The Boys of the Wireless Part 3

CHAPTER III-"SPOOKS!"

"Spooks?" repeated Tom, with a stare of wonder.

"Spooks," echoed Ben, edging a trifle away from the open trap door.

"Call it that," said Mr. Edson, with a quiet smile. "Perhaps I had better say-mysterious happenings."

"What may they be, Mr. Edson?" inquired Ben, always interested in any sensational disclosures.

"Well, first-let me see," and the speaker reached over for a slip of doc.u.ments held with others in a paper clip on the table; "yes, here it is-'Donner.'"

"Who's he?" inquired Tom, puzzled.

"Say rather what is he?" corrected Mr. Edson. "Frankly, I don't know."

"It's a name," observed Ben; "a man's name, isn't it?"

"I don't know that," responded Mr. Edson.

"Neither do the other fellows on the circuit. Perhaps I'd better explain, though, so when this Donner comes along you will be prepared for him."

"Yes, you have excited our curiosity and we'll be on the lookout," said Tom.

"Well, for nearly three weeks, at odd and unexpected times, with no sense or reason to it, no call or 'sine,' abruptly and mysteriously zip!

the wires have gone, and in floats a jumbled, erratic message."

"As how?" propounded Ben.

"'Donner.' That always, first. It may be an explanation, it may be a name, it may mean nothing, but all the same splutter-splutter! on she comes. At first it was spelled out slowly, lamely, sometimes wrong, and then corrected as if an amateur beginner was at the other end of the line."

"And that was all-'Donner'" questioned Ben, aggravatingly consumed with curiosity.

"Not after a few days. Then 'Donner' began to add something of a message. That, too, was a jumble, wrong dots and dashes and all that.

Finally, though, this queer crank of a sender began to say something about a boy."

"A boy?" murmured the engrossed Ben.

"It looked as if he was trying to describe some one. However, as I say, his sending was so faulty that not much could be made out of it. It got clearer, but no more coherent and enlightening. I tried to trace the sender. So did others on the circuit. I got in touch with Seagrove."

"What did they say? Mr. Edson?" asked Tom.

"They confessed themselves fully as much puzzled as I was. The last three or four days 'Donner' has gotten into action trying to tell something about money. First it was a hundred dollars, then two hundred, then five, and about an hour since the same old string of jangled talk came in over the receiver: 'Donner boy-a thousand dollars.'"

"How strange," commented Tom.

"Oh, you'll get some of it," declared Mr. Edson. "Early in the morning about daylight, always at noon, sometimes just about dusk, the message comes through the air."

"How do you explain it?" submitted Tom.

"Why, I have to think it is some person who has rigged up an old station somewhere in range, and is trying to tell something he is too ignorant to express clearly. Pay no attention to it as a serious circ.u.mstance. It is only one of the freaks of the wireless experience."

"That's one of the spooks you told about?" inquired Ben.

"Yes," nodded Mr. Edson.

"Any more?"

"Something more tangible this time," observed Mr. Edson. "For about a week some one has invaded my den here nights regularly."

"Maybe this same mysterious 'Donner'" suggested Ben.

"Hardly. You see, I am pretty regular in my hours here. I have come on at about eight in the morning and leave at six in the evening always."

"And the second spook you speak about?" interrogated Tom.

"Puts in an appearance after my departure in the night time. Here's the gist of it: Every morning when I come down here, the ground under the windmill for a s.p.a.ce of about fifty feet is swept as clean as a ballroom floor."

"Yes, I've noticed that," observed Tom.

"I leave the den up here in some slight disorder evenings, preferring to put it in shape in the morning. Well," declared Mr. Edson, "I find it all cleaned up for me."

"You don't say so!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ben.

"Nothing is touched about the apparatus, my papers are not disturbed.

One night I carelessly forgot my pocketbook. I found it placed carefully on the paper tab with the contents intact."

"Well, that's a helpful, honest, useful kind of a spook, isn't it, now?"

cried Ben.

"I think this harmless intruder sleeps on the floor here nights," said Mr. Edson. "Anyhow, I've apprised you of the mysteries as well as the excellencies of Station Z. I must be going, Barnes," added Mr. Edson, consulting his watch and arising and taking up his satchel from a corner of the room. "Think over my proposition."

"I certainly shall," declared Tom, quickly.

"It's a dandy chance," remarked Ben.

"Use your best intelligence and judgment in running the business here until I come back," added Mr. Edson. "You can come down to the house with me if you like and get some stuff that will help you rig up your home-made wireless."

"All right," a.s.sented Tom, "I'd like to do that."

The professional operator followed his young guests down the ladder, locking the trap door padlock and tendering the key to Tom.

"You're in charge now," he said in a pleasant way.

Tom's finger tips tingled with pleasure at the possession of the key, and Ben's eyes brightened with glowing antic.i.p.ations.

The boys waited outside on a bench on the porch of Mr. Edson's boarding house when they reached that place. He went up to his room and soon returned with an oblong box.