lazed
through the forests, a logging ferry plies between the opposite shores
of Mott Haven, and a ship is on the ways above the landing "stage."

At the top of Split Mountain stands a lofty wireless tower. For months
it has been spitting vain messages to the four winds. Out of the great
silences at rare intervals come faint flickers of radio calls, jumbled,
indistinct, undecipherable,--but, for all that, definite pulse beats of
a far-off life.

Trigger Island went mad with joy when the first of these aerial
mutterings was reported down from the mountain-top. "Only a question
of time now," they cried in their delirium. But weeks went by before
another sound was heard. Now the report of feeble, long-separated
manifestations, like vague spirit-rappings, no longer caused excitement
or enthusiasm,--only a rueful shaking of heads.

Lieutenant Platt's station at the top of the mountain is a rude,
elementary affair, notwithstanding the many weary, puzzling,
disheartening months spent in its construction. The damaged, almost
useless dynamo from the Doraine had to be repaired and conveyed to the
crest of the eminence; what seemed to be fruitless ages were consumed
in devising an engine with power sufficient to produce even the feeble
results that followed. And when the task of installing the plant was
completed, the effective radius was far short of a hundred miles.
Constant efforts were being made to develop greater sending power, but
the means at hand were inadequate, the material unobtainable.

The firing of the Doraine's gun had long since been discontinued. The
supply of shells being greatly reduced, Lieutenant Platt decided to
waste no more of them, but to wait for some visible evidence that a
vessel was within signalling distance: a shadowy plume of smoke on
the far horizon or the white tip of a sail peeping over the rim of the
world.

Frugality is the watchword. The days of plenty are sternly guarded so
that their substance may not be squandered; always there is the thought
of the lean year that may come, the year when the harvests fail and
famine stalks naked through the land.

The first law, therefore, is thrift. Not thrift in its common, accepted
sense, based on the self-denial of the individual, but a systematic
shoulder-to-shoulder stand for the general welfare of the community.
There is no such thing as waste on Trigger Island. The grim spectre of
want and privation treads softly behind every mortal there, an