cal feats with a wireless
machine; he had had experiences.

His first assignment was a fishing schooner, a dirty, unseaworthy
little tub, which ran as far north sometimes as the Aleutians; and he
had immediately gained official recognition by sticking to his
instruments for sixty-eight hours--recorded at fifteen-minute intervals
in his log--when the whaler _Goblin_ encountered a submerged pinnacle
rock in the Island Passage and flashed the old C.Q.D. distress signal.

It was brought out in the investigation that the distance at which
Peter Moore had picked up the signals of the sinking _Goblin_ exceeded
the normal working range of either apparatus. When pressed, the young
man confessed the ownership of a pair of abnormally keen ears.
Afterward, it was demonstrated for the benefit of doubters that Moore
could "read" signals in the receivers when the ordinary operator could
detect only a far away scratching sound.

Beginning his second year in the Marconi uniform, Peter Moore was
recognized as material far too valuable to waste on the fishing boats;
and he was stationed on the _Sierra_, which was then known in wireless
circles as a supervising ship. Her powerful apparatus could project
out a long electric arm over any part of the eastern Pacific, and the
duty of her operator was to reprimand sluggards who neglected answering
calls from ship or shore stations, and inexperienced men who violated
the strict rules governing radio intercourse.

It was whispered that Peter Moore grew tired of the nagging to which
his position on the supervisor ship gave him privilege, for he shortly
made application for a berth in the China run. Now every operator on
the Pacific cherishes the hope that his fidelity will some day be
rewarded by a China run, and there are applications always on file for
those romantic berths. The Chief granted Peter Moore his whim
unhesitatingly; and Moore selected the _Vandalia_, perhaps the most
desirable of the transpacific fleet, because she stayed away from San
Francisco the longest.

That the supersensitiveness of his ears was not waning was soon proved
by his receipt of a non-relayed message, afterward verified, from the
shore station in Seattle, when the _Vandalia_ lay at anchor in the
harbor at Hong-Kong. That was a new record. Marconi himself is
believed to have written the young magician a complimentary letter.
But Peter Moore showed that letter to no one. That was his nature. He
was some