Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/625

1913.] The great engine lay on its side in the ditch! Evidently it had just toppled from the embankment. Burning ties explained the accident.

Two smoke-enveloped figures emerged from the ditch. “Is any one hurt?” Scott asked, running forward.

“No,” replied the engineer, grimly.

“But we all stand a good chance of being smothered,”’ added his companion, the fireman; “engine gone, track gone, wires gone!”

Here the conductor appeared, with one of the brakemen. “Stop that kind of talk, boys,” he said sharply. “You ’ll have the passengers in a panic. There is a young wireless operator on the train, with a set of instruments, and he—”

“I ’m right here, sir,” Scott interrupted. “How far is it to the Junction? It was from there I had planned to send back word, you know. I need aërials.”

“Then I ’m afraid you won’t be much help to us. It ’s eight or ten miles, with woods half the way, and probably burning. Could n't you rig up some sort of aërial?”

Scott debated a moment. “All right, I ll try! I’m afraid iron telegraph-wire won’t work very well—proper aërials are made of aluminium or copper—but we can try it. I ’ll get the instruments, and we ’ll take them down the track to a standing pole.”

Followed by the agent, conductor, and trainmen, Scott passed hurriedly back along the stalled train. Already, excited passengers were dropping from the cars, and as the little party passed, demanded what had happened, and what was being done. To all, the conductor explained in a word, and added: “There is a young wireless operator here who is going to send word to Beelton immediately for another engine, to pull us back. Keep to the cars, and you will be in no danger whatever.”

Instead of returning to the cars, however, the majority of the passengers fell in behind the trainmen, followed them to the rear coach, and there waited while Scott and the station-master scrambled aboard, to reappear quickly with the cells and the set of instruments. These were passed down to willing hands, and all hurriedly continued on up the track until two standing poles were found.

“Put the instruments and cells here in the middle of the track, please,” Scott requested. “Now, has any one a file?”

“Here is a small one in a jack-knife,” proffered a young farmer.

“That ‘ll do. Thanks.” Placing it in his pocket, Scott made for the nearest pole, and proceeded to climb it until he reached the crosstrees.

“Here ’s luck!” he called down a moment later. “There are four copper telephone-wires on the top crosspiece. They will make first-class aërials.”’

The crowd below heard the lad filing briskly. For a few minutes, a dim figure in the haze, they watched him rapidly twisting wire-ends, in the making of, to them, mysterious splices. Then, with a warning “Look out!’ he came sliding down.

A similar trip was made up the second pole; two wire-ends were thrust deep into the muddy bed of a near-by spring—for “ground” connections, Scott explained, to a question—and he announced everything ready for “connecting up” the instruments.

By this time, the crowd of anxious and curious passengers had been doubled. When the young operator, seated on the ground in the middle of the track, had at length completed the connections at the instruments, a large number of passengers and trainmen were gathered closely about him.

Without loss of time Scott adjusted the receivers on his head. “Will every one please keep very quiet?” he requested. “The sounds I ’ll get will probably be pretty weak.”

At once a profound silence fell. The lad snapped a switch, and pressed the*key. From the spark-coil broke a sputter. With a low exclamation of satisfaction, Scott made a slight adjustment, and the sputter increased to a crackling buzz that caused the circle about him to widen. Then slowly and steadily, in the straining quiet, while the bank of people about him watched breathlessly, he began calling:

“S D Z, S D Z, S D Z.”

Three times he repeated his home-station call, then, slowly moving the tuning-slider, he listened.

Twice he moved the slider from the base to the end of the rod, and listened in vain for the faint “zz zz” of a response. With a frown of disappointment, he reached again toward the key. Then suddenly he paused, listened sharply, again moved the tuning-slide a fraction. And distinct in his ear sounded a tiny whisper—“zz zz, zz zz, z—z z —z, z z z z’’—Molly’s answer.

The shout which echoed Scott’s instinctive cry of success for a moment drowned the crackling of the spark-gap as, at the dictation of the conductor, he began sending the message describing their predicament, and calling for an engine to pull the train back to Beelton. And when, on concluding the message, Scott read aloud Molly's “O.K.,” and the word that some one was already on the way to the station, the crowd gave vent to a shout of relief, and then to cheers for Rh