Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/275

 of high-frequency oscillations and auctions and ionising gases.

"I tell you I can make it work!" he exulted.

"Work?" she echoed.

"It'll take time, it'll take scheming, but I can do it! I can have the whole thing rigged up by daylight. By morning I can be sending and receiving again!"

He was on his feet by this time, trying to explain it to her.

"My key's gone, you see; but that doesn't make it hopeless. I can adjust a piece of heavy copper wire to my rear binding-post here. Then I can take the other end of that wire and touch it at the contact-point here where my key used to strike. I can spell out the Morse that way, word by word. We'll be able to talk! We'll be able to send out our message!"

"Is this true?" she asked, her wide and shadowy eyes searching his face.

"Yes, it's true!"

"Quite true?"

"Every word of it, or I don't know wireless!"

"That means we can call the Princeton."

"We'll be still closer by morning. I'll be ready and waiting by the time their operator is at his key. And by noon we ought to pick up Guariqui, if we passed the Toajiras Light over