176
XVII. THE LIEUTENANT'S INVENTION 191
XVIII. SLIM GOODWIN A PRISONER 200
XIX. TURNING THE TABLES 211
XX. THE GREAT NEWS 221

ILLUSTRATIONS

"At Least Ten Thousand of Them," He Announced Frontispiece

PAGE

There was an Instant of Terrible Whirling
about the Room 66

They had Accidentally Discovered an Enemy
Wire and had Tapped It 130

Scores of Huge Armored Tanks Rolled Through 168

The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service

CHAPTER I

"FOR UNCLE SAM"

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their----"

It was that old practice sentence of typists, which is as old as are
typewriting machines, and Joe Harned, seated before the told-style,
noisy, but still capable machine in Philip Burton's telegraph office,
had rattled it off twenty-five times and was on his twenty-sixth when
suddenly, very suddenly, his mind began to work.

Or rather it might be said that an idea, the _big idea_, danced
unceremoniously into his brain, and, beginning to take definite and
concrete form, chased a score of other smaller ideas through all the
thought-channels of his handsome, boyish, well-rounded head.

He came to a full stop and gazed steadily at the upturned paper in the
typewriter in front of him. Twenty-fives times he had written that
sentence, and twenty-five times with mechanical precision and true
adherence to time-honored custom he had finished it by tapping off the
word "party."

It was a formula of words which some genius had devised for the
fingering practice it gave one on the keyboard, and Joe Harned had
written it hundreds of times before, just as thousands of others had
done, without giving a thought to its meaning, or the significance that
the substitution of a single word would give it.

He read it again, and as if it were the result of an uncontrollable
impulse, his fingers began the rapid tap-tap-tap. And this time he
substituted the new word that the _big idea_ had suddenly thrust into
his mind.

Joe gave the roller a twirl, the paper rolled out, dropped to the floor,
and he grasped for it eagerly.

Even Joe was surprised. He hadn't realized that in his e