"It certainly is interference," admitted Jessie, trying to tune the set so as to get back upon the wave that had brought the funny talk about 'Hairpins and Haricots.'

But it did not work. Jessie could not get in touch with the lecture.

Instead, out of the ether came one word, over and over again. And that word in a voice that Jessie was confident must come from a woman or a girl:

"Help! He-lp! He-e-lp!"

Over and over again it was repeated. Amy who had put on her head harness again, s.n.a.t.c.hed at her chum's arm.

"Listen! Do you hear that?" she cried in an awed tone.

A MYSTERY OF THE ETHER

CHAPTER XVIII

A MYSTERY OF THE ETHER

Jessie knew that by carefully moving the slides on her tuning coil she could get into touch again with the talk to which she and Amy had been listening. But now the broadcasted cry for "Help!" seemed of so much importance that she wanted to hear more of this air mystery.

"He-lp!" The word came to their ears over and over again. Then: "I am a prisoner. They brought me here and locked me in. There is a red barn and silo and two fallen trees. He-lp! Come and find me!"

"For pity's sake, Jess Norwood!" shrilled Amy. "Do you hear that?"

"I'm trying to," her chum replied. "Hush!"

"It must be a hoax."

"Wait!"

They listened and heard it repeated, almost word for word. A red barn and a silo and two fallen trees. These points the strange voice insisted on with each repet.i.tion.

"I can't believe it!" declared Amy.

"It is a girl. I am sure it is a girl. Oh, Amy!" gasped Jessie.

"Suppose it should be the girl whom we saw carried off by those two awful women?"

"Bertha Blair?"

"Yes. Of course, I suppose that is awfully far-fetched----"

"Wait! Here it comes again," whispered Amy.

"Come and find me! Help! I am a prisoner! The red barn and the silo with the two fallen trees."

How many times this was repeated the girls did not know. Suddenly something cluttered up the airways--some sort of interference--and the mystery of the ether died away. No matter what Jessie did to the tuning coil she could not bring that strangely broadcasted message back to their ears.

"What do you know about that?" demanded Amy, breathlessly.

"Why--why," murmured her chum, "we don't know much of anything about it. Only, I am sure that was a girl calling. It was a youthful voice."

"And I feel that it is Bertha Blair!" exclaimed Amy. "Oh, Jessie, we must do something for her."

"How can we? How can we find her?"

"A red barn with a silo and two fallen trees. Think of it! Did you ever see a place like that when you have been riding about the country?"

"I--nev-er--did!" and Jessie shook her head despondently.

"But there must be such a place. It surely is not a hoax," said Amy, although at first she had thought it was a joke. "And there is another thing to mark, Jess."

"What is that?"

"The place where this girl is kept a prisoner has a broadcasting station. You can't talk into a radio set like this. There has to be electric power and a generator, and all that--such as Mark Stratford showed us there at Stratfordtown."

"Of course."

"Then don't you think, Jessie, the fact that it is a broadcasting plant where the girl is imprisoned must narrow the inquiry a good deal?"

"How clever you are, dear," declared Jessie. "But a red barn with a silo and two fallen trees! Why, Amy! we don't know in which direction to look. Whether to the north, south, east or west!"

"No-o. I suppose----Oh, wait, Jess!" cried the excited Amy. "We don't really know where those women took that girl we saw carried off. They drove out the boulevard as far as we could see them. But, do you remember, we met that Mrs. Bothwell again in the big French car that very evening?"

"When we went to Parkville with Nell and the Brandons!" Jessie said eagerly. "I remember she pa.s.sed us. You pointed her out to me."

"And she turned out of the very road we took to go to Parkville," said Amy, with confidence. "I believe that red barn with the silo must be over beyond Parkville."

"It might be so," admitted her chum, thoughtfully. "I have never been through that section of the state. But Chapman knows every road, I guess."

"Doesn't your father know the roads, too?"

"But Daddy and Momsy have gone to Aunt Ann's in New York and will not be back to-night," Jessie explained.

"Anyhow we couldn't go hunting around in the dark after this broadcasting station, wherever it is," Amy observed.

"Of course not," her chum agreed, taking the harness off her head.

"Come down to the telephone and I'll see if Chapman is in the garage."

They ran downstairs, forgetting all about the radio concert they were to have heard, and Jessie called up the garage to which a private wire was strung.

The chauffeur, who had served the Norwoods ever since they had had a car, answered Jessie's request quickly, and appeared at the side door.

Amy was just as eager as Jessie to cross-question the man about a red barn with a silo. He had to ask the girls to stop and begin all over again, and----