Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

26 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY "However, he's stopped calling now; besides, this is the better way.'' He stooped suddenly, tore off the tape which recorded the repeated calls, and crumpled it quickly in his pocket. His fingers felt expertly about the induction coils, and touched a plug concealed between the nearest coil and the coherer. He gave the plug a sharp twist, and straightened up as he heard a light, quick step upon the deck without. "Well, Wireless Professor Etherington Pinckney !" Frances Durant's teasing voice greeted him. "Are you ready for me now — Etherington ?" She stepped into the cabin and puckered her brows at the instruments which he was adjusting. "I, ready for you, Frances?" The man arose, iaughing, and met her mocking tone. She was a straight, slender, brownhaired, blue-eyed slip of a girl ; Unnatural fairness of her cheeks and forehead and throat had assumed a healthy tan in the long hours spent recklessly out in the sun and wind without hat, veil, or parasol ; but she was still easily able, as she often showed, of glowing pink and rose red through that smooth olive brown, as her color rose with her perfect health and spirits. The only child of parents who had hoped for many children, she had been obliged to learn from babyhood to serve in some ways as a son to her father, while still careful to be a daughter, too. She had taken enthusiastically to tennis, golf, riding, driving, and motoring; and now, since her father had bought the swift little turbine yacht for his long cruises on' business and pleasure, she had been eager to take up wireless telegraphy as a novel amusement. On a previous trip, which took her father to Australia, she had started to learn under the tuition of their hired operator. But as Pinckney had expressed a wish to teach her on this voyage, they had left the regular man behind. "Am I ready for you? That's a good way of putting it ! You're late again— oh, a disgracefully late scholar this morning! But I'm afraid I'll have to forgive you again— first, of course, on general principles ; but secondly" — he grew serious — "because something's gone badly out this morning, Frances. The spark's dead, and I can't get the coils and coherer to recognize each other at all. I'm sorry, but — see!" "Oh, I see. There's no spark." The girl satisfied herself by pressing the deadened key and running her hand swiftly over the other parts. "But I don't see that you're so sorry, professor ! I told father, when you got him to leave Harry behind, that you would get tired long before we reached the Philippines. But I must be fair and admit that you've stuck to your stupid scholar longer than I expected. We sight the Philippines to-morrow morning, don't we? And this is the first time you've had to plead a breakdown !" "We sight Samar this afternoon, but — be careful — careful, Frances !" The girl, after fumbling over the tops of the coils, had begun to feel inexpertly in the vicinity of the coherer. The current isn't shut off, you know — just caught somewhere. You'll get a shock !" He interposed his hand and took hers away. "You're afraid I'll fix it — after you couldn't !" she taunted him. "But I think I'll practice sending with the key dead, anyway." She was determined to pique him, for she realized that, for some reason, he did not want her there that morning. "Besides, I didn't come to see you entirely about wireless, Etherington. I wanted to ask you about this going to the south first — to Bagol before Manila." "Well, what about it?" "Father has just told me we were going there first — to Bagol. And he said T couldn't land! And. except for that day at Guam, I've been shut up on this horrid little boat for twentyfive days !" "Yes, that's right." "How right? And exactly where is this Bagol that I can't land upon ?" "It's not pacified ; there's almost always some trouble there. It's north of Mindanao and below Samar — where the Sulu Sea comes in. Anything else?" "You haven't answered me. I asked why do you want to go there first. Father says you asked him last night to do it ; so we changed our course, and are going straight for Bagol now instead of up around Luzon." "Yes." "Then I'll land!" "You can't, Frances ! It isn't safe." "But you're going to!" "I can — with a guard. You can't, am not going to let even your fatlu land. But I must." "Must ?" "Yes, to see those gold claims the told us about at Guam. Don't you rf member my speaking to your fathe about it at the time?" "Of course I remember — that funn Filipino who came to you at Guan But I thought father meant he'd tak you there after Manila. If you're nc sure it's safe, why don't you find oul at Manila first? Besides, you kno\ f I want to go to Manila — or any plac 1 where I can land." "I'm sorry, Frances. But, you set at the same time I heard about thi gold they told us that the troubles ii Bagol were likely to become more seri ous at any time. So, when your fathe and I were talking it over last night we decided that it might be too lat< to look over the ground even with ; guard, unless we went at once." "But aren't there always soldier: there?" "Not in the part we want to see There's only " "What, Etherington?" "Just a gunboat patrol — the San Juan a little pot of a cruiser we captured from the Spanish and converted." "Then" — the girl, tired of playing with the dead key. arose ruthlessly and began looking over the instruments more carefully — "you should at least try to reach the San Juan, to find out about your Bagol before you land — if it isn't' safe for father, and for me, too." "That's the rub in this breakdown with the wireless, Frances," returned Pinckney boldly, watching her cautiously as she fumbled with the coils. "Of course, with the wireless, we could have the San Juan in two minutes, il she were anywhere in this part of the archipelago. Without wireless we'll have to run our chances. But probably the San Juan wouldn't have an installation, after all. Doesn't your father expect us?" He changed the subject abruptly, opened the door, and stood back for her to pass. "Oh, I don't give up so soon! If I'm going to let you land on Bagol" — she explored again between the coils — "I certainly must try for that cruiser first and ask whether — why, what's this?" Her fingers had found the untwisted plug.