CHAPTER XI

A MOUNTAIN RADIO STATION

Left to themselves, the boys looked at one another.

"That's what I call quick work," remarked Joe. "I hate to let the old set go, but they say you should never mix sentiment with business."

"Maybe this will lessen your grief," said Bob. "Eighty divided by four makes twenty, or at least that's what they always taught us in school. Take these four five-dollar bills, Joe, and dry your tears with them."

"Oh, boy!" exclaimed Joe.

"Money, how welcome you are!" ejaculated Herb, as he pocketed his share. "What I can't do with twenty dollars!"

"That will buy exactly two thousand doughnuts," calculated Jimmy, a rapturous expression on his round countenance. "Hot doughnuts, crisp brown doughnuts, doughnuts with jelly in them, doughnuts----"

A human avalanche precipitated itself on the corpulent youngster, and he found himself writhing on the floor with his three companions seated comfortably on different parts of his ample anatomy.

"Hey! Quit, quit!" stuttered Jimmy. "Get off me, you hobos! You'll have me flattened out like a dog that's just been run over by a steam roller."

"And serve you right, too," retorted Joe. "What do you mean by talking about doughnuts when it's almost dinner time, and we're starved to death, anyway. Besides, you know there isn't a place at Mountain Pass where we can buy them."

"Yes, and if I'd known that before I started, I would probably have stayed at home," retorted Jimmy. "Get off me, will you, before I throw you off?"

"We'll let you up, but I doubt if you should be trusted with all that money," returned Bob, grinning. "You'd better whack it up among us, Jimmy. You'll just buy a lot of junk with it and make yourself sick."

"Well, I've got a right to get sick if I want to," said his rotund friend, struggling to his feet. "If you get that twenty away from me, it will have to be over my dead body."

"It doesn't seem worth while to kill him for just twenty dollars," said Bob, pretending to consider. "That's just a little over six dollars apiece."

"No good," said Joe, decisively. "It would cost more than that to bury him."

"You're a cold-blooded set of bandits," complained Jimmy, in an aggrieved tone. "I'm glad I haven't got a hundred dollars with me. I'd be a mighty poor insurance risk then, I suppose."

"I wouldn't give a lead nickel for your chances," said Bob. "But don't let that worry you, Jimmy. You'll probably never have that much money all at one time as long as you live."

"I won't if I wait for you fellows to give it to me," admitted his friend. "But I'm going over to the hotel and see if dinner is served yet. I'm not going to be the last one in the dining room at _every_ meal."

"When you get the hang of this place, you'll always be the first one," said Herb. "After a little while they'll make you up a bunk in a corner, and you can even sleep there."

"Oh, go chase yourself!" exclaimed Jimmy. "You never learned how to eat, Herb, and that's why you're such a human bean pole," and with this parting shot he slammed the door behind him before Herb could think of a suitable reply.

"He got you that time, Herb," said Bob, with a grin. "I guess we might as well all get ready for dinner. Dad says they hate to have people coming in late."

Every day after that Mr. Robins dropped in in time to hear the market reports, sometimes alone, and at others accompanied by his partner, Mr. Blackford. The latter was not quite so enthusiastic as his colleague, but he was nevertheless greatly interested, and was always glad to don a head set and hear what was going on.

True to their agreement, the boys instructed the new owner of the set how to adjust it and get the best results. He always paid the closest attention to what they told him, and in a few days could pick up signals and tune the set fairly well.

"Not bad for an old fellow, eh?" he exclaimed delightedly one day, when he had accomplished the whole thing without any aid from the boys. "If Blackford and I sell out to your father, Bob, I'll have a little leisure time, and blame it all if I don't think I'll do some experimenting and possibly some building myself."

"You're pretty badly bitten by the radio bug," observed his partner.

"I won't try to deny it," said the other, emphatically. "The more I think about it, the more wonderful it seems. Besides, it's got a mighty practical side to it. I was holding on to some shares a few days ago until I learned by way of the radio that they were starting to fall. I sent a telegram to my brokers, they sold out for me just in the nick of time, and I made a profit on the deal instead of having to take a loss. The bottom dropped clean out of the market that same afternoon, and if I'd been holding on to those shares, I would have gotten bumped good and hard."

The other nodded. "It's a good investment when you look at it that way," he admitted.

"Good investment is right," declared his partner. "I saved a lot more in that deal than the whole radio outfit cost me, and I still own the set."

"I wonder why the new government wireless station doesn't do something of the kind," remarked Mr. Blackford. "They might as well make themselves useful as well as ornamental."

"Government station!" exclaimed Bob and Joe at once. "Is there a government station at Mountain Pass?"

Mr. Blackford nodded. "I thought you fellows knew about it, or I'd have mentioned it before," he said. "It was just opened a few weeks ago, and I don't think they've got all their equipment in yet. There's been some delay in getting the stuff here, I understand."

"What does the government want of a wireless station away up here?" asked Bob.

"This is the highest point in all the surrounding country and makes an ideal lookout for forest fires," said his informant. "The station was supposed to be ready for use last summer, but, as I say, was delayed a good deal. But we expect it to be of great service in the future. There have been some disastrous forest fires around here in the last few years, as you probably know."

"We ought, to know it," remarked Joe. "The smoke has been so thick as far away as Clintonia sometimes that you could cut it with a hatchet. It's about time something was done to stop it."

Of course, once they heard about the government station, the boys could think of nothing else until they had visited it. Bob proposed that they go right after lunch, and this met with the enthusiastic approval of his friends. Poor Jimmy was so rushed by his eager friends that he was frustrated in his design of asking for a second helping of chocolate pudding, and was hurried away protesting vainly against such unseemly haste.

"What do you Indians think you're doing?" he grumbled. "Do you all want to die of indigestion? Don't you know you're supposed to rest after a meal and give your stomach a chance?"

"Oh, dry up," said Joe, heartlessly. "If you didn't eat so much you wouldn't want to lie around for two hours after every meal like a Brazilian anaconda. You know you didn't want another plate of that pudding, anyway."

"Didn't I!" said Jimmy, disconsolately. "That was about the best pudding I ever tasted, bar none. You fellows are such radio bugs that you can't even pay proper attention to what you're eating."

"You give enough attention to that to make up for the whole gang," said Bob. "Stop your growling and step along lively, old timer."

Jimmy grumbled a little more in spite of this admonition, but regained his usual cheery mood when he saw the steel lattice-work towers with the familiar antenna sweeping in graceful spans between them, and forgot all about the missing plate of pudding.

The station was situated some distance from the Mountain Rest Hotel in a clearing cut out of the dense pine woods, and the boys ceased to wonder why they had not discovered it on some of their rambles. As they drew near they could see that everything was solidly and substantially built, as is usually the case with government work.

The station, besides the towers, comprised a large, comfortable building, which housed all the sending and receiving equipment, and a smaller building, in which the operators slept when off duty, and where spare equipment was stored.

The radio boys knocked at the door of the larger building, and after a short wait it was opened by a tall, rather frail looking young fellow, who eyed them inquiringly.

Bob explained that he and his friends were radio fans, and were anxious to look over the station, if it would not cause too much inconvenience.

"Not a bit of it," said the young operator, heartily. "To tell you the truth, there is not much doing here at this time of year, and company is mighty welcome. Step in and I'll be glad to show you around the place."