighting us.”
Joe laughed too at the recollection.
“We put one over on them then all right,” he agreed. “And I have to laugh, too, when I think how he crawled yesterday when you called him down in the school yard while he was bullying little Sam Ashton.”
“I didn’t want to soil my hands with him,” returned Bob. “I’d made up my mind never to speak to him again. But it made my blood boil when I saw the way he was tormenting a boy half his size and I had to interfere.”
“It did me good to see how he backed down,” chuckled Joe. “I really hoped he wouldn’t, for I wanted to see him get a good trimming. But Buck’s memory is good, and I guess he remembered the thrashing you handed him the night he was trying to wreck your aerial.”
“Perhaps,” laughed Bob. “I sure was sore at him that night and I guess I gave him good and plenty.”
“The pity of it was,” said Joe, “that nobody was around to see you do it. Ten to one he told his cronies afterward that it was he who licked you. But there was no mistake yesterday. Lutz and Mooney were standing close by and saw him take water. He turned fairly green with fright when he saw you double up your fists. You want to keep your eyes open, Bob, for he’ll try to get even by doing you a dirty trick whenever he thinks he can get away with it safely.”
“Let him try,” replied Bob indifferently. “That’s the least of my worries. What’s bothering me a good deal more now is why Jimmy and Herb haven’t turned up to help us out on this job.”
“Guess they’ve got stalled somewhere,” hazarded Joe. “But even if they don’t turn up we’ll be done in half an hour or so. Then it’s me for a cold bath and some dry clothes! I’m drenched to the skin.”
A half hour later there was no sign of the truants, but the job was done, and Bob and Joe ran their eyes over it with keen satisfaction.
“Some little mechanics, old scout!” chuckled Bob, slapping his friend on the shoulder. “Now for that cold bath you were – ”
He stopped suddenly and gave vent to an exclamation of surprise.
“What’s the matter?” queried Joe, who was adjusting his belt.
“The ladder!” exclaimed Bob. “It’s gone!”
Joe looked toward the edge of the roof, and saw that the top of the ladder by which they had mounted was no longer in sight.
“It must have fallen down,” he said; “but it’s queer we didn’t hear it.”
“Fallen nothing!” snorted Bob, as he crawled to the edge of the roof and looked over. “It was resting solidly against the roof when we left it, for I shook it with my hand to make sure. Somebody has taken it down. There it is lying on the ground, twenty feet away from the barn.”
“Now we’re in a nice fix!” exclaimed Joe, in dismay. “Have we got to stay here all the afternoon and be baked to a frizzle by this scorching sun? Call to somebody in the house, Bob.”
“That’s the worst of it,” replied Bob lugubriously. “Mother’s out calling to-day and there isn’t a soul at home.”
The boys looked at each other, and the same thought came into the minds of both.
“Buck Looker!” they exclaimed in one voice.
“That’s who it was,” declared Bob savagely. “He and his gang have done this. If we could see him, it follows that he could see us, and he thought he’d keep us up here broiling while he had the laugh on us. No doubt the whole crowd are hiding somewhere and watching us at this minute.”
“Well, they’re not going to make a show of us,” Joe almost shouted in his wrath. “I’m going to get down off this roof and I’m going to get down quick, ladder or no ladder.”
Before Bob could stop him he had grasped the water pipe that ran alongside the barn and started to slide down.
“Don’t! Don’t!” cried Bob, in alarm. “The pipe’s rusty! It’ll break! For the love of Pete – ”
His voice ended almost in a scream.
For at that moment what he feared happened.
The pipe broke beneath Joe’s weight. The lad felt it going and grabbed frantically at the upper part that was still fastened to the roof. He caught it and held on, his legs dangling in the air directly over the pile of rocks more than twenty feet below. To fall on those rocks meant broken limbs or death!
CHAPTER II – JUST IN TIME
At just the place in the pipe that Joe had grabbed there was a band running around it, perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. It was smooth and slippery, but yet gave more support to his clutching hands than would have been afforded by the pipe itself. To this precarious support poor Joe clung with desperation that was rapidly becoming despair as he felt his arms tiring and his hands slipping. A glance below had told him what awaited him if he fell on that pile of rocks.
Simultaneously with the breaking of the pipe Bob had flung himself at full length on the roof, with his arm extended over the edge. His feet felt around frantically and found a cleat in the roof in which he gripped his toes. Reaching as far as he could over the edge with one hand and holding on with the other, he found that he could just reach Joe’s hands with his own.
If the roof had been flat, he might have been able by sheer strength to pull his friend up. But it was sloping, and, as he lay, his feet were considerably higher than his head. So he had no purchase, no way to brace himself and pull upward. As it was, he had to dig his toes tightly against the cleat just to sustain the weight of his own body.
There was imminent danger that if he even grasped Joe’s hand the added weight would pull him over the edge of the roof. But this did not deter him for a second. He reached down and caught Joe around one of his wrists.
“I can’t pull you up, Joe,” he panted; “but I can hold on to you until help comes.”
He lifted up his voice to shout for help, when just at that instant Herb Fennington and Jimmy Plummer turned the corner of the barn. They were talking and laughing gaily together, but stopped short with a cry of alarm as they saw the terrible plight of their friends.
“Quick! Quick!” cried Bob. “Get the ladder and put it up. Quick!”
There was no need of his frantic adjuration, for Jimmy and Herb understood instantly the tragedy that impended. They ran for the ladder, and with some difficulty, for it was long and heavy, put