Cub demanded.

"No, not in the least. I got over that long ago, my son. Don't let any such habit grip you; it'll wear your nerves out, and then you won't have any lead-in to connect your antennae with your brains."

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed the man's youthful audience in chorus, even Cub appreciating the ill.u.s.tration.

"When did you begin to study radio, Mr. Perry?" asked Bud.

"Oh, I've been learning rapidly ever since I was thrown into the company of you hams," was the reply. "But don't let me get you off the question."

"The question--what was the question?" asked Cub, digging his fingers into his rather lengthy locks of hair.

"Mystery, wasn't it?" reminded Mr. Perry.

"Yes, that's it," Bud replied. "The mystery of the Radio Robinson Crusoe in the Lake of the Thousand Isles."

"That sounds interesting, but it's mostly a poetic, or ecstatic, jumble of words," said Mr. Perry. "And right there is the secret of many a mystery. It's clothed in a maze of language. Remove the maze, and it begins to look simple."

"Where is the maze of language in this affair?" Cub challenged.

"From what I've heard, the whole affair seems to have consisted princ.i.p.ally of language. Now, I tell you what we'll do. We'll go to bed early and have a good sleep. In the morning, we'll shake this affair up in a sieve and see if we can't get rid of everything but the main lumps of the facts. Then we'll size them up and see what we can make of them.

In my opinion, we can get at the bottom of what you choose to regard as a profound mystery."

"If you do, pa, you'll return my goat," said Cub.

"It's up to you, Bob," was his father's reply. "I've no desire to keep him in my stable."

CHAPTER VII

Returning Cub's "Goat"

In the morning after breakfast Mr. Perry called a conference on deck for the purpose of discussing "the mystery and Cub's goat", as Hal put it.

"Yes," said Bud, his sense of humor stimulated by this allusion; "all Mr.

Perry has to do to return Cub's goat is to prove there isn't any mystery about the affair."

"I didn't say I was going to do that," objected the adult member of the party.

"What--return the goat or disprove the mystery?" asked Bud.

"Now you're getting facetious," broke in Cub.

"Not necessarily," objected Mr. Perry. "I didn't promise, or have in mind, to do either of those things. The fact of the matter is, a mystery represents the state or condition of mind of the person mystified. Now, I am not mystified over this affair at all; hence there is no mystery in it, so far as I am concerned."

"Then explain it to us," Bud challenged.

"Oh, no; I didn't mean I could do that."

"Then you must be mystified," Bud argued.

"Suppose you have a difficult example to do at school, and finally after working at it a long time you have to confess you can't do it--does that mean it's a mystery and you are mystified?"

This was a poser for the boys. They had never looked at a subject of this kind on any such light.

"Cub, you're the highbrow of our bunch," said Hal after some moments of puzzled silence.

"Oh, get away with that stuff," Cub protested, but, somehow, a faint glimmer of satisfaction at the "compliment" shone in his countenance.

"No, I won't, either," Hal insisted. "It's true. This thing is too much for Bud and me. You've got to settle it for us."

Cub "swelled up" a little with importance at this admission. He was sitting in a camp chair with his feet resting on the taffrail, it being a habit of his to rest his feet on something higher than his head, if possible, whenever seated. Now, however, there seemed to be a demand for superior head-work, so he lowered his feet, straightened up his back, and said:

"Well."--speaking slowly--"I don't want to get in bad with my father by trying to prove I know more than he does, but my argument would be that all of life is not arithmetic."

"Good!" exclaimed Hal, eager to defend his belief in things mysterious, and Bud signified his approval in similar manner.

"Yes, that isn't bad at all," admitted Mr. Perry, glad to have stimulated his son's mind into action. "But if we can't explain this affair with mathematics, maybe we can explain it by some other element of human education."

"What, for instance?" asked Cub. "Not by readin', 'ritin', or 'rithmetic."

"No, we'll exclude the three R's for the present, although all of them may figure in our work before it is finished."

"Well," mused Cub; "the others are history, geography, spelling--"

"Why didn't you stop with geography?" asked his father.

"Geography!" exclaimed Bud. "How can you use that to explain a mystery?"

"It depends on whether geography is involved," Mr. Perry replied. "In this case it seems to me that geography is a very important element. We may have to know considerably more about the geography of the Thousand Islands in order to solve this so-called mystery. Now, mind you, I don't mean to say that we're going to get at the bottom of this affair, but I do want to suggest that if it is to be solved by any systematic process, the first elements to be employed in the process are a little geography and a little arithmetic. With this in view, I would suggest that you get busy with your wireless outfit and see what you can find out."

The three boys gazed curiously at Cub's father and then at one another in a puzzled manner.

"Haven't I given you enough hint?" asked Mr. Perry. "I don't want to do the work myself--in fact, I couldn't if I wished to, for I can't send a wireless message; but if I could, I know exactly what I'd do."

"We might send a broadcast to all other amateurs and find out if any of them can help us," Hal suggested.

"How could they help us?" asked Bud skeptically.

"I'm sure I can't tell you," replied Mr. Perry. "But you have a dandy field to work on. All you need is a little imagination; then begin to do a little head-work, and before you know it you'll have a lead to work on.

And let me add something more. There are two things in this world, which, working together, can knock a mystery into a c.o.c.ked hat more successfully than anything else in the world that I know of."

"I bet I know what they are," Cub volunteered, eagerly.

"Mathematics and imagination," almost shouted Hal in a wild scramble of mind to beat Cub with the answer.

The latter cast a wrathful glance at the saucy youth who had broken in ahead of him.