When Jerry Hall went to find Mrs. Gregory's house at 12 o'clock at night, he sure got himself into a lot of excitement and possibly some trouble. A police radio car picked him up as a prowler. But finally, Jerry talked himself into the Gregory house and got a chance to tell his story to Mrs. Gregory and Captain Bradford. It's a wild story and one that few people would believe. But Mrs. Gregory and Tex Bradford are adventurers who live in a world where impossible stories come true. We find the three of them now on the after deck of Mrs. Gregory's magnificent yacht, the Joan Gregory. The yacht is well out of Los Angeles harbor and the lights of San Pedro are fading astern. It is two o'clock in the morning. Golly, whiskers. We're really on our way to find the magic island. Not much magic in a wild goose chase like this. No, Tex, let Jerry talk. We've been disappointed on so many of these trips to search for Joan, that it's nice to have someone with us whose belief is fresh and strong. Okay, Patricia, I don't want you to feel too badly if this tip doesn't amount to anything. But gee, Captain Bradford, there must be something to this. We both got the same radio message. Yeah, that's what's too good to be true about it, son. You're the most suspicious fellow I ever met. Never mind, Jerry. The captain has all my interests to look after and his suspicions are my protection. All right, I'm on the yacht with you anyway and we're going to Honolulu or wherever that message came from and see the old sailor. Then we'll get all the story and know just where to go in the South Seas to find your little girl. It all sounds mighty easy the way you tell it, Jerry. But there's a lot of water between here and the islands and 14 years have been torn off the calendar since the shipwreck. You're right, Tex, and I suppose it's foolish of me to pay too much attention to this message, but I've never believed that Joan perished in that shipwreck and I just can't give up trying to find her. I'll help you all I can, Mrs. Gregory. Golly, but this is a swell night, isn't it? Just look back there at the shoreline. All those lights getting smaller and smaller and sort of twinkling, like stars do just before they go out in the morning. It's beautiful, Jerry. The only thing I like better than sailing out of this harbor is sailing back into it again. Well, if you two can be spared from the poetry class for a few minutes, we'd better get to the radio cabin. I want Jerry to get acquainted with our set and we'll have to turn in. It's after four bells. Oh, boy. Two o'clock in the morning. And time you were asleep, Jerry. Oh. Let's go in the cabin with Tex and see the radio. Then we'll all turn in. Captain. Here comes a skipper. Pat, you take Jerry in the cabin. I'll check with the skipper and join you in a minute. Come right in, Jerry. I'll show you around. Boy, is this a radio cabin or is this a radio cabin? Everything ship-shaped, skipper? Aye. We don't know what our course is to be, but for the time being, we're chasing a radio message that probably came from somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands. So just hold the general course on the regular lane until I change it. Aye. We have a new hand aboard. He'll help me with the radio. I'll fix it with sparks and we can split a watch with you. Aye. Better turn in now, skipper. You can take over after daylight and I'll join you in the chart room for some skull practice on navigation to imaginary points. We've got to locate a magic island. Who? All of us. Nuts. Who? Everybody. Well, maybe you're right, skipper. But just the same, that's what we're looking for. Well, see you at breakfast. Will you join us in Mrs. Gregory's cabin? Aye. That's all, skipper. You can shove off. Aye. Magic. Aye. Magic. Island. Nuts. I don't blame the skipper much at that. Well, I see you've got the set warmed up, Jerry. How do you like it? Gee, Tex. I mean, Captain Bradford, it's a darb. Darb, huh? It's all right, Tex. Jerry says darb is the highest praise he can find for anything. So you think it'll do, kid? Do. Gosh. I bet it'll get anything in the world. It's all set to go now. Can I try it? Go ahead. And while you're enjoying yourself, you might as well be working. I'll see that you stand a regular watch here if you can handle that set right. That way I won't have to leave Sparks and can take it easy. Why not let Jerry call Johnson and make our report? What I had in mind. Work on three meters, son. Ask for J-12C. That's Johnson, our radio operator and chauffeur in Los Angeles. Sign yourself as Jerry on J-24Y. That's a shot. You can get this set down to one and a half meters, can't you? Yes, and we can work in that wavelength on our Los Angeles set too, Jerry. That's how we heard the message about the dying old sailor in his magic island with a little white girl on it. That's where I got it at home too. Gee, you know, Dad and I thought we had the only set in the country that would work on one and a half meters. Yes, and we thought we were the only ones. You and your dad must know something about radio to build a set like that one. Funny too. Well, no funnier than you having one. You see, my dad has studied radio all his life. He doesn't have to work anymore and just plays with it all the time. We can send on one and a half meters too. Yes, I thought you could. Why, Tex, what do you mean? Oh, I know what he means. He thinks I sent that message just to get you to sail for the South Seas so I could get the trip with you. Well? Oh, Jerry, you wouldn't do a thing like that, would you? Knowing how much it means to me, how badly hurt I'd be if we made this trip and didn't find any trace of the little white girl. I wouldn't do that for anything in the world, Mrs. Gregory. Okay, son, we'll let her go. For now. To the Gregory Yacht. Gee whiz. There he is again. What's the band, kid? One and a half meters. To the Gregory Land Station Los Angeles. To J-12C Los Angeles. Now he's... Quiet. Calling J-12C. Relay this message to Yacht Joan Gregory. Stand by for message. Cannot raise yacht. Relay this to them. He doesn't know we can get him on the yacht. Quiet. To the Gregory Yacht. You will not find the old sailor in Hawaiian Islands. Set your course south. Further directions later. Old sailor delirious. Probably dying. Keeps repeating position of island. Says his diary will tell you white girl living there. Island position. Latitude 29 degrees south. Longitude 124 degrees 30 minutes west. That is all. Repeat to Gregory Yacht. Repeat to Gregory Yacht. Gee, the same thing. Tex, the position was the same as given before. And the old sailor keeps saying there's a little white girl on the island. Yes, yes. What are you doing, Tex? Checking my directional beam finders. We've got to know where those messages are coming from. There's something wrong with them, all right, or they'd be signed. Why would anybody send a message without signing it if they were honest? Maybe they haven't got a license station. Yes, here we are. He wasn't on long enough for me to get a very long curve on the graph for calibration. But one thing is sure. That message did not come from the west, north, or east. Then it had to come from the south. Yes, recording directional receiver shows only direct impulses. And the only place it was disturbed by those beams was through about a 60 degree angle to the south. That's awfully broad, Tex. If the sender is any distance from us, that angle could spread out to cover thousands of miles of ocean. I know it. But it's 10 to 1 that Johnson got it too. We can check with him later. You and Jerry stick with this set to pick that fellow up if he comes on again. I'm going to change our course. We're heading south right away. Jerry, I'm so excited and encouraged about it all. Me too. Gosh. Even Captain Bradford seems to be taking it plenty seriously now. That's what makes me so happy. Tex has been through a lot of these things with me. He doesn't believe wild stories very easily. So when he gets excited, it looks as if we had a chance to accomplish something. I've got a hunch we're going to find your little girl Joan all right. But what kind of people could she have been living with? I mean on this island that wouldn't let the world know all about it before this. There are so many things that might have happened, Jerry. But if we really do find a little white girl on this island, and it is Joan, I won't care about anything else. Well, when you have time, and if you want to, Mrs. Gregory, I wish you'd tell me the whole story of the shipwreck. I mean just where it happened and how you were saved when everyone else was drowned. And what made you think your little baby was saved? Of course I will, Jerry. And I'll start right now. We'd been in a terrific storm for days. The yacht we had then was very much like this one, except that it was named after me, the Patricia Gregory. Oh, and this one is named for your little girl, the Joan Gregory, isn't it? Yes. Well, we were making dangerously heavy weather of it along the 30th parallel when all at once... Say, wait a minute. The 30th parallel. This radio message. The 29 degrees south. That's near the 30th parallel, all right. Why, Jerry, so it is. I didn't think of it just that way before. There's only about 69 miles between the parallels at that latitude. How about the longitude? This message said 124 degrees and 30 minutes west. That would be about right, too. J-12C to J-24Y. J-12C to J-24Y. Is that Johnson? Yes, Jerry. Acknowledge him. Hello, J-12C. Jerry Hall for Captain Bradford on J-24Y. Go ahead, J-12. Go ahead. Never heard of you, Hall. We'll talk only to Bradford. Can you beat that? That guy drove us to the boat, but he never heard of me. I'll explain it to him, Jerry. Let me have the microphone. Hello, Johnson. Hello, J-12C. Patricia Gregory to Johnson. Jerry Hall is okay. He's the boy we brought with us. Text is out on deck. Jerry authorized to do relief watch on this set. Confirm receive that. Okay, Mrs. Gregory. Okay, work with Jerry Hall on J-24Y. Better get Captain Bradford in cabin for this message. Have important relay for you. That's what we heard direct, I'll bet. Oh, here's text now. Text Johnson's calling. Wants you to take over for this relay. Okay, J-12. Bradford. Go ahead, Johnson. Relay of message just received. Logged in on one and a half meters. More about the old sailor in his island. Position repeated. Correct as given before. Break, J-12. Break it, Johnson. Okay, J-12. We got a direct. Now check your directional graph. Get me the best line you can on it. I'll hold the set open. Checking graph now. We'll report when finished. Now we'll have something definite to go on when we want to set our course. Good old Johnson is always on the job. And his instruments are really better than these portable ones. Maybe so, but, well, I don't understand how we can localize that radio beam better than you can right here. He can't, but he has a chart. A chart exactly like this one. In front of him at this minute. And when he gives me his reading, I log the line of it right here. Then extend the line I have from our reading. And the point where those lines cross should be a pretty accurate location for the radio transmitter we're receiving those messages from. Beam falls in zone one eight. Zone eighteen south. Eighteen south. Zone eighteen. Eighteen south. Okay, Johnson. Stand by. Now, can you get at your figures pretty close to it? If we were farther from Johnson, the angle would be better. But Tex should hit it fairly well. By George, there it is. And those lines cross almost on the thirtieth parallel. Golly whiskers. Thirty degrees south. And the message said the magic island was twenty-nine degrees south. Nobody said anything about a magic island. Oh, Tex, let Jerry call it anything he wants to. If we can only find it and my little girl is still alive. Don't say if, Mrs. Gregory. We're going to find your little girl, Joan, on a magic island.
