The Campfire Girls on Station Island: or, The Wireless from the Steam Yacht

“I suppose it would be too pointed for us to run away,” said Amy to Jessie, as Bill Brewster drove the pony carriage out on to the beach.

“Belle has got her eye on us, that is a fact,” agreed Jessie.

She was curious, especially after what their new friend had told them an hour before about the story that Belle Ringold was circulating. Belle was eager to talk – as she always was.

“So your folks got one of these bungalows, did they, after all, Jess Norwood?” she began. “I suppose you know there is no surety that you can keep it a month?”

“I don’t know about that. I guess father attended to the lease. And he is a lawyer, you know,” said Jessie, quietly.

“Pooh! Yes,” said Belle, tossing her head. “But there are lawyers and lawyers! My father has the smartest lawyer in New York working for him. And I suppose you know about the claim he has against all the middle of this island?”

“We have heard that you have a claim on the island – or think you have,” said Amy slyly. “But, then, Belle, you always did think you owned the earth.”

“Now, Miss Smartie, don’t be too funny! Father is going to prove his right to the golf course and all these bungalows. Don’t you fear – Why! There’s that terrible Henrietta Haney! How did she come here?”

“She is with us,” said Jessie shortly.

“Oh, indeed! One of your week-end guests, I suppose?” scoffed Belle. “We are entertaining General O’Bigger and Mrs. O’Bigger at the hotel. Of course, we would not live in one of these small bungalows – not even if we needed a vacation.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Henrietta promptly, “because I wouldn’t let you.”

“Oh! Oh! Hear that child!” cried Sally Moon.

“Nor you, neither,” declared Henrietta. “All them houses are mine – or they are going to be.”

“Hush, Henrietta,” commanded Jessie, in a low voice.

“Didn’t the funny little thing say something before about owning an island?” asked Belle, somewhat puzzled.

“And this is it,” said Henrietta. “You just try to come into any of them bungleloos! I’d get a policeman and have him take you out. So now!”

“Will you behave?” said Jessie, feeling like shaking the child, and in reality leading her away.

Amy came running after them in the midst of Jessie’s berating of the freckle-faced girl.

“Did you ever hear such nonsense?” Jessie’s chum demanded. “Belle declares the case is coming up in court next week and that her father is going to win. Did you ever?”

Mr. Norwood was sitting with his wife when they came near to that lady’s beach chair. Jessie was anxious enough to ask about Belle’s statement regarding the imminent court investigation of the controversy over Station Island.

“Why, yes, Ringold’s lawyers claim they have found new evidence entitling him to be heard as a claimant to the Padriac Haney estate,” the lawyer acknowledged. “But there may not be anything in it.”

“But is there a possibility, Robert?” Momsy asked, seeing how anxious both Jessie and the little girl looked.

“There is nothing sure in any case that comes into court,” declared her husband. “Besides, those attorneys of Ringold’s are sharp fellows. He may make his claim good.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” burst out Henrietta. “And then I won’t have nuthin’? No island, nor golf link, nor – nor nuthin’? Oh, dear me!”

“Never mind, honey,” Jessie begged. “You have friends. You have me.” And she sat down on the sands and took the freckle-faced little girl in her arms.

“Ye-es, Miss Jessie. I know I got you,” sobbed Henrietta. “But – but you ain’t a golf link, nor you ain’t a bungleloo. And – and I want to turn that Ringold girl off my island, I do!”

CHAPTER XIV – SOMETHING NEW IN RADIO

The Stanleys arrived at Station Island the next day, the doctor having arranged for a substitute preacher at the Roselawn Church for two Sundays. The bungalow they had arranged to occupy was one of the colony not far from the big house the Norwoods and their party were staying in.

Darry and Burd began to spend a good deal of their time on the yacht after that first day. Amy accused her brother of being afraid of a flank attack by Belle Ringold and Sally Moon, and he admitted that he had hoped to escape those two “troublesome kids” when he came to the island.

“I came here as the guest of little Hen Haney,” he declared soberly. “And I don’t wish to be annoyed by any girls older than she is.”

But he did not say this within Henrietta’s hearing. The little girl went around with a very long face indeed. She seemed to think that she was going to lose her island. Even Nell Stanley, who was a general comforter at most times, could not alleviate little Henrietta’s woe.

With the coming of the Stanleys, however, Henrietta became less of a trial to Jessie. For Sally Stanley was just about Henrietta’s age and the two children got along splendidly together.

Bob and Fred, those lively and ingenious youngsters, made their own friends among the boys of the bungalow colony. The three girls from Roselawn – Jessie, Amy, and Nell – found plenty to do and enjoyed themselves thoroughly during the next few days. Being all interested in radio they naturally spent some time at Jessie’s set. But unfortunately it did not work as well here as it had at home.

“And I do not know why,” Jessie ruminated. “I have been studying up about it and the more I read the less I seem to know. There are so many different opinions about how an amateur set should be built. Do you know, sometimes I feel as though I should have an entirely different kind of outfit. There is a new super-regenerative circuit that is being talked about.”

“But some people say it is not practicable for amateurs,” broke in Nell. “I’ve read so, anyway.”

“I should like to talk with some professional – some radio expert – about that,” Jessie confessed. “If I had thought before we left home I would have spoken to Mr. Blair.”

“You’ll have to wait until you get back, then,” said Amy promptly.

“Why?” cried Nell suddenly. “There must be experts over at that Government station.”

“That is so,” agreed Jessie, thoughtfully. “Do you suppose they would – ”

“Let’s go and see,” urged Nell. “I’m crazy to see the inside of that station, anyway.”

“It’s wireless – like the little outfit aboard the Marigold,” Amy suggested.

“But so much bigger,” Jessie chimed in eagerly. “If they admit visitors, let’s go.”

Mr. Norwood found out about that particular point for the girls and reported that if they went over to the station in the late afternoon the operator on duty would be glad to show them “the works” and give them all the information in his power.

The three friends went alone, for the collegians were off fishing that day on the Marigold. They left the little girls in Mrs. Norwood’s care and slipped away about four o’clock and walked to the station, which was some distance from the bungalow colony. They had to climb the stairs in the old shaft of the lighthouse to the wireless room. The room was half darkened and they heard the snapping of the spark, and even saw the faint blue flash of it when they came to the door.

The operator, with his head harness on, was busy at his set. Jessie, at least, had spent some time trying to learn the Morse code since talking the matter over with Darry on the yacht. But although the signals the operator received were in dots and dashes, she could not understand a single thing.

“I am afraid it will take us a long time to learn,” she said to Amy, sighing. “We shall have to buy a regular telegraph set and learn in that way.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about learning anything!” cried her chum. “Vacation is slipping right away from us.”

After a few moments the spark stopped snapping, the operator closed his switch and removed his harness. He wheeled around on the bench and welcomed them. He was really a very pleasant young man, and he explained many things about both the radio-telegraph and radio-telephone that the girls had not known before.

He was so friendly that Jessie ventured to ask him about the new super-regenerative circuit in which she was interested.

“Yes. I’m strong for that new thing,” said the wireless operator, enthusiastically. “In the first place, it was invented by the man who originated the ordinary regenerative circuit so much in use at present, and also of the super-heterodyne circuit. I understand this new circuit permits a current amplification up to a million times, and all with three tubes. You know, to reach such a high mark with your ordinary regenerative circuit, many more tubes would be necessary.”