“Dozed off,” chuckled Tom, regarding Jack as the latter’s eyelids closed drowsily; “well, I don’t know that I blame him. Waiting on Lone Island with nothing to do but read, eat and sleep, does get monotonous after a week of it.” Suddenly a gong, affixed to the freshly painted wall above their heads, broke forth in a wild, insistent clamor. “Clang! C-l-a-n-g! Clang! Clang!—Clang! Clang!” The effect on Tom was electrical. “L-I in the Continental Code!” he exclaimed springing to his feet. “Hurray, Jack, old boy! Wake up! It’s our call at last!” Jack Chadwick galvanized from his nap into vibrant action with hardly less suddenness than had marked Tom’s arousing. Three times the gong, connected by an ingenious arrangement of Jack’s with his detector, beat out brazenly the call of Lone Island. Then came the signature: “S-K.” “Whoop! It really is the _Sea King_ at last!” exclaimed Jack, his blue eyes dancing. The lees of sleep had cleared from them as if by magic. “Race you to the wireless station, Tom!” he shot out, jumping from the veranda without bothering about the steps. “You’re on!” was the instant response. Like a flash Tom was at his side. The few dozen yards between the bungalow and the shed of raw, resinous-smelling pine lumber that housed the wireless was covered in less time than it takes to tell it. Panting from their dash through the heavy sand the two lads flung themselves, shoulder to shoulder, at the door. “Dead heat!” laughingly proclaimed Jack, as he opened the portal and hastened to the array of shining instruments which occupied most of the space within. All this time, behind them, the bell had kept up its insistent tocsin. With a quick movement Jack “threw” a “knife-blade” switch. Instantly the resonant drone of a dynamo filled the small sun-heated shack. Bending forward. Jack depressed the sending key. Flash! C-r-a-s-h! A wriggling snake of blue flame leaped, like a live thing, between the polished sparking points. Alternately pressing and releasing his key. Jack sent an answer to the message. With nimble fingers he directed the powerful electric impulses, which were winging into space from the lofty aerials stretched between their masts above the shed. While he did this with one hand, with the other he deftly adjusted the bright metal head band with its twin receivers that fitted over each ear. This accomplished, he drew toward him a pencil and a pad of paper. “L-I! L-I! L-I!” Crackling and squealing the powerful spark volleyed across the gap, and rushing into the aerials went flashing hundreds of miles through the ether. Then came a pause. Tom, his hand on Jack’s shoulder, leaned eagerly forward and over him, watching for the first words of the message from space to be written on the pad. All at once Jack began to write. His fingers flew fast in response to the flood of dots and dashes that came beating against his ear drums, transmitted by the sensitive diaphragms of the receivers.