“I guess the thing will keep,” he remarked, “and anyway I’m too groggy just now to tell you clearly just what I have in my mind. But I sure do want to see more of you fellows, if you’ll let me.”
“Sure thing,” replied Phil heartily, and the others echoed him. “Just now I think the best thing you can do is to get to town, have a doctor look you over and then settle down for a good night’s rest. Then tomorrow perhaps we can get together again. That is, if your business doesn’t make it necessary to get away from Castleton in a hurry.”
“Not at all,” answered Benton, as he got a little unsteadily to his feet. “In fact, I think Castleton will be the end of my present trip, though I didn’t think so when I started out this morning.”
The remark was rather cryptic, but the boys forbore any further questioning and busied themselves with harnessing up the horse, which seemed by this time to be in a thoroughly subdued frame of mind.
There was not room for all in the buggy and it was arranged that Phil should drive with Benton to the town, while Dick and Tom should follow on foot.
On their way in, Phil stopped at the first doctor’s office they came across and luckily found the physician in. He gave Benton a thorough examination and found that, outside of bruises and a general shaking up, there was nothing serious the matter with him. A day or two of rest was his only prescription.
Phil invited Benton to put up at his home as a guest, and assured him of a welcome. The latter, however, declined with thanks, feeling a little shy about his “bunged-up condition,” as he expressed it, but promised to come up to Phil’s house the following night. At his request, Phil drove him to a good hotel. Then he left the horse and buggy in the care of the hostler and turned toward home.
On his way there he fell in with Dick and Tom coming in with the string of fish that, in the pressure of more important things, Phil had almost forgotten.
Phil swung into step with them, and they plunged at once into a discussion of the exciting events of the afternoon.
“Queer, wasn’t it,” said Dick, as he paused for a moment in front of Phil’s home before separating from his comrades, “how his hand flew to his breast at something Tom said?”
“It was odd,” agreed Tom. “I remember that I spoke of the horse as an old pirate. Nothing particular in that. But at the word ‘pirate’ Benton jumped as though he were shot.”
CHAPTER III
RADIO AND ITS WONDERS
“Oh well, probably it was only a coincidence,” remarked Phil. “As for Benton himself he struck me as just about all right. The kind of fellow you’d like to have at your back in a scrap.”
“That’s the way I sized him up, too,” agreed Dick.
“He sure has seen a lot of the world,” observed Tom, “and he’s got a pair of eyes that aren’t likely to have overlooked anything. I’m keen to see him again and start him talking.”
“Well, he’s promised to run up to the house tomorrow night,” said Phil. “Be sure to get over, Dick.”
“I’ll be there with bells on,” promised Dick as they separated.
He kept his word, and on the following night all three were gathered about the table on which Phil kept his radio set, when the bell rang and Benton was ushered into the room.
The Radio Boys gave him a rousing welcome, and he on his part was unaffectedly glad to see them.
“How are you feeling?” asked Phil, as he drew up a chair for him.
“Fine as silk,” replied Benton. “This old head of mine has stopped its buzzing, and outside a little soreness I’m as well as ever. It takes nothing less than an axe to kill us old leathernecks,” he added with a grin.
“I see that you fellows are radio fans,” he went on, as he settled himself comfortably and nodded his head in the direction of the apparatus on the table.
“Thirty-third degree,” replied Phil. “Are you a member of the fraternity, too?”
“I’m crazy over it,” said Benton, as he bent over to examine the set. “I see you’ve got all the latest wrinkles, super-regenerative circuit and all that. What’s your range?”
“Easily over a thousand miles,” replied Phil, “and probably a good deal more than that. On quiet nights we’ve frequently picked up the signals of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the station at Nauen, Germany. We’ve talked as far as Texas, and any night we want to we can listen in on a radio broadcast from Newark, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago. We keep watches regulated by the nightly signals from Arlington. It’s a peach of a set all right.”
“We wouldn’t know how to do without radio in the Navy,” remarked Benton. “Every ship is equipped with it now, and the captain on his bridge can talk as easily with the Department in Washington as though he were seated at a desk in the Secretary’s room. Of course most of the work is done by the radio telegraph, but before long we’ll be able to use the radio telephone just as well. I tell you it’s a wonderful thing. No worrying your heart out now in a fog and mist and storm. You don’t need to have the sun in order to get your bearings. You don’t even need the lighthouses at night. Just get busy on your loop aerial and get in touch with shore stations and they’ll tell you to a dot just what your latitude and longitude is. A blind man could navigate a ship nowadays. No one can figure how many vessels and how many lives have been saved by this blessed old radio.”
“Right you are,” agreed Phil. “I know that one time it saved mine. It’s the youngest of all the sciences and yet it’s made greater strides than any other in the history of the world. Every day something new develops, and it fairly makes you dizzy trying to keep up with it. It’s revolutionized peace and it will revolutionize war.”
“As a matter of fact,” replied Benton, “it’s going to make war practically impossible, because it would make it too terrible. A fleet of airplanes without a single man in them could fly over the cities of the enemy and drop high explosives that would destroy them all. The airplanes could be directed by radio many miles away. The same is true of battleships. Torpedoes could be sent out from land and guided by radio directly against any ship it was desired to destroy. And all this without risk on the part of the attacking party.
“My ship was off the Virginia Capes last year,” he went on, “when they were having that duel between airplanes and battleships, to test out which was the more effective. The old Iowa was picked out to be the victim of the plane attack. There wasn’t a soul on board, and I tell you it seemed something uncanny to see how that big ship sailed along, turned, wheeled, zigzagged just as perfectly as if it had had its whole crew aboard. All the controls, rudder, propeller and steering devices were regulated by radio.”
“It surely seems like a miracle,” agreed Phil. “It’s quite within the range of possibility that merchant ships after a while will be able to sail from America to Europe without a soul on board. The ship could send out signals every hour by which its path could be plotted by the shore operator over the entire route.”
“And that’s only a single feature of radio,” put in Tom. “I see that in Italy and Germany they are locating ore and coal mines by means of radio. Radio waves are sent underground and by means of certain instruments the observer can notice the difference in the intensity of the sounds received, and so can chart out the position of ore and coal veins. The old-time prospector will soon be a thing of the past, as extinct as the dodo. Of course they have to have super-sensitive vacuum tubes, but the thing is being done every day. By the same means it will be possible to locate the position of buried treasures that have been carried down in sunken ships.”
“What’s that?” interrupted Benton with keen interest.
“Buried treasures,” repeated Tom. “The principle is practically the same as in locating the coal veins. The difference in signals when the radio waves are coming from the ocean bed and those received when there is some big object on the bed like a ship will indicate