Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

THE SHIP THAT CRUMBLED. those fool spells of his, to neglect duty. He had gone down the toboggan with breath- less rapidity, striking bottom in the cheap- est and most notorious of Embarcadero rooming-houses. KHK had been the pleasantest of berths, and rich in opportunity. Some day he hoped to go back. His comfortable bun- galow on the green flanks of Maui-lepi- lepi, with the brilliant blue of Waidalde Bay commanded from his veranda ham- mock, the sprinkling of delicately. etched coconut palms on the farther shores, the severe black steel masts of the station thrusting themselves in great dignity to- ward the crystal blue sky—these were as- pects of that snug berth that he could now afford to regret. He slid the tuning handle up and down the scale, concentrating all of his alert at- tention on the tissue-steel diaphragms of the sensitive head-receivers, wooing intelli- gence from them that only the most highly trained ears could understand. Donn Riley knew that he was nervous, gradually becoming feverishly excited. The career of the devil-ship was under way; her entire safety for the time being at least was reposed in him. Ineffectively he endeavored to stay the trembling of the fingers manipulating the inner inductance coil. He was shaky, anxious. A feeling of icy insecurity held him for a moment, then passed. - For diversion he seized a handful of damp papers which were scattered over the ledge—scraps of old message blanks—and cast them into the waste-paper basket, in- dustriously clearing his desk for the action that was doomed to come some time before morning. An hour passed. KHK was having something to say to the exceedingly polite and able operator— a Japanese—on an incoming Toyo Kisen Kaisha liner.. The Japanese operator hum- bly desired to state that he had on his hook seventy-nine messages from illustrious pas- sengers which must be retransmitted at once, via KHK, to San Francisco. He added, penitently, but with large im- portance, that the majority of the messages were war messages, highly essential: it was 7 ARGOSY 449 imperative that they be put through the air without pause. KHK replied complainingly. Couldn’t he hold the ungoldly flock of business for an hour before dawn, when the static might have removed itself to the other side of the hemisphere? Then the San Francisco station cut in scathingly: “‘ You give me a pain in the neck. Tell him to begin shooting. /’ take his business without your bothering to re- lay it. Tell him to repeat each word twice, and to use all the juice he can squeeze out of the generators. -He’s coming in here fine—on a freak—like a ton of bricks. K!” “Good boy!” murmured Donn Riley. As KHK conveyed the gist of the San Francisco station’s florid comments to the Jap mail liner, an imperative knock oc- curred on Donn Riley’s door. It brought him back to earth in a heap. His mind had been wandering to that hammock over- looking the divine blue of the little bay. He pushed the door outward. “Who is there?” ‘‘ Sparks—let me in!” These were the worried accents of Cap- tain Murdock. CHAPTER XIV. A DESPERATE SCHEME, HE entered without sound, closing the door very quietly, as if he were afraid that the slightest creak might be overheard by a prowling destroyer. “It’s late. Late! Have none of them tried to raise us yet, Riley?” ‘““ Haven’t had a call,” Riley told him in reassuring accents. ‘‘ San Fr&ncisco and Honolulu are monopolizing the air, trying to get some messages through the static from an inbound T. K. K. mail liner.” ‘“* Dammit!” sputtered the worried man. “Do yc:1 know the call letters of this boat? They may’ve been dinning you for hours— right at our very heels.” ‘“‘T have ears, captain,” Riley reminded him, “and eyes. She’s Mexican registry, as I discovered. Her call is XYL. No; not a whimper from a soul.” NOO = A (C(O) S Co mM