"I believe that," replied Mr. Talley. "I've known all you boys ever since you were little kids and I know you wouldn't be capable of it."

"That's all very well," said Mr. La.r.s.en. "But that doesn't pay for my window. Whether any of you boys threw the ball or not you can't deny that you were engaged in a s...o...b..ll fight right in front of my windows.

If the fight hadn't been going on the window wouldn't have been smashed."

There was a certain amount of justice in this, and the boys were fair enough to acknowledge it.

"I suppose you are right there, Mr. La.r.s.en," said Bob regretfully. "We ought to have kept out of range of the windows, but in the excitement we forgot all about that. Then, too, we never would have supposed that any ordinary s...o...b..ll would have broken the window. Perhaps that was in the back of our minds, if we thought of it at all."

"Is the window insured?" queried Mr. Talley.

"Yes, it is," answered the storekeeper.

"Well, then, that lets you out," remarked Mr. Talley, with a note of relief in his voice. "That puts the matter up to the insurance company.

If they want to take any legal steps they can; and of course they ought to be compensated by the parents of the boy who may be found guilty of having thrown the ball with a stone in it. For my part, I doubt very much that it can ever be proved, unless the boy himself owns up to it."

"Think of Buck Looker ever owning up to anything!" muttered Jimmy.

"As for these boys," continued Mr. Talley, "I am perfectly sure in my own mind that they are telling the truth. You'll have to look for the culprit in the other crowd, and I've already told you who they are, or who one of them is, at least."

"Well," said the storekeeper, who by this time had cooled down considerably, "that, I suppose, will be something for the insurance company to settle. But by the terms of my contract with them I'll have to help them all I can to find out the responsible party, and I'll have to give them the names of all the boys concerned in the fight."

"That's all right," responded Bob. "You know our folks and you know that they're good for any judgment that may be found against them. But I'm sure it will be somebody else that will have to pay the bill."

There was nothing more to be done for the present, and the boys filed out of the store, after having expressed their thanks to Mr. Talley for the way he had championed their cause.

"Gee!" murmured Joe, as they went up the street toward their homes, "I know how a fellow feels now after he's been put through the third degree."

"It was rather a hot session," agreed Bob. "But I'm glad we had it out with him instead of running away. It's always best to take the bull by the horns. And you can't blame Mr. La.r.s.en for feeling sore about it. Any one of us would probably have felt the same way."

"Sure thing," admitted Herb. "But think of that dirty trick of Buck Looker in putting stones in s...o...b..a.l.l.s! It wasn't only that one that went through the window. Every time I got hit it made me jump."

"Same here," said Jimmy. "I was thinking all the time that they were the hardest s...o...b..a.l.l.s I ever felt, but it never came into my mind that there were stones in them."

"Trust Buck to be up to every mean trick that any one ever thought of,"

returned Bob. "He hasn't got over the way we showed him up at Mountain Pa.s.s. He thought he had us dead to rights in the matter of that burned cottage, and it made him wild to see the way we came out on top. He and his gang would do anything to get even."

"It will be interesting to see what he'll say when this matter of the window is put up to him and his pals," remarked Herb.

"Not a doubt in the world what he'll say," replied Joe. "He'll swear till he's blue in the face that he never dreamed of using a stone in the s...o...b..a.l.l.s. Do you remember how he told us that he'd lie in court to keep us from putting anything over on him? Any one that expects to get the truth out of Buck is barking up the wrong tree. I guess the insurance company would better kiss their money good-by."

"I'm afraid so," returned Bob. "It was dark and there probably weren't any witnesses who saw them put the stones in, and it is likely that the company will have to let the matter drop."

The lads had reached Bob's gate by this time, and they separated with a promise to come over and listen in on the radio later on.

Bob told the whole story to his parents at the supper table that night, and his father and mother listened with great interest and some concern.

"I'm sorry you were mixed up in the thing at all, Bob," his father remarked thoughtfully. "Being in it, however, you acted just as you should have done. Just how far you and your friends may be held responsible, in case they can't find the one who actually threw the ball that broke the window, I'm not lawyer enough to say. It's barely possible that there may be some ground for action on the score of culpable carelessness in taking part in a s...o...b..ll fight in front of store windows, and of course you were wrong in doing that. But the total amount involved is not very great after all, and it would be divided up among the parents of the four of you, so there's nothing much to worry about. It would gall me though to have to pay for damages that were really caused by that cub of Looker's."

"I'm sorry, Dad," said Bob. "I'm hoping yet that something may develop that will put the thing up to Buck, or whoever it was of his gang that actually threw the ball."

"Let's hope so," returned Mr. Layton, though without much conviction in his voice, and dismissed the subject.

A little while afterward the other three boys came over to Bob's house to listen in on the radio concert. So much time, however, had been taken up in discussing the afternoon's adventure that they missed Larry's offering, which was among the first on the program. This was a keen disappointment, which was tempered, however, by the probability that they could hear him some evening later in the week.

"Sorry," remarked Joe. "But it only means that we still have a treat in store when the old boy begins to roar and growl and hiss so as to make us think that a whole menagerie has broken loose and is chasing us. In the meantime we can fix up that aerial so as to get a little better results."

"Funny thing I noticed the other day," remarked Bob, as they embarked upon some experiments.

"All sorts of funny things in the radio game," observed Joe. "Something new turns up every day. Things in your set that you think you can't do without you find you can do without and get results just about as usual."

"Just what I was going to tell you," returned Bob. "You must be something of a prophet."

"Oh, I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that," replied Joe, with mock modesty.

"Isn't he the shrinking violet?" chaffed Jimmy.

"Stop your kidding, you b.o.o.bs, and let a regular fellow talk," chided Bob. "What I was going to say was that while I was tinkering with the set I disconnected the ground wire. Of course I thought that would put the receiver out of business for the time, and I was almost knocked silly when I found that I could hear the concert that was going on just about as well as though the wire had been connected. How do you account for that?"

"Don't account for it at all," replied Herb. "Probably just a freak, and might not happen again in a thousand times. Likely it was one of the unexplainable things that happen once in a while. Maybe there was a ground connection of some kind, if not by the wire. I wouldn't bank on it."

"It's queer, too, how many kinds of things can be used as aerials," put in Joe. "I heard the other day of a man in an apartment house where the owner objected to aerials, who used the clothesline for that purpose.

The wire ran through the rope, which covered it so that it couldn't be seen. It didn't prevent its use as a clothesline either, for he could hear perfectly when the wash was hanging on it."

"Oh, almost anything will do as an aerial," chimed in Jimmy. "The rib of an umbrella, the rainspout at the side of the house, the springs of a bed give good results. And that's one of the mighty good things about radio. People that have to count the pennies don't have to buy a lot of expensive materials. They can put a set together with almost any old thing that happens to be knocking around the house."

Bob had been working steadily, and, as the room was warm, his hands were moist with perspiration. He had unhooked an insulated copper wire that led to his outside aerial. His head phones were on, as he had been listening to the radio concert while he worked.

"I'll have to miss the rest of that selection, I guess," he remarked regretfully, as he unhooked the wire. "It's a pity, too, for that's one of the finest violin solos I ever heard. Great Scott! What does that mean?"

The e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was wrenched from him by the fact that although he had disconnected the wire he still heard the music--a little fainter than before but still with every note distinct.

He could scarcely believe his ears and looked at his friends in great bewilderment.

"What's the matter?" asked Joe, jumping to his feet. "Get a shock?"

"Not in the sense you mean, but in another way, yes," replied Bob, still holding the exposed end of the copper wire in his fingers. "What do you think of that, fellows? I'm an aerial!"

"Come out of your trance," adjured Herb unbelievingly. "They talk that way in the insane asylums."

"Clap on your headphones," cried Bob, too intent on his discovery to pay any attention to the gibe.

They did so, and were amazed at hearing the selection as plainly as did Bob himself.

The latter had been holding the disconnected wire so that his fingers just touched the uncovered copper portion at the end. Now he hastily sc.r.a.ped off several inches of the insulation and grasped the copper wire with his hand. Instantly the volume of sound grew perceptibly greater.

Hardly knowing what to make of it, he sc.r.a.ped off still more of the insulation.

"Here, you fellows," he shouted. "Each of you take hold of this."