Adventure Magazine Cover — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Radio Ray QI “But we rather fell down on the tong end of it,’ and he looked at Jerry with mock seriousness. ‘The Syilph’s operator got word to them, and when we reached there the place was deserted. Probably we should have sent back one of the cutters to nab them first, but if Jerry Lynch hadn’t made an error somewhere in his calcula- tions he wouldn’t be human. ‘However, he found their wireless set. The blamed thing was inside of that big joss of theirs, and the aerial leads ran up through the walls to the roof. We don’t know who operated it; probably Haight. At any rate he got away. He was their inside man here, we found. “But [ll let Jerry tell you about the wire- less end of it, and How they managed to get their signals through without having them intercepted.” “They were using what may be called a ‘radio ray,’” explained Jerry. ‘The very latest thing in wireless communica- tion. Ordinary wireless apparatus sends out waves in all directions, and any one can pick them up; this device concentrates them. Shoots them out just like a search- light beam, and unless you get in the beam’s path you can’t hear a thing. “Both the operator on the Sylph and the one at tong headquarters knew the direction in which to send their radio beams, and that is why we never heard them until we started swinging in the big circle that I felt would at some point cross the path of the ray. When we finally struck it I waited till it was at its strongest, meaning that it must be abeam, and then. J had the skipper give me the directions at right angles to our ship’s beam, figuring we had cut squarely across their line of communication. If we had taken the south-southwest, we would have brought up here in town; instead we steamed north- northeast, in which direction we knew the Syl ph must be. “The apparatus I rigged up for catching them was merely a loose-coupled receiving tuner, which permits unusually close tuning on wireless waves. That is, you can tune out all other ether waves except the one you want to hear. It had some extra coils which permitted us to cut in on extra long wave-lengths, which I figured they would be using. “We have the Sylph’s set and the one from tong headquarters. You'll have to excuse me from explaining them, because I’m not that far along in wireless. Mar- coni has been testing out the same kind of apparatus for months; and until he finishes he won’t give out the details of it. How the smugglers got hold of the apparatus we don’t know. Probably they stole the idea.” He paused. ‘“‘I—see!”’ said the acting chief after a minute, nodding his head wisely, although he saw but hazily.. “Truly wonderful!” And he held out his hand, beaming as he did so. “And now I'll be frank with you,” he went on confidentially. “I had begun to fear that you were a mere trifler when the other day you made that silly remark, ‘The Chinese quarter is full of Chinks!’ Now I am convinced that such inanity is — no indicator of your capabilities!” The First October issue will appear September 10th (instead of the 3rd), the Mid-October issue on September 20th and the Last October issue on September 30th. These are the first under our new plan ef pub- lishing three times a month in accordance with the vote by our readers. COPMMICOOOKS