The Boys of the Wireless Part 32

"I want you," he said, his hearty grip catching Tom's arm. "Hey, where's that hotel you're going to stow us in?" he hailed to a villager.

"I'll pilot you there," was the prompt reply, and pa.s.sengers and crew of the _Olivia_ followed the speaker from the dock over to an old dilapidated building that had been in its palmy days the hotel of the place.

It was well lighted up, and warmed by two red hot iron stoves. It had an immense dining room, and into this the crowd was ushered, and gathered s.h.i.+veringly about the great heater in the center of the room. Adjoining it was a small apartment which at one time had been an office. It had a light on a table and some chairs.

"Sit down," said the steamer captain. "My friend," he added, taking out a memorandum book and a pencil, "do you realize what you have done for my pa.s.sengers and crew to-night?"

"How about my comrade, plucky Bill Barber?" inquired Tom, trying to evade the direct compliment.

"We'll come to him in the final settlement, don't fret about that,"

observed the captain definitely. "You got the message, you started the grand old ball rolling that saved twenty lives!" exclaimed the excited captain. "So the tug officer tells me. Now, then, a few questions.

Name?"

Tom gave it, and replied in detail to other inquiries of his companion.

In fact, before the captain had concluded the inquisition he had gathered from Tom and jotted down the main facts of a pretty circ.u.mstantial account of the start and finish of the rescue.

"I shall telegraph the outlines of the case at once to headquarters,"

said the steamer captain. "I shall follow it up with the written report of your share in the affair. You will hear from the company in a very substantial way, count on that, young man. Wait here a few minutes."

The speaker left Tom and went into the big room beyond where the rescued male pa.s.sengers and crew of the _Olivia_ were gathered. He closed the door after him, but Tom caught the echo of many voices in animated discussion. He even made out the cackling, complaining tones of the man with the life preservers.

When the captain came out he placed in Tom's hands a roll of banknotes.

"Hold on--" began Tom.

"No, you do the holding on, young man," interrupted the captain cheerfully. "That's a little heart-to-heart acknowledgment from the crowd in there, who wanted to cheer you, but they might scare the natives. Oh, by the way-I came near cheating you. Here's a part of the contribution."

The speaker burst into a rollicking roar of laughter as he placed in Tom's hand a nickel. Tom smiled inquiringly.

"From the old fat fellow with the life preservers," explained the captain.

"Oh," said Tom, amused, "I understand."

"Good-by, Barnes," said the captain, grasping Tom's hand till he winced.

"I wish I had a boy like you."

"You will thank those gentlemen for their kindness?" asked Tom.

"Oh, they're the grateful ones," declared the captain of the _Olivia_.

"I say, Barnes," he shouted, after waving adieu to Tom from the door of the hotel, "look out for that nickel. It may be real."

Tom hurried to the dock. He found Bill getting the launch ready for the return trip. The storm had almost pa.s.sed over by this time.

"Is it home, Tom?" inquired Bill.

"Right away," a.s.sented the young wireless operator, "and the sooner the better. I have some work at the tower before me."

"They are going to start back with the tug for Garvey rocks, I heard them say," remarked Bill, as the _Beulah_ got under way. "They may be able to do something with her, at least save something."

Tom did not talk much on the journey back to the pier. His mind and his heart were both full. He had so much to commend his loyal comrade for, that he did not wish to spoil it by not choosing just the right time, and saying just the right words to impress Bill with a sense of his unaffected worthiness.

Bill insisted on taking him clear down to Sandy Point. When Tom landed, he remarked:

"If you're not going home, Bill, I'd like to see you at the station for a little while."

"Oh, I'm not going home," responded the Barber boy. "There's that eleven dollars and seventy-five cents to get from that measly cad, Bert Aldrich, you know; and I'm going to stick till I catch him."

"Forget that, Bill," advised Tom. "We have about taken out that eleven dollars and seventy-five cents in use of the _Beulah_. You come down to the tower, as I say. I've got something better than eleven dollars and seventy-five cents to interest you in."

"Have?" propounded Bill, in his rough blunt way. "What is it, now?"

"You come and see."

"All right."

"That fellow has a grand streak in him," ruminated Tom, as the _Beulah_ sped on its course and he made for the station. "He doesn't seem to have the least conception of his heroic bravery, and never thinks of reward.

I'll give him a surprise."

Tom set at work the minute he reached the tower. He sent messages to the life-saving station, briefly detailing the event of the night, and a routine report to headquarters. Then he took out the roll of bills the captain of the _Olivia_ had given him.

"One hundred and ninety dollars," counted Tom,-"and five cents. There, that's Bill's share," and he set aside one hundred dollars. "The nickel we'll nail up on the wall."

"Why, what's all that money?" inquired the Barber boy, when he came into the tower an hour later.

"This little heap," replied Tom, placing in Bill's lap a pile of banknotes, "is yours."

"Mine?" exclaimed Bill in a gasp, staring at the money in wonder.

"Yours-one hundred dollars! It is your share of a testimonial given us by the pa.s.sengers and crew of the _Olivia_," and Tom explained the incident of his interview with the steamer captain at the Brookville hotel.

A pathetic look came into Bill Barber's eyes. He looked at the money and gasped. He glanced up at Tom and his lips twitched.

"One hundred dollars!" he said slowly, impressively; "a whole one hundred dollars, and mine! I can get a new suit-why, Tom, I can buy a bulldog now, a real bulldog. Oh, crackey!"

Bill looked again at Tom. His tone changed, a queer longing expression came into his face. His voice broke.

"Tom Barnes," he said huskily, "it's a heap of a fortune to me, but, more than the money is what you said to-night-that I was pure gold, that I was-was every inch a man! Tom, it's too much-oh, it, it's all come on me like a burst of glory!"

And Bill Barber broke down utterly, and bawled like a baby.

CHAPTER XXIV-THE KIDNAPPED BOY

"Well, I see you have made it, Tom?"