CHAPTER XXVI

THE RISING TIDE OF ANGER

Each night found the Voice at the microphone. Ever faithful to the task set before him, he denounced in no uncertain tones the ways of a city too long sold body and soul to vice and corruption.

Night after night the station phone rang, and angry people demanded to know who this Voice was. The answer was ever the same: “No one about the station knows the answer to that question. This is a regularly incorporated station. Our business is that of selling time on the air. This hour has been paid for. We are not permitted to tell who pays for this time. The broadcast comes in by remote control. We have no notion where the speaker may be reached.”

So, night after night, perhaps from some small and dingy office, perhaps from a hall bedroom or the study of a palatial home, the Voice sent his message out to the listening world.

And the world did listen. Thousands of letters poured in. Many commended the speaker. Some were sharp in their condemnation. But the Voice never faltered.

Strange men were at times found prowling about the station. Wires were cut and tapped. Some one with power behind him was conducting a thorough search for the mysterious prophet of the air.

“And if they find him!” Johnny said to himself, and shuddered.

The day came when Johnny was able to go about his business once more. And on that day Curlie visited the shack.

For some time the two boys talked of other days and the adventures that had brought joy and sorrow, thrills and terror to them both.

When at last the conversation turned to the future, Curlie’s face fell. Many days had passed. No trace of the missing package had been found. The city police were optimistic. They were following clews. The hard-headed Federal men were quite the reverse. They had made no noteworthy discoveries and, as time passed, had grown cross and surly about the whole affair.

“I go on again to-morrow.” There was more than a touch of gloom in Curlie’s voice. “Take the mail to New York. Hope it’s a fine day for flying. May be my last trip. The company’s been fine about it; truly sporting. But if the Federal men demand my dismissal I’ll have to go.

“And think what it means to leave the air!” He grew suddenly eloquent. “Up with the dawn. The cool damp of night still all about you. Leaping away into the clouds that are all red and gold with the dawn. Sweeping over broad stretches of green and brown and gray, of the dull, slow-going earth.

“And again to do battle with wind and rain, lightning, sleet and hail. To soar aloft above it all; to glory in wings, in flight; to be a bird, a bloomin’ wild duck, free as the air!

“And then to think,” his tone changed, “to think of leaving it all for this dull, dusty earth again.”

“You won’t!” said Johnny, springing to his feet. “We’ll get that man, yes, and the jewels with him! You’ll see!”

Perhaps Curlie’s description of flying made the room seem stuffy. At least Johnny threw up a window. The stiff north wind entering at his bidding, caught a bit of paper and sent it fluttering to the floor. Another and yet another followed.

“What’s this?” Curlie leaned over to pick up the first one. “Money! A twenty, a ten and another twenty. And here comes a five. Why, man! You’re lousy with money!”

“That,” said Johnny rather soberly, “is marked money. I’ve not quite decided what to do with it. There’s something over a hundred and fifty dollars in all. When I was washed out of the tunnel, or carried out by some mysterious being, the roll got soggy wet. I put it up on the shelf there to dry and forgot it.

“Listen. I’ll tell you about it. Then you tell me what to do. I’d thought about giving part of it to that truck farmer who gambled and lost, but I’ll follow your advice.”

When Johnny had finished the story of his adventures on the carnival grounds, Curlie sat for a time in a brown study. “Of course,” he said at last, “you could give it back to that gambling truck farmer, if you succeeded in finding him. Fine chance, though. May have come twenty miles to that carnival.

“Besides, what’s the good? The poor goof would just throw up his hands and shout: ‘Boy, I’m lucky! I’ll say I’m lucky!’ Then he’d go somewhere else and lose it gambling. The real gambling habit is an incurable disease.

“On the other hand—” His face lit up with a kindly smile. “I know another farmer who never gambles, except as everyone does who plants a crop. He has a little girl, a cripple; but the cutest, most cheerful cripple in the world.

“You know—the one I was going to send a doll and doll buggy by parachute.

“Tell you what!” He sprang to his feet. “If you really must get rid of that money, give it to them. They need it. Crops have been bad; burned out. I’ll take you along in the plane and drop you off in a parachute, you and the money, just as I planned to throw over the doll.”

“Mebby you will!” Johnny’s tone was doubtful. “How far do you drop?”

“Far as you like, two thousand, three, five, ten thousand feet. It’s all the same to me.”

“‘And he probably was dead long before he touched the ground.’” Johnny groaned as he quoted an oft repeated expression.

“That,” said Curlie in disgust, “is all rot! I’ve dropped eight thousand feet straight down, then opened my parachute. Felt fine all the way down. Breath normal, hearing, eyesight, everything just as now. I tell you it was swell! Like diving off a high board into water, only there was no splash, and no chill. You don’t know what I’m offering you. It will give you a fresh glimpse of life.

“Besides,” he added after a moment, “you have been hanging around this dirty, noisy, crime-ridden city too long. You need a glimpse of the way life may be lived in plain comfort and peace.”

There was more talk and still more explaining. But in the end it was agreed that Johnny was to accompany Curlie on his flight and that, weather permitting, there should be a parachute jump with Johnny in the harness the very next day.