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"I'm in favor of remaining together if we can. If we only had a lantern to take with us." "We've got an acetylene headlight such as they use on motorcycles," Tom declared. "That would be a dandy thing." "Let's go, then, before Wyckoff comes back with his friends." Accordingly the boys secured automatics and the acetylene headlight.
He was an excellent servant, by the way, light of foot, low of voice, serious of face, with a pair of eyes which I may liken to nothing so well as to a set of acetylene blow-pipes bored right through you. The master was middle-aged, about the same height and weight as his valet. He wore a full dark beard, something after the style of the early eighties of last century.
A crowd sprung full grown out of the bog of the morning. White, peering faces showing up in the brilliant paths of the acetylene lamps. A uniform pushing through. A crowbar and the hard breathing of men straining to lift. A sob in the dark. Stand back! Stand back!
"Let's try scout pace, I'm getting winded." The searchlight which had been an important adjunct of the old Nymph had not been used on the Good Turn, for the reason that the boys had not run her at night. It was an acetylene light of splendid power and many a little craft Harry Stanton had picked up with it in his nocturnal cruising.
It being an unusually mild night, the windows, which faced on the open prairie land to the north, were partly open. The air was sweet with the fragrance of the purpling lucerne, punctuated by the aroma of her Turkish tobacco. In the mellow light of the rose-tinted acetylene globe suspended overhead everything was invested with a deliciously soft warmth.
Into the buggy box I laid a borrowed acetylene gas tank, strapped down with two bands of galvanized tin. I made the connection by a stout rubber tube, "guaranteed not to harden in the severest weather." To the side of the box I attached a short piece of bandiron, bent at an angle, so that a bicycle lamp could be slipped over it.
Readers who know the Morse code might well go to the trouble of constructing in duplicate the simple apparatus to be described, as the possession of an outfit will enable them to extend their signalling capabilities. The stand for the lamp is admirably supplied by the ordinary camera tripod. For the illuminant we may select any good acetylene cycle lamp.
"I don't care, if only it holds off till we get back," returned Andy. They lit the acetylene gas lamps, with which their wheels were provided, and then ran the bicycles down to the roadway. "Have a good time," cried Stuffer, who had come out to see them off. "Don't worry about that," replied Pepper, gaily. "I'll wager you'll have a dandy spread," went on the lad who loved to eat.
At 11 P.M. the acetylene lights are put out, and those who wish to remain up or to read in bed must depend on candle-light. The majority of candles are extinguished by midnight, and the night watchman alone remains awake to keep his vigil by the light of an oil lamp. Day after day passes in this fashion. It is not a very active life perhaps, but certainly not an idle one.
This mixing chamber by which I am holding the torch, where the oxygen and acetylene mix, is also designed in such a way as to prevent a flash-back. The best thing about this style of blowpipe is the ease with which it can be transported and the curious uses like the present to which it can be put." He paused a moment to test the door. All was silence on the other side.
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