The Radio Boys at Ocean Point: or, The Message that Saved the Ship. Chapman Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ your neck, you mean,” chuckled Herb, and in less than two minutes saw his prophecy verified.

      “And now,” said Bob, after the last crumb and drop had disappeared, “I don’t want to tie the can to you fellows, but I hear dad moving around and locking up, and that’s a sign to skiddoo. We’ll think over that idea of Herb’s and get a tip from Doctor Dale as to the best way to go about it.”

      There was a chorus of hearty good-nights and the radio boys separated.

      Two days later, as Bob and Joe were coming home from school, the latter, looking behind him, gave vent to an exclamation that drew Bob’s attention.

      “What’s up?” he asked, turning his head in the same direction.

      “It’s Buck Looker and his bunch!” exclaimed Joe, a flush mounting to his brow and his eyes beginning to flame. “He’s been careful to keep out of my way so far. Let’s wait here until he catches up to us.”

      “You’ll wait a long time then, I guess,” replied Bob, “for he’s seen us, too, and he’s slowing up already. He doesn’t seem a bit anxious to overtake us.”

      “Then we’ll have to go back and meet him,” said Joe grimly. “I’m going to have it out with him right here and now. He needn’t think he’s going to get away scot free after the trick he played on me.”

      “What’s the use, Joe?” counseled Bob. “You can’t prove it on him and he’ll only lie out of it. It’s bad policy to kick a skunk.”

      But Joe had already turned and was striding rapidly back toward Buck and his companions, and Bob went along with him.

      There was a hurried confabulation between Buck and his cronies as they saw Bob and Joe advancing toward them, and a hasty looking from side to side, as though to seek some means of escape. But there was no street handy to turn into, and as it would have been too rank a confession of cowardice to turn their backs and run, the trio assumed a defiant attitude and waited the approach of the swiftly moving couple.

      Joe stopped directly in front of the bully, while Bob ranged alongside, keeping a sharp watch on the movements of Lutz and Mooney.

      “Why did you take down that ladder the other afternoon, Buck Looker?” asked Joe, looking his opponent straight in the eye.

      Buck’s look shifted before Joe’s gaze, but he affected ignorance.

      “What ladder and what afternoon?” he countered, sparring for time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and for that matter I guess you don’t either.”

      “I know perfectly well what I’m talking about, and so do you,” replied Joe, coming so near to him that Buck gave ground. “You and your gang took away the ladder from the side of Bob’s barn, and in trying to get down I nearly broke my neck.”

      “Pity you didn’t,” blustered Buck. “If your ladder fell down and you didn’t have sense enough to wait for some one to come along and put it up for you, that wasn’t any fault of mine. I wasn’t anywhere near Layton’s barn that whole afternoon.”

      “We know better,” said Joe. “Bob and I saw you going along the street a little while before we missed the ladder, and Herb Fennington and Jimmy Plummer saw you and your crowd running away like mad while I was hanging to the pipe alongside the barn.”

      “You shut up!” yelled Buck, in a burst of rage.

      “Take off your coat, Buck Looker,” cried Joe, dropping his books to the ground, “and I’ll give you the same kind of a trimming that Bob gave you the night you tried to wreck his aerial.”

      For answer Buck tightened his grip on the strap that held his books.

      “You stand back, Joe Atwood,” he cried, with a quaver in his voice, “or I’ll soak you with these books!”

      Joe laughed his disdain.

      “You coward!” he exclaimed, and was springing forward when a warning exclamation came from Bob.

      “Stop, Joe,” he commanded. “Here comes Mr. Preston.”

      A look of vexation came into Joe’s eyes and a look of relief into Buck’s as they looked and saw the principal of the high school walking rapidly toward them.

      CHAPTER V – A BIG ADVANCE

      With the coming of the school principal and the certainty that the threatened row was over, for the present at least, all Buck Looker’s usual truculence returned.

      “It’s lucky for you that Preston happened to turn up just now,” he snarled. “I was just getting ready to give you the licking of your life.”

      “I noticed that,” said Joe dryly, as he picked up his books. “Only instead of doing it with your fists, you were going to do it with your books, like the coward that you are. You gave yourself away that time, Buck. It isn’t necessary for any one to show you up. You can be depended on to do that job yourself.”

      By this time the principal was only a few yards away, and Buck and his friends walked away rapidly, while Bob and Joe followed more slowly, so that Mr. Preston soon caught up with them.

      “Good afternoon, boys,” he said, as he came abreast of them. “You seemed to be a little excited about something.”

      “Yes, we were having a little argument,” admitted Joe.

      The principal looked at them sharply and waited as though he expected to hear more. But as nothing further was said, he did not press the matter. If the trouble had taken place in the school or on the school premises, he would have felt it his duty to go to the bottom of the affair. But he had no jurisdiction here, and he was too wise a man to mix in things that did not directly concern him or his work.

      “Well, how goes radio?” he asked, changing the subject. “Are you boys just as enthusiastic over it as you were the night you won the Ferberton prizes?”

      “More so than ever,” replied Bob, and Joe confirmed this with a nod of the head. “It’s getting so that almost every minute we have out of school we’re either tinkering with our set or listening in. We’ve just finished putting up a new umbrella aerial, and it’s a dandy.”

      “I use that kind myself,” said Mr. Preston. “I get better results with it than I do with anything else.”

      “Why, are you a radio enthusiast, too?” asked Bob, in some surprise. “I didn’t have any idea you were interested in it.”

      “Oh, yes,” affirmed the principal, with a smile. “I’m one of the great and constantly increasing army of radio fans. I understand there are more than a million of them in the United States now, and their ranks are being swelled by thousands with every day that passes. I use it for my own personal pleasure and for that of my family, but I also have an interest in it because of my profession.”

      “I understand it’s becoming quite a feature in education,” remarked Joe.

      “It certainly is,” replied Mr. Preston. “Many colleges and high schools now have radio classes as a regular part of their course. College professors give lectures that go by radio to thousands where formerly they were heard by scores. I’ve been thinking of a plan that might be of help in the geography classes, for instance. Suppose some great СКАЧАТЬ