"And she carried Doctor Stanley and Miss Nell Stanley, too, besides the boys, Mr. Darry and Mr. Burd," said Henrietta. "Then they can hear you?"
"If they know how to use the wireless they could catch a signal from this station."
"Miss Jessie knows all about radio," said Henrietta. "She made it."
"Oh, she did?"
"Yes. She made it all up. She and Miss Amy built them one at Roselawn.
That was before Montmorency Shannon built his. Well, Miss Jessie is out there on the _Marigold_."
"So I understand," said the much amused operator.
"I wish you would--please--send her word that I'd like to have her come back to my island."
"Are you the little girl who owns this island? I've heard about you."
"Yes. But there ain't much fun on an island if your friends aren't on it, too. And Miss Jessie is one of my very dearest friends."
"I understand," said the operator gravely, seeing the little girl's lip trembling. "You would like to have me reach your friend, Miss Jessie----"
"Her name's Norwood, too," put in Henrietta, to make sure.
"Oh, indeed? She is the lawyer, Mr. Norwood's daughter. I have met her."
"Yes, sir. She came here once."
"And you wish to send her a message if it is possible?"
"Yes, sir. I want you should ask her to get to Boston as quick as she can and come back again. We would all like to have her come," said the little girl, gravely.
"I am going to be on duty myself this evening and I will try to get your message through," said the operator kindly. "The _Marigold_, is it?" and he drew the code book toward him in which the signal for every vessel sailing from American ports, even pleasure craft, that carries wireless, is listed.
He turned around to his instrument right then and began to rap out the call for the yacht. He kept it up, off and on, between his other work, all the evening. But no answer was returned.
The operator began to be somewhat puzzled by this fact. Knowing how much interested in radio the girls were who had visited him, he could not understand why they would not be listening in at some time or other on the yacht.
He kept throwing into the ether the signal meant for the _Marigold's_ call until almost midnight, when he expected to be relieved by his partner. Towards ten o'clock there was some bothersome signals in the ether that annoyed him whenever he took a message or relayed one in the course of the evening's business.
"Some amateur op. is interfering," was his expression. "But, I declare!
it does sound something like this station call. Can it be----?"
He lengthened his spark and sent thundering out on the air-waves his usual reply: "I, I, OKW. I, I, OKW."
Then he held his hand and waited for any return. The same mysterious, scraping sounds continued. A slow hand, he believed, was trying to spell out some message in Morse. But it was being done in a very fumbling manner.
Of course, half a dozen shore stations and perhaps half a hundred vessels might have caught the clumsy message, as well. But the operator at Station Island, interested by little Henrietta in the _Marigold_ and her company, felt more than puzzlement over this strange communication out of the air.
"Listen in here, Sammy," he said to his mate, when the latter came in.
"Is it just somebody's squeak-box making trouble to-night or am I hearing a sure-enough S O S? I wonder if there is a storm at sea?"
"There is," said his mate, sitting down on the bench and taking up the secondary head harness. "The evening papers are full of it. Northeast gale, and blowing like kildee right now."
"Arlington gave no particulars at last announcement."
"Don't make any difference. The boats outside know it. Hullo! What's this? 'S-t-a-t-i-o-n I-s-l-a-n-d.' What's the joke? Somebody calling us without using the code letters?"
"Don't know 'em, maybe," said the chief operator. "Set down what you get and see if it is like mine."
The other did so. They compared notes. That strange message set both operators actively to work. One began swiftly to distribute over the Eastern Atlantic the news that a craft needed help in such and such a latitude and longitude. The other operator, without his hat, ran all the way to the bungalows to give Mr. Norwood and Mr. Drew some very serious news.
CHAPTER XXV--SAVED BY RADIO
Jessie Norwood was not tireless. It seemed to her as though her right arm would drop off, she pressed the key of the wireless instrument so frequently. They had written out a brief call of distress, and finally she got it by heart so that Amy did not have to read her the dots and dashes.
But it was a slow process and they had no way of learning if the message was caught and understood by any operator, either ashore or on board a vessel. Hour after hour went slowly by. The _Marigold_ was sinking. The pumps could not keep up with the incoming water; the fuel was almost exhausted and the engines scarcely turned over; the buffeting seas threatened the craft every minute.
Dr. Stanley remained outwardly cheerful. Darry and the others took heart from the clergyman's words.
"Tell you what," said Burd. "If we are wrecked on a desert island I shall be glad to have the doctor along. He'd have cheered up old Robinson Crusoe."
As the evening waned and the sea continued to pound the hull of the laboring yacht the older people aboard, at least, grew more anxious. The young folks in the radio room chattered briskly, although Jessie called them to account once in a while because they made so much noise she could not be sure that she was sending correctly.
Darry tried to relieve her at the key, but he confessed that he "made a mess of it." The radio girls had spent more time and effort in learning to handle the wireless than the collegians--both Darry and Burd acknowledged it.
"These are some girls!" Darry said, admiringly.
"You spoil 'em," complained Burd Ailing. "Want to be careful what you say to them."
"Oh, if anybody can stand a little praise it is Jess and I," declared Amy, sighing with weariness.
Nobody cared to turn in. The situation was too uncertain. The boys could be with the girls only occasionally, for they had to take their turn at the pumps. It had come to pass that nothing but steady pumping kept the yacht from sinking. They were all thankful that the wind decreased and the waves grew less boisterous.
Towards midnight it was quite calm, only the swells lifted the water-logged yacht in a rhythmic motion that finally became unpleasant.
Nell was ill, below; but the others remained on deck and managed to weather the nauseating effects of the heaving sea.
Meanwhile, as often as she could, Jessie Norwood sent out into the air the cry for assistance. She sent it addressed to "Station Island," for she did not know that each wireless station had a code signal--a combination of letters. But she knew there was but one Station Island off the coast.
The clapperty-clap, clapperty-clap of the pumps rasped their nerves at last until, as Amy declared, they needed to scream! When the sound stopped for the minute while pump-crews were changed, it was a relief.
And finally the spark of the wireless began to skip and fall dead. Good reason! The storage batteries, although very good ones, were beginning to fail. Before daybreak it was impossible to use the sender any more.
Somehow this fact was more depressing than anything that had previously happened. They could only hope, in any event, that their message had been heard and understood; but now even this sad attempt was halted.
Jessie was really too tired to sleep. She and Amy did not go below for long. They changed their clothes and came on deck again and were very glad of the hot cup of coffee Dr. Stanley brought them from the galley.