George slid on to the bench and Jim handed him the receivers and strap. The youth fitted the discs to his ears, settled himself on the seat, and opened the key. As usual the static sputtered in the receivers for a little. He tuned down to the short waves and the strange, grating sounds began. It was very bad Morse--clumsy and irregular; but that it was Morse, Belding was confident. There was something wrong either with the sender or with the instrument sending. Belding seized the pad of scratch paper and poised his pencil. For a few moments the “ghost talk” ceased. Was it all over for the time? He waited impatiently, growing hot and cold with nervousness. There were plenty of other wave-sounds in the air, had he cared to listen to them. But he knew the monotonous and rasping letters--on a lower plane, even, than the commercial waves--were carried only at the level to which he had tuned the instrument. Suddenly: “_Colodia! Colodia! Colodia!_” The words were rapped out harshly but briskly--each letter plainly to be read. Then Belding began to set down the unevenly sent letters as he could make them out, with a dash where he failed to catch the letter intended: “c,o,l,o,d,i,a,h,e,l,p,g,e,t,--,a,n,--,s,--,i,z,--,d,r,e,d,b,i,r,d, --,o,r,b,--,--,i,a,h,e,l,p,l,b,e,l,d,i,--,--.” George could not stop then to see whether these letters made any sense or not. He believed the main trouble with the message was that the sender used no punctuation. For a brief time the mystery ceased. Then again the sounds broke out--the same clumsy, uncertain Morse; so bad, indeed, that at first the listener could make out a letter only now and then: “l,--,--,--,--,l,--,n,g,--,--,--,a,--,e,r,e,--,b,i,r,--,--,a,i,n,--,e,d, --,--,t,m,--,--,t,i,n,--,g,e,r,--,--,n,s,s,e,i,z,e,d,s,--,i,--h,e,l,p.” There was silence again as far as the “ghost talk” was concerned. Belding waited with his pencil poised over the paper. His eyes meanwhile scanned the first list of letters he had set down. At first glance he believed he made out the first three words in the message. They were, “Colodia,help,get.” After the break and several disconnected letters the word “redbird” fairly leaped at him from the page. Then, after a few misses and letters that made no sense, he got “help” again. Then he saw as clear as day: “L.Belding”--his sister’s signature! “Colodia--help--get--Redbird--help--L.Belding.” The young fellow shook all over as he sat there before the radio instrument. This was a message from his sister, Lilian. Nothing could thereafter shake his belief in this statement. And that she and the _Redbird_ were in peril Belding was positive. The second combination of letters offered fewer understandable words than the first, or so it seemed to Belding at that moment. The beginning of this second message was entirely indistinguishable, but toward the end he got two words complete--“seized” and “help.”