As the boys re-entered the station after their inspection of the weather, Bob threw himself sprawlingly into a deep wicker chair and, picking up a book, began idly to turn the pages.  Frank went to the table where the control apparatus was located and put on a headpiece.  For a few moments there was silence, which Frank presently shattered with a loud cry of:  “Bob.  Bob.  Come here.”

Bob dropped his book and, leaping to his feet, strode to his chum’s side.

“What is it?”

“Put on a headpiece, Bob,” said Frank in a voice of great excitement.  “I believe Jack is trying to get us.”

Excited as his chum, Bob clamped a receiver on his head, while Frank manipulated the “amplifier” and “detector” knobs on the control apparatus.

A variety of sounds greeted the boys at first, whistles, calls, and chattering coming to their ears.  Then as their tuner searched out the higher regions of the air, they shut out the sounds of the low-range air traffic.  There was a thin, shrieking sound.  Then, that also disappeared.  And then quite suddenly the listening, expectant boys heard Jack’s voice speaking to them just as plainly as if he stood in the room.

“Frank.  Bob.  Bob.  Frank,” Jack was saying.  “Can you hear me?  Can you hear me?”

“Hurray, Jack, sure we can hear you,” cried Frank, bending forward to speak into the transmitter on the stand before him.

Then as Jack’s voice continued calling without paying him any attention, he straightened up and laughed.

“Gee.  I forgot,” he laughed.  Laying down his headpiece, he ran across the room; opened a door into the power house adjoining where the mechanic was dozing over his pipe and called to him to throw on the generator.

Galloping back, as the man obeyed, Frank again snatched up his headpiece.  Bob already was bending over a transmitter, calling to Jack in faraway New Mexico.  Both boys listened with straining ears for the response.  Presently Jack answered:  “I can hear you, but only very faintly.  Put that band piece on the talking machine.  You know the one I like so much.  I can’t think of its name.  I’ll tune to it.”

Frank hastily shuffled through a pile of talking machine records.  Finding the one he sought, he put it on the machine which stood directly in front of a big condensing horn strapped to the back of a chair to give it the proper height.  A moment or two later, Jack’s voice in the receivers declared: 

“All right.  Shut her off now.  I’m fixed fine.”

“Say, Jack, think of talking 2,000 miles like this,” said Bob.

“Oh, we’ve been working some days out here,” answered Jack.  “But we couldn’t get you.”

“No,” cut in Frank.  “The static interfered, I guess.  But it lifted today.”

“How are things going, Jack?” Bob inquired next.

Jack’s voice became excited.  “Going?” he answered.  “Fellows, I never knew what excitement was until this last week.”