Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

THE SHIP THAT CRUMBLED. Occasionally he paused in his narrative to listen to the passage of messages from the incoming Jap liner to the San Fran- KPH, still roaring closely in his ears, was not having such an easy time of it as he had promised. The Jap liner was now re- peating each message a half-dozen times, and yet KPH was finding it difficult to read his signals through the hiss and clatter of the static. And in the midst of one of his swift and sharp retorts to the polite Japanese opera- tor, KPH stopped sending. The air be- came absolutely silent. “ Minute,” he said, after a brief interval. ‘“‘ Phone’s ringing.” Donn Riley dropped his pencil antl took a long breath. Had his time arrived? Who could be telephoning to the San Francisco station this time of night excepting the port officers? Then the great spark of KPH began roaring in his ears once more. He was shiv- ering. His hand was trembling visibly. His heart was hammering on his ribs. . There was no mistake. The Barracou- da’s criminal departure from the pier had been discovered, for very distinctly, as if experimenting with their queer formation, KPH was pounding out the call letters of the steamer: XYL — XYL — XYL — de — KPH — KPH—KPH! Donn Riley drew the sheets of his mas- terpiece closer. He reached for the start- ing handle, drew it up slowly, then released ‘it. He had just remembered that the dy- namos of a sinking ship would be out of commission, so that he would be compelled to use his storage batteries and the aux- iliary outfit. The main apparatus and the auxiliary or emergency apparatus had an entirely different sound, easily detectable by any listening station. Then San Francisco began calling him again, swiftly, as if growing impatient, punctuating his signals with: ‘“‘ Here—mes- sage! Here—message!”’ The KPH operator, after calling for nearly twenty seconds, finally said in ex- asperation: whether you answered or not. 455 “IT can’t hear you, XYL. Don’t know But here’s a message for you: To Donn RILEy, Aboard S. S. Barracouda, at sea. First way port. Come to fifth house on right-hand side of street on south side of plaza as ye leave water-front, alone. ' (Signed), Exten M. KPH paused a moment, tapped his key, then repeated the message. He added: “Donn Riley, what are you doing aboard that old hulk? Have you gone crazy? When did you leave Frisco? What happened in Honolulu? Slip me some de- tails, sonny. This is Ferguson.” Donn Riley, his thoughts diverted so un- expectedly from one exciting channel to one even more disturbing, said nothing. He felt that he was rapidly growing angry, without exactly understanding the reason therefor. Why, he demanded with some heat, had Ellen Murdock gone tq such lengths?- Coujdn’t she have advised him in a subtler, more ingenious fashion? She had deliber- ately scattered his name, coupling with it the name of the notorious ship upon which he was sailing, to the four quarters of the edstern Pacific. There was utterly no ex- cuse for it. There were dozens of ways of forwarding such information—such really trifling information — without resorting to such clumsiness. It was really stupid of her, he thought. Unless—and at this point he grew angrier. She had gone about signaling to him ma way that was altogether too deliberate. It was suspiciously deliberate. The only rea- son he could assign for it was that she had purposely laid bare his presence on the Barracouda, for the express benefit of what- ever naval stations might be listening—and ethe shouting voice of the high-powered KPH could readily be heard from Alaska to Mexico. He suspected, morever, that by transmit- ting that damning message to him she had accomplished a twofold purpose — one, linking him up with this mischievous en- terprise; the other, cunningly giving the naval stations an opportunity to discover whether or not the Barracouda had left port. NOO Co S Co mM