  “Wires!” exclaimed McBride and Ferris together. “Yes, wires. They come out of a little hole that’s been bored through the clapboards. Unless I miss my guess they run along that big limb and on up the tree trunk. Does that mean anything to you?” “Great guns!” exclaimed Micky excitedly. “You don’t think it’s a—wireless!” “That’s exactly what I do mean. You know as well as I do that ever since the U-boats showed up along the coast last summer, they’ve suspected that a hidden wireless was giving them information about ships and things. Don’t you remember the talk Mr. Wendell gave at the meeting a few weeks ago when he said that secret service men were busy hunting for it, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack? He told us we must report the least thing that seemed suspicious. Jove! If this should be it, and we should the ones to find it!” “I hated that fat man from the first,” said Ritter viciously. “I was sure there was something queer about him.” “There is, all right,” agreed Cavvy with conviction. “If he isn’t running a secret wireless, he’s doing something else underhand. Otherwise why is he living in this tumbledown ruin away from everything? Why didn’t he answer our knocking until we pretty near broke the door down? There’s something crooked about him, you can bank on that.” “Gee-whiz! I’ll bet you’re right, Cavvy!” exclaimed McBride. “What are you going to do? Tell Mr. Wendell, or the police?” Cavanaugh’s face took on a faintly troubled expression. “I don’t see how we can do either just yet,” he answered. “You see, we really don’t know anything. There’s nothing but those wires to go on. If I could only get up that tree I’d be sure one way or another.” “But you can’t do that,” said Ferris quickly. “He’d be sure to see you.” “Not after dark,” returned Cavvy pointedly. “What!” protested Ritter, his face falling. “Wait all that time! Why, it’d be ages. And we’d probably get wet to the skin. The rain can’t hold off much longer.” “You give me a pain, Rit,” said Micky scathingly. “What the dickens does a little rain matter when we’ve got a chance like this? You oughtn’t to howl. You’re so well padded you wouldn’t feel it. Besides, it won’t be long at all. It’ll be good and dark by half past five on a night like this. I’m game to stay, Cavvy. So’s Champ, aren’t you, old kid?” Ferris acquiesced, though not quite with McBride’s eager impulsiveness. The woods were cold and dreary and the possibilities ahead of them did not fill him with delight. But he was too keen an admirer of Jimmy Cavanaugh to risk losing the other’s good opinion. Finally, with the other three against him, Ritter gave in, though with much grumbling and complaint, and a good deal more secret apprehension, and leaving the path they found a more secluded spot back in the undergrowth in which to pass their vigil. This did not prove so long or so tedious as some of them expected. They were wrought-up and excited, and there were plans to make and possibilities to discuss. Moreover, the early twilight, hastened by the lowering clouds, fell swiftly. Long before six it was quite dark. Twenty minutes later Cavvy decided that it was time to move. Cautiously they crept out of the bushes and felt their way along the path. It was spooky business, this stealing through the darkness, and more than one heart beat faster at the thought of what might lie before them. At the edge of the clearing they paused, trying to make out the lines of the old house through the gloom. A cold sleety drizzle had begun to fall, and with a shiver Ritter turned up his mackinaw collar. Cavanaugh, in advance, took a few more steps forward and then stopped again. Of a sudden, out of the blackness before them, came a faint, wavering glow of light. For a second or two they failed to place it. Then the vague outlines of a window sprang up in the darkness, only to fade again as the light flickered, died out, to reappear presently in another window on the upper floor. “He’s moving around up there,” whispered Cavvy. “I guess it’s safe enough. Champ, you and Rit stay here. Better get off the path a little; he might come out. Mind you don’t run into the pond. Come ahead, Micky.” Ritter and Ferris stumbled gropingly from the path, the former giving another shudder at the thought of blundering into that slimy pool. The other two disappeared instantly into the shadows. They moved cautiously, and as they neared the house even their occasional stealthy whispers ceased. The light remained stationary in the window near the corner where they had first glimpsed the fat man’s face. This was no proof that he also was there, but some chance had to be taken, and Micky found no slight comfort in the heft of the stout stick in his hand. At the rear of the building, under the shadow of the great pine, not a ray of light relieved the gloom. The boys felt their way past the closed door and on to the woodshed. Here McBride helped his friend to the low roof and then retired a little way to keep watch according to agreement. Slowly and carefully Cavanaugh edged his way along the roof, thankful for the rubber soles which gave him some slight hold on the slippery surface. Without them he would certainly have slid off, for there was nothing to take hold of with his hands, and he had constantly to feel ahead for holes and weak spots in the rotten shingles. Reaching the tree, he stood upright, steadying himself against the trunk. He had noted that afternoon the projecting stub of a broken limb which gave him his first foothold. Thence, with the aid of a similar butt and a curious, unexpected projection which felt like a wooden cleat nailed to the trunk, he gained the lowest crotch. It was ticklish business, climbing through the dark with only his sense of feeling to guide him, and Cavvy breathed a sigh of relief as he threw one leg across the solid branch. A moment later his fingers touched the wires and his heart leaped exultingly. There they were exactly as he had imagined them—two heavy insulated wires snugly fastened to the limb with staples, and in such a position as to be quite invisible from the ground. His eager fingers traced them to the trunk where they turned upward just as he thought they might. “It is a wireless!” he muttered excitedly. “It can’t be anything else.” |
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