“Say!” he exclaimed, “wouldn’t one or two of those fellows taste good, nicely broiled and served hot?”
“There’s plenty of fire on shore,” Joe pointed out. “Just swim over and poke one or two of those fish up on the bank, Doughnuts, and they’ll be ready to eat in no time.”
“Well, if you’ll furnish me with a nice asbestos suit, maybe I’ll try it,” retorted Jimmy, “Don’t forget that I might get cooked even sooner than the fish.”
“Oh, we’d have to take a chance on that,” said Joe, heartlessly.
“Maybe you’ll have to, but I won’t,” replied Jimmy, with conviction in his tones. “Go over and broil yourself, if you want to.”
“It’s a wonder you can’t cook the fish with your precious radio set,” said Buck, with one of his customary sneers.
“Don’t be too sure that we can’t!” exclaimed Bob, as Buck’s words gave him an idea. “Haven’t we got some German silver resistance wire on the raft, Joe?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure we have,” returned his friend. “What do you want it for?”
“Why not make an electric grid out of some of it?” asked Bob. “The wire is a fine gauge, and the electricity from the batteries will heat it red hot in a few seconds. We can mount it on a few insulators and cook as many fish as we like. How does that strike you, Jimmy?”
“Hooray! Just what the doctor ordered!” responded that individual. “You rig up the stove, Bob, and I’ll get hold of a couple of fish and clean them. See which will be ready first.”
“What do you think of the radio set now, Buck?” inquired Herb. “You thought we couldn’t cook with it, but in about ten minutes we’ll show you that we can. Maybe after a while we’ll make a fan out of you. Although it hardly seems possible. It takes brains to understand radio.”
“Aw, I could understand it if I wanted to,” growled Buck.
But there was little conviction in his tone. He and his cronies had consistently scoffed at radio, and told everybody who would listen to them that it was just a fad and not a serious science. And they had said it so often, that they had actually come to believe it.
Now, in a short space of time, Buck had seen how that same radio set that he had scoffed at had been utilized to fend off the bears, and he was about to see it utilized to cook their food. Concerning the latter he was still skeptical, however. He suspected that the Radio Boys were just trying to fool him, but this idea was somewhat shaken when he saw the business-like way in which Jimmy proceeded to scoop up two fat fish and clean them.