like yours. Then you two can talk without tuning."

"That will be bully," said Charley, beginning to brighten up. Then he
turned to the ranger. "Did you learn your alphabet?" he repeated.

"I've been working at it a little," said the ranger. "To tell the truth, I
don't care much about it. I'd just as soon stick to the telephone. But the
wife is crazy over it. She says if we knew how to do it and had the
instruments, we could talk at any time. She's learned the alphabet
already."

"She has! Bully for her!" cried Charley. "Hurry up with that outfit, Lew,
so we can teach her to send and read. I'll be glad to talk to her, even if
her husband doesn't want to."

"I'll be home by sunset," said Lew, "and you can call me at eight
o'clock. I shall have had a chance to talk to the fellows by that time and
I hope that I shall have something good to report to you. I'm coming out
the first Friday I can, to spend Saturday and Sunday with you. Good-bye."

Charley shook hands heartily with his two friends and turned back into the
forest. Although he was still somewhat cast down, the intense depression
that had weighed upon him during the morning was lightened. The events of
the past twenty-four hours had made him forget temporarily the plan to
teach Mr. Morton how to operate the wireless. But the news that the
ranger's wife was also to become a radio operator pleased him more and
more as he turned the matter over in his mind.

The pup, rubbing against his heels, recalled another matter to his mind.
He had to train the dog to be useful to him.

"No time like the present," muttered Charley to himself. And the training
of the pup began then and there. All the way home, through the wide
valleys, over the mountain tops, and across the little streams, Charley
worked with the pup, trying to teach him to be silent and to walk quietly
at his heels. And though many, many subsequent lessons were necessary
before the pup was even half trained, the work with the dog made Charley
forget his loneliness. He arrived at his camp, which he found
undisturbed, once more in his normal frame of mind.

What shortly followed was to send him to bed soon afterward as happy as
the traditional lark. For when Charley got into touch with Lew by wireless
at the appointed time, Lew told him that the Wireless Patrol had met him,
Lew, at the station in a body, with the news that funds for the battery
had all been earned and the battery ordered; and that when he