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A moment later he tuned an instrument and threw on a switch; "Weightman there?" he inquired. "Asleep? Wake him up. This is Curlie Carson. Yes, it's important. No, I'll tell you. Don't bother to wake him now have him over at the Coffee Shop at five bells. The Coffee Shop. He'll know. Don't fail! It's important!" He snapped down the receiver. Weightman was the radio mechanic assigned to his station.
No further messages of importance having drifted in to him from the outer air, Curlie, an hour before dinner, made his way down to the street and, having warmed up the Humming Bird's motor, muttered as he sprang into the seat: "I'll just run out there and see what I see." A half hour later, just as the first gray streak of dawn was appearing, he curved off onto a gravel road.
"It's strange," the older man mused after she had gone. "I don't understand it at all. These messages, they are " "If you please " Curlie broke in. "Wait!" commanded the other, holding up his hand for silence. "Let us have no opinions before all of the evidence is in. That map may aid us in forming correct conclusions."
"You didn't expect to have me for a fellow-passenger, did you?" she smiled. Curlie shook his head. "Well, I didn't expect to go until the last moment. Then the professor came with the translation of the writing on the map all written out. Father thought you should have it, so he sent me with it.
Slender, dark, with coal-black eyes, with curls of the same hue clinging tightly to his well-shaped head, he had the strong profile and the smooth tapering fingers that might belong to an artist, a pickpocket or a detective. An artist Curlie was, an artist in his line radio. Although still a boy, he was already an operator of the "commercial, extra first-class" type.
Stumbling aft, now banging his feet down hard and now treading on empty air, Curlie made his way to the radiophone cabin. "It's an S. O. S.," screamed Joe at the top of his voice, as Curlie came hurrying up. "They sent that much in code and I got it all right. Then they tried to tell me their troubles and all I got was a mumble and grumble mixed with static, which meant nothing at all to me.
"You have the power of the law behind you; you need no consent of mine. But so be it; if my son has broken the law, he shall suffer the penalty." "There is one other matter," said Curlie soberly. "At the present moment it is merely a theory.
"Six hundred!" exclaimed Curlie in a tense whisper. "Why, that's what they use for S.O.S. at sea! It's criminal. Endangers every ship in distress. Five years in prison for it. Get him, can't you?" "Can't. That's the trouble. Every time I think I've got him spotted he seems to move." "To move!" "Yes, sir." "That's queer! I'll be up right away."
Again they were off. For two miles and a half straight ahead they raced. The Humming Bird quivered like a leaf, instruments jingling in spite of their lashings. "Make it all the way," said Curlie, as Joe slowed up. "He's not there. Given us the slip again." Six times this program was gone through with. Not once in all that time did they catch sight of that tail-light.
All these must be tested out by the aid of a storage battery. When the defective parts had been discarded, it was necessary to piece together, out of the remaining parts and the extra equipment, an entirely new set. "Have to use a two-stage amplifier," shouted Curlie, making himself heard above the storm. "Lower voltage on the grid, too," Joe shouted back.
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