BY
A. HYATT VERRILL
AUTHOR OF “THE RADIO DETECTIVES”,
“THE RADIO DETECTIVES SOUTHWARD BOUND,”
“THE RADIO DETECTIVES IN THE JUNGLE,”
“THE DEEP SEA HUNTERS,” ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: 1922 :: LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
CONTENTS
THE RADIO DETECTIVES UNDER THE SEA
CHAPTER I—IN THE BAHAMAS
“Oh, look, Tom! There’s land!” cried Frank Putney as, coming on deckone beautiful morning, he glanced across the shimmering sea and saw alow cloud-like speck upon the horizon ahead.
“Hurrah! it must be the Bahamas,” exclaimed Tom Pauling, as he saw thefirst bit of land they had sighted since leaving New York three dayspreviously. “Say, isn’t it bully to see land again? And isn’t thiswater wonderful?”
To the two boys, the short sea trip had been a constant source ofinterest, for while they had both been on ocean-going steamshipsbefore and Frank had crossed the Atlantic, yet neither had evervisited the tropics. The glistening flying fish which had skitteredlike miniature sea-planes from under the plunging bows of the ship hadfilled them with delight; they had fished up bits of the floatingyellow sargassum or Gulf Weed and had examined with fascination theinnumerable strange crabs, fishes and other creatures that made ittheir home; they had watched porpoises as they played about the shipand they had even caught a brief glimpse of a sperm whale.
The wonderfully rich indigo-blue water of the Gulf Stream was arevelation to them and now that they were rapidly approaching theoutlying cays of the Bahamas, with the surrounding water malachite andturquoise, emerald and sapphire with patches of dazzling purple andstreaks of azure they could scarcely believe it real.
“It doesn’t look like water at all,” declared Tom, as his fatherjoined them.
“It looks like—well, like one of those futurist paintings or as ifsome one had spilled a lot of the brightest blue and green paint hecould find and had slapped on a lot of purple for good measure:”
Mr. Pauling laughed. “That’s accurate if not poetical,” he replied,“and you’ll find, when you go ashore, that the imaginary man with thepaint pot did not stop at the water. The land is just as gaudy andincredibly bright as the sea.”
“Is that Nassau ahead?” asked Tom.
“No, that’s a small cay,” replied one of the office