hto, Bob. Then, too, the Hamptons may not have finished their
station on time."

The other shook his head. "No, Jack wrote us they would have
everything installed by the 15th and that we should be on the lookout
for his voice. And when he says he'll do a thing, he generally does
it. It must be the weather. Let's step out again and have a look."

Taking off their headpieces, the two boys opened the door of the
private radiophone station where the above conversation took place and
stepped out to a little platform. It was a mild day late in June, and
the sandy Long Island plain, broken only by a few trees, with the
ocean in the distance, lay smiling before them. A succession of
electrical storms which for days had swept the countryside in rapid
succession apparently had come to an end. The clouds were lifting, and
there was more than a promise of early sunlight to brighten the
Saturday holiday.

The boys looked hopefully at each other.

"Looks better than it has for days, Frank."

"That's right."

A few moments more they chatted hopefully about the prospects, then
re-entered the station.

Frank Merrick and Bob Temple were chums, a little under 18 years of
age each. It was their bitterest regret that they had been too young
to take any part in the World War some years before. Frank was dark,
curly-haired, of medium height and slim, but strong and wiry. Bob was
fair and sleepy-eyed, a fraction under six feet tall and weighed 180
pounds. A third chum and the leader of the trio was Jack Hampton, 19
years of age. He had gone to New Mexico several months before with his
father, a mining engineer.

All three boys were sons of wealthy parents, with country estates near
the far end of Long Island. Frank's parents, in fact, were dead, and
he lived with the Temples. Mr. Temple was his guardian and
administrator of the large fortune left by his father, who had been
Mr. Temple's partner in an exporting firm with headquarters in New
York City. Jack Hampton also was motherless.

The boys were keenly interested in scientific inventions, and were
given every facility by Mr. Temple and Mr. Hampton for indulging their
hobbies. Such indulgence required considerable sums of money, but the
men believed the boys were worth it. In fact, both gentlemen were
scientifically inclined themselves, and were able to give the boys
much valuable advice.

When Mr. Hampton decided to go to Texas and New Mexico as the
representative of a group o