Transcriber’s Note
  Italic text displayed as: _italic_
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[Illustration: THE GIANT FLYING BOAT HEADED IN BETWEEN THE TALL
PINNACLES OF ICE.

  _Tom Swift and His Flying Boat._           _Page 162_
]




  TOM SWIFT AND HIS
  FLYING BOAT

  OR

  The Castaways of the Giant Iceberg

  BY
  VICTOR APPLETON

  AUTHOR OF “TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE,”
  “TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY,” “TOM SWIFT AND
  HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE,” “THE MOVING
  PICTURE BOYS SERIES,” ETC.


  _ILLUSTRATED_


  NEW YORK
  GROSSET & DUNLAP
  PUBLISHERS

  Made in the United States of America




BOOKS FOR BOYS

By VICTOR APPLETON

  _12mo._    _Cloth._    _Illustrated._


THE TOM SWIFT SERIES

  TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE
  TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
  TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE
  TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER
  TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL
  TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH
  TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT


THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS SERIES

  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE WEST
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE COAST
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE JUNGLE
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN EARTHQUAKE LAND
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AND THE FLOOD
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS UNDER THE SEA
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE WAR FRONT
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON FRENCH BATTLEFIELDS
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS’ FIRST SHOW HOUSE
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT SEASIDE PARK
  THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON BROADWAY


GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York

  COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  _Tom Swift and His Flying Boat_




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE

      I AN IDEA AND A FORTUNE                                        1

     II THE TREASURE CHEST                                          10

    III AMAN DELE                                                   19

     IV A HELPING HAND                                              27

      V WHAT CAME OF IT                                             34

     VI THE PRONOUNCEMENT                                           41

    VII A GOOD DEAL ON HIS MIND                                     48

   VIII THE EXPEDITION SETS OFF                                     57

     IX THE KEEL IS LAID                                            65

      X BAD LUCK                                                    73

     XI THE TRIAL                                                   82

    XII IN PERIL                                                    92

   XIII A SECOND TEST                                              100

    XIV AMAZING NEWS                                               109

     XV ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND                                   118

    XVI THE TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGE                                   125

   XVII “SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK”                              140

  XVIII THE GIANT BERG                                             148

    XIX THE DESERT OF ICE                                          160

     XX IMPRISONED IN THE ICE                                      165

    XXI A SILVER LINING                                            173

   XXII BACK TO THE FLYING BOAT                                    181

  XXIII STILL CRIPPLED                                             188

   XXIV UNEXPECTED GOOD FORTUNE                                    195

    XXV BACK FROM THE ARCTIC                                       203




TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT




CHAPTER I

AN IDEA AND A FORTUNE


“I am sure we can build such a flying boat, father.”

“Humph! I wish I had your confidence, Tom,” chuckled Mr. Barton
Swift, the old inventor.

His son laughed, too. “It isn’t confidence you lack,” he said. “It is
just that you are too cautious to seem optimistic.”

“Have it your own way,” rejoined his father. “Just the same, a speed
boat for the air, land, and sea that will do all you suggest is
something to consider fearfully. Nothing to compare to it has ever
yet been launched.”

“But it will be launched,” cried Tom Swift eagerly. “Somebody will
put it into the air before we know it. Why not get ahead of the rest
of the smart folks? Why not put out a flying boat that will make all
their eyes bug out?”

“Even your slang gets ahead of me, Tom,” said his father mildly.
“Just why do you wish to strain the optic nerves of your competitors?”

But Tom Swift only laughed. He knew just how young his father’s mind
remained, even if he was a semi-invalid at times and his body was
weakened by age and hard work.

“There is a bunch of rich men, I understand, who mean to build a
flying boat to go hunting in up toward the Arctic Circle next summer.
There are others that believe the mystery of the Antarctic can only
be revealed through the use of such a craft. The interior of Africa,
around Lake Tanganyika and the other great lakes can be properly
explored only by the use of some such machine. Central South America
can be reached more easily from the Amazon and its great branches
than by any other means. Without a flying boat, how may one fly over
the falls and escape the dangers of the rapids?”

“Good! Good!” exclaimed Mr. Barton Swift. “I see you have been
thinking this thing out, at least. A great many people have excuses
for what they want to do; but you, Tom, have a reason. What else?”

Tom Swift laughed again. He was a boyish fellow, in spite of all his
experiences of the past few years; and a boy finds it difficult at
most times to take older people into his confidence, especially about
his dreams and hopes.

“I do not know that my suggestion should seem an impossibility,” Tom
said, soberly. “See what the Swift Construction Company has done in
the past. Of course, I am counting on your help, father, to carry
such a thing to a successful conclusion.”

“You actually talk as though you had conceived a plan and would put
it into effect, Tom!” cried his father.

“I don’t know but I have—and will,” said Tom, smiling once more. “At
any rate, I have been revolving the scheme in my head for a long
time. I admit it. A flying boat, as the storybook fellows write now,
has ‘intrigued’ my interest. I’m coocoo about it, to use Ned Newton’s
slang.”

“So you lay your knowledge of the argot to Ned?” laughed Mr. Swift.
“But this flying boat?”

“A lot has been accomplished by other people. We would not be the
first in the field, by any means. But I believe I have some ideas
about such an invention that would put us ahead of everybody else.
And that is the main thing.”

“The main thing, I should say, would be to have a working hypothesis
of the idea in question,” observed Barton Swift dryly. “What would
you build a flying boat for? To what particular use is it to be put?
Therefore, in making plans for the boat, they must fit the needs of
the craft as devised.

“In other words, Tom, what in the world do you want a flying boat
for? You have your air scout, your aerial warship that you sold to
the Government during the war, your air glider which as yet has not
been equaled, your sky racer, and your old _Red Cloud_ which scarcely
any newer airship marvel has surpassed. You have been up in the air
enough, it seems to me. Why not tackle the practical inventions of
peace, as I pointed out in your last marvel, the electric locomotive?”

“Give me an idea,” grumbled Tom. “What shall I build—a new plough?
Huh!”

“Say, Mist’ Tom! tells yo’ what,” burst into the controversy an
altogether unexpected voice.

The Swifts had been talking on the side piazza of their house near
the works of the Swift Construction Company at Shopton. Just inside
one of the rear windows a grizzled old colored man was busy preparing
vegetables for dinner.

“I tells yo’ what!” repeated Eradicate Sampson, the old serving man
who had been with the Swifts for years and considered himself quite
one of the family. “I tells yo’ what! Yo’ want to invent somethin’
practical like yo’ fader says, yo’ make a machine that’ll scoop the
eyes out o’ ’taters widout wastin’ none o’ de meat. Dat wot yo’ do.
Den yo’ sho’ nuff do somethin’ wuth while.”

Mr. Barton Swift burst into a laugh, as he almost always did when
Eradicate Sampson, or “Rad” for short, made one of his suggestions.
Even Tom, earnest as he was about the flying boat, grinned.

“I’ll take that up some day and fix it for you, Rad,” the young
fellow said.

“Hope yo’ does it ’fore I done git all dis bag of ’taters used up.
Dey is sho’ right eye-y. Sho’ is!”

“If you want to carp and criticize at ‘English as she is spoke,’
there’s your chance, father,” grumbled Tom. “Look after Rad. But this
flying boat idea—a craft that will sail on the water, roll on the
ground, and fly through the air——”

“Old stuff, Tom,” Mr. Swift answered bruskly. “There are very good
inventions of that nature already.”

“Quite true,” admitted Tom, but not at all discouraged. “But none
of them so far built would satisfy me if I were the inventor and
builder.”

“Ah-ha!”

“There are faults in every one already launched. I bet there are
faults in all those now under construction, no matter how much money
there may be behind the invention. I am going after the perfect
flying boat, or I’ll not build any.”

“Well? Tell me how you will overcome the rough-sea obstacle, for
instance?” asked the very practical Mr. Swift. “That has been
puzzling the flying boat folks ever since the beginning. It is unsafe
to descend in a heavy sea, therefore they dare not take long voyages
from land.”

“I mean to overcome that very thing if I tackle the thing at all.”

“You speak very confidently, my son,” said his father, looking at Tom
seriously.

“I have thought about the invention for some time.”

Mr. Barton Swift threw up his hands in mock despair.

“Incurable!” he cried. “Once you get your teeth set in a thing, Tom,
there is no shaking you loose.”

“I come honestly enough by that trait of character,” said Tom, with a
grin. “They say I’m a chip off the old block.”

He sat up suddenly in his reclining chair and stared toward the front
of the house. Idly at first he had heard the noise of a motor-car
arriving before the house. It had stopped there. Mr. Swift had not
appeared to notice it at all, but Tom suddenly overheard voices.

“Yes, sah. Dey is at home, but dey mebbe is engaged on ’portant
business,” said a sonorous voice that could belong to nobody save
Koku, Tom’s giant servant whom the young inventor had brought with
him some years before from far parts, and who had served him well and
faithfully ever since.

“I isn’t sure, sah. But I go see,” went on the important sounding
Koku.

“Listen to dat giant!” grumbled old Rad Sampson. “Jes’ to hear him,
yo’d think he was bossin’ dis hyer fambly. Sho’ nuff! Huh!”

The ancient colored man and the half-civilized Koku were sworn
enemies up to a certain point. Both professed to scorn the other’s
efficiency and abilities. And both usurped the authority of speaking
for either Tom or his father on almost any occasion.

But now Koku had tried the patience of the visitor. Overtopping the
giant’s serious tones came the sharper and more excited voice that
Tom immediately recognized. And what the voice said startled even the
placid Mr. Swift.

“Tom Swift! Tom Swift!” exclaimed the visitor. “Bless my telescope,
Tom Swift, but I must see you! I must see you at once! Tom Swift!”

“Ho!” cried Tom, starting up. “Ho, Koku! Bring Mr. Damon right out
here.”

Hearing the young inventor’s voice, Mr. Wakefield Damon waited for
nothing more. He rushed around the corner of the house, appearing in
an excited and a rather disheveled state upon the side porch where
the two Swifts were sitting.

“Bless my decrepit extremities!” exclaimed the emphatic gentleman,
thus referring to his own feet as they stumbled over a low ottoman
and a rumpled mat. “I’m so excited I can’t even walk straight. It’s
the greatest—well, how-do, Barton Swift? And you, Tom—how are you?”

Both his hosts welcomed the eccentric Wakefield Damon warmly. He was
a good friend.

“What good wind has brought you here, Damon?” asked Mr. Swift, giving
the visitor his hand.

“No such element as wind,” declared Mr. Damon, with his usual energy.
“Air, fire and water—the three principal elements. Nothing like air.
It’s frozen water has brought me here, I reckon,” and he burst into a
great laugh at his own fantasy. “Ice has brought me here, not wind.”

“I heard your motor-car,” said Tom smiling. “You don’t mean to say
you have invented a way of running a car with ice for fuel?”

“Nothing like that! Nothing like that!” cried Mr. Damon. “The
gasoline people still rob me. But listen! I’ve got ice in my head—and
some brains, I hope,” he added. “At any rate, I know where to come
for help when I get stuck in anything.”

“You bring us a problem, do you?” asked Mr. Swift. “Well, Damon, what
is it?”

“I have got to have Tom’s help. I want him to take a journey with me.”

“A journey—just now—when I’ve so much on my hands?” demanded the
young inventor, in considerable doubt.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” said Mr. Damon quickly. “I’ve got to
go to Iceland. There’s money in it——”

“Money in Iceland?” interrupted Tom.

“So they tell me. And a lot of it is mine,” returned the excited
visitor. “I want you to go there with me, Tom, to get a fortune. A
fortune, boy! It will pay us big.”




CHAPTER II

THE TREASURE CHEST


Since the Swifts had first known Mr. Wakefield Damon that eccentric
character had brought to their attention a number of strange affairs,
and some of them had resulted in the betterment of his own and the
Swifts’ finances. So, no matter how ridiculous his first proposition
might sound, Tom and his father were both ready to listen.

A trip to Iceland would scarcely absorb Tom Swift’s attention
just now, but the fortune Mr. Damon promised him a share of might
be a thing not to be scorned. In spite of the inventor’s several
sources of income and the great sums already invested in the Swift
Construction Company and in other well-paying concerns, Tom never saw
the time when he could not make good use of more money.

From the time the reader was introduced to “Tom Swift and His Motor
Cycle,” the title of the first book of this series, down to the
twenty-fifth volume, the one preceding this present story, “Tom
Swift and His Electric Locomotive,” the young inventor has found good
use for much money.

His inventions—some of them marvels as his father intimated—had
brought them in much money, it is true. But it “takes money to breed
money;” and always this is true as well as trite in the construction
and marketing of inventions.

“It takes the cash to put ’em over,” Ned Newton, Tom’s dearest friend
and closest co-worker, was wont to say. “But you scheme ’em out and
I’ll find the cash.”

Newton, who was treasurer of the Swift Construction Company, had
faithfully done his part whenever Tom got into a place where he
needed money. But here was Mr. Damon with the promise of a “fortune”
on which no interest would have to be paid. The young inventor was
naturally interested, even though he might be up to his very ears in
work.

“That sounds awfully interesting,” he said to the blusterous
Wakefield Damon. “I don’t care much about the ice—unless that is
merely figurative—but a fortune—well, what part of Iceland is it in?”

“I don’t know,” said the visitor bluntly. “But Iceland is not so big
a country, is it? Not as big as Australia, for instance, although it
is likewise an island.”

“You can’t walk over it in a day, looking for a fortune,” laughed Mr.
Swift.

“Don’t expect to have to do that,” said Mr. Damon, with an answering
laugh. “But, bless my calipers! we ought to be able to find Rosestone
on the map.”

“Is that the name of the place where this fortune is—er—is it
buried?” demanded Tom.

“Goodness only knows,” said Mr. Damon, tugging at a big wallet and
finally getting it out of his inside pocket. “It may be hanging in
the air. But the letter comes from Rosestone. I fancy that is a small
town. And that is where the fortune is.”

“A fortune in what?” asked Mr. Swift.

“A fortune of how much?” demanded Tom.

Mr. Damon blinked his eyes very rapidly. Tom wanted to laugh, for he
saw very clearly that their questions were making their friend think.
Heretofore he had only been thrilled by the idea of the fortune.

“I declare, Tom Swift! I don’t know how much, and I do not know
whether the fortune is in money or in stocks and bonds——”

“Or walrus tusks,” laughed Tom. “Part of Iceland, I understand, is a
pretty savage country, although the people may be peaceable enough.”

“Then you know something about Iceland, Tom Swift? Bless my
geographical dictionary! I can’t find much about it.”

“It is told about in full in the encyclopedia,” said Tom. “And it is
a country that has always interested me. But I never expect to go to
it——”

“Don’t say that, Tom Swift! Don’t say that!” begged Mr. Damon. “I
have got to have your help.”

“How do you know there is enough of a fortune to pay two people for
going after it?” laughed Tom.

“Here, Damon,” said Tom’s father, “you are all excited. Sit down here
and have a smoke and tell us about it quietly.”

The idea of Mr. Wakefield Damon doing anything quietly amused Tom
again. But he waited patiently for their friend to compose himself to
a degree and tell his story. Like his father, Tom was curious.

“I’ll tell you about Aman Dele. I met him a good many years before I
ever heard of you Swifts. Quite by accident, too. He was a mystery at
first. It was by the strangest chance—or so I always thought—that I
came across him. He was a man with a pocket full of money, and he was
starving to death.”

“Stomach trouble?” asked Mr. Swift shrewdly.

“The money may have been in Russian rubles and there wasn’t enough
in his pockets to buy an egg sandwich,” chuckled Tom.

“Neither of you is right,” said Wakefield Damon, rather gravely
for him. “Aman Dele had perfectly good money—Danish money, I found
out afterward. I found him in New York where one might think every
language in the world is spoken. But he had all the interpreters
puzzled.”

“And he was a Dane? Why, there is a big Danish colony in New York.”

“He was of Danish extraction; but he came from Iceland; and he came
from the interior of that island where the people live about as they
did when the island was first settled from Denmark, or Norway, or
some Scandinavian country.”

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Tom suddenly. “That was away back in the
time of the Norsemen. Isn’t that right, father?”

“It must be,” said Mr. Swift, in agreement.

“And you mean that this Aman Dele spoke Old Norse, Mr. Damon?” asked
Tom.

“And nothing else. He was just a young fellow and very bashful. He
had not entered the country through the Emigration Bureau. He had
plenty of money, as I say, and undoubtedly had come across on one of
the big ships. Traveling first, or possibly second cabin, his food
had been supplied him at the table d’hôte. He had not been obliged
to talk. And he did not know a word of French or English, or modern
Danish.”

“I declare!” exclaimed Mr. Swift. “But money speaks with a louder
tongue than anything else! He had money. But it was probably modern
Icelandic he spoke, Tom,” he added.

“He was both bashful and afraid,” said Mr. Damon in answer to
Mr. Swift, eagerly reciting his story. “He had tried to talk to
people until he was ashamed. And he dared not show his money for
fear somebody would get it away from him. He was, as I found out
afterward, walking about New York hoping to see some sign familiar to
him, or to hear a word of his mother tongue spoken on the street, and
growing more and more frightened.”

“Fat chance of hearing any Icelandic!” murmured the interested Tom
Swift.

“I should say so! I should say so!” agreed Mr. Damon. “And so I
thought after I found out what was the matter with the fellow. I saw
him lurking in the mouth of an alley right beside a sausage shop.
It was over on the lower East Side, and I had just come up from the
docks where I had bidden good-bye to some friends who were going to
Central America. Almost all the Spigotti boats sailed from the East
River docks in those days.

“Well, sir, I saw this young, pale, well-dressed fellow lounging
there, and just the look of him interested me. He looked so clean
and foreign in his dress, and so out of place. As I watched him, the
sausage man came to the door and flung a piece of sausage to a stray
dog. The dog grabbed it and ran into the alley. The next moment—bless
my links of frankfurters!—this strange fellow grabbed the sausage
from the dog and commenced eating it while the disappointed dog ran
off howling.

“Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous? I was stricken
stock-still with amazement, myself. Bless my boots! I was stuck right
there, staring at the young fellow gnawing on that half spoiled
sausage.”

“The poor fellow,” murmured Mr. Swift.

“That’s right. It aroused more than my curiosity. I saw that although
he was well dressed and all that, he was starving. I walked right
across the street and into the alley and grabbed him,” said Mr. Damon.

“He was scared and tried to break away, and even offered me the
sausage,” continued the narrator. “Guess he thought I was some sort
of a policeman. But I was strong in those days and I hung onto him.
There was a little coffee shop in sight and I made him go with me
there. Just the smell of that rank coffee almost made him faint. But
I made him sip it slowly, and afterward he put away a beefsteak and
bread and butter and more coffee. Then his face began to light up as
though there was an electric bulb turned on inside of his skull.”

“Interesting—vastly interesting,” commented Mr. Swift. “But this
fortune?”

“I’m coming to it. Give me time,” said Mr. Damon. Then, grinning, he
added: “Bless my pocketbook! you can’t expect to get a fortune in a
minute.”

“But we hope to hear about the treasure chest pretty soon,” put in
Tom.

Mr. Damon selected a paper from several he took from his wallet. He
unfolded it and spread it out so that both the Swifts could read what
was written on it. It seemed to be the final paragraphs of a personal
letter to Mr. Damon, and Tom read aloud:

  “* * * So, my dear Mr. Damon, it was always on our friend’s mind
  that you should see his country. He had seen the world and he
  believed nothing in it was so beautiful and good as Iceland. And
  Rosestone is the beauty spot of that beautiful island. You know he
  has written you again and again to come here. ‘Ah!’ he said to me,
  his other friend, ‘I will bring him at last. Those Americans are
  all for business—for the making of money. It costs a great deal to
  live in America, and my friend, Damon, may need more than he has
  now before he dies.’

  “So, Mr. Damon, he arranged it this way: His will was made and is
  proved in our courts. His chest of treasure is waiting for you.
  But you must come in person and get it. You are to visit his grave
  before you can have possession of the fortune Aman Dele intended
  you to have. It is my duty to see that his intentions are fulfilled.

  “I hope to see you within the year. I would like to get this
  responsibility off my mind, for I am an old man and my time may be
  near. Start at once for Iceland, and let me know when you expect to
  reach Rosestone.

  “Yours in the faith,

  “ERICK BRODAK,

  “Pastor Rosestone Mission.”




CHAPTER III

AMAN DELE


“Now, bless my inmost thoughts! what do you think of that?” Mr. Damon
demanded, and burst into another great laugh. “Isn’t it a fact that
the very strangest things happen to me? I never imagined that day
when I fed that starving Icelander that he was rich and would die and
leave me a fortune. We were both young men then.”

“Why,” said Mr. Swift, warmly, “this is wonderful, Damon! It surely
is an instance of casting your bread on the waters and getting it
back after many days.”

“With interest!” chuckled the visitor. “For all I did was to feed
Aman Dele and help him find himself——”

“With your usual kindness,” broke in Tom, likewise with enthusiasm.

“Tut, tut!” exclaimed Wakefield Damon, with a gesture of dismissal.
“Let me tell you more about that Dele. We sat there in the coffee
house and stared at each other and neither of us knew how to make
the other understand what he wanted to say. But finally I got it in
my head that the first thing was to find out where the fellow came
from—what part of the world, you know.”

“Quite true,” murmured Mr. Swift. “That was bright of you.”

“Bless my brain-pan! I should say so,” cried Mr. Damon, with another
laugh. “I grabbed him again and led him to the nearest library. He
was more scared than ever, if possible. But I got out a big book of
maps and we sat down to look them over. This at last made him know I
was a friend.

“Dele couldn’t read the names of the countries we looked at; but I
knew by his shining eyes that he recognized the shape of some of
them. He knew the British Isles. Then we turned the leaves to Sweden
and Norway and he began to jabber that strange tongue of his. Then we
hit little Denmark, and I was sure we were getting warm,” and once
more Mr. Damon broke into laughter.

“But we had turned the pages so fast at first that we skipped
Greenland and Iceland and Dele kept shaking his head at every country
I showed him. But I was sure it must have a close connection with
Denmark, wherever his country lay. So we went back to the beginning
and all of a sudden he let out a howl.

“Bless my outlines! he acted tickled to death to see the map of
Iceland. Until that time I had had an idea it was as deserted a place
as Upper Greenland,” went on Mr. Damon. “Well, bless my pocket atlas!
I had spotted the land he had come from I was sure. So I went to the
librarian and told him the fix I was in and he actually guessed that
Dele was one of those folk who talked like the old Norsemen—like Eric
the Red, and Leif Ericksen, and those other Norsemen who swept the
seas clean in the old days.

“So we found a couple of books with passages printed in them in Old
Norse. When Dele saw them he was tickled pink. He read them as though
they were the last edition of the sporting extra!” and Mr. Damon
began to laugh once more.

“Bless my antiques! but it seemed to me he was as far behind the
times as the rudder of Noah’s ark.”

“What did you do with him?” asked Mr. Barton Swift, much amused.

“Well, you know, I couldn’t turn him adrift. Besides, by that time we
had learned to understand each other a little by signs. I borrowed
the books and we took them to my rooms. In a few days I had learned
half a dozen Icelandic words (I’ve forgotten ’em all now) and Aman
Dele had learned how to order ham and eggs and a cup of coffee in
restaurant English,” and Damon went off into another loud burst of
laughter.

“So we got on pretty well. And by and by he showed me the money he
carried. And then, bless my pocketbook, I _was_ bowled over! I,
thinking he was as poor as a church mouse all the time! Bless my
exchange! When we got that Danish money turned into American coin of
the realm, it seemed he had thousands of dollars.”

“That _was_ an experience,” commented Tom’s father.

“Yes, indeed. He stayed with me until he learned to know the ropes
and could speak fair English. He traveled all over the country and
came back to visit me again. He was urgent that I should go to
Iceland with him. Said there was no part of America as fine as the
place he lived. He objected to the States because we didn’t have
reindeer pulling our street cars instead of horses. This was before
the age of the trolley, you know.

“Bless my antlers! wouldn’t that have looked fine? Cars dragged by
reindeer! Well, I could not go home with him, and all through these
years he has written me, off and on, to try to get me to take the
journey to his little home town. Now he’s left me this fortune. But,
you see, he’s fixed it so that I must finally visit his home if I am
to enjoy his legacy.”

“That is awfully interesting, Mr. Damon. But why don’t you go right
along and get the treasure chest alone?” Tom asked.

“Bless my brassbound luggage!” cried Mr. Damon. “Go alone to Iceland?
I don’t believe I could ever find it!”

The Swifts laughed at that joke; but Tom continued to shake his head.
And it was a most decided shake, at that.

“Iceland is perfectly civilized. The only danger you run is being
cheated by hotel keepers and travelers’ agents.”

“But, Tom, the treasure!”

“You don’t even know how much it is,” chuckled the young inventor.
“Perhaps it isn’t large enough to divide in half even! It maybe won’t
pay you for going alone, let alone paying me. And I’m a sight too
busy to go so far away from Shopton right now.”

“I’ll guarantee you that the treasure is a big one. How much will
you want to leave what you are doing and go with me?” demanded their
strange friend, with much earnestness.

“I tell you it can’t be done!” and Tom continued to wag his head
negatively.

“You’ve got something so important that you cannot possibly go with
me?” It was plain that Mr. Wakefield Damon was going to be vastly
disappointed.

“Perhaps. Father and I were just talking over a scheme that greatly
interests me, I admit. But there is another thing that stays me at
this time. Mr. Nestor—perhaps you have heard it?—is very ill. I would
not want to go away now. You know, Mary Nestor would feel—rightly so,
I think—that I was neglecting her if I left for Iceland at this time.”

“Bless my doctor’s book!” growled the disappointed Mr. Damon. “What
is the matter with all the doctors nowadays? Don’t any of them know
enough to help Mary’s father? I was over to see him myself last week.
Looks to me as though the medicos were just experimenting with him.
I’m thankful to say I seldom have any need for medicine or doctors.”

“I fancy the physicians are puzzled about Mr. Nestor’s case,” said
Mr. Barton Swift thoughtfully. “But they have sent for a specialist
to come up from New York. We may learn shortly more about what is the
matter with him. This New York doctor has had wonderful success. They
say the cures he has to his credit are almost miraculous.”

Mr. Damon looked rather gloomy. But he expressed sympathy for Mary’s
father.

“He’s a fine man. I wish him well. But I’m mighty sorry if his
sickness stands in the way of your going with me, Tom,” he grumbled.

“Oh, I might find other reasons, too,” declared Tom, smiling.

“Bless my pocketbook, Tom! name your own price,” cried his eccentric
friend.

“It can’t be done, I tell you. You go on to Iceland. When you get
back I may have something to show you that you will agree was quite
worth my while.”

Even to Mr. Damon the young inventor was not ready to talk about his
plans for the flying boat that so engrossed his mind. The visitor
remained to dinner; but Tom did not once mention this particular
topic which he had been discussing with his father previous to Mr.
Damon’s appearance.

The latter, seeing he could not have his way with his young friend
in the matter of the voyage to Iceland, did not sulk. As usual he
cheerfully—and noisily—discussed plans for the voyage, blessing
almost everything and everybody that might be connected with the
proposed journey.

“I shall start next week, go to Denmark, and from there take ship to
Iceland. I’ve found out already that is the way to do. But I hate
traveling alone, as you both know. And I shall want to get back
again as soon as possible, for I am curious about this new thing you
are studying about, Tom. Will it be a land, water, or air marvel?”

But Tom refused to be drawn into any discussion at all about his
idea. “Wait!” was all he would say to his old friend.




CHAPTER IV

A HELPING HAND


Tom Swift, as has been said, did not overlook the value of money
and the good uses to which it might be put. But he did not think
that he wanted any share in Mr. Wakefield Damon’s venture after the
mysterious treasure chest that had been left to him in the interior
areas of Iceland. He was telling Mary Nestor about it that evening as
he was driving her in his electric runabout through the suburbs of
Shopton and out into the country.

If Tom did not go after her and actually insist upon the girl’s
taking a frequent ride with him, Mary would scarcely have had “a
sniff of the open air,” as her mother told her. They were both much
engaged in caring for Mr. Nestor, whose disease at this time evaded
the diagnoses of all the physicians who had attended him.

With Mary, as well as with his father and Ned Newton, Tom usually
discussed the most secret plans regarding his inventions; so, besides
telling Mary about Mr. Damon’s odd predicament, he likewise spoke
of his hope of building a better flying boat than had as yet been
perfected. Some of his ideas upon this subject were not new to the
girl.

“I believe you will achieve a really wonderful thing, Tom,” she told
him, with enthusiasm. “But it will be a monster—bigger than your
great airship that you sold the Government.”

“I am not sure about those details as yet,” Tom said, shaking his
head and looking sharply ahead, for the dusk was gathering fast.
“The idea is just milling in my mind. Yet, I confess, I have had Ned
Newton do a little figuring for me—especially regarding the getting
of estimates for certain parts. Our shops cannot turn out every part
of such a craft any more than we could build all of the electric
locomotive we sold to the Hendrickton and Pas Alos Railroad.”

“Aren’t you afraid, Tom,” Mary asked doubtfully, “to trust outside
people with your plans that way? Somebody in some other shop may
steal your ideas.”

He shook his head, smiling. “No, no. I never trust my plans in full
to any of the construction-works people. I may have my wings built
in one shop, the cabin-boat in another, or the prow in a third. And,
of course, we shall buy the motors outright. No, no. An invention is
like a doctor’s prescription. When it is put together it takes a
pretty good analyst to discover the ingredients. And the parts of an
invention have to be assembled by the mind that dreamed out the whole
contraption.”

“Dear me,” sighed Mary, “I wish some doctor had a prescription that
would help father.”

“I wish so, too!” cried Tom heartily. “When does the specialist
arrive?”

“Dr. Raddiker?”

“Is that his name?”

“Yes. Some kind of a foreigner. A very learned man, I believe,”
Mary said, with rising confidence. “What Dr. Goslap tells mother
and me about him encourages us vastly. Dr. Raddiker is a great
diagnostician.”

“Wonder what sort of a doctor this fellow needs who is coming along
the road?” demanded Tom suddenly. “He’ll have that car climbing the
telephone poles next.”

“Goodness, Tom!” cried Mary, likewise seeing the eccentrically acting
car ahead of them, and evidently heading for Shopton. “He’ll have it
in the ditch next.”

“Great Scott!” shouted Tom. “That’s exactly where he has got it!”

At that moment the car ahead backed around into the hedge on one side
of the highway and then shot across the road and plunged, nose-first,
into the deep ditch on the other side, which was here undefended by
a railing. Tom and Mary heard a wild shout for “Hellup!” and then an
explosion of phrases that the young inventor was glad were uttered in
some foreign tongue, for he feared that they were not polite enough
for Mary’s ear.

Tom Swift speeded up his runabout and they reached the scene of the
accident just as the awkward chauffeur was crawling out of the mud.
The nose of the car was buried in the mire and the occupant of the
tonneau of the car was struggling with the door while he ejaculated
in broken English:

“Hellup! Why for did I let such a dumbskull drive de car? Ach!
I should be shot for my foolishness, undt he should be hung for
inefficiency. Yah! Hellup!”

Mary hopped out of Tom’s car quickly and ran to help the excited
stranger open the door of the closed car. But Tom turned his
attention to the chauffeur. Nothing could be done for the car itself,
he saw at a glance, on its own power.

“Hi!” Tom shouted to the fellow in the ditch. “Go back and shut off
your engine. She is heading for China right now. Want her to go
there?”

“She can go to perdition for all of me!” grumbled the mud-covered
chauffeur. “She’s got the Old Boy in her.”

“For vy you call it me names?” demanded the passenger, indignantly,
just then bursting out of the motor-car. He was a bushy-headed man
with owl-like spectacles and evidently the possessor of a querulous
temper. “He is most insulting! Undt he is the worst driver I ever
had. Dumbskull!”

“You’re the Old Boy, all right, but not the one I meant was in that
engine,” growled the chauffeur sullenly. “You are a crazy nuisance——”

Tom had got out, reached the head of the car, and by leaning down
the ditch side with care, he shut off the thumping engine. He now
swung to look at the muttering chauffeur. The latter was ill-favored
of feature and betrayed frankly that his mental condition had been
brought about by indulgence in liquor.

“You work for Peltin Brothers, at Norwalk,” Tom said sharply. “I’ve
seen you before. This car from their garage?”

“He comes from it, the Norwalk garage,” interposed the strange man
who was now rescuing sundry bundles and bags from the interior of the
car. “The car, it is mine. My other driver leaf me in one lurch, you
say, no? This fellow—ah-ha! He is a low-life. It is not gasoline he
buy for the car, but bad whisky for himself.”

“Well, you are in a bad mess,” Tom said to the driver. “Come on and
let’s see what we can do about getting her up on the road.”

The man shook his head vigorously. He backed away, up the side of
the ditch. When he reached the sound road he started right away from
there, only looking back over his shoulder to bawl:

“I wouldn’t help that crazy guy, or touch that car, for a farm down
east with a pig on’t. You can have it, for all o’ me!”

“Well!” exclaimed Mary, in disgust.

“A fine dog that!” grumbled Tom ruefully.

“A dumbskull!” ejaculated the strange gentleman, standing amid his
baggage.

“Why! How mean!” cried Mary.

“Where were you going, sir?” Tom Swift asked.

“To a place called Shopton. Do you know it?”

“We live there,” said the young inventor briskly. “It is not far.
If nobody else comes along, the young lady will drive you in my
runabout. I will stay until help comes for the car. Or, maybe, we can
get it out of the mud ourselves.”

“Ach! Not me!” cried the stranger. “I must not soil or injure my
hands. I do not lift weights. I am not here to strain my muscles and
rack my nerves for such things as this. Ach, no!”

Tom and Mary stared at each other. They did not know whether to be
amused or disgusted with the stranger. He seemed willing enough to
accept help, but he was not inclined to help himself!

“Well,” Tom said finally, and dryly, “you don’t mind if I try to
recover your car for you?”

“Not at all,” declared the man, with a shrug. “You will do what you
please. But I, I do not aid.”

“But it is your car? You bought and paid for it?”

“Yes, yes! What has that to do with it? I know my place. It is not
working in the muddy ditch over a motor-car. No!”

“I believe you,” muttered Tom to Mary. “His place is somewhere on a
mantelpiece for an ornament.”

“Hush, Tom,” the girl said. “Will you help him?”

“For my own satisfaction, not because I am inclined to play the
Samaritan to such a fellow. I’ll lend the helping hand.”




CHAPTER V

WHAT CAME OF IT


Queerly as this man acted, Tom Swift could not have left either him
or his car on the road and in the lurch. He would have felt himself
to be as mean as the half intoxicated chauffeur from the Norwalk
garage.

Besides, the young fellow knew without her telling him that Mary
would expect him to do all he could in the emergency, and Mary’s
opinion was, of course, of the first importance to Tom. While the
stranger sat on the bank of the ditch with his baggage about him, not
offering to lift his hand to aid, the young inventor planned and put
into execution a method of rescuing the mired automobile.

He had a small ax in the tool box of the electric runabout. With this
he cut a green, tough sapling about as big around as his shank. This
he used to pry the nose of the stranger’s motor-car out of the mud.

He used the pry to break down the edge of the ditch, too, and
finally he used a couple of nonskid chains to tackle the two cars
together, and with the power of his own machine, used very skilfully,
he finally dragged the other car to the highway.

Meanwhile the owner of that car sat placidly, smoking little,
strong-smelling cigarettes which he rolled himself with dextrous
fingers, and watched the work quite impersonally. Mary disapproved of
cigarettes in any case and she whispered to Tom that she didn’t know
but she was sorry that she had urged him to help the strange man!

“Ach! Brawn is not to be scorned,” said the man, when the motor-car
stood upon its four wheels on the road. “It is not so good like
brains—no, no. But if one has not the brains and the learning, it is
well to be a mechanic, yes?”

Mary grew rosy-red at that. She considered it an insult to Tom Swift.
She might have said something sharp, but her friend interposed, with
a grin:

“They say that a man with brains alone on a desert island will live
where a dull man, possessing only strength, would die. But I bet
a stupid man with good muscles will live better in the haunts of
civilization than a penniless man of brains. What would you do if you
had been marooned here without money and nobody to help you?”

“Ach! You are, perhaps, a philosopher?” grumbled the man.

“You don’t have to possess much book education to be that,” laughed
Tom. “Well, sir, you get in the runabout with the young lady. She
can drive. I’ll try to bring your car along behind. Where are you
stopping in Shopton?” he added, as the man began to gather his
various bags and bundles and pack them into the runabout until there
was scarcely room for the girl to reach the pedals with her feet.

“Is there not a hotel, no?”

“The Shopton House. A commercial hotel.”

“I will try it. This is one vacation. I have but one thing to do
while I am avay from New York. I need the change and fresh air, or I
vould never come to a place like this in answer to any call. No!”

“I wonder what and who he is,” thought Tom Swift, as Mary finally
started the runabout and he, himself, climbed into the other car.

The car had been pretty well shaken up by its plunge into the ditch;
and the engine balked several times before Tom managed to get it to
town. Therefore Mary got far ahead of him with the car’s owner.

When Tom Swift got to the Shopton House he found his electric
runabout standing at the curb. Mary had gone home, for it was now
quite late in the evening. Tom ran the shaken car to the nearest
garage and then went into the hotel to leave word for the stranger
where his property could be found.

“You just had a guest come in, didn’t you?” Tom asked the clerk.

The latter began to grin. “You mean the foreign feller?”

“Some kind of a Dutchman, I guess,” said the young inventor. “What’s
his name?”

“Look on the book and see,” was the reply. “I can’t read it, and I
don’t know what to call him. He not only speaks broken English, but
he writes broken English.”

“Really?” responded Tom, with a laugh. “Let’s take a squint at it.”

He wheeled the register about on its swivel and peered at the crabbed
writing. He could read “NewYork,U.S.of Amerika.” But the name of the
man looked as much like a hen track as it did like anything written
in the English language.

“He’s one of these foreign musicians, I bet,” said the clerk to Tom.
“And he wanted a room with a bath and hot running water!”

“There isn’t anything like that in this house,” answered Tom, with a
laugh.

“If there was, I’d rent it myself,” declared the other. “He sniffed a
lot about ‘de pad accommodations’; but he’s staying the night. Want to
see him?”

“No. I’ve seen enough of him, to tell the truth,” said Tom. “But
you’d better get word to him where his car is. And don’t tell him
anything about me! I don’t want him hunting me up and either thanking
me or trying to pay me.”

But secretly Tom did not believe the queer stranger would ever
consider it necessary to thank those who had helped him out of his
difficulty.

“He’s one more Dutchman with a swelled head,” was the young
inventor’s private comment, as he drove his runabout home.

It was too late to go to Mary’s house again. But in the morning, the
first thing when he reached his private office, he called the Nestor
house. Mrs. Nestor answered the call and Tom knew, by her voice, that
she was much disturbed.

“The doctors were here for a consultation again early this morning,
Tom,” the woman said brokenly. “They seem to have very little hope
that Mr. Nestor will ever be better. And they have given up hope of
the specialist’s coming——”

“You mean the Dr. Raddiker Mary was speaking of?” asked Tom quickly.

“Yes. They expected him yesterday. They find he has left New York
for a vacation and, being such a busy man, he probably will not come
here to consult with our doctors on a single case. They give us no
hope——”

“Oh! Don’t say that, Mrs. Nestor!” Tom interrupted.

“It is the way we both feel,” said Mary’s mother. “If I knew of any
diagnostician or specialist whom we could secure, no matter what it
costs, I would ask you to get him here, Tom.”

“Wait!” cried Tom suddenly. “I’m coming over. There must be some
way——”

He hung up without finishing his sentence. To tell the truth he had
no idea how to help Mrs. Nestor and Mary. But it seemed to him that
it was almost brutal just to remain idle while the sick man slowly
lost strength and vitality.

He had intended giving his entire attention that day to considering
plans for the flying boat that he was determined to build. But his
fears for Mr. Nestor and his sympathy for Mary and her mother would
not allow of that.

He pulled down the roller-top of his desk again and started out of
the shops. He had no idea what he could do to help; and yet milling
about in his brain there was a hazy idea that there _must_ be
something which could be done to aid Mary’s father.

If that Dr. Raddiker had only come to consult upon the case! Mary
had spoken of him so hopefully. Dr. Raddiker. Another of these crazy
foreigners, perhaps—-

The thought of the unreadable writing on the Shopton House register
the evening before suddenly stabbed Tom Swift’s brain like a ray of
light in the darkness. He said afterward that his mind seemed to be
suddenly lit up by a startling thought.

He started on a run for downtown, not even waiting to get out the
car.




CHAPTER VI

THE PRONOUNCEMENT


The clerk of the Shopton House with whom Tom had talked the previous
evening was standing in the doorway, grinning widely. He hailed the
younger fellow before the latter could put his first question:

“Hey, there, Swift! Looking for the Great Unknown?”

“That foreigner? Yes. Is he here?” demanded Tom.

“Just gone. Couldn’t stand us any longer. We don’t know how to make
coffee as they make it in some place he called Vienna. There’s no
Vienna in this state.”

“He means Vienna, Austria. Did he start for that place before
breakfast?”

“Well, maybe. Anyway, he got the boy to cart all his truck over to
the garage. He is going to leave town at once.”

“Not much he won’t, if he’s the man I think he is!” exclaimed Tom,
under his breath, and he started for the garage. “I ought to have
guessed it last night.”

The motor-car Tom had rescued on the road had been repaired and was
now standing by the curb. Its owner had hired another driver to take
him on his way. Big spectacles and all, the stranger was planted in
the back seat with his goods and chattels around him. He welcomed Tom
Swift with a sort of sour smile.

“They tell me you are an inventor and a young man of property,
yes—no?” began the peculiar man. “So it would be to insult you to
offer you pay for what you did for me last evening. Yes?”

“You can insult me by offering money, all right,” answered Tom. “But
I mean to exact payment for helping you.”

“Ach! Yes? Indeed? And how shall I pay you?”

“You are Dr. Raddiker!” exclaimed the young fellow.

“For sure. Dr. Simon Raddiker. Undt I mean to get away from this
place soon. What is your bill?”

“You came up here to consult with some doctors upon a case that is
puzzling them, did you not?”

“Not at all! Not at all!” cried the other. “I am on one vacation.
I am in no mood to consult mit dese country doctors. Ach! For why
should I work when it is a vacation I need?”

“But think of the sick man!” cried Tom almost angrily. “Suppose he
needs you?”

“I do not know that. I know nothing about it yet. Why should I
consider him?” and the scientist shrugged his shoulders. “What is he
to me?”

“He’s a good deal to me,” declared Tom Swift sternly. “You must pay
me for helping you out last night by seeing this man—Mr. Nestor.”

“Not so! Not so!” cried Dr. Raddiker, his eyes flashing behind
his huge spectacles. “Ach! You are like one of these American
bandits—yes? You say you will take what you want if I will not give
it cheerfully, yes? Ach!”

“That is the only way you can pay your bill,” declared Tom.

“Then the bill, it goes unpaid,” Raddiker almost snarled at him. To
the driver of the car he added: “Go on! I haf enough of this town. I
never want to see it again.”

The querulous, nervous, excited savant was doubtless an unhappy soul,
and he liked to make other people unhappy. He turned about as the car
started and cried:

“Gif my regards to the young lady. She was very nice and friendly
yet. She is the only nice person I meet since I come from New York.”

“Hold on!” commanded Tom. He leaped upon the running board and leaned
over and stopped the car in spite of the chauffeur. His eyes flashed
into those of the remarkable Dr. Raddiker.

“Hold on!” he repeated. “You speak of that girl. Do you know who she
is? It is her father who is dying and whom the doctors here want you
to visit. Can’t you do that much for the poor girl who was nice to
you?”

“You are telling me the truth—yes?” stammered Raddiker doubtfully.

“Tell this man to drive you to Mr. Nestor’s house. His daughter will
be there,” the young fellow replied.

“Vell! Vell!” agreed Raddiker. “Go on. We will try. But if you
deceive me—Ach!”

He was evidently very angry. Tom did not care how angry the man was
with him; he was determined he should fulfill his agreement with the
local doctors and examine Mr. Nestor.

Tom rode beside the chauffeur and the moment the car stopped at
the Nestor place he called Mary to the door and ran in himself and
had Mrs. Nestor call up the two doctors who had been attending her
husband.

Dr. Raddiker put the best face he could on a troublesome matter, now
that he saw Mary and knew that the patient was one in whom she had
an interest. Mary had quite charmed the grouchy savant. He stamped
into the house with one of his small bags, peering about through his
huge spectacles, and apparently criticising unfavorably everything
that he saw.

It was certain that he criticised everything the doctors in the
case had done and bluntly told them his small opinion of them when
they arrived in haste to meet him. But they knew Raddiker and his
unpleasant manners and accepted his diatribes in silence. One of
the local physicians afterward told Tom that he considered a man
with as keen a mind as the foreign doctor had the right to be as
ungentlemanly as he pleased.

“Not a bit!” cried the young inventor. “The greatest man in the world
could not be excused for using such language or displaying such a
mean spirit.”

However, in the matter of Mr. Nestor’s illness, the famous Dr.
Raddiker did his work well, being pressed to it by the circumstances.
Had it not been for Tom Swift he would have gone away disgruntled
from Shopton and refused to see the invalid.

But, as was the nature of the strange man, having once questioned the
other physicians and gained a full history of the case, he became
interested. And once he was interested in a puzzling problem, Dr.
Raddiker hung on to it like a bulldog to a bone!

He would not allow them to remove his automobile from before the
door, and it remained in readiness for departure. He was in just
as much haste as ever to leave the despised Shopton. But he stayed
beside Mr. Nestor’s bed for twelve hours, watching him, studying the
fluctuating symptoms of the disease, and finally late that night was
ready to give his diagnosis.

Having scolded the other doctors and having declared that no medicine
could aid the patient, Dr. Raddiker left to continue his “vacation”
after making a most strange pronouncement regarding the case. When
Tom Swift heard of it the next day he was inclined to believe that
the savant was quite as mad as he appeared to be.

“What’s that?” he cried. “You don’t mean he said _that_, Mary? That
your father must go to the Arctic? The man is mad! Maybe he expects
him to join some party in search of the Pole? Don’t tell me that
fellow is a scientist! He has escaped from a madhouse!”

But the physician had been serious. A change of climate was all that
would save Mr. Nestor. And a change to a very cold climate was the
change that would be most efficacious.

The local doctors were quite serious about it. The disease from which
Mr. Nestor suffered, when once named by Raddiker, was recognized
as a rare but well understood trouble. A few weeks in a climate of
keen frost might entirely eradicate the germs of the disease that had
stricken Mary’s father.

The treatment had been pointed out. To say “change of climate” was
all very well. But as Mary confessed to Tom, the way for such a
change seemed closed. Who was to go with Mr. Nestor on any such
journey?

He could not go alone. Mrs. Nestor was in such health herself that
the physicians would not recommend such a journey for her. In fact,
they forbade thought of it. Mary could not leave her mother.

“Besides, father could not be burdened with a girl,” she confessed to
Tom Swift. “He should have no responsibilities upon his mind but the
recovery of his own health. That Raddiker! He told us just enough to
stir us all up and add to our worriments. He told us how father might
be aided to health, but he does not point out the way for us to bring
it about. I declare, Tom, neither mother nor I has the first idea of
what we ought to do!”




CHAPTER VII

A GOOD DEAL ON HIS MIND


Tom came around by the slaughter house at the railroad switch, on the
far edge of Shopton, on his way home from the Nestor house. He knew
several of the men who worked there, and he wanted something that
could only be supplied in the vicinity of the town at that place.

“Pigs’ bladders? The land sake! What for, Mister Tom?” demanded Harry
M’Connel, the man the young inventor asked. “You ain’t makin’ no
contraption for to make pigs fly, are you, now? The price of pork has
gone up high enough already.”

“I’m not so sure that the bladders may not help me scheme out
something that will aid man to fly,” laughed Tom Swift.

“You shall have the bladders,” declared M’Connel. “But I never mean
to go up in one of them flying machines myself. Still and all,
there’s some folks I’d just as lief would go scootin’ skyward as
not, and I hope if they do they never come down again,” added the
slaughter-house man, grumblingly.

He went outside, selected a pair of good-sized pigs’ bladders, washed
them, and brought them back to the young inventor. Tom thanked him
and went home with the bladders. When a little boy he used to get
these bladders for balloons. He blew them up now in the same way,
tied them, and hung them out of his bedroom window to dry, warning
Rad and Koku to let them alone.

“Master make great medicine with them,” the giant declared to Rad
Sampson. “Make wonder! Whoo!”

“Yo’ make me sick—whoo!” muttered old Rad. “What kind of med’cine you
think can be made out o’ a pig’s bladder, big man? You is sho’-nuff
crazy.”

But Koku remembered what the magicians and medicine men did with such
receptacles in his own country and shook his head. He held Tom Swift
quite as able to make black magic as any medicine man who ran half
naked in the wilds.

“You see!” he declared earnestly. “Master make big noise. Do
wunnerful thing. Mighty smart.”

“Which _you_ isn’t,” declared Eradicate with scorn. “I dunno what
Mist’ Swift and Mars’ Tom wants yo’ round yere for, anyway. Yo’ ain’t
a smitch o’ good, as I can see. Yo’ ain’t even to be trusted to peel
spuds. I haf to peel de peels after you.”

“Koku great chief. He cannot do woman’s work.”

“Hey!” cried old Rad. “Since you got dat checkered suit out West
dere, whar Mars’ Tom took his electric engine, dere ain’t been any
holdin’ yo’. Makes yo’ too uppity to wear good clo’es. A breech-clout
an’ a string of beads is de best yo’ knowed about dressin’ ’fore yo’
come here.”

Koku showed his teeth at that, and stalked away. He liked to exercise
authority about the house and the shops; but Rad had been here long
before Koku, and he would not endure any usurpation in the control of
even small things.

When there was no subject of controversy between them, however, the
two were very good friends. The giant often shouldered burdens for
Rad and said nothing about it. And he never took one of his wild
jaunts through the countryside about Shopton that he did not bring
back to Rad some treasure, or present—often of a laughter-provoking
nature.

Both Rad and Koku loved to go fishing at Lake Carlopa, and two
mornings later they stole away after breakfast with tackle and bait
for the near shore of the lake. They went to a favorite strip of low
bank, hidden by hazel brush from observation except from the open
lake, and cast for white perch which were known to be plentiful at
this spot.

At first the perch were shy and Koku began to mutter charms to entice
them.

“Hey! Yo’ call dat Voodoo talk?” grumbled Rad, who was religious
himself and did not approve of “no heathen jabber.” “Yo’ stop dat,
Koku! De good Lawd’ll send some kind of a big fish—a eel, mebbe—an’
tangle you all up an’ swaller yo’ alibe. Huh! I got a bite. See dere,
big man. I’s got it! Not you, you ole——-Woof!”

For what he jerked ashore when he thought the fish was well hooked
was a rotten snag. Koku was busy himself with a nibble just then or
he might have angered his old friend by laughing. He might also have
driven all the fish away, for when Koku laughed he could be heard for
half a mile at least!

“What yo’ got, boy?” asked the disgruntled Rad Sampson. “A rubber
boot?”

But Koku had caught a fine, shining perch and he began dancing around
the tiny enclosed lawn in great delight.

“Stop dat ghost-dancing!” exclaimed Rad. “String dat fish on dat
withe. Dat’s only de fust one. Mars’ Tom hisself can eat a dozen ob
dem for his supper.”

“Sh!” hissed Koku suddenly, putting up a great hand in warning.

He had landed on one splay foot and he stood there, with the other
one raised, bent forward and listening. He had heard something beyond
the hazel hedge. As Rad often said, Koku ought to possess the most
wonderful hearing—his ears were big enough!

In a moment he crept toward the repeated sound, his movements as
soundless as those of a hunting cat. Rad came close behind him,
trying to suppress a rather asthmatic breath and stepping as though
he were walking on eggs. The sound was repeated—a little splashing.

Through an opening in the brush Rad suddenly caught sight of a moving
object. He grabbed Koku’s bare and hairy wrist.

“Hold hard, big man!” he gasped. “Dat’s a bear!”

They were almost within stone’s throw of civilization, and there had
not been a bear heard of in that part of the State for fifty years;
nevertheless, Rad was convinced of the presence of Bruin.

“A bear?” muttered the giant, not quite sure what the word meant. His
knowledge of anything but the commonest English terms was meagre.

The thing beyond the bushes moved. It was down beside the lake
itself, and Rad was sure it must be drinking.

“Yo’ look out, giant!” he whispered warningly to the giant.

But there was nothing much that Koku was really afraid of save
spirits and magic. Any animal smaller than an elephant or rhinoceros
he was not much afraid to attack. He uttered a challenging yell,
leaped almost straight up in the air, and went over the hedge of
hazel brush as though from a spring-board.

It is fortunate he did not land upon Eradicate Sampson’s “bear.” That
individual likewise uttered a yell and leaped away from the giant
with much agility.

“Whoo! Ketch him!” shouted Eradicate, charging through the bushes.
“Don’t let him git away, boy!”

But the giant remained rooted where he had landed upon the sandy
beach. Almost at his feet, floating on the surface of the quiet
water, was a polished piece of hollow bamboo to which a pair of
inflated bladders was attached—one on either side of the stick.

“Mars’ Tom!” shrieked Eradicate Sampson.

“Master no bear—what you say!” exclaimed Koku angrily. “Koku jump on
him, he be all smashed up. Rad old fool!”

“Hey!” cried Tom Swift, with some heat. “You big clown! Don’t be so
quick to jump on anything or anybody. Even a bear has some rights
that you are bound to respect. And you, Rad, why did you sic him onto
me?”

“Nebber did such a thing!” declared Rad warmly. “Nobody but a big
fool giant would try to jump right down a bear’s throat widout
lookin’ whar he was jumpin’! Huh!”

Koku likewise snorted his disgust. As usual, the two tried to lay the
fault on each other. But Tom came back with a grin on his face.

“I certainly did think a flying pterodactyl, or something of the
kind, was swooping over those bushes to get me,” he declared.

“He’s sure wuss nor dat,” declared Rad solemnly. “He’s wuss nor a
terrydicktil—sure is. He’s wuss dan a locofoco.”

Koku rolled his eyes tremendously at the sound of these big words
which he no more understood than Rad himself did. Tom hastened to
relieve the giant’s feelings to a degree.

“How many fish did you boys catch?” he asked.

“All lak’ Mist’ Damon cotched when he went to Florida after tarpon.
One!” chuckled Rad. “Mist’ Damon said he was two days cotchin’ dat
one; an’ when he seen how big it was he thought he ought t’ve spent a
week at it. This Koku actin’ like it was de on’y fish ever caught in
dis lake,” he added, with scorn.

“Well, go on, you two, with your fishing,” said Tom. “I’ve a problem
to think out and I don’t want to be bothered by either pterodactyls
or locofocos. Get along now.”

He plumped himself down on the sand again and fixed his gaze upon
the bobbing piece of bamboo and the inflated bladders. Tom had
known, without his father’s declaration to that effect, that one
of the chief problems he had to solve in the matter of building a
better flying boat than anybody else was the problem of constructing
his invention so that it could settle in a rough sea without being
capsized.

The puzzling thought was with him, day and night. It ran in his head
like a tune that sometimes seems to fill one’s mind to the expulsion
of everything else. Yet, when the young inventor was left alone again
and tried to settle himself to his problem in statics, his thought
weaved a pattern something like this:

“A shell of some light metal—aluminum, we’ll say—buoyed on the
outside by additional air chambers. Humph, it would look extremely
awkward. But, as Mr. Nestor says very often, the look of a thing
isn’t what counts. Poor Mr. Nestor! What will those two women do if
he does not live?

“How about double walls from stem to stern for air chambers? Humph!
Bless my blown-up bladders! as Mr. Damon might say,” and he chuckled.
“Mr. Damon catching a tarpon so big that he thought he should have
spent a week landing it. Humph!

“And he starts in a day or two for Iceland. Br-r-r! That’s one cold
country, I bet! Cold! Iceland! Why, if Mr. Nestor went there for a
few weeks—Great Scott!” exclaimed Tom Swift, suddenly rising and
forgetting all about his bamboo stick and pigs’ bladders floating on
the lake.

“What have I been thinking of? Wakefield Damon is just the man for
us!”

He started away from the lake at top speed, forgetting for the time
all about his plans for a flying boat that would astonish the world.




CHAPTER VIII

THE EXPEDITION SETS OFF


Tom Swift was quite sure that Mr. Wakefield Damon had not been up
from Waterfield since the specialist had diagnosed Mr. Nestor’s
trouble, and probably had not heard of Dr. Raddiker’s advice.
The last Tom had heard from his eccentric friend, he was making
preparations to leave for New York very shortly.

The young inventor did not even halt at the house to tell his father
what he purposed doing; but he got out his electric runabout and made
as good time as the town speed ordinance allowed to Mary Nestor’s
house.

Mary and her mother were in no more cheerful state of mind than they
had been when Tom had last seen them. They had canvassed all the
possible ways they could think of to bring about the desired trip for
Mr. Nestor into the North, but had accomplished nothing.

“Every way seems shut by a door that is barred and locked, Tom,”
sighed Mary to her sympathetic friend. “We do not know what to do.”

“Put on your hat and jacket and come for a ride,” proposed the young
fellow.

“But that won’t help father,” she complained. “And I ought not to
take you from your work and let you drive me about the country. It
isn’t right.”

“The trouble with you, Mary,” said Tom, grinning, “more than anything
else, is your New England conscience. Don’t worry about what is right
so much. Come on. I have a reason for taking you for a ride to-day.”

When they were on the road and she knew that he was heading for
Waterfield and Mr. Damon’s house she expressed satisfaction. She was
fond of Mr. Damon, and that eccentric gentleman was fond of Mary.

“But I feel condemned, Tom, when I go around to see people and talk
and laugh—as one will—and then remember that father is so poorly and
that there seems so little chance of his ever recovering his health.”

“Do you believe that Raddiker knew what he was talking about?”

“I do, indeed. The other doctors have much confidence in him. He is
a wonderful scientist. They say they wonder why he came over here
when he was so successful and so much admired for his knowledge in
Austria.”

“I know why he came,” grumbled Tom, who could not bring himself to
like Dr. Raddiker after his experience with him. “The same reason
that all those foreigners come over here. A million kronen is worth
about two cents of our money. And then they say that Americans are so
mercenary!”

“Well, it does not seem that his pointing out the trouble with father
is going to help save him,” sighed Mary.

“Don’t be too sure about that,” rejoined Tom with a change of tone.
“Here is Mr. Damon’s place. Look at the trunks and packing boxes on
the porch. Does he intend to take all those with him to Denmark?”

There seemed to be a wonderful amount of stir around the Damon
premises. Mrs. Damon, who had long since ceased to interfere when
her husband got the wanderlust, sat placidly in a rocking chair and
weaved back and forth, knitting. She was the only calm looking object
around the place, for even the hens were running and squawking in the
yard as Mr. Damon’s serving man darted back and forth, subject to his
employer’s call.

“Bless my spring-heel boots!” ejaculated Mr. Damon, rushing out to
greet the two visitors. “Time is flying and I am so busy that I can’t
think of half the things I want to do before my departure for New
York. I was afraid I should not see either of you young folks again——

“Bless my optic nerve, Mary! how sweet you are looking. Isn’t she,
Mrs. Damon? Won’t you both get out?”

“I will,” said Mary promptly, taking her cue from Tom Swift’s look.
“I must talk to Mrs. Damon.”

“Do so—do so,” cried the gentleman. “Maybe she will answer you; but
I don’t often get a reply from her,” and he burst into one of his
laughs. “Bless my wagging tongue! She says she does not get a chance
to say a word until I am run down.”

He saw instantly that Tom had something serious on his mind. Mr.
Damon was not at all an unobservant man. He whispered when Mary had
run up the path to the porch:

“What’s the matter, Tom, my boy? Is Nestor worse?”

“I don’t know that he is. But they have had the consultation with the
foreign doctor.”

“With that specialist?”

“Yes. He came to Shopton. A funny fellow, but the other doctors think
he knows all about Mr. Nestor’s complaint.”

“What is it?” demanded Mr. Damon. “A very queer case! Bless my
thermometer, a very queer case!”

“As far as I can see,” grumbled Tom Swift, “it is just as queer
now—or queerer—than it was before Dr. Raddiker came.”

“Ah-ha!” ejaculated Mr. Damon. “The famous Dr. Raddiker, the European
scientist? Bless my medical dictionary! he is a wonderful man.”

“Yes? Well, maybe. But he has exploded a regular medical bomb in
the Nestor household. He says the only sure cure for Mr. Nestor’s
complaint is for him to leave home.”

“Change of climate, Tom?”

“Very much so. The temperature isn’t right for him here. He has got
to go where the quicksilver takes a toboggan to the bottom of the
glass.”

“Bless my thermostat! You don’t mean——?”

“That is it, exactly,” Tom assured him. “Dr. Raddiker declared the
only cure for this disease is a cold climate—a much colder climate
than ours. And that Mr. Nestor will have to remain in that colder
climate for several weeks, if not months. Now, you know that Mrs.
Nestor could never stand such an experience. Her bronchial trouble
would be aggravated.”

“Well, well!”

“Mr. Nestor cannot go alone. Her mother would never feel comfortable
an hour if Mary went with him, even to the North Cape, for instance.
It is not to be thought of.”

“Bless my chilblains!” interrupted Mr. Damon excitedly. “If it is
a cold country he needs, and all that, what could be finer than
Iceland?”

“At least,” chuckled Tom Swift, “the name of that island is most
suggestive.”

“And from all I have managed to learn, for a good part of the year it
is cold enough up there to satisfy the most critical polar bear.”

“True for you.”

“He’s going with me, Tom, if he can travel. Of course he will!” cried
Mr. Damon, jumping as usual to a decision which might change all his
plans save that dealing with his destination.

But that was his way. Nothing was ever too much trouble for Wakefield
Damon to do for a friend. He at once halted his preparations and rode
back to Shopton with Tom and Mary, squeezed in between them on the
narrow seat of the runabout, and interviewed the physicians that were
attending Mr. Nestor.

What he learned about the chance Mr. Nestor had of surviving such
a journey as was proposed satisfied Mr. Damon that he could take a
chance with the invalid. When he went to the Nestor house and told
the family in his blusterous way that he proposed bearing the sick
man off with him, as a prisoner if need be, he scattered the gloom of
that household most effectively.

“You are the dearest man who ever lived!” cried Mary, throwing
herself into his arms.

“I’m going to tell Tom that,” threatened Mr. Damon. “Bless my
love-knots, but that is the greatest compliment I ever had.”

Mary blushed, but her eyes shone upon him just the same. Mrs. Nestor
was very grateful. The declaration made the most impression on the
sick man.

“To Denmark and Iceland?” he said. “Places I have never seen! I shall
like it. You give me a chance for life, I do believe, Brother Damon.”

“Never mind the sugar-plums,” replied Mr. Damon. “We’ve got to go in
a hurry, for there is a certain steamship I want to take. Bless my
seven-league boots! but we have got to do some tall traveling.”

       *       *       *       *       *

It was all over and the invalid had been carried off by the
boisterous Wakefield Damon. Tom Swift stood with Mary and her mother
on the porch of their house and watched the two taxicabs, with the
travelers and the baggage, disappear toward the railroad station. Mr.
Nestor would not hear to any of them following him to the train.

“I hope everything will be all right with him,” sighed Mrs. Nestor.

“Well, everything will be all right with us here!” cried Mary,
smiling at Tom. “We have Tom to look out for us.”

“Ah, Tom is such a help,” agreed the anxious woman. “But I hope Dr.
Raddiker was right. It is a long way to Iceland, and the cold sea
voyage may do him more harm than good.”




CHAPTER IX

THE KEEL IS LAID


“You have convinced yourself that this amount will finance the great
scheme, have you, Tom?” asked Ned Newton, leaning back in his chair
in the private office of the Swift Construction Company at Shopton.
“We can’t be too particular about the financial end of it.”

“All right, Old Cerberus,” laughed Tom Swift, who called his friend
everything from the “Watchdog of the Treasury” to “Tightwad, the
Penny Squeezer.” “I’ve told you how far I have gone. I have O.K.’d
several contracts for parts of the _Winged Arrow_——”

“Is that going to be the name of the boat?”

“I think so. We have to call her something. I am going to lay
her keel—the keel of her boat-cabin—within the fortnight, if
circumstances permit. If I don’t fall down on it, Ned, she is going
to be a worthy craft!”

“Naturally,” Ned rejoined loyally. “You would not waste your time on
anything mediocre, I am sure.”

“Many, many thanks,” returned Tom, getting up to bow to his treasurer.

“But tell me more about it. Let’s have the particulars,” said Ned,
with interest.

“I will give you a few figures to consider,” Tom said promptly,
picking up a paper from his desk and reading from it. “The boat
will be sixty feet long. That is about the length of the keel. She
will have cabin space for ten or twelve people. I plan to have the
wings spread at least one hundred and ten feet. She will be driven
by two Liberty motors, each of four hundred horsepower. If I can’t
get a hundred miles an hour speed out of her I shall be gravely
disappointed.”

“Whew! Some boat!” muttered Ned. “But if it is practical, we may make
some money out of it.”

“Miser!” chuckled Tom.

“That’s all right. Just spending money for the fun of it will get
you nowhere,” said Ned soberly. “It is going to cost a pretty penny.
But if you can sell it to the Government, for instance; or some
government——”

“Whatever I build, is at the service of our country,” Tom said
promptly. “But I am not going to peddle my inventions to other
nations. I don’t need to.”

“‘Pride goeth before a fall,’” quoted Ned Newton. “The time may come
when the Swift Construction Company will need cash. Then these
experiments of yours will breed some ducats.”

“This flying boat is my pet project, Ned,” Tom said soberly. “I
believe a deal of experimenting is going on all over the world in the
constructing of seaplanes. It is the most practical end of the flying
game.”

“So it appears.”

“Then, we want to keep in the lead. The Swift Construction Company
ought to put out a boat that will lead them all, even if we never
make a penny out of it.”

“Don’t talk that way!” urged Ned. “Our books have got to show a
balance on the right side at the end of the year. Go ahead. Do all
the experimenting you want. But in the end, Tom Swift, I shall expect
you to evolve something that will pay the company _big_.”

In secret Tom believed that was exactly what he should do. But he
did not like to be too sanguine. After all, a good many of the ideas
he had evolved regarding the new invention were so embryonic that he
hesitated to go into particulars about them with Ned, or even with
his father.

Barton Hopkins had been a dreamer, like his son, in his younger days.
But age usually makes a man critical. Tom did not want anybody to
tell him a thing could not be done until he had tried it out himself
and was satisfied that it was impossible.

During these days after the departure of Mr. Damon and Mary’s father
for Denmark Tom lived in a good deal of a mental haze. He allowed
nothing, at least, to interfere any more with his consideration of
the new invention. Rad Sampson declared that the younger Swift was so
absorbed by his work that he did not know what he ate half the time.

“Dat boy sartain sure work hisself sick,” grumbled the old colored
man. “Dem things he is playin’ wid take all his mind off’n ’portant
things. Suah do!”

To Rad the pleasures of the table were far more important than the
building of a flying boat that was to astonish the world.

“Some shingles an’ pigs’ bladders and pieces of string—huh!” grumbled
Rad. “Let dis yere Koku play wid ’em. They jest de sort ob things
childern and heathens plays wid. I’s ’shamed of Mars’ Tom.”

The model Tom had built upon his bedroom table, however, was all that
Rad saw of the flying boat. It was merely a rough suggestion of what
the young inventor hoped the _Winged Arrow_ would be when it was
done. In one of the locked rooms attached to his office suite at the
works he was working out in full detail the mysterious seaplane.

The workmen, even the most trusted ones, had little idea as yet as to
what Tom Swift was about. But when a part of the erecting shop was
cleared for the keel of the big boat they all grew excited. The Swift
Construction Company was about to evolve another wonder!

When Tom himself appeared in the erecting shop in working clothes the
men might well be sure that something of importance was under way.
There was another sign that never failed. Koku, the giant, was close
at hand.

The strange fellow had believed for a long time now that his beloved
young “Master” was threatened by malign enemies, both of a physical
and spiritual kind. No talking to Koku or explanation of religious
matters could convince the giant that there were not actual “devils,”
as well as evil influences, at work in the world.

Tom had been in so many perils from certain evil people who were
opposed to the Government during the war, and who were the young
inventor’s personal enemies as well, that the poor savage expected
harm to come to his master at any and all times.

When Tom was working around machinery or engaged in any matter where
there were other men about—especially rough looking men—Koku did not
intend to be far away from Tom Swift. He watched the young fellow and
all those who approached him with a gaze as sharp as that of a lynx.

Sometimes Tom turned around quickly to find the giant almost at his
elbow, his savage gaze enough to startle any one. Koku’s eyes had the
quality of a cat’s. They narrowed to a wicked slit in the daytime,
and were yellow. At night they expanded and were glowing, and it had
often been proved that he could see farther and more distinctly in
the dark than any American of European descent.

As Tom moved about briskly, appointing each man his task, advising
here and ordering there, Koku was sometimes quite put to it to keep
within arm’s reach of his master. But, at least, he never lost sight
of him, and the giant could move so quickly and lightly that he was
seldom in anybody’s way.

Having selected most of his mechanics with much care and after giving
heedful attention to their characters as well as to their ability as
workmen, Tom had no suspicion at this time that a single man in the
works felt any enmity toward him. He laughed with his father and with
Ned Newton, therefore, over Koku’s careful watch upon him and those
about him.

And yet, there arose a situation, totally unexpected, almost
inexplicable, which might have been considered with justice a direct
attempt to injure the young inventor. And in the thrilling action of
the moment in question it seemed that Tom Swift would neither carry
through his attempt to build a wonderful flying boat nor accomplish
any other future marvel.

Certain steel trusses were being arranged along the measured length
of the floor of the shop devoted to the laying of the keel. The keel
had reached Shopton in sections, and nobody outside the works could
have guessed what the shining metal parts were as the trucks brought
them from the railroad to the shops.

The traveling crane picked up these numbered parts of the keel and in
succession delivered them to the gang handling the emplacement on the
trusses. The prow was railroaded to the far end of the building and
eased into place. The second section was brought forward.

The gang was busy with this while the crane, traveling upon an
overhead rail, was supposed to drift down the length of the shop
again, drawn by the power of the stationary engine. The crane and its
swinging hooks and loops of chain traveled almost silently.

No workman around the keel noted that the crane stopped half way
to the door of the shop. It seemed to have fouled, for it stopped
abruptly and the overhead rail shivered through its entire length.

Tom had mounted to one of the trusses and with voice and gesture was
advising his helpers how he wished the last piece of the keel placed.
The clanging of other machinery, the echo of hammers, the roar of
escaping steam, well nigh deafened them all.

Of a sudden Koku, the giant, emitted a shriek that might have been
envied by a steam locomotive! He leaped directly at Tom. He hurdled
two of the trusses as though they were no higher than croquet hoops,
and with broad-spread arms and clutching hands, lunged at the young
inventor.

“Look out there, Mr. Tom!” cried one of the men, making his voice
heard even above Koku’s roar. “That giant’s gone crazy!”

Before the young fellow could turn to see what was threatening him,
Koku was upon him and had seized him in his mighty arms.




CHAPTER X

BAD LUCK


The great leap of the excited giant carried him under and beyond the
overhead rail from which the traveling crane hung. The wind of the
rebounding crane seemed to sweep Koku and Tom aside. They escaped the
swinging hooks and chains by a very close margin.

But all of the unobservant workmen were not so fortunate. Two of
them were knocked senseless by the chain, one with a broken shoulder
blade, the other with a cut on his head that bled profusely. Several
others were knocked down.

Tom was up with a yell, wrenched himself from Koku’s grasp, and
started down the shop with the speed of a deer.

“Who did that? Stop your engine! Throw off the power!” he yelled.

But already the man in charge of the power governing the crane had
come to his senses. He had thrown over the lever and shut off the
power. The swinging loops of heavy steel links were now at the far
end of the shop.

The accident was, for a time, seemingly inexplicable. The crane
traveling toward the shop door had been seemingly stuck. The
controller had been thrown twice to start it. And when the fouled
crane had started, it had rushed backward instead of forward. Only
Koku’s sharp gaze had observed it, and his quick action had saved Tom
Swift from disaster.

An ambulance was sent for to take the two more seriously injured
men to the hospital. Meanwhile the general opinion in the erecting
shop was that a deliberate attempt had been made against the young
inventor’s life.

Koku glared at everybody who came anywhere near his master. He
marched up and down within a stride or two of Tom, and flexed his big
muscles and muttered threats in his own tongue. The half civilized
creature, who was usually the mildest person imaginable, had now
become a figure to strike terror to the bravest.

Before anything further was done to the keel of the flying boat Tom
made an exhaustive examination of the traveling crane, the cables
attached to it, and the steel rail from which its truck hung. He
trusted the engineman, who was an old employee. And he could not
think of any man or boy about the erecting shop that wished the
company—or himself—ill.

“It’s a jinx, boss,” declared one of the older men. “Bad luck! And I
have a feeling in my bones that it’s only the beginning.”

“Come, Carney!” commanded Tom Swift. “You take something to get rid
of any such feeling. Don’t talk that way and let the other men hear
you. Of course there is a perfectly reasonable explanation of the
accident.”

“That doesn’t stop it from being bad luck just the same,” muttered
the man.

A thorough scrutiny of the line of the crane’s travel finally
resulted in a single explanation of the accident. Tom picked
up a loop of steel cable—a piece perhaps two feet long when
straightened—which showed marks of the wheels of the traveler.

“This loop must have been left hanging to the rail by some careless
repair man and, after that last trip of the crane, it shifted and
slid along the rail to that spot where the machinery fouled,” Tom
declared.

“Now, somebody is at fault in this. It has cost the Swift
Construction a great deal of money for employees’ compensation, as
well as the wage loss for this breakdown. If I ever find out who the
careless man is, I’ll fire him. Carelessness is the most dangerous
thing in the world. Our lives are not safe when such a man is around.
Now let’s see what more we can do about laying this keel.”

It did seem, however, as though the old machinist had somehow hit it
right about the “jinx.” Bad luck seemed to accompany the assembling
of the body of the flying boat. Little accidents happened daily. Men
were hurt, tools were broken, delays occurred. Tom got into a touchy
state that even Ned Newton recognized.

“You’d better knock off on this flying boat and get a change of
action,” Ned advised. “Go somewhere with Mary and her mother. Take a
rest.”

“You’d better take a rest yourself,” returned Tom sharply, but
grinning. “I would fly all to pieces just now if I had to be idle.
You know how it is with me, Ned. I have to work it off. And I can
think or talk about nothing now but the _Winged Arrow_.”

“It looks to me,” said the pessimistic Ned, “that that is one arrow
that will never be shot. I have been looking it over, and all it
seems to be is a great pontoon—as clumsy as can be.”

“You are a cheerful beggar!” snapped Tom Swift. “What do you expect
to see at this stage of the work, I’d like to know?”

“Well, two things I hate to see are the bills and the labor-cost
account,” grumbled Ned. “You are going to strain the credit of this
company before you get through, Tom.”

“It’s lucky dad and I held onto so much of the stock,” rejoined
the young inventor, with a sudden grin. “We are the only two with
vision. You are terribly sordid, Ned.”

“I’m terribly practical,” grumbled his friend. “Money is one of the
hardest things to get hold of and the slipperiest things to hold on
to in the world. I wish I could impress these facts on your mind.”

“Say not so!” gibed Tom. “Them cruel words break me hear-r-r-t,
Ned. Wait till you see the _Winged Arrow_ take to the air from Lake
Carlopa——-”

“Wait till I do!” exclaimed Ned, and for once the friends were so far
apart in their opinions that they almost quarreled.

Koku lurked about the shop day and night on the watch for somebody or
something that tried to trouble his young master.

“Him evil one at work,” the giant declared to Rad Sampson.

“Lawsy-marcy!” grumbled Rad, rolling his eyes. “Yo’ suah has a
close’t acquaintance wid Ol’ Satan, Koku. How’d yo’ git dat way?”

A fire started among some oil-soaked waste behind the stationary
engine in the erecting shop. A power belt stripped unexpectedly and
balled up the machinery for most of one day. Certain castings were
discovered to have faults in them that would have endangered the
success of the flying boat if the faults had not been seen in time.

Altogether a less determined fellow than Tom Swift would possibly
have been tempted to abandon his plans—at least, for the time being.
But the young inventor was utterly given up to the building of the
flying boat, and nothing but personal disaster would have stopped him.

The work did go on apace, after all. Tom’s energy and ingenuity
were sufficient for the accomplishment of a deal that might seem
impossible to men much older than himself. As his plans developed for
the flying boat, he worked harder and for longer hours. Mary declared
that he even neglected her.

The young girl realized, however, that her father’s illness had
delayed Tom’s beginning upon his new invention. Now he felt that he
must work the harder to make up the lost time.

Mary and her mother were getting accustomed to the idea of Mr.
Nestor’s absence. Besides receiving a cheerful letter written by the
invalid before he sailed from New York with Mr. Damon for Denmark,
they had received two wireless messages sent while the travelers were
at sea.

Then followed a considerable wait before the letter arrived from
Denmark describing the voyage and explaining how they were to reach
Iceland the following month. Mr. Nestor was much more cheerful and
was feeling better already. He said that Mr. Damon was blessing
everything in the universe because of their delays, but that they
hoped to reach Iceland and the village of Rosestone while the weather
was still comparatively mild.

Of course Tom Swift was interested in all that Mary was interested
in. Nevertheless he had pretty well put out of his mind any anxiety
for the invalid. He believed that Mr. Nestor was in very capable
hands, for the eccentricities of Wakefield Damon did not keep him
from being a loyal friend and a jolly traveling companion.

As Mr. Barton Swift said, Tom ate, slept, and lived _flying boat_!
Nothing else in the world seemed just then of so much importance
as the building of the _Winged Arrow_, which was the name Tom had
selected for the seaplane.

“If the craft accomplished the speed Tom expects, she will be well
named,” the elder Swift said in confidence to Ned Newton.

Secretly Ned was quite as proud of his chum’s ability and brains as
was Tom’s father. But he felt it his duty to put brakes on whenever
he saw a great amount of money being risked in an enterprise that
might toe a fizzle in the end.

To Tom’s mind the weeks passed with astonishing celerity. Mary was
looking for news from Iceland when the huge flying boat was removed
in sections from the erecting shop and trundled down to the edge of
Lake Carlopa on trucks.

There it was once more put together on the ways, every part tested
for faults, the motors put aboard and connected with the propellers,
and then, like any ship, she was launched into the water. It was a
gala day in Shopton when the marvel was given her first bath. The
works closed down and everybody connected with the Swift Construction
Company was on hand to see the launching.

Mary Nestor broke the bottle of grape juice on the nose of the
_Winged Arrow_ as she struck the water and was splashed in return by
the water as the plane “made a hole” in the lake.

It was a rough and windy day when this took place; but the boat
merely rocked gently upon the surface after that first splash. It
made a very brave appearance indeed.

“Mebbe the jinx is finished,” said Carney, the old workman, in
confidence when the launching was over. “Anyway, we got the thing out
of the shops without killing anybody. And that’s a good thing.”

Tom Swift was not thinking about Carney’s “jinx” on this day. He
was much too deeply absorbed in the fact of the boat’s being in
the water. Then, too, he had a small puzzle in his mind while the
ceremony of launching was taking place.

In the crowd of spectators was a man whose face he knew. The man
watched proceedings with an exceedingly keen scrutiny. His interest
in the huge flying boat was professional, Tom was sure. He began to
have some uneasiness about the man, for, although he was sure he had
seen him before, Tom Swift could not remember where he had seen him
or what his name was.




CHAPTER XI

THE TRIAL


Ned Newton took dinner at the Swift house that evening, and in the
course of the meal he asked Tom:

“Did you chance to see a man in a frock coat, a gardenia in his
buttonhole, and wearing a top hat at the lake to-day? Little peaked
black mustache and a whisp of goatee? Rather Frenchy looking.”

“He is just the chap I have been worrying about!” exclaimed the young
inventor.

“Why worry about him?” demanded Ned, while even Mr. Swift looked at
his son in some surprise.

“Because it worries me to know that I’ve seen a man but am unable to
place him. Do you have any idea, Ned, who he is?”

“That is what I was asking you—or attempting to,” returned Ned.

“He knows seaplanes, at least,” observed Tom. “I must have seen
him—or his picture, perhaps.”

“He was a complete stranger to me,” declared Ned.

“His face is familiar to me. And I am a bit scary of him,” confessed
Tom. “He looked the new boat over as though he understood everything
about her. Humph! There are some unpatented parts that I would not
care to have stolen.”

“The man could scarcely steal them _in his eye_,” remarked Mr. Swift.

“I am not so sure of that. But it may be that because of trouble we
have had in the past, I am suspicious with little cause.”

“You have caught that from Koku,” laughed Ned Newton.

“Maybe the boy is more than half right,” rejoined Tom, referring to
the giant. “Carney, in the shops, has said he ‘had a feeling in his
bones’ that there was a ‘jinx’ on the boat. Humph! I have to say I
don’t believe in such things—”

“Whether you do believe in evil spirits or not?” interposed Ned.

“Well, that may be so. After all, admitting the existence of bad luck
is to encourage it, they say. But that has nothing much to do with
the dapper little man with the spike mustache and goatee and the
flower in his buttonhole. He was spick and span——”

“Like most Frenchmen? That is one reason why I almost always like
the French,” declared Ned.

“I’d just like to know who he is,” repeated Tom. “Anyway, I am going
to ask you, Ned, to increase the special guards about the cove over
there where the plane rests. I am not yet ready to give other people
the benefit of my discoveries.”

“So Koku is not guard enough?” chuckled Ned Newton.

“He has to sleep once in a while. Besides, a well dressed man awes
Koku a whole lot,” and Tom smiled. “And this chap you speak of could
put it all over the innocent savage.”

They decided to have a special number of guards who should remain
at the cove where the launching had taken place, at least, until
the time of the try-out. And Tom and his men strained every effort
to complete the flying boat and send it into the air as quickly as
possible.

Tom kept three shifts a day at work. But only the most skilled of his
men could be trusted on the job, so the crews were small. However,
there was not an hour of the twenty-four save from Saturday evening
until Monday morning when the hammers did not ring or the steam
drills puff or the riveters clatter on the _Winged Arrow_.

That shore of Lake Carlopa became a very popular resort for
sightseers during the ensuing fortnight. The newspapers had got hold
of the idea that Tom Swift was about to reveal to the world another
marvel, and the reporters would have annoyed the young inventor a
good deal had it not been for Ned Newton.

Ned believed in a certain amount of publicity, and the stories he
furnished the newspaper reporters, if not particularly scientific,
were at least interesting. Tom Swift’s new flying boat was a first
page leader for several days before the test day.

Tom was watchful for the reappearance of the man whose presence at
the launching had disturbed him; but the French looking person did
not again come to the cove. At least, Tom did not see the stranger.
And as the hour approached when the _Winged Arrow_ would be ready
for her trial flight the young inventor gradually forgot all outside
matters. He did not even go to the Nestor house to learn if the
invalid and Mr. Damon had been heard from again. He began to sleep
aboard the flying boat, as the cabin was practically finished.

This central portion of the pontoon, or boat, was arranged so as to
utilize every inch of space. There were folding berths for eight. The
cabin could be divided by a curtain if passengers of opposite sexes
were included in any party. Meals for officers and passengers would
be served here, too, the galley being directly aft.

In contradistinction to the ordinary sailing craft, the quarters of
the crew of the _Winged Arrow_ were in her tail, or after-part. These
machinists would be furnished hammocks to sleep in. The prow of the
boat, where the mechanism of the powerful searchlights was housed,
was built of well-leaded glass so that an unobstructed view ahead and
above, as well as below and on either side, could be obtained.

As the huge machine floated on the water of the lake cove, it seemed
very awkward and as though it would be unmanageable. The opinions
of sightseers who came to stare were as amusing as they were often
silly. It seemed to be the consensus of these opinions that Tom
Swift never intended to try to fly the huge boat, but that it was
merely a “stock jobbing” scheme. It was told that stock in the
Swift Construction Company was being sold at fabulous prices on the
strength of this flying boat that was doomed to failure.

“Gee!” ejaculated Ned Newton, hearing this, “I wish it was as easy to
sell shares in a bona fide invention as these people seem to think it
is in a fake. Money would be easy enough to raise.”

It was true that a fortune—and not a small fortune—had been expended
upon the building of the _Winged Arrow_. The treasurer of the Swift
Construction Company might well be anxious.

“If she’s a fizzle, Tom, my boy,” he said mournfully, “we’ll all have
to go into bankruptcy.”

“She may not be an unqualified success right at the start,” rejoined
the young inventor, with confidence. “But I mean to make her fly and
sail and make a proper landing on the earth and water before I am
through.”

The morning of the day on which the test flight of the new plane was
to occur, Tom Swift was awakened at eight o’clock, a late hour for
him, by the ringing of his private radio-telephone. He rolled over
in bed and grabbed the instrument, removed the receiver and sleepily
shouted:

“Hullo!”

“Tom Swift?” came the voice over the wire—a voice that was quite
unfamiliar to the inventor.

“Speaking,” replied Tom, yawning. “Excuse me. Who is it?”

“That does not matter—just now,” said the voice clearly. “I want you
to do me a favor.”

“What is that?”

“I understand you mean to try out your new seaplane to-day?”

“That is a private matter,” returned Tom, awakened now to full
caution.

“Agreed. But I would like the chance of going with you on the
try-out.”

“What’s that?” demanded Tom, in amazement “You want to join my
mechanics and myself on what may be a dangerous voyage?”

“Exactly. I am interested in your invention. I may be more interested
when I see personally how it works. And if that is so——”

“Well, sir?” shot in Tom, not at all pleased.

“If the plane acts as you seem to think it will, I may be able to
finance your building several of the machines and under circumstances
that will make it well worth your while to sign a contract.”

Tom got a grip on himself almost at once. He replied in a most casual
way:

“I am not at all sure that you could interest me in any such
proposition, even if I knew who you were and was assured of your good
intent. In the first place, this is an entirely private venture, and
I have no thought of selling the plane, or any like it. It may be
some time before I consider the machine perfect. In any case, I do
not know you——”

“Tell me that I am to be one of your sailing party and I will present
my credentials,” interrupted the strange voice quickly.

Naturally Tom Swift had thought, as soon as he was fully awakened, of
the dapper man whose presence at the launching of the _Winged Arrow_
had puzzled both Ned Newton and himself. Although the man had the
appearance of a foreigner, this voice betrayed not the least accent.
The English used seemed meticulously correct, which is, however, a
mark sometimes of the speech of well educated foreigners.

“I can make no arrangements over the telephone,” Tom said bluntly.
“Especially with people of whose identity I know nothing. In
addition, in the present case, and regarding your request, I must
refuse absolutely. Nobody goes with me on the test trip save chosen
workmen and Mr. Newton. I must distinctly say No!” concluded Tom.

“If ready cash would be an object?” began the voice again, but Tom
said once more: “No, sir!” and closed the receiver.

But all the time he was bathing and dressing, and even while he was
eating Rad Sampson’s cakes and chops, the young inventor puzzled his
brain over the incident and the possible identity of the person who
had awakened him.

“He is keeping mighty close tabs on me, whoever he is,” thought Tom.
“Even knew I had this radio-telephone installed on the boat. And he
must represent somebody with plenty of money. Humph, I wonder what
the game really is!

“Business rivals, I presume. And yet, that’s queer, too. I know no
one who’s in desperate need of my ideas and plans just now. Humph!
queer’s no word for it.”

As he said, he had already selected his crew for the first flight of
the _Winged Arrow_. The men were volunteers, of course, and they had
signed off their personal indemnity before he accepted them.

It was true, Ned Newton was to accompany him. Ned was almost as able
to pilot the boat as Tom himself. Mr. Swift merely came down to the
lake to bid them good-bye and watch the flight of the craft. He
helped and advised Tom, but he left the active work wholly in his
son’s capable hands now.

The crowd that gathered numbered several hundred Shopton folk and
probably some strangers. But as the preparations for the test were
concluded Tom scrutinized the groups of spectators sharply for a
sight of the man who had previously interested him.

Whether it was that individual who had got in communication with Tom
early that morning or not, the young inventor did not see him in the
crowd.

“Did you see him?” he asked Ned Newton, as the treasurer of the
company came aboard at the last moment.

“See who?” demanded Ned, in some surprise.

“The Frenchman, as you called him.”

“No, I had forgotten all about him.”

“I have an idea that he has not forgotten about us—or about the
_Winged Arrow_,” Tom said reflectively.




CHAPTER XII

IN PERIL


There was a deal of running about by the crew, getting ready for the
flight. Ned Newton stared at his friend, the inventor, and asked
softly:

“Just what are you getting at, Tom? Do you think that stranger is
around again?”

“I am pretty sure of it,” said Tom, in the same low tone. He swiftly
related what he had heard by radio-telephone that morning. “The thing
is mysterious, to say the least.”

“I’ll say so!” agreed Ned, wagging his head. “I don’t see what it can
mean.”

“We will hear more of it,” said Tom with confidence. “But probably
not to-day. At any rate, no stranger goes on the _Winged Arrow_ this
first trip.”

Although Rad Sampson had got breakfast for his beloved young master
in the galley of the seaplane that morning, he got off in a hurry
when the time approached for the trial flight.

“I been up in de air befo’, big man,” he said to Koku. “But, belieb
me! I ain’t hankering to go up no mo’ till Gabriel blows his trump.
No-suh!”

“Who Gab’el?” demanded the giant. “What he blow for?”

“Ma goodness! Of all de ignerances I ever heard tell of!” groaned
Rad. “I don’t see how you is ever gwine to git past Saint Peter,
Koku.”

Koku merely blinked. He was worried about Tom’s going up in the plane
without him. But nothing much else disturbed his simple mind just
then.

Tom tried out the motors several times. The propellers worked
perfectly. The hawsers holding the plane to the dock were thrown off,
and then the big airship began to move. Tom headed her out into the
lake.

The crowd ashore cheered wildly as the nose of the great seaplane
rose from the surface. She was then surrounded by a cloud of spray
and her motors were roaring. She lifted more and more, and soon those
ashore could see beneath the entire length of the boat’s keel.

She hung above the water for a time, swerving in a quarter circle
so as to head inshore again. Her wide wings and the two wheels
underneath for land travel made the machine look like some huge
winged insect or an antediluvian bird.

The plane soared higher and higher, spiraling upward over the heads
of the interested spectators. From the ground it seemed as though no
such huge machine could be floated in the air. It must come crashing
down to earth again!

But still it mounted. Mr. Barton Swift, with binoculars at his eyes,
watched the ascent with keen interest and some apprehension. He saw
its wavering course, and realized that the balance of the huge plane
was not at all perfect.

Smaller and smaller grew the plane to the naked eye. That it wabbled
in its course meant little to any of the spectators save the old
inventor. He knew that the crew of the _Winged Arrow_ was in trouble,
if not in danger!

Suddenly the old gentleman was aware of the presence beside him of a
man who likewise followed the course of the careening plane through
binoculars. Mr. Swift cast a sharp glance upon this individual.

He was very well dressed in a spick and span afternoon costume and
wore a flower in his buttonhole. His dab of black mustache and goatee
almost seemed painted upon his pale face. He brought the glasses down
from his eyes and looked at Mr. Barton Swift.

“What do you say, sir?” he asked. “Is she not making a heavy passage?”

Mr. Swift was instantly cautious. Tom had not spoken to his
father about this mysterious individual. But the old inventor had
experienced so much interference on his own part from rivals, and had
observed what Tom had sometimes suffered as well, that he was not
likely to divulge his own private opinion to this stranger.

“You understand,” he said quietly, “that no flying machine shoots
into the sky like an arrow, even if it is named _Arrow_.”

“True, true,” said the other eagerly. “It is a good point, sir. But
there! You see?” He pointed again eagerly with his cane. “Did you see
her roll then?”

“An air-pocket, most likely,” Mr. Swift said calmly.

But he knew that the _Winged Arrow_ was not yet high enough to find
those atmospheric “holes” which sometimes turn a plane over and
often cause wreck and disaster. Unlike the smaller flying machines,
the seaplane was not likely to take a tail-spin and come down,
unmanageable, in that way. But she might buckle and break her back in
one of those aerial vacuums.

“Is it your opinion, Mr. Swift,” asked the stranger in his too
perfect English, “that this plane will be a success?”

“My son evidently believes so, and that is enough for me,” returned
the old gentleman. “I am no longer active in our business. I could
not give a professional opinion upon the matter at this time.”

“Ah! You are cautious!” exclaimed the stranger.

“I am careful as to whom I talk with—yes,” admitted Mr. Swift
pointedly. “Come, sir! you have as good eyesight as I have. Arrive at
your own judgments.”

He turned away from the stranger then and gazed only at the rising
plane. But even he had small idea of what was going on aboard the
_Winged Arrow_ at just this time.

Tom Swift and Ned Newton were in the bow of the seaplane when she
swam out of the cove. The steering gear, as well as the tubes to the
mechanician’s compartment, were right at Tom’s hand. Besides, the
speed and altitude indicators were here. Like every other plane, the
_Winged Arrow_ was a “one-mind” machine. A single individual must
govern it all.

But, as Tom had long since pointed out, in testing flying machines
of all sizes, for safety’s sake, there should be a second man in the
cockpit of even a monoplane. In handling this huge plane it would be
a reckless thing for only one man to be at the steering and other
gear. A second must always be at hand to jump in and take charge if
anything happened to the chief steersman, or pilot.

Therefore Tom had trained Ned Newton for just this emergency. Ned had
learned with the inventor himself as the _Winged Arrow_ was building
how to handle the gears which controlled all the movements of the
plane. He could start, stop, raise, lower, and otherwise control the
huge machine about as well as Tom himself.

But on this maiden trip Tom allowed nobody save himself to touch the
mechanism in the bow of the boat.

When the craft had gained speed enough on the surface of the lake
Tom lifted her nose cautiously and, in a minute, sent her sliding
skyward. The slant of her nose became more abrupt after a few
minutes, and Tom shifted the levers so that the flying boat aimed
shoreward once again.

At that time she was sailing not many yards above the lake. As she
came inshore the pilot began to make her spiral upward. At first her
motion was merely a rocking one and not at all unpleasant to the crew
distributed about the boat.

Suddenly, as the plane rose at a sharper slant, she began to roll.
Ned shouted to ask his chum what had happened, for the windows were
open on the sides of the prow and the drumming of the wings and the
rush of the air engendered a noise that was almost deafening.

“I don’t know,” admitted Tom, shaking his head. “Remember, this is my
first trip in the thing as well as yours. Why should _I_ be supposed
to know all about it?” and he grinned cheerfully as he looked at his
chum.

But in a moment the car took another roll. Ned thought it was about
to turn turtle. It was no laughing matter.

“Did you make her so she would fly just as well upside down as on
even keel?” he demanded, having closed the windows.

Tom looked serious. His hand was on the steering levers, or controls.
He knew that this rolling motion must wrench the framework of the
plane enormously. They heard the beams groan, and somewhere a cable
snapped.

“Listen to that, will you?” exclaimed Ned.

The plane kept on even keel for a few moments longer. They had been
in peril, as Tom well knew. Were they now safe?

He lifted the nose of the craft a bit more and again the wings dipped
sideways and the boat rolled “upon her beam ends,” as would have been
said of a seagoing craft.

“Stop her, Tom! Stop her!” shouted Ned, scrambling up from the floor,
where he had fallen when the craft rolled.

But Tom knew that to shut off power and “stop” the flying boat would
court greater disaster.

For some unknown reason the craft had lost her balance, and when she
rolled over the other way it seemed to the young inventor as though
she must go completely over, her wings be wrenched away, and the
great craft fall to the earth in a tremendous crash!




CHAPTER XIII

A SECOND TEST


After his second shout of alarm Ned Newton remained quiet. After
all, he did not lack either physical or moral courage. He had not
entered into this test of the flying boat without knowing very well
that something might go wrong and that a fatal disaster for all was
possible.

How the mechanicians were affected, the inventor and Ned did not know
just then. The members of the crew in the tail of the boat made no
comment through the speaking tube. As for comments by anybody on the
earth that might be watching the careening plane, Tom Swift had made
no provision for receiving such a communication. There was radio on
board the _Winged Arrow_, but it was not in use during this test.

Nor could any advice, even from Mr. Barton Swift, have aided the
young inventor in this serious emergency. Something was wrong with
the balance of the seaplane. Just what it was, Tom had not yet the
first idea. He was as much puzzled as anybody else could have been.

The rolling of the huge structure continued. Had it not been put
together with such care, the plane would never have withstood the
second roll.

Ned, who had gained his feet and who clung to one of the hand-rails
with which the compartment in the nose of the boat was furnished, now
was silent. He watched his chum’s movements with great anxiety, but
he did not interfere by either speech or act with Tom’s attempts to
govern the craft.

The inventor watched the needles of the several indicators connected
with the mechanism of the plane. Some of these gyrated crazily when
the boat rolled. But there was an arrow on one dial that stood still.

This dial had nothing to do with the driving of the plane. At
first it did not enter Tom Swift’s mind that this dial—or what it
registered—was at all important to the flight of the seaplane.

It was the indicator which registered the amount of compressed air
that filled the “skin” of the boat. This hollow between the outer
and inner hull of the craft had to do with the balance and security
of the plane when she had to be brought down into the sea in rough
weather.

Tom’s experiments with the pigs’ bladders and the hollow bamboo had
resulted in an attempt to overcome boisterous waves through the
weight of compressed air between the two skins of the boat’s hull.
How it was going to work when the _Winged Arrow_ chanced to descend
upon a rough sea, was yet to be proved.

He noted the unwavering needle on this particular indicator several
times while the plane was rolling without getting from it any
inspiration at all. Then, suddenly, he uttered a mighty shout,
grabbed for the flexible speaking tube, and yelled to his chief
mechanician:

“Brannigan! Start the pump! Get busy!”

“What pump, boss?” was the surprised query from the tail of the boat.

“Compressed air! Isn’t but one, Brannigan! Fill the skin!”

“All right, boss! Are you goin’ down?”

“Not if I can help it. I want to stay up,” answered Tom, and dropped
the tube.

“What’s the idea?” demanded Ned, staring at him.

“I don’t quite know what the idea is myself, yet,” confessed the
young inventor. “But something has got to be done, and I am willing
to try—Here we go again!”

Once more the huge, groaning structure rolled. If it looked bad to
those on the ground, consider how the crew of the _Winged Arrow_ felt!

The usual kind of an equilibrator—that used in the government of most
dirigible balloons and other flying craft—was a part of the _Winged
Arrow’s_ equipment, but in this strange case the instrument seemed to
have no value at all. The great hull of the seaplane certainly did
not balance.

Whether Tom drove the mechanism fast or slow, the rolling continued.
No matter how strongly the structure was built, such wrenching must
of necessity in time wreck the seaplane.

They were now a mile or more high in the air. If the plane fell apart
at this altitude there would not be the smallest hope of escape for
any of her crew. Tom had tried to descend, but she seemed to roll
worse on a downward than on an upward slant.

“Brannigan! Make use of that pump!” Tom shouted through the tube.

“Aye, aye, sir!” came back the reply.

The finger on the dial had begun to move. The vacuum between the
jackets of the hull began to fill with air. The plane regained an
even keel again for a moment and Tom felt a tremor of the hull which
he knew to be from the pressure of the air driven into the vacuum.

“What are you doing, Tom?” demanded Ned, putting his lips close to
his friend’s ear.

“Trying a new one. Great Scott! Ned, if my suspicion is right,
I have worked a scheme for balancing an object floating in air
which as far as I know is an entirely new trick. I have invented
something—perhaps—without the first idea that I was doing anything
extraordinary.”

“Don’t care what it is,” replied Ned. “But if it is what is stopping
the boat from rolling——”

“I believe it is! It is a new equilibrator! I believe it is going to
work!”

“We’re sitting pretty now,” confessed Ned. “Don’t try any more tricks
till we are down again.”

“Don’t fret.” Tom turned and spoke to Brannigan through the tube
again. “Shut off! All right. Look out for yourselves back there. I am
going to zoom.”

The _Winged Arrow_, once more on even keel, began to descend in a
great spiral. Closer and closer she came to the earth. There was Lake
Carlopa and the cove from which she had taken to the air. After a
time the two friends in the bow of the plane could see the spectators
on the shore.

Tom Swift had quite recovered from his disturbance of mind. He
believed he had by chance discovered something that really was of
great value in the management of this type of seaplane. He wanted to
talk it over with his father and make other experiments before being
sure that he had guessed right.

After all, experiments in natural science are the chief paths to
invention. Tom thought that he might have hit upon one of those
lucky discoveries that often aid in the establishment of worthwhile
knowledge.

When the seaplane finally took the water, the air chamber had to be
relieved of pressure before the hull floated at a proper depth. Mr.
Barton Swift noted this at once and turned to see if the well dressed
and talkative stranger had taken note of this fact.

The man had disappeared. A motor-car shooting away along the road to
Shopton suggested the manner in which the stranger might have gone.
It was plain that for some reason the man did not wish to meet the
younger Swift at this time.

Tom’s father was so much interested in his son’s discovery regarding
the compressed air chamber and its value as an equilibrator that he
forgot to speak of the stranger and his evident interest in the new
flying boat.

Indeed, all those closely connected with Tom’s experiments and with
the success of the _Winged Arrow_, thought of little else for the
next few days but the recurrent flights of the plane.

Tom took the jump-off from the surface of the lake and from the
ground. They made successful landings on both the water and the
earth. After each flight there were adjustments to make and changes
in the mechanism. Tom and his crew worked day and night upon the
wonderful flying boat.

At length Tom Swift was ready to make a longer flight in the winged
boat. Until he had driven the _Winged Arrow_ for a considerable
distance without descending and until he had made a successful
landing in rough water and a good jump-off from the same, the young
inventor would not be satisfied that he had accomplished what he had
set out to do.

He and Ned had forgotten the stranger who they believed had shown
more than ordinary interest in the success or failure of the flying
boat. And Mr. Swift had never mentioned that person to his son.

Indeed, so deeply engaged was Tom Swift in his new seaplane that
other interests literally faded out of his mind. Before the flight to
the ocean which he had determined on, however, Tom spent an evening
with Mary Nestor and her mother.

At first Mrs. Nestor had heard so frequently from the invalid on his
northern trip that she had lost much of her anxiety regarding Mr.
Nestor’s health and safety. But after the steamship had landed him
and Mr. Damon at Reykjavik and Mr. Nestor had written one letter, his
family had not heard a word from him.

“They were going into the interior—to Rosestone—the day following
his letter,” Mary explained to Tom. “What could have become of them
after that we cannot imagine. Mother is becoming much worried again.”

“You don’t suppose that Iceland has postal communication as
frequently as we have it here in the States, do you?” asked Tom. “It
is sort of a barren land, I understand. They are all right. You’ll
get a letter any day now.”

“It has been a month,” Mrs. Nestor declared, shaking her head.

Tom laughed cheerfully. “No use talking. I see I’ll have to provision
this new plane of mine and take a trip in her to Iceland to look up
that party.”

“You could not go so far in the _Winged Arrow_, could you, Tom?”
asked Mary.

“I do not know why not. That is exactly what I built her for—long
trips. She is able to carry provisions for a party of ten and enough
gasoline to last for at least a flight of two thousand miles.”

“Two thousand miles without coming down?” cried Mary.

“About coming down, I don’t know. I expect her to clear a hundred
miles an hour when put to it. Even if we don’t drive her more than
fifty miles an hour, we could make a journey two thousand miles long
in a little over a day and a half.

“And if she proves sea-worthy—if we can bring her down and launch
her into the air again from the surface of the ocean as easily as
we do from Lake Carlopa—I would not be afraid of taking a trip to
Iceland.”

“Well, I just guess you won’t!” cried Mary. “That would be very
perilous, Tom. Even if father and Mr. Damon were in trouble up there,
you could scarcely help them by flying to them in a seaplane.”

Tom laughed too. The idea was odd enough. The use to which he
expected to put the _Winged Arrow_ was entirely practical.

That next morning they made the trial trip to the Atlantic. This test
of the flying boat would be a real test. If she had to be brought
down, either on land or sea, they would not be near headquarters and
the mechanicians aboard the plane must be equal to all repairs that
might be necessary.




CHAPTER XIV

AMAZING NEWS


Tom Swift drove the _Winged Arrow_ to a high altitude when she left
Lake Carlopa on her first long voyage. It was a windy day, but
pleasant. The weather indications were favorable for the journey,
but the report from out at sea was that a storm had shaken up the
shipping a good deal.

“We have that matter of balance and safety when taking to the water
to settle, whatever else we may do,” the inventor said to Ned Newton,
who was again his companion. “The hollow sheath of the boat has
proved a good thing while we are in the air; but I should hate to
learn that I had planned something that turned out to be no good for
the object I had in mind, even if it was useful in other ways.”

Besides the two chums aboard the flying boat there were eight in the
crew and a young man named Kingston who was a wireless operator. The
_Winged Arrow_ was supplied with the very latest instruments for
wireless and radiophone operation, and Kingston was well trained in
his business. He was, as well, a pleasant addition to the plane’s
company.

They flew so high that landmarks had to be scrutinized through the
glasses to make sure of their nature. They passed over three states
in reaching the coast. From their height it seemed as though the
ocean were a hazy blue sheet of glass with a white or yellow line
marking the shore. They scaled down nearer to it and saw great ships
tossing on mighty billows and the surf viciously beating the sands of
Cape Cod.

“Ho!” cried Ned. “I hope you are satisfied, Tom. It looks just as
safe to land down there as though the ocean were a boiling cauldron.”

“It is exactly what we have come to experience,” declared Tom.

“Well, I hope everything is all right,” grumbled his friend. “But I
want to tell you right now that I would rather be on dry land than on
this plane when she hits that sea. Whew!”

If Tom Swift felt any such fear he did not express it. But his face
was rather grim as he scaled down the airways and brought the huge
flying boat hovering above the tossing waves. To Brannigan, in the
tail of the craft, he said:

“Test out your levers. See that everything is buzzing right. We are
going to subject her to a severe test. All ready?”

“Aye, aye, sir!” rejoined Brannigan through the tube. “Let her go!”

Kingston, whose little coop was directly behind the pilot room, stuck
his head out of his door at that moment and shouted:

“Have a care about bumping His Majesty’s liner, _Cantoria_. She’s
right over yonder—you can see her. I just picked up a ’gram from her
operator objecting to such big planes as ours being tried out in the
steamship lanes.”

“What’s the matter with that limey?” demanded Ned. “Does he think he
owns the whole ocean?”

“He is complaining to the U. S. Weather Bureau about us, just the
same,” declared the operator.

Tom shifted certain levers and the huge plane dived for the riotous
surface of the sea. She swooped like a sea-eagle, skimmed the
froth-capped waves for some distance, and then settled upon the water
like a duck.

Foam and spray dashed completely over the wings and the boat’s
upperworks. They could scarcely see through the side ports. The roar
of the waters pouring over the half buried craft was deafening. For
the next few minutes the _Winged Arrow_ was put through a test that
surely would have wrecked a less strongly built craft.

The compressed air between the skins of the boat had to be increased
considerably before she stopped rolling. The airtight pontoons at
either end of the wings were not sufficient stabilizers. It seemed
that Tom Swift’s ingenuity had actually overcome a drawback that had
baffled inventors of similar planes.

The flying boat floated like a well ballasted sailing craft. She
climbed the steep waves, pitched over their tops, and slid to the
depths of the trough between them with surprising ease. When the
waves broke against her wings, leaping hungrily to overwhelm them,
the perfect balance of the hull brought the whole ship back to an
even keel in a few seconds.

Ned Newton was delighted. Aside from feeling some little disturbance
in his stomach because of the boisterousness of the waves, he
considered the test a great success.

“If this was my flying boat I certainly would slap myself on the back
and give three cheers,” he declared.

“You must be a remarkable contortionist to be able to do that,”
rejoined Tom, chuckling. “But I really am not posing. It seems as
though we had hit the right idea. Hullo! What is the matter with
Kingston?”

Through the glass half of the door to the radio coop they both saw
that the operator seemed excited. He had the eartabs clamped to his
head and was evidently listening in on something very important.
With his right hand he wrote a few words quickly and then wheeled and
beckoned Ned.

“Get this to the chief,” he said abruptly. “It is relayed from Block
Island. There may be more of it.”

Ned wheeled about and thrust the paper into Tom’s hand. The latter
read the message at a glance:

  “T. Swift, com. seaplane _Winged Arrow_, offshore, N. Atlantic,
  relay: Return immediately very important news of Damon and
  Nestor.—B. Swift.”

Tom stared from the message to his friend.

“What do you know about that?” he exclaimed.

“Don’t even know what it’s all about,” grumbled the treasurer of the
Swift Construction Company.

“Look at it!” ejaculated Tom, and handed Ned the radio message.

“Great whales and little fishes!” gasped Ned, when he had read it.
“It is from your father!”

“That’s right.”

“It can’t be any joke, then,” considered Ned. “Mr. Damon and Mary’s
father must be in trouble.”

“But if they are up in Iceland and we are down here, what can I do to
help them out of trouble?” cried Tom anxiously.

“That seems to be the question before the house,” replied Ned. “Guess
we’ll have to go back home to find out. Your father is not very
explicit, that is certain.”

“He would not send this message at such a time unless the matter was
urgent. I am glad we have been able to try out the _Winged Arrow_ as
well as we have. Poor Mr. Nestor! Suppose he has died up there? Or
maybe Mr. Damon is ill.”

“I hope not!” cried Ned.

“If it is anything like that, somebody will have to take passage
at once for Iceland,” Tom went on, in a worried way. “Mary and her
mother have nobody to look to for help but father and me. Mary’s
uncle is traveling around the world, you know.”

“Then the duty devolves on you, does it?” demanded the other young
fellow. “And how about business? What about the Swift Construction
Company? You will have to drop this flying boat right where she is!”

“I hope not,” returned Tom, and he smiled again, though rather
ruefully. “If we dropped her where she is, she would go to the bottom
of a very deep part of the Atlantic, Ned.”

“Don’t joke! This is too serious,” said his chum.

“You are right. It must be serious—particularly for the Nestors. If
we have to delay the exploitation of the _Winged Arrow_, all right.
The need of Mary and her mother comes first.”

It might have been difficult to convince Ned of this; but he made no
further rejoinder. It did seem too bad that, just as success seemed
to have crowned Tom Swift’s efforts in the building of a wonderful
flying boat, a chance like this news from Iceland happened to
postpone the final speed and other trials of the new invention.

Tom did not waste time even in replying to the wireless message.
As they could not communicate direct with the plant at Shopton he
knew that, barring accidents, the flying boat would make her landing
behind the Swift Construction Company stockade before a radiogram
could be delivered to his father.

Out of the boisterous sea the great flying boat rose like some huge
waterfowl taking to the air. Her compressed air compartments were
gradually emptied until she gained a perfect poise in the air, some
mile or more above the sea.

Tom guided her in a half circle and she headed for the shore. The
seaplane flew directly over the British ship, _Cantoria_, the captain
of which had complained of the danger to ordinary shipping by the
nearness of the plane.

“This fact will undoubtedly make the commander of that ship write to
the _Times_ when he gets back to London,” chuckled Ned.

The seaplane rose higher as she neared the shore. The yellow streak
of Cape Cod was only to be dimly distinguished through the lower
windows of the pilot room. Night had fallen when the _Winged Arrow_
spiraled over Shopton and the works. Tom made a ground landing
instead of sinking to the surface of Lake Carlopa. He was in a hurry
to get home.

The searchlights in the yard of the shops served as lighthouses for
the plane’s landing. She came down perfectly, bumping along the
ground easily upon the wheels, and finally stopped not far from the
highroad.

The Swift house was not far away. Aside from Koku, who had been on
watch continually since the plane had flown away, there were few
people to greet the crew. Tom and Ned left the mechanicians to attend
to the flying boat and hurried up to the house.

Mr. Barton Swift, very much disturbed for him, was walking the
library floor. He hurried to greet Tom and Ned, waving a blue
cablegram in his hand.

“What is it, father?” Tom asked. “What has happened to Mr. Damon and
Mary’s father?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Barton Swift. “I have been wondering and
worrying all the afternoon. And now I know less about it than I did
at first.”

“How is that?”

“It has crossed my mind that the message may be a fake. It may come
from some schemer who wishes us ill. But on the face of it—here! Read
it!”

He thrust the cablegram into Tom’s hand. The young inventor read, and
read it aloud for Ned Newton’s benefit:

  “Mes. Damon and Nestor lost with treasure chest on iceberg in
  Greenland Sea between Greenland and Iceland. _Kalrye_ a wreck and
  our boats separated. Believe castaways alive on giant iceberg.
  Cable funds for rescue, or advise—Olaf Karofsen, com. _Kalrye_,
  Reykjavik.”




CHAPTER XV

ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND


Ned declared the message was a fake. He would not believe such an
extraordinary tale could be true.

“Somebody wants to get you off the _Winged Arrow_,” he said. “That
fellow who hung around here at the launching—remember? The chap with
the Frenchy look. I bet he represented some inventor who is trying to
put out a machine like yours. This is a scheme to take your mind off
your work and delay you.”

“It can’t delay me much now,” said Tom, puzzled. “The flying boat has
been proved practical—and is practically complete.”

“I fear that something really terrible has happened to our friends up
there in the Arctic,” Mr. Swift broke in.

“The chief thing to do is to find out about it,” Tom said vigorously.
“We’ll test this thing out—find out who Captain Olaf Karofsen of the
_Kalrye_ is.”

“How are you going to do that and him in Iceland?” scoffed Ned. “It
will take you two months or longer to get there.”

“We have got to look into it and try to find Mr. Damon and Mary’s
father, if it takes two years,” declared Tom.

He set to work at once with telephone and telegraph and got
information from everybody he could think of regarding Iceland
and its chief seaport. He reached a representative of Icelandic
commercial interests at his home in Boston and was told how to cable
in the most direct way to Reykjavik. The Merchants’ Association there
verified Olaf Karofsen’s statement of the wreck of his motor schooner
in the ice and the loss of several passengers and their possessions.

Before morning Tom had a pretty complete story of the disaster. It
seemed that because of the lateness of the season no steamship would
sail from Reykjavik at once, and Mr. Damon had engaged the motor
schooner, _Kalrye_, to take his party over to a Greenland port from
which a fishing steamer would sail south before winter really set in.

In the night and fog the _Kalrye_ smashed into a shelf of ice just
below the surface, which seemed to be part of a gigantic iceberg, the
peaks of which stood up out of the sea several miles distant. Mr.
Damon was known to carry with him a chest of treasure which he had
come to Iceland to secure. With this chest Mr. Damon and his friend,
with five sailors, had taken to one of the _Kalrye’s_ two boats. A
heavy sea had smashed it against the ice and the skipper and his
party had seen all in the wrecked boat get onto the ice with their
luggage.

Then the fog had shut down again and Captain Karofsen had been unable
to find the castaways. He had returned to Reykjavik and was now
ready, if furnished with necessary funds, to get up a searching party
and start after the lost men.

“It would be weeks before we could hear from such a searching party,”
groaned Mr. Swift. “What will you tell Mary and her mother, Tom?”

“Don’t tell ’em anything,” advised Ned. “Wait until we hear something
for sure.”

But this could not be. It was impossible to hide the facts from Mary
Nestor. Before Tom had got out of bed, after spending most of the
night at the telephone, Rad knocked on his door.

“Miss Mary come, Mars’ Tom,” said the old darkey through the keyhole.
“She done got a letter from her father.”

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Tom, getting out of bed in a hurry. “He
can’t have got off that iceberg and written her, all as quickly as
this!”

He did not stop to dress, but put on his blanket robe and went
downstairs. Mary was talking with Mr. Swift and had already got an
inkling of the trouble. She was very pale and her eyes glistened with
tears.

“Oh, Tom! what shall we do?” she cried, when the young inventor
appeared. “We never should have let him go with Mr. Damon.”

“Why not?” Tom demanded. “Isn’t your father better?”

“He says in this letter that he is. Much better. But that was written
a month ago. It was sent by the last mail steamer for the season.
Father and Mr. Damon should have taken that steamer. But the legacy
Mr. Damon went after had not then been put into his hands. Think,
Tom! Thirty thousand dollars in Danish money that his old friend,
Aman Dele, left to him. The priest had it hidden away in a vault
under his little stone church at Rosestone. Father tells us all about
it in this letter.”

“Then they are only delayed up there in Iceland,” began Tom rather
faintly.

“Don’t!” exclaimed Mary. “I know more than that. Your father says
they have been wrecked at sea. I must know all, Tom,” and Mary’s eyes
filled with tears as she struggled courageously for self-control.

“Oh, it may not be anywhere near as bad as it seems,” began Tom.

“But—but they _are_ lost? Oh, Tom! What shall we do? And what would
I ever do without you, Tom? It startles me sometimes when I realize
how much I depend on you.”

“I’m glad you do, Mary.”

“But what shall we do? It was so like Mr. Damon to try to reach
Greenland in a small boat!”

“Not so small, I imagine. That _Kalrye_ carried a crew of ten. A
good-sized schooner. She probably ran into a ledge of ice just as the
_Titanic_ did, years ago. But the captain declares he saw his men and
passengers safely on the iceberg.”

“When was that?” Mary demanded, wiping her eyes and speaking more
practically.

“About ten days ago. The captain had to work his way back to
Reykjavik under sail in a whale boat.”

“Could they live so long on an iceberg?”

“Why not if they had provisions? And the captain said the other boat
carried both water and supplies.”

“But they would have to remain on the ice until rescued!”

“Looks so,” admitted Tom.

“If we started at once for Iceland it would be two months before we
could get to Reykjavik, wouldn’t it?” the girl asked.

Tom said nothing. His father exclaimed:

“My poor girl! Passenger service to the island is probably closed
until spring.”

“Then,” said Mary Nestor firmly, “there is only one hope for father.”

She looked straight at Tom, and he nodded slowly.

“Only one chance that I can see,” he said.

It was the turn of Mr. Swift to be astonished.

“What do you two young people mean?” he asked.

Tom smiled slowly. “Mary gets the idea, dad,” he said cheerfully. “I
shall start for Iceland just as soon as possible. We will pick up
Captain Karofsen, if he will go with us, to point out the iceberg
where he left a part of his crew and the passengers marooned, and——”

“But how will you go? What route will you follow at this time of
year?” Mr. Barton Swift demanded.

“We’ll go on the wings of the wind,” declared his son, laughing
outright. “Of course, this eventuality is exactly what I must have
built the _Winged Arrow_ for. I will telephone the shops at once and
tell Brannigan to get the crew together. I’ll take Ned and Koku. If
my new flying boat is any good at all, she ought to fly to Iceland in
less than three days. As soon as she can be made ready, I will start,
Mary.”

“Oh, Tom! suppose you should be lost, too? Suppose you should be
killed?”

“That can happen but once,” declared Tom.

“Only once! But that’s the horror of it! Oh, Tom!” and Mary gave a
slight shudder.

“Let’s not worry about that, Mary.”

But both knew that Mary would carry a load of worry in her heart, and
not entirely for her father.




CHAPTER XVI

THE TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGE


It was possible, of course, to cable funds to Captain Olaf Karofsen
for the financing of a searching party to go in quest of those
marooned on the giant iceberg. But Tom Swift knew that the result of
such a search could not be known in the United States for weeks. He
felt that he could not restrain his desire to take an active part in
the search. Mary’s father and Mr. Wakefield Damon must be found soon.
And he believed the best way to do this was to go personally with the
searching party.

Mr. Swift might have had some objections to his son’s plan. He was
getting old, and, although his health now was much improved, he
worried whenever Tom left him for any extended trip.

In this case, however, he knew the young fellow felt strongly that
his duty lay in the only chance of quickly assisting Mr. Nestor.
The _Winged Arrow_ had proved her speed, her seaworthiness, and her
balance in the air. If she was good for anything at all, here was a
set of circumstances seemingly made by Fate for the trying-out of the
flying boat.

“Go if you must, my boy,” said the old gentleman, with his hand on
Tom’s shoulder when he agreed to the arrangement. “But be very, very
careful.”

Although Tom was courageous, he was never reckless. He had accepted
Mary’s challenge on the instant. But it was not without thought.

“The moment I read that cablegram from Karofsen I saw what it meant,”
he told Ned. “The _Winged Arrow_ can go where no vessel can sail. If
she arrives at Reykjavik in good condition, she can sweep the whole
of the Greenland Sea, back and forth, until the berg on which the men
were cast away is found. If Karofsen is honest——”

“That is a chance, too,” retorted Ned. “It looks fishy to me, Tom.”

“What looks fishy?”

“His story. He knew all about that treasure of more than a hundred
and twenty thousand Danish crowns. Humph! Suppose he and some of his
crew got up a scheme to grab the gold and pitch those who were not in
their confidence, as well as the passengers, overboard? Looks fishy.”

“You sound mighty suspicious. And it might be so. Anyway, how are
we going to prove even such an awful thing if we can’t be on the
ground——”

“Huh! On the ice would sound better,” grumbled Ned.

“All right. Whichever way you wish to put it. Anyway, if we let the
thing go on until next spring any crime of the character you suggest
would be well covered up. I am going to get there as soon as the
wings of the wind will take me.”

His decision, which he communicated to Captain Olaf Karofsen by
cable, must have amazed that individual immensely. Tom cabled two
hundred dollars through a Danish-American bank for the captain’s use
until Tom himself arrived in Reykjavik.

“Expect me on Friday,” was the concluding sentence of Tom’s cablegram
to the skipper of the wrecked _Kalrye_. That day was three days
following the date of the cablegram. Later it was proved that the
message shook society in the Icelandic port to its very foundations.

The fact that the new flying boat was about to start upon a flight
into the Arctic could not be kept out of the newspapers, for the crew
had to be told where they were going if they stuck to their jobs. And
not one of the mechanicians refused to take part in the expedition.

Besides, Koku was to go. Rad Sampson scoffed openly at this. He knew
well enough that he could not go himself. He must stay and take care
of Mr. Swift. But the old colored man refused to acknowledge that
Koku could be of any possible use up near the Arctic Circle.

“Mus’ be, Mars’ Tom, you is wantin’ to weight down dat flying boat so
she can’t eben rise out o’ de sea. Dat big chunk of meat won’t be no
good to yo’ lessen yo’-all uses him fo’ an anchor.”

“Whuf!” snorted Koku. “Koku great man. Koku fight!”

“See here, big boy,” returned Rad, “yo’ll have a hot time fightin’
icebergs an’ polar bears. Won’t be much else fo’ yo’ to fight—no,
sir.”

However, the giant was proud indeed to be one of the party booked for
a transatlantic passage heretofore never tried. The newspapers made
much of it. In the sheets issued the day following the announcement
of Tom’s determination there were photographs of the crew of the
_Winged Arrow_, and prominent in the group was Koku, dressed in the
violently checked suit that had been given him by the president of
the Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railroad.

Beside Koku, who could actually be called a member of the working
crew of the _Winged Arrow_, Ned Newton had announced his intention of
being of the party.

“If the inventor and head of the Swift Construction Company risks
his life in such a venture, the treasurer of the concern might as
well go along,” Ned declared. “If you are lost, Tom Swift, there will
be no company, so my job as treasurer won’t be worth much. Count me
in.”

In like manner Kingston, the wireless operator, asked for a berth
in the cabin of the seaplane. Tom really was touched by these
expressions of loyalty and good will.

“Mary is crazy to go, as well!” he said, with a laugh. “But Mrs.
Nestor vetoed the proposition and saved me from doing so. Mary has
pluck enough to go.”

Two hours before the time set for the flying boat’s departure the
inventor was astonished by still another application for passage on
the _Winged Arrow_. It was a request signed by Rear Admiral Gilder,
of the Naval Board, asking Tom Swift to allow a representative of
that Board to accompany the party which the Admiral understood was
about starting for Iceland. A representative, with full credentials
from Washington, was on the way to Shopton.

“What do you suppose this means?” Tom demanded of Ned, who was his
only confidant in this event. “I have had no correspondence with any
Government official about the boat. I know Rear Admiral Gilder by
name, but——”

“I bet you it is the French looking chap we marked down!” cried Ned
eagerly.

“You think he represented the Naval Board and was spying about for
them?” asked Tom, with much doubt.

“Who else could he be?”

“He could be almost anybody else,” declared Tom, shaking his
head. “He was too foreign looking to please me. And if he is the
representative the Admiral sends I shall not let him aboard in any
case.”

“Maybe the Government will buy the plane at a big price,” suggested
Ned, with some eagerness.

“Nobody will get a chance to buy it—not yet,” Tom rejoined firmly.
“And there is something queer about this request, I tell you. It does
not look right. There is no time now to find out about it. We shall
be in the air, I hope, before this representative, whoever he is,
arrives at Shopton. Not even the Naval Board can delay our departure
in this instance. Every hour is precious.”

Tom was not entirely correct in his expectation. While the last
preparations were being made a powerful motor-car came into the open
lot behind the shops from which point the flying boat was about
to take its flight. The man who got briskly out of the enclosed
tonneau of the car was exactly the individual both Tom and Ned had
in mind—the dressy individual with the Charlie Chaplin mustache and
diminutive goatee!

The man ran through the throng that had gathered to watch the
jump-off. He bore several papers in his hands and he shouted to the
boys whom he saw in the windows of the prow of the ship.

“Monsieur Swift! Monsieur Newton! Hi!”

“Hi yourself,” growled Ned. “There’s the fellow, Tom.”

Tom gave the stranger a single glance and then spoke to Koku:

“Stand by the open door, Koku. Let nobody in over the gangplank but
the crew. Understand?”

“Me understand, master,” said the giant, and immediately stationed
himself at the top of the narrow gangplank near the stern which was
about to be drawn inboard.

When the stranger with the papers came to the plank the giant waved
him commandingly away. The man started to argue. He might as well
have argued with a stone post. Koku could not understand a word of
English when he felt that way! Nor did any other language sound
right, although the man tried French, German, and several other
tongues. Koku was deaf.

When the supposed representative of the Naval Board tried to advance
up the plank, the giant stooped, raised both plank and man, and shook
the latter off to the ground as though he had been a beetle.

Then the last of the crew came aboard and Koku drew in the plank
and closed the door. Every other arrangement had been made. The
propellers began to spin. The hawsers had been cast off. The great
flying boat began bumping over the field.

They could not hear the foreign looking fellow’s voice, but they
saw that he ran after the flying boat, screaming, for several
hundred yards. Then the _Winged Arrow_ gathered speed enough for her
jump-off, and she rose heavily, slanting upward at a good pitch, and
wheeled away toward the sea.

“If that fellow does represent a Government Bureau, we’ll hear about
it when we get back,” said Ned, somewhat worried.

“Don’t bother your head about that,” rejoined Tom. “There are more
anxieties than that on my mind.”

Tom had bidden good-bye to Mary Nestor and her mother early that
morning.

“Bring him back to me, Tom,” Mrs. Nestor had murmured, through her
tears.

“I know you will do your best, Tom, dear,” whispered Mary.

“I’ll do my best for you, Mary,” replied Tom softly. And he lingered
a little over his good-bye to the girl, even though they both
realized the need for haste.

Had the young inventor needed any inspiration for the journey, he
would have gained it from the thought that these two helpless women
were utterly dependent upon his good offices and that they believed
he would be able to find and rescue the castaways on the giant
iceberg.

The venture was one that was bound to bring to the surface of Tom
Swift’s character all his better and braver qualities. He did not
take this trip in the big flying boat without fully understanding
what he was likely to be up against before he returned home—if,
indeed, he safely made the return!

Twenty-four hours before, he had made up his mind to take the
journey. During that time he had put every agency at his disposal at
work to the end that the party should be amply provisioned and well
secured against accident of every kind.

Of course, fresh supplies of gasoline and oil could be obtained
at Reykjavik. Food, as well, could be bought there. But the young
inventor did not leave Shopton and home without seeing personally
that every man with him was well clothed, that in the cabin there
were all the simple medical remedies usually supplied to a sailing
ship, and that there were arms and ammunition for every man.

Koku insisted on bringing his long spear and a great war club. Ned
wanted to forbid this display of savage implements, but Tom allowed
his servant to bring the weapons in the use of which he was versed.

“Those Icelanders will think we are American aborigines instead of
civilized beings,” grumbled Ned.

“I reckon the polar bears will not criticize Koku’s selection of
weapons,” chuckled Tom. “I’ve seen Koku catch a charging jaguar on
the point of that spear in mid-air and impale it as you would stick a
beetle with a pin. And one crack with that war club would knock over
a walrus, I believe. Let him alone, Ned.”

“Humph!” said Ned. “You are quite sure, are you, that we shall search
the Greenland Sea for Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor? You thoroughly
believe Skipper Karofsen’s report?”

“Give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Tom placidly. “You can
scarcely judge a man’s character by his cablegrams.”

Discussion was mostly barred, however, when the _Winged Arrow_ was
well up and away from her base. They followed a slightly different
course to the ocean line than they had on the trial trip. On the
chart table Tom Swift had thumbtacked a brand new map and had plotted
out their course from the vicinity of Shopton to the principal
seaport of Iceland.

The direction was almost exactly north of east. It would take the
flying boat over the great fishing banks south of Newfoundland,
across the northern, or summer, route of the transatlantic
steamships, and over the lonely reaches of that great northern ocean
on which at this season of the year drifted countless icebergs.

Ned studied the course as closely as Tom had previously done. “If Mr.
Damon and Mr. Nestor started for Greenland to catch a steamer, how
is it Karofsen reports that they were wrecked in the Greenland Sea?”
he asked. “That is north of Iceland. The most direct route to the
Greenland coast from Reykjavik is across Denmark Strait.”

“I guess the only town from which fish is shipped south is on what
they call the Liverpool Coast,” his friend replied. “You will see
that that section of Greenland is across Greenland Sea. If the
current sets toward the south, however,” Tom added, “this gigantic
iceberg that Karofsen tells about may be drifting into Denmark
Strait. That being the case, it may possibly narrow our search.”

Ned merely grunted in rejoinder. Even if they reached Iceland safely
in the flying boat, he had grave doubts as to their ever finding a
“chunk of ice,” as he expressed it, floating around in the Arctic
seas with seven men upon it and a treasure chest containing more than
a hundred and twenty thousand Danish crowns!

When the flying boat crossed the line of the seacoast and flew out
over the Atlantic it was plain that the sea had gone down. When they
were well out from the shore the surface of the water seemed as
smooth as a mill pond.

But, smooth or rough, Tom hoped that he would not be obliged to
descend in the seaplane until the _Winged Arrow_ arrived at her
destination. He had taken every precaution, he believed, for the long
and arduous flight. The speed at which they traveled encouraged him
to believe that his hope would be realized.

As they went on, flying so high that shipping on the sea could only
be distinguished through the glass, the atmosphere became very cold.
They were getting farther away from the source of earth heat and the
thermometer fastened outside one of the windows of the pilot room
showed a rapid decline of the fluid.

Every man aboard the great flying boat had been dressed in warm
clothing—the batten-lined leather suits of the ordinary flying
men—when they left the ground. But Tom had furnished fur coats and
hoods and gloves for them all. Their boots were sheepskin lined.
Water began to freeze inside the boat; but the crew kept warm.

Their breath began to congeal upon the inside of the windows and Ned
spent most of his time cleaning the glass with alcohol. Kingston at
first had sent news of the flight by wireless; but now the altitude
and the temperature interfered with the working of the radio. Static
made the sending and receiving of messages all but impossible.

The member of the crew who acted as cook brought coffee and
sandwiches into the cabin and reported that the electric heaters did
not work as well as previously and that it was difficult to boil
water.

“We are up pretty high,” Tom admitted; “but I believe if I scale
her down much we shall be buffeted a good deal by head winds. We
are making excellent time as she is. If we can stand the cold until
nightfall——”

“Go ahead,” replied Ned. “I might as well be a frozen turnip as the
way I am,” he grumbled. “Do you see Iceland yet?”

“I’ll wake you up when I see Olaf Karofsen smoking his pipe on the
dock at Reykjavik,” scoffed Tom.

It was cold! And the idea of waiting until nightfall before dropping
to a lower altitude was found not to be feasible. In the first place,
they had flown into the region of long twilight. Darkness did not
come until near midnight.

The _Winged Arrow_ had by that time flown more than a thousand miles.
Her inventor did not push her to her top-notch speed, but the time
she made was perfectly satisfactory.

Crew and officers of the flying boat stood watch and watch, as on
shipboard. Tom could not be at the controls all of the time, and he
slept at least two full four-hour watches during the flight. But he
was in charge when, late the following day, a hazy spot on the sea
ahead announced the presence of land.

The perfectly adjusted instruments with which the pilot room in
the prow of the flying boat was supplied had enabled them to keep
on almost a direct course for Iceland. There could be no mistake
in this. As she drew nearer and Tom pitched her nose on a downward
slant, they saw the white horses of the surf breaking against the
rockbound shore of the great island.

They spied a cluster of houses and several church spires on the
southwestern coast, and steered for that point.

“Reykjavik,” declared Tom Swift.

“I thought that must be on the north side of the island if that
wrecked schooner started across Greenland Sea,” remarked Ned.

“They passed along the western and northern coast of the island
before pushing out for Liverpool Coast,” announced his friend. “At
any rate, that schooner captain must be a pilot for these seas, and
knows his business. The thing that troubles me is, will he go with us
in the _Winged Arrow_? He may be afraid.”

“We’ll kidnap him, then, and make him go,” declared Ned warmly. “We
haven’t come all this way to be balked like that, I should hope!”




CHAPTER XVII

“SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK”


The _Winged Arrow_ spiraled above the Icelandic port until she was so
close to the ground that all landmarks could be easily distinguished.
There were open fields behind the town, and Tom marked one of these
cleared spaces for his landing.

They saw a good part of the inhabitants of Reykjavik trooping out of
the town toward the place where it was evident the huge flying boat
would make her landing. Tom and his crew were so much engaged in
the work of bringing down the plane that at first the nature of the
throng hurrying out from the town did not impress itself upon their
attention.

The _Winged Arrow_ swooped and rebounded from her wheels. The truck
groaned and the tail of the boat began to drag. Her speed was soon
brought down, she halted, Koku slid back the main door in the hull of
the boat and was about to thrust out the narrow gangplank.

But Ned had spied something that the others had not at first noted.
Marching in the van of the crowd from town were about two dozen
uniformed men bearing rifles on their shoulders.

“Seems to me,” said Ned, pointing out this military party, “the
Iceland militia may want to interfere with our landing, Tom. What
say?”

“A warm reception, is it?” asked Kingston, sticking his head out of
the radio coop.

“Hold on!” cried Tom, beckoning to Koku. “Don’t let anybody get
aboard yet, boy.”

Koku dropped the end of the gangplank and in a couple of strides
reached his long spear and war club. When he appeared at the open
door again his appearance was, to say the least, rather warlike.

The military, or policemen, or whatever they were, warned the boys
back, and most of the men and women remained at a safe distance from
the flying boat. But one excited individual, who seemed to have some
influence with the squad of soldiers, pushed up close to the seaplane
and began to shout.

“If the only language they use here is the kind that old friend of
Mr. Damon’s tried to use in New York,” said Ned, who had heard about
Aman Dele’s troubles, “we’ll have a sweet time learning what they
want or making them understand what we want.”

“Of course many folks on the island understand English,” declared
Tom, and went to the open door which Koku so savagely guarded.

“This is the flying boat from America—yes?” asked the excited man in
broken English.

“Were you expecting two?” asked Tom, chuckling. “I guess this is she.”

“I represent the Soviet Government,” was the man’s next astonishing
declaration. “By cablegram I was told to expect this flying wonder.
You and your crew, Captain, may land. I take charge of the flying
boat from now on. It is arranged to send her on to Russia with our
own men.”

“To Russia?” gasped Tom Swift. “You represent the Bolshevist
Government of Russia?”

“The Soviet Government—yes. The Governor of Reykjavik has agreed to
allow the exchange to be made here——”

“Nonsense!” broke in the young inventor. “Either you are out of your
mind, or somebody has been fooling you. I built this flying boat
myself and I have no intention of selling it to Russia or any other
country.”

“What is that? You deny that our representative, Monsieur Polansky,
bought this flying boat and cabled me to take it over when it landed
here?”

“You are crazy!” exclaimed Tom Swift, in disgust. He beckoned to the
uniformed officer in command of the military force. “Do you speak
English?” he cried.

“But yes, Monsieur. Speak slowly. I can understand you,” said the
officer.

“Then understand me right now,” Tom said, with emphasis. “This fellow
who says he represents Russia, has absolutely nothing to do with this
flying boat.”

“No? But he has writings from the Governor——”

“I am here,” interrupted Tom, in firm tones, “to search for two
friends—Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor—who were lost from the wreck of the
motor schooner _Kalrye_. Do you understand me? Where is Captain Olaf
Karofsen?”

“I do not understand!” cried the officer anxiously. “I am instructed
to take charge of this machine until the Russian official brings his
crew to sail her away.”

“You will not take charge of my flying boat, and no bunch of Russian
Reds will ever get hold of it!” declared Tom warmly. “I begin to
smell the rat in this meal bin,” he added over his shoulder to Ned.

“What is it? Oh! That Frenchy who was so anxious to come with us?”

“Bet you a copper cent!” ejaculated Tom. “But he was no Frenchman. A
Russian!” Then to the disturbed officer of the Danish squad he said:
“Better send this Soviet Consul, or whatever he is, home with a flea
in his ear. We are on an important mission, and if we are interfered
with I will send for Mr. Shantuck, the representative of the United
States. You know him?”

“Quite so, Monsieur,” said the officer, who evidently understood
French better than he did English, and of which language Tom Swift
could speak a few words. “But this gentleman——”

“He has absolutely nothing to do with my flying boat,” declared the
young inventor. “See! Who is that coming?”

He had caught sight of a figure almost as tall as Koku’s pushing its
way through the crowd of interested spectators. Tom had noticed that
there were many tall men in the throng, but this person was head
and shoulders above most of them. He was heavily bearded and wore a
knitted jersey and cap, as some foreign sailors do.

“This may be your Captain Karofsen,” said the military officer.

The burly giant who approached swiftly impressed Tom on nearer view
most favorably. While the self-styled representative of the Soviet
Government sputtered to the military officer, the big sailor came
close to the side of the seaplane.

“Misder Swift—yes?” he said in a deep voice. “When I got telegram
you come in t’ree days I say: ‘Das American come t’roo de air—yes?’
Undt, py jolly! so he came—yes. I sail to America once, twice. So I
spe’k de English goot.”

“You surely do, Captain,” declared Tom delightedly, realizing that
this man was too simple a soul to have entered into any plot against
Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor. “But it looks as if we might have trouble
if we stop here for long.”

“Vot trouble iss dot?” demanded Captain Karofsen.

Tom explained briefly about the claim made by the Red who still
gabbled angrily to the military officer. He was threatening to call
upon the Governor of Reykjavik to reiterate an order to seize the
seaplane.

“And we must get some more gasoline before we try to find that
iceberg,” concluded Tom.

“Yes—I see,” agreed Captain Karofsen. “You go find Misder Damon undt
the sick man with this flying boat? I been trying to charter one
sailing boat—yes.”

“What do you think? You’ll go with us, won’t you?”

“Jes. She peat all de sailing poats in de vorl’,” cried the captain
emphatically. “I see her sail down out of the skies, so like von
bird. Wonderful!”

“But the gasoline?”

“Gasoline we shall buy at a station on the north coast of Iceland. A
Standard Oil tanker bane stop dere twice in de year now—yes. You pay
me for my time, Misder Swift?”

“I surely will. You will lose nothing by going to help us,” cried Tom.

“I go. I gif you back de eight hunder’ gold crowns you send me undt
you pay me my captain’s wages like I have before de _Kalrye_ she was
sink. Eh?”

“A bargain!” declared Tom. “When do we go?”

“Let dat big man give me de hand up, and we start now,” answered
Skipper Karofsen placidly. “When dat man down dere want to make
trouble we will not be here. Ja—yes?”

The coolness of this proposition delighted Ned immensely; and Tom
was satisfied that it would be the best and wisest way out of the
difficulty. He did not intend to be delayed here if he could help it.

“Guess we’d better take his tip and go,” Tom remarked with a
questioning look at Ned.

“As Shakespeare once wrote, ‘there is something rotten in Denmark,’”
rejoined Ned, in a low voice, peering out at the excited Bolshevist.
“If the Island authorities wish to call us to account for what we
do, we’d better hunt for the castaways first. Come aboard, Captain
Karofsen.”

Tom motioned to Koku, who dropped his spear and club and stooped
to seize the other giant’s wrist. Koku lifted and Captain Karofsen
heaved himself up with surprising agility. Without using the
gangplank he reached the sill.

“Mark the place we shall stop for gasoline on that chart, Captain,”
said Tom, pointing to the chart table.

The next moment he signaled Brannigan to start the motors. The flying
boat began to quiver throughout her length. They were about to make
the jump-off.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE GIANT BERG


The first movement of the big flying boat attracted the attention
of the crowd of onlookers as well as the soldiery and the excited
civilian that had put in such a ridiculous claim for possession of
Tom Swift’s newest invention. Those gathered in the pilot room of
the seaplane could see everyone hurrying to get out of the expected
course of the _Winged Arrow_.

“We’ll settle that fellow’s hash when we come back,” declared Tom,
shaking his head, as he glanced out at the stranger.

“_If_ we come back, you mean,” replied Ned. “And take it from me,
Tom, that chap is linked up with the French fellow that bothered us
before we left Shopton.”

“Looks so. But that Polansky, as this chap called him, was no
Frenchman, I tell you.”

“Doesn’t matter. He had an awful amount of nerve,” said Ned. “Now
we’re rising!”

The seaplane took the air as nicely as she had before. Captain Olaf
Karofsen was tracing the course they should follow across Iceland.
The place to which he directed Tom for gasoline was a small whaling
port facing the stretch of Arctic Ocean called the Greenland Sea.

The long twilight of this northern clime made the journey really a
pleasant one. Tom, to avoid air currents caused by the mountains,
veered a little and skirted a shoulder of Mount Hekla, from the
crater of which a thin column of smoke was rising. The captain told
them there had been no eruption of the ancient volcano since he was a
child, but it was not entirely cold.

Captain Karofsen was much more interested in the management of the
seaplane, however, than he was in the physical wonders of Iceland.
The boys were eager to know the particulars of the wreck of the
_Kalrye_ and how Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor had been thrown upon the
iceberg.

“I lost das schooner—yes,” said the captain, shaking his head. “Das
insurance don’t pay me for all. And if them gentlemen are lost for
good, I never get over it.”

It seemed that in the night and fog two monstrous peaks of ice loomed
up ahead of the _Kalrye_, but so many miles away that the captain and
crew of the schooner had no idea their boat would collide with the
berg.

She had run bow on to a ledge, and with a heavy sea following her,
the stiff hull of the schooner was battered into wreckage in a very
few minutes. The two boats were got safely out and the crew divided.
Both boats were well provisioned. The one in which the two passengers
sailed with their treasure and baggage was badly managed. A billow
caught up the craft and threw her broadside upon the ice.

“She vas smashed like you step on von cockroach,” groaned Karofsen.
“But dark as it vos, I see all the party high and dry. They signal us
with flashlight. We tell them we go for help—yes. It was the best we
could do.”

“I believe you,” agreed Tom. “And if you are sure you can pick out
the same berg——”

“Jes! It vos so pig a perg—yes. I could not be mistaken. And those
great spires of ice, side by side! Fear not, Misder Swift, I bane
sure of it.”

“Do you feel quite sure that they are still alive, Captain?” Tom
asked.

“They haf food—yes. They may freeze, but they do not starve. And if
they haf sense they save wreckage from the boat to make fire. Ja!”

“At any rate,” Tom said more cheerfully to his chum, “it’s a chance.”

“Well, I suppose so. But you yourself look out how you go sailing
around over these icebergs. If you break a wing or a propeller or
anything, and we drop on to a field of ice ourselves, we’ll be as
bad off as Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor.”

From the height at which the seaplane sailed across the island,
heading north now, the travelers could see a vast expanse of the
Arctic sea. The sun was so low on the horizon that its beams gave
little light. But the sky seemed overcast with a luminous haze and
under that the sea, and what floated upon it, was clearly visible.

Countless little crackling points of dull fire revealed the presence
of broken ice. Here and there a spire, or hummock, rose to a
considerable height from the surface. Tom Swift and his friends began
to realize for the first time just what a search for a particular
iceberg in these cold regions might mean.

They were utterly dependent on Captain Olaf Karofsen, it seemed.
If he failed to remember how the berg looked on which he had last
seen the marooned party of sailors and passengers, it would be very
difficult for the searchers to find them.

“Looking for a needle in a haystack wouldn’t be in it!” exclaimed Ned.

Captain Karofsen took Tom’s glasses and peered steadily at the shore
line ahead. He spied out at last the little collection of houses he
had in mind, and Tom slightly changed the course of the seaplane to
more nearly hit the port.

There was a breakwater and fishing boats; and at one point a tall
staff which they soon made out to be rigged with wireless antennæ.
Late as it was in the evening (nearly midnight now) they saw the
inhabitants of the fishing port moving about. As the flying boat
dropped lower, it was plain that there was some excitement below.

The great gasoline tanks were built on an iron bridge over the water
and inside the breakwater. Captain Karofsen said there was plenty of
hose with which the tank of the seaplane could be connected with the
supply tank. There was an open field on the edge of the water where
the flying boat might be brought down in safety.

But the sight of that wireless outfit had made Tom a little
suspicious. Instead of sweeping down at once to the land, he shot the
great boat out to sea, and then headed back again, facing the gas
tanks. The pool of water inside the breakwater was fairly smooth.

“I see some more of those armed and uniformed men there,” he said
to Captain Karofsen. “We left Reykjavik without permission of the
authorities. If your governor is one of those pompous fellows, he
like enough has wirelessed an order over here to arrest us if we come
down for gasoline.”

“He could do dot,” agreed the schooner captain, wagging his shaggy
head like a nodding mandarin.

“I am going to drop inside the breakwater,” Tom said quickly. “I can
see there is room there. And we can make our jump-off all right after
filling the tank. Ned, pass the guns to the crew; but no ammunition.
We may have to make a show of force, but of course there must be no
shooting.”

“Master, let Koku go ashore,” cried the giant. “Him dribe um off with
his spear.”

Captain Karofsen seemed much impressed by the savageness of Koku.

“I pet you him undt me could clean oudt the whole town. But Misder
Swift, you no be troubled. Them polize don’t fight yet unless the
governor make ’em. They for what you call show—yes?”

“That is all right,” laughed Tom. “But I, for one, have a hearty
respect for the police of any country. Let’s get this gasoline
without any fight, if we can.”

With the drumming of the motors stopped, the flying boat sank to the
surface of the water almost in silence. By a patent arrangement,
almost as soon as the plane was on even keel one of the airtight
pontoons which were affixed to either end of the wings was detached
and drawn in to an open door in the hull of the great craft.

This small boat was driven by a detachable motor. There was room in
the cockpit for Tom and Koku and Captain Karofsen, but it was a tight
fit! They pushed off immediately for the beach under the gasoline
tanks.

The inhabitants of the port were gathered in a wondering group just
above high water mark. They were mostly fishermen and their wives and
children. There were six of the uniformed police, and their spokesman
immediately advanced with a blue paper in his hand.

He spoke in a language which Tom did not understand, but which
Captain Karofsen was familiar with. The schooner captain answered
angrily. Then he said to Tom:

“This big walrus make de same demandt—yes. They are all crazy yet. I
bane have a goot mind to slap him. He says we steal the seaplane.”

“What does he want to have us do with it?” asked the inventor.

“Pring it ashore,” and Karofsen laughed.

“Tell him we have to have gasoline before we can move it at all. Get
the gasoline. That is the first thing to do.”

Captain Karofsen, much amused, proceeded to convince the people
ashore that the seaplane was immovable without a supply of gasoline.
Tom had money with which to pay for what he needed, and after about
half an hour’s wrangling the hose was connected to the _Winged
Arrow’s_ tank and a good supply of gasoline pumped aboard.

The small boat was then withdrawn from the beach and Tom and the two
giants got into the hull of the plane. The airtight boat was coupled
to the end of the wing again and they prepared for flight.

If the police of the fishing port expected to see the huge machine
jump over the oil tanks and land on the beach, they were mistaken.
When she took to the air, Tom swerved her in a half circle and she
shot out over the sea again and soared into the darkening sky at
railroad speed!

A sprinkle of brilliant stars had now appeared. The dome of the sky
was like a deep blue velvet robe, all trimmed with sparkling sequins.
On the horizon flashes of purple, scarlet, and green denoted the
distant Aurora Borealis. It was a perfect Arctic night.

Tom sailed his flying boat not far above the water and ice. Vast
sheets of the latter gleamed below the flying boat and they could
trace long canals between the fields. Here and there rose the peak of
a great berg.

“When you consider that only about one-seventh of the bulk of a berg
is above the surface of the water, some of those fellows must be
extraordinary in size,” Tom said to Ned and Kingston.

“Some icebergs, I’ll say!” murmured the wireless operator. “And there
are thousands of them. How are you ever going to pick up the one
those folks were wrecked on?”

But Tom had already thought seriously of that point. The chart and
Captain Karofsen agreed that the set of the current was southward
between Greenland and Iceland, through the wide Denmark Strait.

“In all probability that berg our friends are on has been carried
into the strait by this time,” Tom declared.

“You seem dreadfully certain that the poor chaps are still alive,”
Ned said.

“Captain Karofsen has hope of that, so why not?” rejoined Tom. “We
have not come away over here to find Mr. Damon and Mary’s father
starved or frozen, I hope.”

But Tom was anxious. He would not leave his post in the pilot room
that night. As the darkness increased the two great searchlights of
the seaplane flashed their beams over the icefields, and it did seem
as though, if there were any castaways there, these signals would be
answered. The castaways from the _Kalrye_ were known to have electric
torches.

Until the thin edge of the sun appeared above the horizon again the
_Winged Arrow_ soared over the sea. Captain Karofsen pointed out the
coast of Greenland, which the boys at first had thought was a row of
icebergs in the distance.

“My _Kalrye_, she vos sailing by there when she vos wrecked,” said
the schooner captain. “We make it in about two days more. Undt she
iss lost!”

The plane swept around and drifted back toward Iceland on the other
tack. Beneath, the points of broken ice began to sparkle, tipped by
the brief rays of the sun. The sheets of unbroken ice were as blue as
the sea itself. As the plane moved southward there were fewer open
channels and pools. It seemed, before noon, as though able men cast
away in this ice might make their way to one shore or the other.

Yet, if they did, neither the Greenland nor Iceland coasts afforded
much hope of succor. The first named was utterly barren for hundreds
of miles, while the fishing settlements on Iceland were far apart on
this northwestern coast.

Now and again somebody spied something moving on the ice, and down
the flying boat would swoop that the object might be the better
examined. In each case the searchers were disappointed. Several times
small herds of seals were made out, or a pair of walruses. Once a
huge polar bear was seen drifting down a channel, enthroned on a lump
of ice. It had evidently been fishing at the edge of the open water
and the chunk of ice had broken away from the parent field.

A school of round-backed whales, some ten of them, were observed
swimming down a channel, evidently making for the warmer seas.

“Let Mr. Damon and his party catch one of those whales or a bear, and
they’ll be fixed all right for food,” said Ned, chuckling. “Wouldn’t
Mr. Damon be blessing everything in nature if he came to eating
blubber?”

Tom drove his flying boat first to the east until they could see the
coast of the big island they had left the night before, and then
turned her about and drove west until Greenland was in sight. At each
lap he brought their course many miles southward. Little floating on
the surface of the sea escaped their keen gaze.

It was mid-afternoon when Captain Olaf Karofsen, looking through
Tom’s powerful glasses, began to show more excitement. Even with
only the naked eye there could be seen ahead two tall pinnacles like
cathedral towers. There was a narrow space between them, and miles
upon miles of hummock ice and low bluffs lay about the two spires.

“Dot iss she!” exclaimed Captain Karofsen. “I vould not fool you,
Misder Swift. Dot is de perg I see Mr. Damon and the sick man undt
my five sailors from the _Kalrye_ climb upon when their boat was
smashed. I could not mistake those two points like chimneys.”

“Is there anything moving on that great field of ice?” demanded Tom
anxiously.

His companions used their eyes, and the binoculars, as well, to the
best advantage. Tom drove the flying boat nearer and nearer to the
pinnacles of ice. Not a moving object was descried beneath them. The
great iceberg seemed to be as abandoned as any of the other fields
they had flown over during their marvelous journey through the air.




CHAPTER XIX

THE DESERT OF ICE


The portion of the great iceberg that was visible consisted of a good
many square miles of hills and valleys of ice, with the two more
important eminences standing close together near the middle of the
vast field.

It was so huge that its movement (and bergs are always in motion)
could not be observed at all. It seemed as immovable as the island of
Iceland itself, yet Captain Olaf Karofsen was positive that it had
drifted a good many miles southward during the two weeks since his
schooner had been wrecked on one of the outer reefs of the berg.

As the _Winged Arrow_ swooped lower, and Tom Swift drove it around
the entire outer edge of the iceberg, the schooner captain tried to
mark the spot where the _Kalrye_ had struck and sunk and the spot
where the lifeboat had been smashed.

There was not a scrap of either wreck to be seen. The changing
surface of the ice offered no certain mark of any party of castaways
having been upon it. The seaplane circumnavigated the huge berg twice
with the same result. The hearts of Tom and Ned failed them. They
feared that the disaster had been wholly tragic, after all.

But Captain Karofsen would not give up hope. He pointed out that his
five sailors were all seasoned men, used to the Arctic, and of wide
experience. First of all, he said, they would have saved the boat,
cut it up with the boat axes, and transported it and the provisions
to some sheltered place on the berg.

“There be hunderts of caves—yes? Many, many places for to hide and
keep varm. Iceland men don’t gif up so easy, Misder Swift.”

It was plain to be seen that there were many valleys and sheltered
dens in the middle of the berg into which the crew of the seaplane
could not see. The flying boat might pass back and forth over the
iceberg a hundred times and not be spied by the castaways if they
were thus holed up.

“But we do not even see any smoke,” said Ned. “If they had a fire——”

“They would be careful with their fuel,” interrupted Tom. “We might
hang around up here for a couple of days and miss seeing anything of
them if they are there——”

“A wise ‘if,’” interrupted Ned.

“Unless they come out to hunt food——”

“Hoh!” cried Ned again. “Dig potatoes, I suppose?”

“Don’t be foolish!” commanded Tom. “There are seals and bears, and
Captain Karofsen says that both Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor had rifles.”

“That’s right,” agreed Ned. “I did not think of that.”

“So,” concluded Tom firmly, “I am going to descend into that middle
valley——”

“Not between those two peaks, Tom?” cried his friend. “That is a bad
hole to get out of.”

“I mean the valley just beyond. See! Look close.”

He managed the controls so that the great flying boat headed in
between the tall pinnacles of ice. As they rushed into the narrow
valley between the greenish-white walls of ice, they found the cleft
much deeper than they had at first supposed. There was an unexpected
draught through the passage, too.

The _Winged Arrow_ swerved unexpectedly to one side, and her right
wing scraped along the ice cliff. The plane was jarred from stem to
stern and several cables snapped.

The collision dislodged a huge mass of the ice that came tumbling
down, barely missing the tail of the boat and falling with a
thunderous crash into the bottom of the gorge.

“You’d better get out of this, Tom!” yelled Ned. “Shoot her up!”

The passage between the ice cliffs was too narrow and crooked,
however, for Tom to risk any abrupt ascent. Still rocking from the
force of that slam against the ice, the seaplane staggered on, but at
reduced speed. The valley was several miles long.

Again and yet again the end of one wing or the other touched the ice.
These slight collisions did no particular harm, but they emphasized
the fact that Tom could not govern the mechanism as perfectly as he
had before.

The balance of the plane was overset. She was likewise sinking.
When Tom signaled for a “lift,” Brannigan could not work his levers
properly. Like a huge wounded air fowl, the _Winged Arrow_ fluttered
lower and lower.

“My goodness, Tom! are we done for?” gasped his chum.

Tom’s face was pale, but he did not lose his self-control. He dared
not raise the nose of the flying boat sharply, for if he did and she
then took a tail spin she would land upon her propeller and put that
out of commission.

The craft continued to descend. Tom waved a disengaged hand toward
the right hand window. Ned and the others saw what he wished to call
their attention to.

The airtight pontoon at that end of the great wing had been smashed
in the collision with the wall of ice and now hung partly disengaged
from its proper fastenings. This had so disarranged the balance of
the boat that her management was most difficult, especially in this
narrow chasm.

Another sharp turn in the valley of ice loomed before them. Below,
Tom saw that the bottom of the gorge was comparatively smooth for
some distance. If they could make a fair landing, they might be able
to repair the pontoon and then rise on even keel again.

He quickly signaled Brannigan, who shut down the motors. The roar of
them ceased almost at once. The great flying boat sank to rest in the
heart of the giant iceberg.




CHAPTER XX

IMPRISONED IN THE ICE


When the throbbing of the motors ceased and the flying boat had
stopped rebounding on its wheels and tail, the party in the pilot
room stared at each other in a silence that was pregnant with
anxiety. Even Koku, who stood on guard, felt that the situation of
the _Winged Arrow_ was serious; yet Koku believed that the “magic” of
his Master Tom was equal to almost any emergency.

Tom as a usual thing had plenty of confidence in himself, and
especially in his ability to get out of scrapes. But this was one
event over which he seemed to have little control.

“What shall we do?” asked Ned.

“Got to find that out, I guess,” admitted the young inventor. “First
of all the boys will have to fix that pontoon. It’s a mess. And
without it in position the flying boat will be lopsided when I try to
raise her.”

“Great!” groaned Ned. “So we are marooned down here at the bottom of
this hole in the ice?”

Tom went aft to confer with his mechanicians. Ned and Kingston got
into their outer furs, lent an extra coat to Captain Karofsen, and
the trio opened the door and by the aid of a light steel ladder got
down upon the ice.

The gorge was not more than four hundred feet wide at this point, and
the walls of ice towered above their heads at least a thousand feet.
If they found it necessary to scale those heights afoot, it would be
a difficult and perilous venture.

Tom and the mechanicians came piling out after a bit, and a close
inspection was made of the airtight boat pendant from the right
wing. It could be repaired, of course; but it necessarily would take
considerable time.

“Go ahead,” said Tom. “We have food and heat in plenty. Do your best,
Brannigan. Meanwhile the rest of us will take a look through this
cañon. I wonder if firing our rifles would attract the attention of
Mr. Nestor and the others if they are near here.”

“I tell you what it might do,” said the wireless operator, Kingston.

“What’s that?”

“It might bring down an avalanche of ice on our heads. You know a
cracking stick has been known to start an avalanche.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Ned. “I wish you didn’t know so much. Why tell us
that? I’ll get a crick in my neck now, I know, watching out for the
ice to fall.”

But it was no joking matter. Kingston was right, as Tom well knew.
Yet the young inventor felt that they should try as quickly as
possible to find Mr. Damon and Mary’s father. If the two were still
on the giant iceberg it would be well if they were discovered soon.
Tom had no desire to remain marooned at the bottom of this gorge for
long.

Captain Karofsen was still cheerfully optimistic about finding his
seamen and passengers from the wrecked _Kalrye_. There were thousands
of places in the iceberg where they might conceal themselves. And
unless by chance they had seen the seaplane flying over the berg, the
castaways would never know that a searching party had come to look
for them.

The schooner captain, however, agreed that it would be unsafe to fire
the guns. At least, it must not be done down here in the maw of the
iceberg.

“We bane look for them—yes? If they haf been here they must leave
somet’ing behind. We see where they camp—yes?”

“Come on!” Tom sang out. “We would better keep together. No knowing
what there may be on this berg besides castaways.”

“Bears, for instance!” rejoined Ned Newton. “Come on, Koku. Maybe
that big spear of yours may be of some use yet.”

The giant grinned and marched ahead with the spear poised for quick
use. The party took up their march along the bottom of the gorge,
leaving Brannigan and his helpers to repair the flying boat.

From above, as the flying boat had hovered over the ice peaks, the
party had gained rather an unsatisfactory idea of what the gorge was
like. But, of course, had it not been for the accident to the pontoon
Tom would never have descended into the cañon between these towering,
icy walls with his invention.

Beyond the place where the _Winged Arrow_ had been forced to land
there seemed to be several miles of the gorge, and it was by no means
a straightaway cleft in the ice. It twisted and turned like the path
of a tortured snake.

“We’d have a fat chance following this cañon in that flying boat,”
remarked Ned. “Quick as they got one thing repaired, we’d crash into
a spur of this ice and crack something else. I tell you, Tom, just as
soon as we can, we want to get up out of this hole.”

“Reckon you are right,” agreed his chum. “Hi! See there! What is it
that Koku has found?”

The giant had suddenly increased his stride, thrusting his spear
forward and showing every evidence of excitement. He was several
rods in advance of the remainder of the party. Tom and the others
half expected to see somebody rise up to face the giant, but as they
rounded a spur of ice and joined Koku there seemed to be nobody else
in sight.

“What is it?” demanded Tom.

“Master see?” exclaimed the giant, and showed them what he had
speared.

“Great Scott! A bean can!” cried Tom.

Ned burst into laughter. “Civilization—a sure mark!” he chortled.
“Yankees have been here, you may be sure.”

Tom turned to Captain Karofsen.

“How about it, Captain? There is the label still sticking to it. Was
that a brand of beans included in the stores of the _Kalrye_?”

“That iss idt,” rejoined the schooner captain. “They been here—yes.
See that cave yonder, Misder Swift? Perhaps they have been there in
that cavern.”

Koku had already seen the opening of a considerable cavity in one
wall of the gorge. He advanced cautiously. The cavern appeared to be
very deep. It was dark beyond the entrance. As the party hesitated
before the opening they could distinctly feel a draught of air
blowing from the hole.

“It’s a tunnel, I bet,” said Ned. “What say? Think it goes clear
through this ice mountain to the plain beyond?”

“Why not?” demanded Tom. “These ice cliffs seem honeycombed with such
caves.”

Koku suddenly shouted and darted forward into the mouth of the cave.
There was a savage roar in reply—but it was no human voice that
answered the giant’s challenge.

“A bear!” exclaimed Tom, and he was first to follow the excited Koku
into the half darkened cavity.

Ned was close on the young inventor’s heels.

“Tom, do have a care!” he shouted.

“No time for care!” panted Tom. “Koku’s fearless! No telling what
he’ll do!”

The giant thrust mightily with his spear and the challenging roar of
the bear changed instantly to a scream of pain. With a crash of ice
and breaking spear-handle, the huge beast appeared in the entrance to
the cave.

Koku was overturned. He fell sprawling, with the broken handle still
clutched in his mighty grip. The bear reared, plucking at the staff
that impaled it. It stood taller than Captain Karofsen, or even Koku.
It was a drab-white polar bear of fierce aspect, and its rumbling
growls reverberated from the walls of ice, making a deafening clamor.

The schooner captain started forward, rifle raised, and in a moment
flame darted from the muzzle of his weapon. The bear was hit—indeed,
the captain could not have missed it—but it was not yet dead and fell
back into the darkness of the cave.

They all advanced, holding their guns ready for another attack. Even
Koku scrambled up and came on, brandishing his broken staff. It was
fortunate indeed that the three young fellows and their two gigantic
companions followed the wounded bear so closely.

Scarcely had the echoing explosion of Captain Karofsen’s rifle died
away when a mightier report sounded over their heads. Everybody
halted, appalled. The peril of the wounded bear was forgotten.
White-faced and motionless, they stared at one another. They all knew
that something of vastly greater menace had occurred.

The explosion above was the breaking away of some overhanging shelf
of ice. It came sliding and bursting down the face of the cliff and
in half a minute was dumped with a terrific shock directly in the
mouth of this cave which they had entered.

Powdered ice almost smothered the party for a few moments. Such light
as there had been outside the cave in the cañon was snuffed out. The
avalanche crowded the cave’s entrance and made the five explorers
prisoners with a suddenness that stunned them all.

While from ahead, in the pitch darkness, came again the challenge of
the wounded bear. It was by no means _hors-de-combat_. The wounded
brute was full of fight. And to fire again in hope of killing the
bear might bring the very roof of the ice cave down upon their heads!




CHAPTER XXI

A SILVER LINING


The intense darkness inside the cave made the event a serious one.
The wounded polar bear might charge among them at any moment, and as
they were all dressed in furs it would be difficult to distinguish
each other from the bear.

The bear uttered another terrific roar and charged from the back of
the cave. Koku’s war cry was almost as savage, and, knocking the
others right and left, he sprang between his beloved master and the
wild beast.

Tom, however, did not lose his self-possession. He was a little slow
in getting it out, but he produced in time a flashlight, and the ray
of it revealed the glaring eyes, the open, dripping jaws, and the
blood-bedabbled breast of the big polar bear.

The blinding ray of electric light confused the animal and Koku
reached him with several terrific whacks with the staff of his spear.

With one side swipe of its right paw the growling beast tossed the
weapon away and drove Koku to his knees. It reached with its left paw
to seize the giant, and the curved claws all but caught him.

“Look out!” shrieked Ned. “He’ll have you, sure!”

Koku leaped up, but scarcely escaped the return swing of the bear’s
paw. Even the wind of it was enough to send the man to the ice again.
With a blood-curdling roar the polar bear flung himself forward on
all four paws, and his shaggy breast covered Koku.

It looked as though the faithful servant was done for! His spear
stuck a hand’s breadth out of the bear behind its shoulder. The blood
poured from that and from the gunshot wound like muddy red bilge
being pumped from a ship’s hold.

At this dreadful instant Olaf Karofsen flung away his rifle, drew a
great knife from his belt, and leaped for the savagely wagging head
of the bear. It seemed as though he gave himself over utterly to the
jaws of the beast. The creature’s teeth snapped with a clash of ivory
that sounded well nigh as loud as had the rifle shot.

But the gigantic Icelander escaped the jaws. He made a mighty
downward thrust with the skinning knife.

The point of it entered the bear’s spine right behind the skull and
must have severed the first vertebra. The beast groaned with pain,
weaving to and fro on its feet. For the moment all the fight was
taken out of the animal. It shuddered and began to sink to the ice.

Uttering a great shout, Tom darted forward and seized Koku’s
shoulders. With Captain Karofsen’s help he dragged Koku from under
the dying bear. The huge body of the brute sunk slowly upon the very
spot where Koku had lain. The giant could not have lived under the
dead weight of the mountain of flesh.

Ned had picked up Tom’s torch and now illumined the scene. The two
giants were grinning at each other broadly. Tom spoke rather brokenly.

“I declare, boys, that was some fight! I’m proud of you, Koku. And
how can I ever thank you, Captain Karofsen?”

The schooner captain was all seriousness again in a moment. He said
to Tom:

“We nefer mind dot. The bear, he iss dead. But das snow and ice block
us in here. We nefer dig out. We haf no tools.”

Ned had turned the ray of the light upon the mass of broken ice
that completely filled the mouth of the cavity into which they had
ventured. From the sound of the avalanche when it fell, there could
be little doubt but that the mass was rods thick. And the distance
and force with which it had fallen had packed the shattered ice so
tightly that there could be no hope of finding a passage through it.

“But, say!” exclaimed Kingston, when this fact had been discussed,
“don’t you fellows remember that there was a current of air blowing
out of this cave when we stood before it? You mentioned that fact,
Newton.”

“I noticed it myself,” Tom agreed quickly.

“So did I,” added Ned.

“We haf no feel of de wind now,” observed Captain Karofsen.

“Me look,” cried Koku, who understood fully the situation and its
attendant dangers. “If there be hole, I come back and tell Master.”

“Hold on, Koku!” exclaimed Tom Swift. “I know you can pretty well see
like a cat in the dark. But I think we had better stick together. We
will all go with you on this search for another opening to the cave.”

“Undt leaf das bear? Not even skin him? It is meat. We may need it,”
said the schooner captain, in some doubt.

“We have provisions for a week aboard the _Winged Arrow_,” Tom said
lightly.

“And one sure thing,” supplemented Ned. “Nobody will get this bear if
we leave it where it lies.”

“But if we do not skin him while das body he iss warm, we haf a pad
time doing so,” declared the Icelander.

“I do not think we should bother with the bear,” Tom said slowly. “I
am worried about getting back to the seaplane. We may get through
this cave and find ourselves far up in these mountains of ice. We
will have difficulty in lowering ourselves down into that gorge where
the plane is. Don’t bother with this bear. Let us go on.”

“By jinks!” exclaimed Ned. “They say every cloud has a silver lining.
It is so blamed dark right now that I cannot see any silver behind
this cloud.”

“Cheer up!” cried Tom, his own voice changing with an effort. “Lead
ahead, Koku. Give me that torch, Ned. Look out where you step. There
may be fissures here, or sink-holes, to fall into. Have a care, Koku.”

“Me have much care, Master,” said the faithful giant. “I feel wind
again.” He held up a finger he had wetted. “Yes. Wind come through
big ice cave. We find um place to go out. Wait and see.”

“I hope so,” muttered Ned, as he came along in the rear of the small
procession.

Farther back in the chamber in the ice was the entrance to a tunnel
more than man-high. It was of considerable width, too, and when the
party had entered it, almost at once the explorers found that the
pitch of the floor was sharply upwards.

The tunnel was by no means straight, twisting around and around, and
in places it proved to be open to the sky. There were deep clefts in
the ice mountain that exposed the passage to the light of day.

Some of these cuts were deep with snow, for there had already been
snow flurries in the Arctic Ocean from which this giant iceberg had
drifted.

The explorers became quite hopeful as they pressed on, for it seemed
as though finally there must be an exit to the tunnel. They spoke
cheerfully together, but were somewhat worried over the fact that
Brannigan and his mates would be disturbed by their delayed return.

“They won’t know what to make of the delay,” said Ned.

“But if they heard the avalanche—and of course they did—they may
suspect what has happened to us,” Tom remarked. “Hullo! What is it,
Koku?”

The giant had halted and put out a restraining hand to stop those
behind him. Tom shot the bright ray of the lamp ahead. He saw
nothing, for there was a sharp turn in the passage there. They stood
silent, waiting. The giant crept forward.

When the man-mountain reached the turn in the wall of ice, he
stretched his neck around it. He stood so for so long that Tom went
forward, too, making no noise. Almost at once, when he reached Koku’s
station, Tom heard a slight noise farther along the tunnel.

“Listen!” he whispered, and held up his hand for silence.

Was it an animal? Perhaps another bear? The young fellow unslung his
rifle, for dangerous as it was to fire a weapon amid the towering
ice, such another savage beast as that which had previously attacked
them could only be met with powder and ball.

Koku flashed his master a quick glance. His wide mouth split his face
in a grin. Something amused Koku immensely, but what it was Tom did
not at first understand.

The others ventured forward until all stood in a group at the turn of
the tunnel. Tom was listening again. The noise was repeated. Suddenly
he swung about and slapped his chum on the shoulder.

“Ned,” he whispered hoarsely, “you were saying there was no silver
lining to this cloud of trouble! Don’t you believe it! This is its
silver lining. Listen!”

As he ceased speaking a hollow voice echoed along the passage:

“Bless the icicles on my mustache, this is the coldest house I ever
lived in! The landlord should be prosecuted,” and then the deep, bass
laugh of Wakefield Damon reverberated in the ice-cleft.

“What do you know about this!”

“Here in the ice cave!”

“Come on and surprise them!”

At these words all rushed forward.




CHAPTER XXII

BACK TO THE FLYING BOAT


The excitement of the bear fight and of being shut into the tunnel
through the ice had for the moment driven out of the minds of all
the party from the flying boat remembrance of the cause which had
brought them here to the giant iceberg. For the time being even Tom
had forgotten Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor and their companions.

At least some of the castaways from the schooner _Kalrye_ were right
ahead of Tom’s party. The booming voice of the excitable Wakefield
Damon and his “blessing” could never be mistaken by anybody who knew
him at all!

Captain Olaf Karofsen burst into a great roar of laughter, and,
cheering loudly, he strode ahead along the passage.

“We bane findt dem fellers!” he bawled. “Misder Damon! How you vas
now—yes?”

The others heard Mr. Damon cry:

“Here’s that Skowegian, Nestor! Captain of the _Kalrye_. What do you
know about this? Bless my divining rod! I never expected to see him
again.”

The whole party, including Tom, followed the big captain. They rushed
into a circular chamber in the ice. In the middle was a small fire
burning on a piece of copper sheathing, set up on empty bean cans to
keep the heat from the floor of the chamber.

There were only two persons present, both wrapped well in furs. They
had been eating some cooked fish of some kind and drinking tea from
tin pannikins. The man who had first got up to greet the newcomers
was Mr. Wakefield Damon.

“Bless my horn spectacles!” he gasped, staring. “Is that Tom Swift I
see? And Koku? And Ned Newton? Bless my imagination! I certainly must
be seeing things.”

“You surely are, Mr. Damon!” cried Ned. “You are seeing a bunch of
castaways—just as much cast away as you are.”

But Tom gave his closest attention to the other man—the man who still
sat before the fire. There was no mistaking him, yet he looked so
different from the wan and almost helpless man who had left Shopton
for the Arctic weeks before that the young inventor could scarcely
believe he was Mary Nestor’s father.

“Mr. Nestor!” gasped Tom.

“Tom, my boy! Did you really come to find us? My brave fellow!”

“I did not come expecting to find such a picture of health, Mr.
Nestor,” declared Tom, clasping hands with the ex-invalid. “That
crazy Raddiker wasn’t so crazy as I feared, was he? Why, Mr. Nestor,
you are a picture!”

“I am a picture of a homesick man, believe me,” declared Mary’s
father earnestly. “I don’t know how you got here, Tom; but I hope you
can take us back home in a hurry.”

“Bless my seven-leagued boots! how you must have traveled to get here
so quickly, Tom Swift,” Mr. Damon suddenly shouted. “How did you do
it? I see the skipper must have got word of the wreck to you. But how
did you fellows get here?”

“Through the air,” said Ned, laughing.

“The new flying boat?” demanded Mr. Nestor. “Is it a success, Tom?”

“Bless my flying carpet of Bagdad!” chuckled Mr. Damon. “Never
thought of that! Where is she? Can you take us all back?”

“We hope to. Though it may be close crowding with the five sailors.
By the way,” added Tom, “where are they?”

Instantly Mr. Wakefield Damon was very grave. Mr. Nestor said slowly:

“We had a terrible accident the third day we were on this ice
island. We were climbing over the heights, making for a place where
we thought of setting up an oar with a flag, although it scarcely
seemed possible that there would be any passing ship so late in the
fall.

“However,” he went on, “we came to a crevasse in the ice, and in
trying to cross it two of the men fell and disappeared. We could not
reach them.”

“And bless my disappearing riches!” burst out Wakefield Damon, “the
chest with my legacy from Aman Dele fell with them. We lost the men
and the thirty thousand dollars in a moment.”

“That is very unfortunate, Mr. Damon,” said Tom seriously. “Where are
the other three sailors who made up your party?”

“They are out somewhere now hunting for food—seals or fish, or the
like. Brave fellows! Bless their hats and shoestrings! I mean that
all of them shall be well paid for their faithfulness to us.”

Captain Karofsen was silent. He had learned by a single question that
the two sailors who had fallen into the chasm with the treasure chest
were his own brother and his nephew! These relatives had aroused in
the schooner captain a great desire to recover the castaways.

“Let’s get out of here and find your other three helpers,” Tom said
finally. “We must get back to the gorge in which we left the flying
boat. Brannigan will believe we are completely lost.”

“And maybe we are,” said Ned, again pessimistic. “No knowing whether
we can get down into that valley again. And, once there, shall we be
able to lift the _Winged Arrow_ into the air?”

None of the others paid much attention to Ned’s gloomy words. Mr.
Damon and Mr. Nestor were too much interested in hearing news from
home and Tom’s brief account of the flight of the flying boat from
America to Iceland and thence to this part of the Arctic Ocean to
listen to Ned.

“It is wonderful!” declared Mr. Nestor. “One could scarcely believe
that you would have so easily found this particular iceberg—and us
upon it.”

“Thanks to the bear,” said Tom. “And if we get short of provisions we
can go back and get a few bear steaks. Where is the entrance to this
house?”

Mr. Nestor and Mr. Damon led the way. In two minutes they were out
on the open ice, on the side of one of the ice hills over which the
explorers had previously flown in the flying boat.

“How far are we from the place where we left the _Winged Arrow_,
Captain?” asked Tom of Olaf Karofsen.

“It iss so far as that peak—yes? Maype ten mile. But my odder t’ree
men——?”

Almost immediately the party sighted the trio of sailors coming up
the slope from the ice field. Two of them bore a frozen seal between
them. The other carried the guns and a rope. When they saw Captain
Karofsen and the others they shrieked their joy and, dropping the
seal, scrambled up the ice slope as fast as possible.

In their own language they broke into a concerted account of their
adventures since the _Kalrye_ had been wrecked. It was easy for the
Americans to know when the sailors spoke of the loss of Captain
Karofsen’s brother and nephew. The schooner captain grew very, very
grave.

“I wish we might search that chasm you speak of for those men,” Tom
whispered to Mr. Damon. “You say they carried a bag of provisions,
too?”

“Bless my emergency ration, Tom Swift!” whispered the eccentric
gentleman. “We yelled there and waited around for an hour. There
was not a sound rose from that hole. They must have been instantly
killed.”

“But the money?”

“We-ell,” said Mr. Damon doubtfully. “Of course, all I thought of at
first was the chance of our getting away from here. But now it looks
different. It might be well to make a search for the treasure box.
But first, let us see,” he added more vigorously, “if we can get your
flying boat out of that hole you say she is in.”

That actually was the main thing to worry about. And even when the
party had reached the brink of the gorge and fortunately found a
traversable path to the bottom of it and came in sight of the flying
boat, the question as to whether or no they could get the _Winged
Arrow_ into the air again was the all-important subject of their
thoughts.




CHAPTER XXIII

STILL CRIPPLED


Brannigan and his associates had become extremely anxious because of
the absence of the captain of the flying boat and his friends. And
when they reappeared at the bottom of the gorge with five of the lost
men of whom they had been in search, the mechanicians were inclined
to think it almost a miraculous happening.

It was, however, rather a serious occasion. The fact that two of
the castaways, as well as thirty thousand dollars in treasure, were
utterly lost cast a cloud over all their minds.

Besides, although the mechanicians had repaired the airtight pontoon
and rigged it to the end of the seaplane wing again, there was a
question in all their minds as to whether the big flying boat could
be raised from the bottom of the ice gorge without bringing her into
collision again with the walls.

The five new passengers crowded the carrying quarters of the
seaplane, too. She had not been built with the idea of carrying more
than twelve people, and now there were sixteen. Tom believed that
under a fair test the _Winged Arrow_ would sail with several tons
more weight than she had ever yet carried. But this jump-off was
going to be no fair test.

“We’ve got to take a chance,” said the young inventor.

“If only we are successful!” murmured Ned.

When they were all inside and the doors were closed, the young
inventor went over the machinery with great care, personally trying
out each part. He dared not empty the compressed air tanks, although
he would have liked to do that until the plane had risen above the
walls of the gorge. The air was needed for balance, however; he was
confident of that.

There was not room to turn the plane around as she rested on her
wheels and tail, the ice cliffs were too near together; while ahead
of her was a very short straight run for her to gain the speed to fly.

It was a ticklish undertaking. If, under the thrust of her powerful
motors, she went head on into one wall or the other of the cañon, Tom
was pretty sure that the _Winged Arrow_ would never get out of the
heart of this giant iceberg.

“If we leave both the plane and Mr. Damon’s treasure here in the ice,
we shall certainly have to mark this venture down as a total loss,”
murmured Tom, to his chum.

“Huh! we won’t mark anything down,” replied Ned. “We will have a hot
time ever getting to land. Don’t forget that.”

“I am not likely to overlook it,” confessed the young inventor. “I
never had one of my inventions put to so severe a test before. And
our lives, you must remember, depend upon the thing working right.”

“Go on. Do your worst,” urged Ned. “If I am to spend the rest of
my natural life on this chunk of ice, I want to know it as soon as
possible. Let’s get it over.”

Tom would not do a thing in haste, however. Not until he had made
sure that the mechanism would work perfectly did he signal Brannigan
to start his motors. He stood at the controls until the motors were
roaring well before he started the propellers.

The huge boat began to move slowly. Almost at once she lifted under
the pressure of the propellers. Her nose came up like the head of a
spirited horse. Mr. Wakefield Damon gave voice to one of his excited
explosions:

“Bless all my kites and balloons, she’s going up!”

“That’s what we want!” exclaimed Ned. “The higher, the better!”

She was going up! Better than she had ever taken the air before.
Everybody in the pilot room broke into a cheer, and Tom Swift was as
proud as ever he had felt before in his life over anything he had
built.

Put to the severest sort of test, the _Winged Arrow_ was making good.
How proud his father would be when he told him of this jump-off from
the bottom of the cleft in the huge iceberg! And Mary! Aside from the
exploration party finding and rescuing her father, Tom knew that Mary
Nestor would comprehend the feelings of the inventor of the flying
boat which had made this success possible.

On a short slant skyward, the plane rose higher and higher. The long
Arctic day was just ended, the sun had dropped below the horizon’s
edge, and a number of pale stars were showing in the vault above.

The flying boat scaled the heights of the ice cliffs and finally
poised over the deep cleft in which they had spent so many uncertain
hours. Tom believed that his task here was done. He meant to fly
now to Iceland, as he had promised Captain Karofsen, and leave the
schooner captain and his men at some handy port.

The young inventor had no intention of being entangled in any plot
engendered by the Russian Government or its agents. Let all that be
explained from America. He was sure that Monsieur Polansky had never
obtained his credentials from the Navy Department by fair means and
that there would be no real trouble awaiting him when he got back to
Shopton.

He smiled upon Ned, who stood beside him, and began to wheel the
flying boat till her nose pointed to the east. Somewhere in that
direction—so far away that he could not see it—lay Iceland.

“What is that?” demanded Mr. Wakefield Damon suddenly. “Look at that
smoke. Why, you’d think that ice mountain was a crater of a volcano!
Bless my smokepipes! it is the equal of old Mount Hekla.”

The phenomenon to which Mr. Damon pointed startled them all. A
spiral of smoke seemed to be rising, as he said, out of the higher
pinnacle of ice. The _Winged Arrow_ was circling that peak. How was
it possible for smoke to come out of a hole in the ice when, as far
as they knew, there was no living human being on the berg they were
leaving?

“Let’s get around to the other side,” cried Ned. “Goodness me! maybe
there are other folks cast away here.”

“It nefer is _dem_?” questioned Captain Olaf Karofsen excitedly.

Tom changed the controls. The great flying boat heeled over a little
as her nose drove into the wind. As she passed out from the shelter
of the pinnacle of ice the power of the gale smote upon the seaplane
as it had not before. The wind howled and whistled.

Tom signaled to the power room for the compressed air pump to be
started again. In this gale he realized the boat would roll, and this
was dangerous. She needed more balance-weight.

Again the structure rolled and groaned. Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor
cried out. They had not experienced this motion before. The _Winged
Arrow_ came to an even keel, then once more dipped sideways.

With a crash one wing-end scraped along the hill of ice. The rebound
carried the plane away from the wall of ice; but she began to
descend, slowly but surely.

Tom speeded up, and the groaning boat shot away from the hillside.
Behind them the spiral of smoke came from a cleft into which it had
been impossible for any of them to see. The flying boat was flapping
downward like a broken-winged bird!

“Are we wrecked? Is it a smash-up?” queried Mr. Nestor anxiously.

“Bless my anchors!” gasped Mr. Damon.

“We’ve got to make a landing,” said Tom, with some show of
cheerfulness. “But there is a pretty level field of ice to make it
on. I think we shall be all right.”

The next moment the boat was bouncing on its wheels and tail. The
power had been shut off. Soon they came to a halt and it was possible
to discover how badly the flying boat was damaged, if damaged at all.




CHAPTER XXIV

UNEXPECTED GOOD FORTUNE


Mr. Wakefield Damon was possessed of a bulldog trait. When he once
set his teeth into a thing he would not let go until he had mastered
it.

While Tom and the others were giving way to excitement over the
result to the flying boat of the shock it had undergone, Mr. Damon
(when once the door in the hull was opened) leaped out and stared up
the slope of the ice peak to see if he could again observe the curl
of smoke which had been rising from that height as the flying boat
passed over it.

“There is somebody up there. Bless my tortoise-shell glasses! there
must be somebody up there. Smoke doesn’t come out of a hill of ice by
any natural means, that is sure.”

But he did not see the smoke now. He called to Olaf Karofsen. He
had picked up a few words of the Old Norse dialect much used by the
people of the “back end” of Iceland, and the schooner captain spoke
that language, too.

So the other Americans in the party did not understand what Mr. Damon
and the captain were so excitedly talking about.

“What made that smoke, Captain?” demanded Mr. Damon.

“Fire,” declared the man promptly.

“And fire in an iceberg is not a common thing. Over there is the
crevasse where we lost your poor brother and his boy. Bless my
icepick! but there is something strange about this.”

“We will go see,” declared the captain.

He hurried for a coil of rope and a rifle. Unnoticed by the others,
the giant seaman and his employer climbed the slope of the ice
mountain. Tom and his helpers were overhauling the airtight pontoon
that swung from the left wing of the flying boat. This was the part
injured by the latest collision.

“It must be that I am not so well able to judge distances as I was,”
the young inventor grumbled. “To smash a wing twice, hand running, as
you might say!”

“It was a puff of wind did this for you,” declared Ned. “I would not
blame my eyesight.”

To work in the open on the ice with a living gale blowing down from
the Pole was by no means a comfortable situation. The mechanicians
had to take turns in working on the broken wing and pontoon. A man
might easily freeze his hands while working without gloves. Two
gasoline stoves were brought out of the flying boat and set up on the
ice right where the repair gang worked. The cook served hot coffee by
the gallon. The passengers did all they could to help, but that was
little.

Suddenly Mr. Nestor noticed the absence of Mr. Damon and the schooner
captain. He asked:

“Have they gone hunting? Why did they climb that hill, do you
suppose, Tom?”

“Didn’t we see some smoke up there?” queried Tom, only mildly
interested. “Why, yes! Mr. Damon was talking about smoke from the
ice peak, and that got me interested—interested enough to scale the
old plane across the shoulder of that hill,” and the young inventor
laughed rather ruefully.

“There’s something going on up there, Mr. Swift!” exclaimed Kingston
suddenly. “See there?”

He pointed up the heights. Several hundred feet above the plain
the big seaman was standing and waving his arms wildly to attract
attention. Now his voice came booming down from the eminence:

“Mis-der Swift! Mis-der Swift!” he singsonged. “Send up a couple of
my bullies undt a pread pag. Hurry oop!”

“Wonder what’s going on up there,” remarked Ned, as Tom waved to a
couple of the seamen to obey their skipper’s demand.

“Let’s have a look ourselves,” Kingston said, and started up the
ascent.

Tom could not go; but there was nothing to keep Ned back, so he fell
in behind the wireless operator. Besides, one could keep warm on the
ice only while in motion. The two young fellows swarmed up the hill
as fast as they could travel, while the sailors came on in their rear
with the bag.

Ned and his companion found Captain Karofsen on a little shelf of the
hill. He was much excited and his face was again a smile.

“It is wonderful! Wonderful!” he declared. “Come with me, young
gentlemen. It is wonderful.”

“I bet it is,” commented Ned. “But just what is it?”

They fell in behind the excited captain of the _Kalrye_, who led them
along the shelf, around an abrupt corner, and brought them out upon
a small plateau in which there was a sink. Mr. Damon was lying flat
upon his stomach and looking down into this chasm. He turned his red
face toward Ned and Kingston and burst out with:

“Bless my Italian gardens! here is the most wonderful thing I ever
saw. Did you bring that rope?”

“It’s coming,” said Ned. “What is the matter down there, Mr. Damon?”

“Greatest thing in the world, Ned!” exclaimed the eccentric
gentleman. “The coincidence is wonderful. Who would ever have thought
it! Well!”

“It’s wonderful, all right,” repeated the puzzled Ned. “Both you and
Captain Karofsen say so. But just what _is_ it?”

“Come here! See yonder? Half a mile or so away is the crevasse down
which those two unfortunate men tumbled who were carrying my chest of
Danish gold. We never expected to see them again—or the chest. And I
guess the chest _is_ done for,” admitted the excited Mr. Damon.

Ned and the operator were now beside him. They knelt on the ice and
likewise peered down into the blue-white depths of the sink. Ned
uttered a shout of amazement.

“What do you know about this!” murmured Kingston.

Under an out-thrust shelf of ice and on the bottom of the hole a
small fire was smouldering. Two muffled figures lay beside this tiny
fire. But they moved, first one and then the other raising his head
and then waving a feeble hand to the spectators on the brink of the
ice wall.

“The lost seamen?” demanded New Newton of Mr. Damon.

“Karofsen’s brother and nephew,” the gentleman answered. “I don’t
care about the lost gold! The men are still alive! They must have
suffered terribly. And how they found fuel for even that little fire,
I don’t see.”

The eager schooner captain just then arrived with the pair of seamen
he had called. They had a coil of rope long enough to reach to the
bottom of the cleft in the ice.

It was plain that the men below could not help themselves. Kingston,
who was the lightest of the party, volunteered to go down.

“Take the pag vonce,” said Karofsen eagerly. “I pet you it vill come
handy—yes? Now, are you ready?”

The operator swung out from the ice, and fending himself from the
wall with feet and hands, was lowered safely to the floor of the
sink. As soon as he stood upon his feet there he disengaged himself
from the loop of the rope and ran across to the two men.

They tried to struggle up, but both dropped back. They were weak
from lack of nourishment and their extremities were undoubtedly
frost-bitten. The older man insisted by gestures (he could speak but
few English words) that Kingston aid his son, first of all.

The wireless operator seized the boy in his arms and staggered across
the sink with him. He fastened him safely in the noose and gave the
signal for those above to “hoist away.”

Although the turning body of the youth scraped several times against
the ice, he was not hurt while his uncle and the sailors drew him
up. Kingston, when he saw him swinging near the top, ran back to the
other man. The latter had struggled to his knees and seized the bread
bag that Kingston had brought down with him by Karofsen’s advice.

What he wished to do with the bag puzzled Kingston for a moment. Then
he saw what had been cached under the overshot ledge of ice, well
back against the wall.

“Right-o, my man!” the operator cried. “I am wise to it. Here! Let
me do all that. We’ll send the bag up before you go up. I quite
understand.”

He was much excited. And the situation was indeed an exciting one.
Kingston knew that the spectators at the top of the ice cliff were
going to feel much amazement when that bread bag swung up there at
the end of the noose.

The heavy bag swung out of his sight. Then came a yell. Mr. Damon
almost fell over the brink of the wall.

“Bless my coupon bonds and the interest on my mortgages, these
courageous men have saved my thirty thousand dollars! It’s gold!
They broke up the chest to make a fire, but here is the money intact.

“Here, Olaf! Swing your brother up here in a hurry. I want to hug
him. Bless my last red cent! if we get off of this giant iceberg
alive, he and his boy shall never know want as long as they live.

“Lay onto the line, lads! Now, haul! Bless my hemp and cordage! If
that line parts now, we’ll lose one of the most honest men who ever
walked on two feet. Altogether, now!”




CHAPTER XXV

BACK FROM THE ARCTIC


The line did not break. The captain’s brother was drawn to the top
of the low cliff. After that Kingston was raised. The delighted
Wakefield Damon was talking all the time and could scarcely wait to
help bear the two exhausted seamen down the hill to where the flying
boat was being repaired.

Captain Karofsen carried the bag of gold coin over his shoulder,
while the other five from the flying boat bore the exhausted sailors
down the slope. When Tom and the others saw them coming they were
likewise excited. The recovery of these two men completed the rescue
of the party of castaways to search for whom the _Winged Arrow_ had
been brought by her inventor from the States.

“Nothing to be put down on the debit side of the column, Tom!”
shouted Ned, when he drew near. “If you can make the old plane ride
again, we can figure that we’ve turned the trick.”

“And Mr. Damon’s fortune?” shouted Tom.

“Bless my Russian rubles!” chortled Mr. Damon, “I could buy up the
entire Russian Government monetary output now. Here is Aman Dele’s
treasure that he willed me. I am a lucky man. And these brave fellows
shall share in my good luck.”

He was as good as his word. It may as well be said here that Mr.
Damon, with all his eccentricities, was a very honorable man. He
reimbursed Captain Karofsen for his time and exertions, gave each of
the sailors a handsome present, and to the captain’s brother and son
he made over a trust fund that, as he had declared, would keep the
two injured men from want for the remainder of their lives.

For the two who had fallen down the crevasse with the treasure chest
had been exposed so long to the frost that it would be months before
they would be able to go to sea. All these good offices, however, Mr.
Damon arranged later through a legal representative.

Just now the entire party was anxious to discover if the _Winged
Arrow_ would fly. Half the short Arctic night had been expended in
these recent exertions. Brannigan and his men had taken the tools and
the gasoline stoves back into the ship. They all climbed aboard as
soon as possible and once more preparations were made for a jump-off.

“If this old plane doesn’t act right now,” said Tom, “I’ll take her
home and break her up for scrap. That’s a promise.”

“If you get her home at all,” said Ned. “I hope she won’t get
temperamental about the time we are over the Newfoundland fishing
banks, for instance.”

Their first destination, of course, was Iceland. The flying boat
was overcrowded, and Tom wished to place Captain Karofsen and his
five men somewhere near their own homes before launching out for the
longer flight for America across the North Atlantic.

Tom’s first anxiety, however, was to get the huge flying boat into
the air and learn if she would respond properly to the controls. The
motors raced all right when they were tried, and he believed that he
knew now just how much compressed air to order pumped into the skin
of the hull.

Yet he signaled Brannigan and stood at the controls when the time
came for the jump-off with a feeling of anxiety. How would the boat
act? If the whole party were marooned on this iceberg as Mr. Damon
and Mr. Nestor and the five sailors had been, who would come to their
rescue?

“Not a chance!” Ned answered to these queries.

“All ready, Bran?” called Tom into the tube.

“Aye, aye, boss!” exclaimed the mechanician.

The hull of the flying boat began to tremble. The ice field ahead of
her was quite clear of rubble and there were no chasms. The propeller
began to spin and the boat rolled forward.

Trembling, shaking like some huge fowl trying to take the air, the
_Winged Arrow_ started. She cocked her nose skyward and left the ice.
Up, up she soared, on a long slant into the east. The motors throbbed
rhythmically while the gale whistled through the stays.

Tom felt the pull of the controls and knew that the slight rocking of
the boat betrayed a good balance. On a graceful curve she left the
surface of the iceberg and leaped out over the tumbling, open sea.

There was a wide channel between this huge berg and the nearest field
of ice. Flocks of Arctic sea birds rose whirring beneath the flying
boat. On the edge of the ice they saw two solemn looking polar bears
fishing for seals. Sea lions played on one shelving beach of ice.

“Farewell to the giant iceberg!” shouted Ned, as the _Winged Arrow_
left the mountain of crystal behind. “I hope I don’t see any ice
again for a year—not even next summer! B-r-r-r! Shall we ever be
really warm again?”

They were packed so close in the cabin and pilot room of the flying
boat that they should have been more than ordinarily warm. It was
indeed an uncomfortable journey to the nearest land.

Captain Karofsen had studied the chart and he marked a little town
near Reykjavik where Tom could make a landing without attracting
attention from the authorities of the island. Of course it would
have been a simple matter to get by cablegram from the United States
information that would show the Governor of Iceland that the Russians
were trying to steal the flying boat. But that might delay the party
for several weeks.

And nobody was more eager than Tom to get back to Shopton. He
confided to Captain Karofsen certain messages to be sent to Mr.
Barton Swift and Mary Nestor, for he expected that the flying boat
would be all of three days on the journey home, even if she did not
have to descend for repairs.

He made the landing on the spot Captain Karofsen pointed out, with
success. Nothing needed adjusting, and five minutes after taking the
ground the seamen and their captain were out of the flying boat.
Then, after getting a supply of gasoline and oil, the latter made
another jump-off.

“The old plane is doing you proud, Tom!” cried Ned, when they were
in the air again. “Just keep away from icebergs, and I feel sure you
will have no trouble with her. But believe me! if you take another
flight into the Arctic, you can count me out.”

In several ways the wonderful voyage of the _Winged Arrow_ had never
been equaled by any flying boat. Her long jump over the Atlantic
proved her to be a unique craft. She could remain in the air at her
pilot’s will. She had proved that she could rest in rough water. And
the usage she had received on the giant iceberg showed her to be a
craft able to endure a deal of knocking about.

Naturally, when she returned to Shopton, she was not the spick and
span looking flying boat that she had been when she left that base
for the Arctic. Nevertheless, her inventor was satisfied that he knew
now just what he could do with her.

“Will you sell her to the Navy Department if they want her, Tom?”
asked Mr. Nestor, during the flight home.

“I am going to sell her to nobody. Not even to the Russian
Government,” said Tom, smiling. “We are in no war now, thank
goodness, and I mean to keep and improve this craft until she can be
no further perfected. Of course,” he added loyally, “she will be at
the service of the country at any time she may be needed.”

“There is a whole lot I can do to her yet to make her of more value
both in war and commerce. I wish I might make these improvements,
however, without so much publicity. The Swift Construction Company
is getting into the papers too much.” Then he grinned suddenly. “You
know, after all, what I want is a quiet life.”

Ned, listening to this, made an awful face.

“Whoo!” he shouted. “The sort of quiet life Tom Swift wants would
make a jumping jack hysterical! Tom, you know you could not keep
quiet and give up adventures if you had five hundred times the
fortune Mr. Damon is bringing home with him from Iceland.”

“Bless my foreign exchange!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, “that is a true
word you said, Ned Newton. Why, anybody who has anything to do with
Tom Swift is bound to get into the most exciting situations——”

“Listen to him!” cried Tom.

“We know who is the person who manages to get into trouble without
any help,” declared Mr. Nestor laughing. “I certainly am obliged to
Brother Damon for taking me to the Arctic. It has restored my health.
I feel like another man again.

“Nevertheless, if Wakefield Damon asks me to walk down the street
with him to buy a necktie after this, I shall be afraid to accompany
him. Something unexpected is bound to happen when one is in that
gentleman’s company.”

“Bless my reputation!” groaned the eccentric gentleman, “have you all
such an opinion of me as this? I declare! I will go home and raise
fancy chickens and nothing shall entice me on another journey. Humph!
That is, until Tom Swift decides to start off to the antipodes. I
could not contain myself at home if I knew he was away junketing.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Forewarned of the coming of the flying boat, half the population
of Shopton and all Tom’s workmen were awaiting its appearance. Tom
brought the _Winged Arrow_ over the field behind the shops, spiraled
down, and took the ground very lightly. When they opened the door
in the side of the hull the first faces they saw were those of
Mary Nestor and her mother and Mr. Barton Swift and his faithful
attendant, Eradicate Sampson.

When Rad set his eyes on the gigantic Koku he cried out:

“Ma goodness, Mars’ Tom! couldn’t you lose dat big nuisance up da
in de Antic Seas somewhar? He suah ain’t much good ’round yere. I
reckoned he’d make good polar bear bait, or de like. Has I got to
feed him again?”

Koku showed his teeth in a wide smile. “No polum bear kill Koku,”
he declared, leaping out of the flying boat and beginning to strut.
“Koku kill bear. Killum with spear. Koku great chief.”

“Koku great nuisance,” grumbled Rad, grabbing the big fellow by the
arm. “Come on wid me. I got a beefsteak ha’f as big as a bedsheet to
brile for yo’. Yo’ suah isn’t much good, but we got to feed yo’.”

Mr. Nestor was welcomed by his wife and daughter almost as though he
had risen from the grave. His improvement in health was so great that
they could not cease exclaiming over it.

Tom and his other friends from the flying boat were all greeted most
hilariously by the crowd. The mechanicians and Kingston had their
stories to tell. Ned hurried away on business. Mr. Barton Swift wrung
his son’s hand.

“I was afraid for a while that that strange Russian would manage to
make you trouble. Admiral Gilder found out about him soon after you
had started on your cruise. The fellow had got credentials from the
Navy Board by trickery.”

“If the Soviet Government had had a bunch of flying men up there at
Reykjavik, ready to hop aboard the craft when they got us out and
under guard,” said Tom, “they might have managed to get the _Winged
Arrow_ as far as Russia, and we would have whistled for any money.
Their printing presses could not print rubles fast enough to pay me
for this flying boat.”

“Then you consider her a success, Tom?” asked Mr. Swift smiling.

“She most certainly is. As far as I have gone I am satisfied. But I
have not finished with her yet. You wait and see, Dad.”

Then he hurried away to join Mary Nestor. And, after what Tom had
done for the young girl’s father, the reader may believe that what
Mary Nestor said to Tom made him blush to the tips of his ears!


THE END




THE TOM SWIFT SERIES

By VICTOR APPLETON

  =Uniform Style of Binding. Individual Colored Wrappers.
  Every Volume Complete in Itself.=


Every boy possesses some form of inventive genius. Tom Swift is a
bright, ingenious boy and his inventions and adventures make the most
interesting kind of reading.

  TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE
  TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
  TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE
  TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER
  TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL
  TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH
  TOM SWIFT AND AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT
  TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT OIL GUSHER


  GROSSET & DUNLAP,      PUBLISHERS,      NEW YORK




THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of the “Bobbsey Twins,” “Bunny Brown” Series, Etc.

  =Uniform Style of Binding. Individual Colored Wrappers.
  Every Volume Complete in Itself.=


These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several
bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE;
  Or, Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE;
  Or, The Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR;
  Or, The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP;
  Or, Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA;
  Or, Wintering in the Sunny South.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW;
  Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND;
  Or, A Cave and What it Contained.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE;
  Or, Doing Their Bit for Uncle Sam.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE;
  Or, Doing Their Best For the Soldiers.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT;
  Or, A Wreck and A Rescue.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT WILD ROSE LODGE;
  Or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE;
  Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AROUND THE CAMPFIRE;
  Or, The Old Maid of the Mountains.

  THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON CAPE COD;
  Or, Sally Ann of Lighthouse Rock.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK




THE HONEY BUNCH BOOKS

By HELEN LOUISE THORNDYKE

=Individual Colored Wrappers and Text Illustrations Drawn by WALTER
S. ROGERS=


A new line of fascinating tales for little girls. Honey Bunch is a
dainty, thoughtful little girl, and to know her is to take her to
your heart at once.


HONEY BUNCH: JUST A LITTLE GIRL

  Happy days at home, helping mamma and the washerlady. And Honey
  Bunch helped the house painters too—or thought she did.


HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST VISIT TO THE CITY

  What wonderful sights Honey Bunch saw when she went to visit her
  cousins in New York! And she got lost in a big hotel and wandered
  into a men’s convention!


HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST DAYS ON THE FARM

  Can you remember how the farm looked the first time you visited it?
  How big the cows and horses were, and what a roomy place to play in
  the barn proved to be?


HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST VISIT TO THE SEASHORE

  Honey Bunch soon got used to the big waves and thought playing in
  the sand great fun. And she visited a merry-go-round, and took part
  in a seaside pageant.


HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST LITTLE GARDEN

  It was great sport to dig and to plant with one’s own little garden
  tools. But best of all was when Honey Bunch won a prize at the
  flower show.


HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST DAYS IN CAMP

  It was a great adventure for Honey Bunch when she journeyed to Camp
  Snapdragon. It was wonderful to watch the men erect the tent, and
  more wonderful to live in it and have good times on the shore and
  in the water.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK




SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of The Bobbsey Twins Books, The Bunny Brown Series, The
Make-Believe Series, Etc.

=Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding. Every Volume
Complete in Itself.=


Delightful stories for little boys and girls which sprung into
immediate popularity. To know the six little Bunkers is to take
them at once to your heart, they are so intensely human, so full of
fun and cute sayings. Each story has a little plot of its own—one
that can be easily followed—and all are written in Miss Hope’s most
entertaining manner. Clean, wholesome volumes which ought to be on
the bookshelf of every child in the land.

  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT FARMER JOEL’S
  SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MILLER NED’S


  GROSSET & DUNLAP,      PUBLISHERS,      NEW YORK




THE RIDDLE CLUB BOOKS

By ALICE DALE HARDY

  =Individual Colored Wrappers. Attractively Illustrated.
  Every Volume Complete in Itself.=


Here is as ingenious a series of books for little folks as has ever
appeared since “Alice in Wonderland.” The idea of the Riddle books
is a little group of children—three girls and three boys decide to
form a riddle club. Each book is full of the adventures and doings of
these six youngsters, but as an added attraction each book is filled
with a lot of the best riddles you ever heard.


THE RIDDLE CLUB AT HOME

An absorbing tale that all boys and girls will enjoy reading. How the
members of the club fixed up a clubroom in the Larue barn, and how
they, later on, helped solve a most mysterious happening, and how one
of the members won a valuable prize, is told in a manner to please
every young reader.


THE RIDDLE CLUB IN CAMP

The club members went into camp on the edge of a beautiful lake.
Here they had rousing good times swimming, boating and around the
campfire. They fell in with a mysterious old man known as The Hermit
of Triangle Island. Nobody knew his real name or where he came from
until the propounding of a riddle solved these perplexing questions.


THE RIDDLE CLUB THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS

This volume takes in a great number of winter sports, including
skating and sledding and the building of a huge snowman. It also
gives the particulars of how the club treasurer lost the dues
entrusted to his care and what the melting of the great snowman
revealed.


THE RIDDLE CLUB AT SUNRISE BEACH

This volume tells how the club journeyed to the seashore and how they
not only kept up their riddles but likewise had good times on the
sand and on the water. Once they got lost in a fog and are marooned
on an island. Here they made a discovery that greatly pleased the
folks at home.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK




THE TOM SLADE BOOKS

By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of “Roy Blakeley,” “Pee-wee Harris,” “Westy Martin,” Etc.

Illustrated. Individual Picture Wrappers in Colors. Every Volume
Complete in Itself.


“Let your boy grow up with Tom Slade,” is a suggestion which
thousands of parents have followed during the past, with the result
that the TOM SLADE BOOKS are the most popular boys’ books published
today. They take Tom Slade through a series of typical boy adventures
through his tenderfoot days as a scout, through his gallant days as
an American doughboy in France, back to his old patrol and the old
camp ground at Black Lake, and so on.

  TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT
  TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE CAMP
  TOM SLADE ON THE RIVER
  TOM SLADE WITH THE COLORS
  TOM SLADE ON A TRANSPORT
  TOM SLADE WITH THE BOYS OVER THERE
  TOM SLADE, MOTORCYCLE DISPATCH BEARER
  TOM SLADE WITH THE FLYING CORPS
  TOM SLADE AT BLACK LAKE
  TOM SLADE ON MYSTERY TRAIL
  TOM SLADE’S DOUBLE DARE
  TOM SLADE ON OVERLOOK MOUNTAIN
  TOM SLADE PICKS A WINNER
  TOM SLADE AT BEAR MOUNTAIN


  GROSSET & DUNLAP,     PUBLISHERS,       NEW YORK




THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS

For Little Men and Women

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of “The Bunny Brown Series,” Etc.

Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding. Every Volume
Complete in Itself.


These books for boys and girls between the ages of three and ten
stands among children and their parents of this generation where
the books of Louisa May Alcott stood in former days. The haps and
mishaps of this inimitable pair of twins, their many adventures and
experiences are a source of keen delight to imaginative children
everywhere.

  THE BOBBSEY TWINS
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS CAMPING OUT
  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AND BABY MAY


  GROSSET & DUNLAP,      PUBLISHERS,      NEW YORK




THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of the Popular “Bobbsey Twins” Books, Etc.

Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding. Every Volume
Complete in Itself.


These stories by the author of the “Bobbsey Twins” Books are eagerly
welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten years of age.
Their eyes fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of
inquisitive little Bunny Brown and his cunning, trustful sister Sue.

  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA’S FARM
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU’S CITY HOME
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG
  BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT A SUGAR CAMP


  GROSSET & DUNLAP,      PUBLISHERS,      NEW YORK




  Transcriber’s Notes

  pg 177 Changed: get through this cave and find outselves
              to: get through this cave and find ourselves

  pg 198 Changed: and his face was again asmile.
              to: and his face was again a smile.

  pg 198 Changed: It iss wonderful!
              to: It is wonderful!

  pg 210 Added word THE to: asks me to walk down street
                        to: asks me to walk down the street