The Radio Boys on Secret Service Duty

"Excuse me for butting in, stranger," said a pleasant voice at the door of the Pullman stateroom, "but I heard you talkin' to these boys about the old mining camps in these California mountains. It's kind of tiresome with nobody to talk to, ridin' all day. Mind if I come in? Mebbe I can tell you some things interesting to easterners. I'm an old-timer here."

"Come right in," said Mr. Temple, rising and extending his hand. "My name's Temple, George Temple. And this is my son, Bob, and his chums, Jack Hampton and Frank Merrick."

"My name's Harlan, Ed Harlan," said the other, advancing. "I was born and raised in the mountains. My dad was a forty-niner from Tennessee."

He was a slim middle-aged man in black, with a black sombrero worn at a rakish angle.

Those who have read The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border are familiar with Mr. Temple and the three chums. Living in country homes on the far end of Long Island, they had been drawn by a web of circumstances into international intrigue on the Mexican Border. Jack's father, representative of a syndicate of independent oil operators, had been kidnapped by Mexican rebels seeking to embroil the government with that of the United States. The boys had gone into Mexico and rescued him. Now Mr. Temple, a New York importer, was making a business trip to San Francisco and taking them with him.

Radio had played no unimportant part in their adventures. In fact, it had been instrumental in bringing them to a successful conclusion. It was Mr. Hampton, a scientific man enthusiastic over the development of radio telephony long before the craze swept the country, who had introduced the boys to it. He was licensed by the government to build a transmission station on his Long Island estate and use an 1,800-metre wave length for trans-oceanic experiment. When he went to the Southwestern oil fields, he also erected a station there, using the same wave length previously assigned him.

These two stations not only provided exceptional opportunities for the boys to learn the intricacies of radio telephony but also provided a method of helping defeat the ends sought by the Mexican rebels. In their invasion of Mexico, moreover, the boys found several radio stations which were links in a chain that had been built by German spies operating in Mexico against the United States during the World War.

Frank and Bob also owned an all-metal airplane outfitted with radio, which had played a leading role in their Mexican border adventure. Frank was an orphan living with the Temples. Bob's mother was dead. The two estates of Mr. Hampton and Mr. Temple adjoined. Jack, the oldest of the trio, was 19, while Frank and Bob were a year younger, Frank being the youngest of the three. All attended Harrington Hall Military Academy, and were on their summer vacation when the Mexican border adventures immediately preceding these about to be recorded occurred.

On their way to San Francisco the party had gone by a circuitous route through Denver in order to visit the Mile High City of the Rockies. They were now on the last day of their journey and passing through the Sierras down the famous Feather River Canyon.

Accompanied by Mr. Harlan the group made its way to the observation platform on the rear of the Flyer. Hour after hour they sat there while the scenery about them gradually changed its character with the passing of the afternoon, the mountains giving way to foothills and seeming to recede farther and farther to the rear. In reality, of course, the train was drawing away from them and descending into the lower ranges.

Harlan was a pleasant companion, and from him the boys learned more intimate history of California than they ever had been able to obtain from textbooks. He told them of the days of '49 and the treasure seekers; how the latter had come overland by wagon trails in some cases, fighting Indians and starvation, leaving many in nameless graves by the wayside during the long trek across the desert and through the mountains; how, in other cases, the adventurers had sailed in windjammers, or ships propelled by sails alone and without engine power, spending as much as a year in the long trip from the eastern seaboard clear around South America and Cape Horn, although the majority had sailed merely to the Isthmus of Panama and crossing by horseback or in wagons, had taken ship on the other side for San Francisco.

"Those were the days," said Harlan. "Of course, I didn't experience them personally, for I'm just a young man now. But my father was a forty-niner, came out from Tennessee. And the stories he used to tell of San Francisco in the early days made me mad because I hadn't lived there then.

"She was just a crazy little town of crazy little wooden shacks, built any whichway over the hills, but the people that built her were the hardy spirits of all the world and the breath of romance must have been in the very air."

At a question from Frank, who, like his chums, was intensely interested in these stories of early California, Mr. Harlan launched into a description of the Spanish Dons inhabiting the land before the invasion of the gold seekers.

Mexico, he recalled to the boys, used to own California. The best Spanish families lived there on grants of land from the King of Spain which had been passed down from generation to generation.

The estates were huge, and the Dons lived on them pretty much absolute masters of their Indians and peons. It was an easy, gracious sort of existence, without hurry, without the bustle and haste introduced later by the Americans with their multifarious machinery. If the Don stirred abroad, he rode a mount jingling with fanciful and costly trappings, and he himself dressed like a cavalier of old. At night his hacienda would resound to music while the gentry from miles around danced and their carriages and horses filled his ample stables and stood under the drooping pepper trees.

Then came the gold seekers scarring the hills of the northern part of the state with their mines. And in their wake came the farmers and ranchers with their new-fangled farm machinery. They took the rich valleys where the countless herds of the Dons had roamed in the past, and began making that marvelous soil produce crops of wheat. The old order with its lazy ways could not survive before the new day with its energy and modern business methods. The Dons went to the wall.

"To-day," said Harlan, in his drawling southern voice, "there are some of their descendants left. But they cut little figure in the present-day California."

Jack spoke up with unexpected heat.

"Well, I think it's a shame," he said. "I know that we are supposed to believe our own ways of living are the best, but I, for one, wish California had stayed the way it was."

Bob leaned toward Frank and assumed a confidential tone.

"He's thinking of Senorita Rafaela," he said.

She was the daughter of Don Fernandez y Calomares, a wealthy Mexican of pure Castilian descent living in a palace in northern Mexico. The Don was leader of the Mexican rebels who, as related in The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border, had captured Mr. Hampton. Jack and Bob in the latter's airplane had gone to the rescue, and the young Spanish girl had given them valuable aid.

At Bob's words, which although low spoken were intended to reach Jack's ear, the latter flushed. Then he reached over and pulling Bob's cap down over his eyes started to shake him good-naturedly. In a moment all three boys were entangled. Mr. Temple laughed and explained the situation to Mr. Harlan. The two men watched the chums amusedly, until a sudden lurch as the train whirled around a sharp curve threatened to send Jack flying overboard.

With a quick movement Mr. Harlan seized Jack by the coat and pulled him back to safety.

"That was a close call," said Mr. Temple gravely. "You boys ought to be more careful."

At Oroville, which he explained was in the heart of the apple country, Mr. Harlan left the party. All were sorry to bid him farewell, for he had been a jolly and informative companion. Dinner was served, and the party returned to the club car where Mr. Temple settled down with his cigar and a newspaper. Presently the chums grew tired of reading, and once more sauntered out to the observation platform.

They would not sleep aboard the train again as they would reach their destination near midnight. For a time they gossiped in low voices, so as not to disturb two men whispering together on the other side of the platform. All three sat in silence, slumped down in their chairs and at first staring out at the landscape bathed in magical moonlight. Gradually Jack and Bob yielded to the soporific influences of their surroundings, with the car wheels beating a monotonous and sleep-inducing lullaby.

Presently the two men who had been whispering raised their voices slightly in argument. Then one ceased abruptly, cast a keen glance toward the boys, said a word or two in a low voice to his companion, and they arose and entered the car. Frank, who like his companions had been sitting with his cap pulled down over his eyes, had not been asleep, however, and as the others left the platform he shook Jack and Bob into wakefulness.

"Did you hear that?" he demanded excitedly.

His two chums rubbed their eyes, and looked puzzled.

"Hear what?" asked Jack.

"What those fellows said."

"What fellows?" asked Bob.

"Why, those two men who were out here," Frank said impatiently. "I believe you were actually asleep."

"Guess I was," said Bob, yawning. "But what was it they said? And were they talking to you?"

"They were whispering to each other," said Frank. "I didn't mean to listen. But they raised their voices, and I overheard. Then one of them looked our way-to see if we heard, I suppose-and they got up and left."

"Well, what was it?" demanded Jack.

"Shh," said Frank, nervously. "The door's open and that man-the one that got suspicious of us-is staring out at us. Listen," he whispered, "I'm going in to talk to Uncle George. You fellows stretch and yawn presently and get up and go to our stateroom. Then pretty soon I'll bring Uncle George in, and we can shut the door and I'll tell you."