Stand By

u goner take it?" q

put us more'n a mile apart. This outfit worked all right just from room to room, but we

to his lips. Slung against his back, all neatly packed into a sort of knapsack, was a mechanism that operated by means of a crankshaft driven by hand. The whole machine was less than twelve inches squar

s wore a si

omething ambitious for a

rasts. Though mule and ox carts still creaked down its sandy village road, within its cabins nightly sounded the tinkle of music which radio, that modern of the moderns, plucked from the air of the great outside world. The radios wer

struggle a lone boy was making to master electricity, and had

eard one, and wrote up Radio and the Cov

It was copied by other papers and was read by a f

e heart. Books, wires, tubes-Lee Renaud was almost swamped in the wealth of experimental material. And Lee even had a visit from one of the regular relay station inspectors. There was talk of making the C

d step by step. As he had followed the beginnings of electricity up through that anc

circle being broken at one point by a pair of tiny brass balls, with a very small air-gap between. When this resonator was set up across a room, exactly opposite the spark-gap of an electric oscillator, and the key of the oscillator was manipulated, sparks shot across the gap

nned to build on Marconi. Where other modern inventors had seen the vision of huge t

and Lem Hicks bore on their backs. There was powe

hich it had been tested thus far? Time and again as he tramped along, Lee was tempte

his distance, and Lem wouldn't be expe

It was all a matter of minutes for young Renaud to assemble his outfit, erect the folding aerial above his head, adjust the mouthpiece, and cran

whole world seemed suddenly still, save for the faint rustle o

ing dully when, with a hissing "zip" that made him leap cle

You Lem!" Lee shrieked in

ff!" came the delighted voice of Lem Hicks. "W

space as nothing. Then a sudden beat of hoofs down the woods road made Lee leap back towards the ditch.

and ear pieces, with aerial wire rising above its he

d rider, trying to rein in his animal. "What for be

d his head free of aerial harness and the mouth a

r, as his horse plunged on down the road. "I'm spreading the call for help. Floods over eve

oped into King's Cove village some ten minutes

had brought the word faster, ten times faster, than his horse could trave