The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass: or, The Midnight Call for Assistance

CHAPTER XVII – THRASHING A BULLY

After that the boys saw a good deal of Edna and Ruth Salper. The latter were thoroughly good sports and entered into the fun of the moment with such enthusiasm that the radio boys declared they were lots more fun than a good many of the fellows they knew.

They went nutting together, tramped through the woods, read together the latest discoveries in the radio field, until the girls became almost as great enthusiasts as the boys.

The boys were often asked to visit the Salper home, but it was seldom that they took advantage of these invitations.

“It would be pleasant enough,” Herb declared, “if only grouchy Mr. Salper were not always around to put a damper on the sport.”

As a matter of fact, on the rare occasions when they happened to meet, Mr. Salper hardly uttered a word, but it was this very silence of his that made the boys uneasy.

“I feel sometimes,” Jimmy remarked, “as if I’d like to put a tack on his chair, just to see if he’d say ‘ouch’ when it stuck into him.”

“He’d probably say a sight worse than that,” Bob replied, with a laugh,

However, they were having too good a time to allow Mr. Salper and his grouches to interfere much with them.

They became familiar figures at the sending and receiving station, and the operator always received them cordially. They often had long and interesting discussions which were not only delightful to the boys but extremely helpful as well.

“It seems,” said Jimmy, with a grin, “as if all the radio inventors were running a race with each other to see who can get the greatest number of inventions on the market in the shortest space of time.”

“You said something that time, boy,” the operator replied ruefully. “The smart fellows are keeping us dubs on the jump trying to catch up with them. Not that I intend to put you in the ‘dub’ class with myself,” he added, with a grin.

“I only wish we knew half as much about the game as you do,” Bob returned heartily. “I think we’d be mighty well satisfied.”

One day when the radio boys had left Edna and Ruth Salper and were tramping through the woods alone, they spoke of the operator admiringly.

“He sure does know a lot about radio,” said Joe. “He must stay up all night studying.”

“Guess that’s what’s the matter with him,” remarked Bob, soberly. “He spends too much of his time indoors, boning. He should get out in the open more.”

“Looks as if a little fresh air might tone him up some,” Herb admitted. “He looks as if a breath of air might blow him away.”

“If I looked as thin as he does, I’d go see a doctor,” said Jimmy emphatically.

It was a fact that the operator at the station, while looking far from strong when the boys had first seen him, had grown thinner and thinner and paler and paler until now he seemed to be positively going into a decline.

Because they had a sincere regard for Bert Thompson, the boys had tried to lure him out into the open, but he had been proof against all their blandishments. And after a while the boys had given up trying.

“If he wants to kill himself,” Bob had grumbled, “I suppose we’ll have to let him have his own way about it.”

And now at this particular time when the boys were at peace with the world, something suddenly happened that gave them a rude jolt.

Talking happily of improvements they expected to apply to their new radio outfit, they came suddenly upon – Buck Looker and his crowd.

To say they were surprised would not have half expressed it. They were dumbfounded and mad – clear through. So here were these rascals, turning up as they always did, just in time to spoil the fun.

That Buck and his cronies had been talking about them was evident from the fact that at the appearance of the radio boys they stopped short in what they were saying and looked sullenly abashed. And from their confusion Bob guessed that the meeting was as much a surprise to the “gang” as it was to themselves.

The boys would have gone on without speaking, hoping to avoid trouble if it was possible, but Buck hailed them boisterously.

“Say, what are you guys doing here?” he asked, sneeringly, thrusting himself almost directly in front of Bob, so that the latter would be forced to step aside in order to pass him.

“That’s what I’d like to ask you,” returned Bob, feeling himself grow hot all over. “Get out of my way, Buck. You’re cramping the scenery.”

“Aw, what’s your awful rush?” asked Buck, refusing to move, while Carl Lutz and Terry Mooney sidled over to the bully, keeping a wary eye on Bob’s right fist, nevertheless.

“Say, get out of here, Buck Looker, and get quick!” It was Joe who spoke this time, and any one not as stupid as Buck Looker would have known it was time to do as he was told.

But because of the fire that had burned to the ground his father’s disreputable cottage in the woods and which he and his followers had blamed upon the radio boys, Buck Looker thought himself safe in taunting the latter as much as he wished. He assumed that they would not dare resent anything he said or did, for fear he would make public the matter of the fire and accuse them openly.

It was a chance of a lifetime for Buck – or so he thought – and he was determined not to over-look it. So his manner became more insulting than ever and his face took on a wider grin as his glance shifted from Bob to Joe.

“So you’re in a hurry, too, are you?” he sneered. “Going to set some more houses on fire, eh?”

He turned to his cronies with a grin and they piped up together as if by a prearranged signal:

“Firebrands!”

This undeserved insult was more than the radio boys could stand, and all stepped forward with clenched fists.

“You take that back, Buck Looker!” cried Joe, with flashing eyes.

“Take back nothing!” answered the bully.

“Yes, you will!” broke in Bob, and caught Buck by the arm.

At once the bully aimed a savage blow at Bob’s head. But the latter ducked, and an instant later his clenched fist landed upon Buck’s chin with such weight that the bully was sent over backward into the snow.

At the instant when Buck made his attack on Bob, Terry Mooney tried to hit Joe with a stick he carried. Joe promptly caught hold of the stick, and, putting out his foot, sent Terry backward into a snowdrift. Seeing this, Carl Lutz started to run away, but both Herb and Jimmy went after him and knocked him flat.

“You let me alone! I didn’t do anything!” blubbered Carl, who was a thorough coward.

“You can’t call me a firebrand,” answered Herb, and while fat Jimmy sat on the luckless Carl, Herb rammed some snow into his ear and down his neck.

While this was going on both Buck and Terry had scrambled to their feet, and then began a fierce fight between that pair and Bob and Joe. Blows were freely exchanged, but soon the radio boys had the better of it, and when Terry’s lip was bleeding and swelling rapidly, and Buck had received a crack in the left eye and it was also swelling, all three of the cronies were only too glad to back away.

“Have you had enough?” demanded Bob, pantingly.

“If you haven’t, we’ll give you some more,” added Joe.

“You just wait! We’ll get square with you some other time,” muttered Buck. And thereupon he and his cronies lost no time in sneaking away into the woods.

“Of all the mean fellows that ever lived!” cried Herb.

“I guess they’ll leave us alone – for a while, anyway,” came from Joe, as he felt of his shoulder where he had received a blow.

“I wonder what those fellows are doing around here, anyway,” said Bob thoughtfully. “Do you suppose they’re putting up at the Mountain Rest Hotel, too?”

“More than likely,” answered Joe, gloomily. “Perhaps they’ve been driven out of Clintonia, too, on account of the epidemic. I heard quite a number of the other young folks were getting out. The whole town is pretty well scared.”

“They are sure trying their best to make trouble for us,” added Jimmy.

“That fire in the woods was just nuts for them,” said Bob, with a frown. “They’ve been trying for a long time to get something on us, and now they think they’ve got it. They think we’re afraid to beat ’em up now as they deserve, for fear they’ll tell everybody we set that old shack on fire.”

“It was a funny thing,” remarked Joe, musingly, “how that fire started, anyway.”

“Oh, what’s the use of worrying?” added Herb, carelessly. “I reckon the memory of that licking will keep Buck quiet for a while. Say, that was a fine piece of work you did, Bob! The memory lingers.”

Bob grinned.

“How about yourselves?” he asked, adding, with a gleam in his eyes: “I didn’t notice Terry Mooney and Carl Lutz looking very happy!”

CHAPTER XVIII – A NEST OF CONSPIRATORS

The radio boys saw Buck Looker often – all too often – in the days that followed. As the boys had feared, Buck and his crowd were staying at the Mountain Rest Hotel, and it was almost impossible to help encountering them.

Several times there were arguments which almost resulted in blows, but Buck always managed to sneak off at the critical moment, leaving the boys to fume helplessly.

“Wish we could find out how that shack of theirs caught fire,” Joe grumbled on one of these occasions. “Then we could stop their mouths on that firebrand question once and for all.”

“Wouldn’t make any difference,” remarked Herb gloomily. “If they couldn’t make trouble for us on that score, they’d think up something else.”

But about this time something happened that took the minds of the radio boys from Buck Looker and his trouble making.

One day, as they were tramping through the woods in the still deep snow, they came upon a little decrepit-looking one-room shack, standing dejectedly within a circle of skeleton trees.

They had wandered further than usual from camp in exploring the surrounding country and had come upon the tiny cabin unexpectedly. Jimmy was about to utter a gleeful shout at sight of the interesting-looking place when Bob clapped a warning hand over his mouth.

“Keep still,” he whispered sharply. “I hear voices in there.”

“Well, what if you do?” demanded Joe, but he kept his voice cautiously lowered just the same. “Probably some harmless dubs – ”

“Like ourselves,” finished Jimmy, with a grin, “seeking shelter from the bitter weather.”

“Well, whoever they are, they sure are mad about something,” said Bob, hardly knowing why he should be so excited.

The voices inside that one-room shack had been raised in altercation, but now, as the boys listened, somebody evidently cautioned silence, for once more the tones were lowered almost to a whisper.

“There’s something mysterious about this,” said Bob, his eyes gleaming joyfully. “I vote we look into it.”

“Right-o,” agreed Joe, following the leader as Bob started softly toward the shack.

What they expected to find they had no idea. But it was an understood, though unspoken, rule with the radio boys never to pass by anything that looked in the least mysterious. And certainly this queer little shack in the woods bore all the air of mystery.

There was one small window near where they were standing and the four boys crowded up to this, jostling each other in the attempt to be the first to see through the dingy pane.

“Hey!” whispered Jimmy in anguish, as Joe’s foot clamped firmly down upon his. “Quit parking on my toe, will you? There’s lots of room on the ground.”

Joe snickered derisively and that small sound came near to proving their undoing. For inside the cabin it happened that for a moment every one had stopped talking and in the silence Joe’s laugh was distinctly audible.

“Some one’s getting in on this,” they heard one of the voices say, as though its owner were nervous, yet was trying his best to hide his uneasiness. “Let’s take a look around, boys. You never can be too sure.”

The radio boys looked at each other in consternation. There was no time to get away, even if they had wanted to. And now that they were convinced there was crooked work going on in the shack, they certainly did not want to leave.

Bob flattened himself against the wall and motioned to his chums to do likewise. If the fellows found them and wanted to put up a fight, “well, they’d get their money’s worth, anyway.”

But it so happened that the lads were not discovered. The door of the shack was on the opposite side from them, and either the men were too lazy to search carefully or they were too confident of the obscurity of their meeting place. At any rate, they went to the door, looked around, and, finding no one within sight, evidently decided that they had been mistaken in thinking they had heard a suspicious noise and reëntered the shack without searching further.

“You’re crazy, Mohun,” the boys heard one of them remark, in an irritable voice. “You’re letting your imagination – and your nerves – run away with you.”

“Well, this deal is enough to get on anybody’s nerves,” was the grumbled reply, evidently from the person addressed as Mohun. “If we don’t put it across pretty quick I’m going to quit. I’ve told you too much delay would be fatal.”

The boys glanced at each other, and the relief they had felt at not being discovered was closely followed by huge excitement as they became more and more certain that they were on the verge of making an important discovery.

They crowded closer to the window though, mindful of how close they had come to discovery, they were careful to make not the slightest sound.

Bob, who was closest to the window, could, by exercising the greatest caution, peer into the shadows of the room. He put out his hand as a warning to Joe, who was crowding him closely.

“Don’t push,” he said, in the merest whisper. “I have a notion this is going to be good.”

So had the other boys, but they were mad clean through at the fate that prevented their getting a glimpse into the tumbled-down shanty. However, they held back, knowing that if they were too eager they would spoil everything. Discovery then would mean that they would never hear the secret these men were about to disclose.

The old shack had evidently once been lived in, for it was fitted up with furniture of a crude sort. Along one side of the room ran two long bunks, one above the other, and on the walls were some old dilapidated-looking pictures, evidently cut out of magazines or news periodicals.

There was a three-legged, rickety table in the center of the room, and about this the conspirators – for such they were – were gathered. Two of the men had chairs, patently home-made, for seats, while the third, who sat facing Bob, had merely an empty wooden box turned on end.

It was this last fellow who was now speaking and who had been addressed by the name of Mohun. He was short and of fair complexion, with protruding, horsey teeth that stuck out disagreeably over his lip.

Another of the trio was a giant of a fellow, tall, dark and heavy-browed, while the third, who sat with his back to Bob, was of slighter build, but nearly as tall.

Mohun seemed to be the leader of the party, for now he was leaning across the rickety table, talking earnestly and emphasizing his remarks with blows of his fist upon it.

“I tell you, Merriweather,” he said, addressing the giant, “this is our time to act. You are merely pussy-footing when you ask delay. I am convinced that delay means suicide.”

Jimmy, catching the last word, gasped involuntarily and Bob nudged him warningly.

“Keep still,” he hissed. “This sure is going to be good!”

The two other men looked uncertain but the fellow called Mohun was pushing the point home.

“This is our chance,” he cried vehemently. “Salper is out of the way for the present, but we never know when he may take the notion to go back to the old job. They say he is getting mighty restive already.”

At the mention of Mr. Salper’s name Bob fell back in his amazement and landed on Joe’s foot, whereupon the latter emitted a squeak of pain that he immediately stifled.

“Did you hear that?” demanded Bob in an excited whisper, without a thought for poor Joe’s foot. “They’re talking about Mr. Salper.”

Eagerly he turned back to the window while Herb whispered in an awed tone:

“Maybe they’re going to murder the old fellow.”

“Say, keep still, can’t you?” said Bob impatiently, as he strained his ears to catch the lowered tones of the three men.

Herb subsided, and the four of them waited with bated breath to find out what these three conspirators had to do with Gilbert Salper.

“Maybe you’re right, Mohun,” the tall man with the craggy brows answered reluctantly. “But I can’t help thinking that to strike now is a poor move.”

“In two or three weeks we’ll have everything just as we want it,” added the man who sat with his back to Bob. “We’ll have a sure thing then, while now – ”

The man called Mohun threw up his hands in a gesture of despair.

“Pussy-footing again!” he cried disgustedly. “What kind of gamblers are you, anyway, to wait until you have a sure thing before you test your luck? Don’t you know that the big deals down on the Street that have been successful have been put through because the fellows doing it had nerve?”

“Yes, but not many of the deals have been as big or as important as this,” said the giant quietly.

“All the more reason to strike quickly,” argued Mohun, with heat, adding in a lowered tone: “I tell you this absence of Salper from Wall Street is the chance of a lifetime. It’s the thing we’ve been waiting for. With him on the Street we haven’t a chance for our lives. With him away, we have everything in our own hands. Now it’s up to you whether we make the most of our luck, or throw it in the rubbish heap.”

“But Salper is up here for an indefinite length of time,” argued the man with his back to Bob. “It is said he will stay at least a month, maybe two. And a week – two at the outside – is all we need to make sure of relieving him of some of his ill-gotten wealth.”

The man laughed noisily at this poor attempt at humor, and Mohun glanced nervously about him.

“Better look out,” he said, peevishly. “You never can tell who’s listening. They say the trees have ears around this way.”

“Your nerves are getting the best of you, I think,” cried the big man. “Just because you’ve got cold feet is no reason why we should take the chance of losing out on the biggest deal we’ve had the chance of handling for many a day. Get a good sleep, man, and you’ll think the way we do, tomorrow.”

For a moment it seemed as though Mohun were about to spring upon the big man and Bob held his breath, expecting a struggle. Mohun’s face turned a brick red and his lips drew back from his protruding upper teeth as though in a snarl. His hands clenched, he took a step toward the bigger man who had half risen from his chair.

“Then I’ll tell you one thing, you pussy-footers!” he cried furiously. “If this deal isn’t pulled through by the end of a week and if by that time we haven’t our hands on a good chunk of Salper’s money, then I’m through. Do you hear that? I quit!”

CHAPTER XIX – ON GUARD

The radio boys had heard enough. Silently they tiptoed from their vantage point, putting off the tremendous desire to exclaim about what they had heard until they had put a good distance between themselves and the shack.

Then they overflowed with wonder and excitement.

“Say, wait till we spring this news on Mr. Salper!” cried Herb. “The man will near go off his head.”

“Gosh, you couldn’t blame him,” said Joe, in an awed tone. “I wouldn’t like to have those three fellows after my hard-earned cash myself.”

“Then he was right when he thought there was somebody after his money,” said Bob, striding along so swiftly in his excitement that poor Jimmy had hard work to keep up with him. “We thought he was kind of crazy, but I guess he knew what he was talking about all the time.”

“But I say, you got all the best of it, Bob,” said Herb. “Why couldn’t you let the rest of us get a glimpse of some honest-to-goodness sharpers?”

“They weren’t much to look at,” said Bob, with a frown. “That man they called Mohun was one of the ugliest scoundrels I’ve ever seen.”

“Was he any worse than Cassey?” asked Jimmy, curiously.

“If he was he must have been going some,” added Herb, with conviction.

“I guess nobody could be much worse than Cassey,” said Bob, frowning at the memory of the stuttering scoundrel’s evil acts. “But he’s just as bad. When he jumped at that big fellow with the bushy eyebrows I thought he was going to bite him. He has teeth that stick away out over his under lip.”

“Must be a beauty,” commented Herb.

“I say,” said poor Jimmy, fairly running in his effort to keep up with the other boys, “you’re not going toward the hotel, Bob. May I ask where you are going?”

“Why, Doughnuts, you shouldn’t have to ask,” broke in Joe, before Bob could respond. “Don’t you know there is only one place where we could be going after hearing such rotten news as we’ve just heard?”

“We’re going to the Salpers, of course,” finished Herb, with a condescending air that irritated the plump and puffing Jimmy.

“Well, you needn’t be so fresh about it,” he grumbled, rubbing his empty stomach ruefully. “It’s nearly dark – ”

“And it’s dinner time,” added Joe, with a grin. “How well we know you, Doughnuts.”

“Well,” grumbled Jimmy, grinning reluctantly, “I don’t see why the Salpers can’t wait till we can get something to eat.”

“It won’t take us long,” said Bob, who had been thinking hard as they tramped along. “We’ll just stop in and tell them what we’ve heard and then go on. I don’t suppose there is anything that we can do.”

“I guess Mr. Salper will do all that’s necessary when he finds his money threatened,” said Joe significantly.

“I reckon he’s had a hunch that something of this kind has been going on for a long time – in fact, he as much as told us so,” said Bob. “But I guess these rascals were so clever he couldn’t put his finger on them.”

“I wonder what kind of deal they were talking about,” mused Herb.

“It was a crooked one, anyway,” said Bob, decidedly. “All you had to do was to look at them to know that.”

The little shack in the woods was a long way from the Salper place, and so, in spite of their hurry, the boys did not reach it until just on the edge of dark.

The entire family was gathered in the living room of the Salper cottage, even Mr. Salper himself, and the boys threw their bomb right into the midst of them.

Mr. Salper had seemed inclined, as he usually did, to draw apart by himself, but at the very beginning of the boys’ story, he evinced an almost fierce interest.

He questioned them minutely while the girls and Mrs. Salper listened wonderingly.

“You said the name of one of the men was Mohun?” he asked, throwing away the cigar he had been smoking and bending earnestly toward Bob. “What did he look like?”

The disagreeable impression the man had made upon him was still so vivid that Bob had no trouble at all in giving a graphic description of the fellow.

Mr. Salper’s face grew blacker and blacker as he listened and he pulled out another cigar, biting off the end of it viciously.

“That’s the fellow I’ve been suspecting all along,” he said, finally. “Slick fellow, that Mohun. Whenever a man gets too eager to do things for you I’ve learned to suspect him. Yet, closely as I’ve watched this man, I haven’t been able to get a thing on him. As far as we could find out, he was perfectly square. But, by Jove, this puts an entirely new face on things.”

He paused for a moment, puffing hard on his cigar while the others all watched him anxiously. The ill humor which had been hanging over him for so long seemed magically to have vanished. Now that his suspicions had been so unexpectedly justified, bringing with them the need for action, the broker was a different man, entirely. His brow had cleared and there was an eager light in his keen eyes.

“You fellows have done me the greatest of possible services,” he said, turning to the radio boys – he had forgotten up to that time to thank them for what they had done. “If you could know what it means to me to have this information – ”

He broke off, running his hand excitedly through his hair, his eyes gazing unseeingly out of the window.

“I must act and act quickly,” he muttered, after a minute. “There is surely no time to lose. You said this man Mohun was urging haste?” he added, turning to Bob.

The latter nodded. “Said he’d quit if they didn’t get a move on, or words to that effect,” he told his questioner, and Mr. Salper smiled a preoccupied smile in response.

“Then Mohun will get what he wants. He has a way of getting what he wants,” he said, again with that air of speaking to himself. “I’m glad to know it’s Mohun – very glad!”

Although Bob had given as good a description as was possible of the other two men who had been in the shack with Mohun, Mr. Salper did not recognize them.

“Probably a couple of dark horses,” he said, and dismissed the subject. Evidently, to him, Mohun was the most important of the rascals and the one it was necessary to deal with at once.

After repeated thanks from Mr. Salper and outspoken gratitude on the part of Mrs. Salper and the girls, the boys managed to get away.

They hurried on toward the Mountain Rest Hotel, talking excitedly of what had happened.

“That was sure just dumb luck,” remarked Joe as he sniffed of the cold brisk air and began to realize that he was very hungry. “Our happening on that little shack just as we did,” he added in response to an enquiring look from Bob.

“You bet,” agreed Herb. “That was the time our luck was running strong. It will do me good if those scoundrels get come up with, especially the one with the big teeth.”

“Oh, stop talking and hurry up,” begged Jimmy, who, in his eagerness to get back to the hotel and dinner, was actually leading the others. “It seems ten miles to the house when your poor old system is crying aloud for grub.”

They laughed at him but followed his example just the same, for they had been tramping many hours and their appetites were never of the uncertain variety.

But just before they reached the welcome lights of the cottage they realized to their surprise that it was snowing again. So fast were the flakes coming that by the time they reached the door of the hotel they were well powdered with them.

“Hooray!” shouted Herb. “We sure are getting our money’s worth of snow this winter.”

“You bet,” agreed Bob, adding happily: “And this one looks like a ‘lallapaloosa.’”