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

“Some amateur op. is interfering,” was his expression. “But, I declare! it does sound something like this station call. Can it be – ?”

He lengthened his spark and sent thundering out on the air-waves his usual reply: “I, I, OKW. I, I, OKW.”

Then he held his hand and waited for any return. The same mysterious, scraping sounds continued. A slow hand, he believed, was trying to spell out some message in Morse. But it was being done in a very fumbling manner.

Of course, half a dozen shore stations and perhaps half a hundred vessels might have caught the clumsy message, as well. But the operator at Station Island, interested by little Henrietta in the Marigold and her company, felt more than puzzlement over this strange communication out of the air.

“Listen in here, Sammy,” he said to his mate, when the latter came in. “Is it just somebody’s squeak-box making trouble to-night or am I hearing a sure-enough S O S? I wonder if there is a storm at sea?”

“There is,” said his mate, sitting down on the bench and taking up the secondary head harness. “The evening papers are full of it. Northeast gale, and blowing like kildee right now.”

“Arlington gave no particulars at last announcement.”

“Don’t make any difference. The boats outside know it. Hullo! What’s this? ‘S-t-a-t-i-o-n I-s-l-a-n-d.’ What’s the joke? Somebody calling us without using the code letters?”

“Don’t know ’em, maybe,” said the chief operator. “Set down what you get and see if it is like mine.”

The other did so. They compared notes. That strange message set both operators actively to work. One began swiftly to distribute over the Eastern Atlantic the news that a craft needed help in such and such a latitude and longitude. The other operator, without his hat, ran all the way to the bungalows to give Mr. Norwood and Mr. Drew some very serious news.

CHAPTER XXV – SAVED BY RADIO

Jessie Norwood was not tireless. It seemed to her as though her right arm would drop off, she pressed the key of the wireless instrument so frequently. They had written out a brief call of distress, and finally she got it by heart so that Amy did not have to read her the dots and dashes.

But it was a slow process and they had no way of learning if the message was caught and understood by any operator, either ashore or on board a vessel. Hour after hour went slowly by. The Marigold was sinking. The pumps could not keep up with the incoming water; the fuel was almost exhausted and the engines scarcely turned over; the buffeting seas threatened the craft every minute.

Dr. Stanley remained outwardly cheerful. Darry and the others took heart from the clergyman’s words.

“Tell you what,” said Burd. “If we are wrecked on a desert island I shall be glad to have the doctor along. He’d have cheered up old Robinson Crusoe.”

As the evening waned and the sea continued to pound the hull of the laboring yacht the older people aboard, at least, grew more anxious. The young folks in the radio room chattered briskly, although Jessie called them to account once in a while because they made so much noise she could not be sure that she was sending correctly.

Darry tried to relieve her at the key, but he confessed that he “made a mess of it.” The radio girls had spent more time and effort in learning to handle the wireless than the collegians – both Darry and Burd acknowledged it.

“These are some girls!” Darry said, admiringly.

“You spoil ’em,” complained Burd Ailing. “Want to be careful what you say to them.”

“Oh, if anybody can stand a little praise it is Jess and I,” declared Amy, sighing with weariness.

Nobody cared to turn in. The situation was too uncertain. The boys could be with the girls only occasionally, for they had to take their turn at the pumps. It had come to pass that nothing but steady pumping kept the yacht from sinking. They were all thankful that the wind decreased and the waves grew less boisterous.

Towards midnight it was quite calm, only the swells lifted the water-logged yacht in a rhythmic motion that finally became unpleasant. Nell was ill, below; but the others remained on deck and managed to weather the nauseating effects of the heaving sea.

Meanwhile, as often as she could, Jessie Norwood sent out into the air the cry for assistance. She sent it addressed to “Station Island,” for she did not know that each wireless station had a code signal – a combination of letters. But she knew there was but one Station Island off the coast.

The clapperty-clap, clapperty-clap of the pumps rasped their nerves at last until, as Amy declared, they needed to scream! When the sound stopped for the minute while pump-crews were changed, it was a relief.

And finally the spark of the wireless began to skip and fall dead. Good reason! The storage batteries, although very good ones, were beginning to fail. Before daybreak it was impossible to use the sender any more.

Somehow this fact was more depressing than anything that had previously happened. They could only hope, in any event, that their message had been heard and understood; but now even this sad attempt was halted.

Jessie was really too tired to sleep. She and Amy did not go below for long. They changed their clothes and came on deck again and were very glad of the hot cup of coffee Dr. Stanley brought them from the galley. The cook had been set to work on one of the pump crews.

The girls sat in the deck chairs and stared off across the rolling gray waters. There was no sign of any other vessel just then, but a dim rose color at the sea line showed where the sun would come up after a time.

“But a fog is blowing up from the south, too,” said Amy. “See that cloud, Jess? My dear! Did you ever expect that we would be sitting here on Darry’s yacht waiting for it to sink under us?”

“How can you!” exclaimed Jessie, aghast.

“Well, that is practically what we are doing,” replied her chum. “Thank goodness I have had this cup of coffee, anyway. It braces me – ”

“Even for drowning?” asked Jessie. “Oh! What is that, Amy?”

“It’s a boat! It’s a boat! Ship ahoy!” shrieked Amy, jumping up and dancing about, dropping the cup and saucer to smash upon the deck.

“It’s a steamboat!” cried Darry Drew, from the deck above.

“Head for it if you can, Bob!” commanded Skipper Pandrick to the helmsman.

But before they could see what kind of craft the other was, the fog surrounded them. It wrapped the Marigold around in a thick mantle. They could not see ten yards from her rail.

“We don’t even know if she is looking for us!” exclaimed Dr. Stanley. “That is too bad – too bad.”

“Whistle for it,” urged Amy. “Can’t we?”

“If we use the little steam left for the whistle, we will have to shut down the engines,” declared Darry.

“This is a fine yacht – I don’t think!” scoffed Burd Alling. “And none of you knows a thing about rescuing this boat and crew but me. Watch me save the yacht.”

He marched forward and began to work the foot-power foghorn vigorously. Its mournful note (not unlike a cow’s lowing, as Jessie had said) reverberated through the fog. The sound must have carried miles upon miles.

But it was nearly an hour before they heard any reply. Then the hoarse, brief blast of a tug whistle came to their ears.

“Marigold, ahoy!” shouted a well-known voice across the heaving sea.

“Daddy!” screamed Jessie, springing up and dropping her cup and saucer, likewise to utter ruin. “It’s Daddy Norwood!”

The big tug wallowed nearer. She carried wireless, too, and the Marigold’s company believed, at once, that Jessie’s message had been received aboard the Pocahontas.

“But – then – how did Daddy Norwood come aboard of her?” Jessie demanded.

This was not explained until later when the six passengers were taken aboard the tug and hawsers were passed from the sinking yacht to the very efficient Pocahontas.

“And a pretty penny it will cost, so the skipper says, to get her towed to port,” Darry complained.

“Say!” ejaculated Burd, “suppose she didn’t find us at all and we were paddling around in that boat and on the life raft? That would take the permanent wave out of your hair, old grouch!”

The girls, however, and Dr. Stanley as well, begged Mr. Norwood to explain how he had come in search of the Marigold and had arrived so opportunely.