TOM SWIFT AND HIS
                            AIRLINE EXPRESS


                                  _or_


                    From Ocean to Ocean by Daylight



                                  _by_
                            VICTOR APPLETON


              W H I T M A N   P U B L I S H I N G   C O .
                Racine, Wis.         Poughkeepsie, N. Y.




                          COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
                         GROSSET & DUNLAP, INC.
                            NEW YORK, N. Y.
                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
                          Printed in U. S. A.




                                CONTENTS

                       I. SOMETHING QUEER
                      II. WAITING IN THE DARK
                     III. MASKED MEN
                      IV. A NIGHT OF WORRY
                       V. A CRASH
                      VI. AGAIN A PRISONER
                     VII. THE PLOT
                    VIII. MR. DAMON’S NEWS
                      IX. KOKU’S ALARM
                       X. TOM’S PLIGHT
                      XI. THE EXPLOSION
                     XII. A DANGEROUS SEARCH
                    XIII. AN OMINOUS MESSAGE
                     XIV. THE AIRLINE EXPRESS
                      XV. A TRIAL FLIGHT
                     XVI. JASON JACKS
                    XVII. THE AIRLINE STARTS
                   XVIII. CHICAGO
                     XIX. DENVER
                      XX. A MOUNTAIN STORM
                     XXI. THE GOLDEN GATE
                    XXII. KENNY BREAKS DOWN
                   XXIII. ANOTHER CAPTURE
                    XXIV. TROUBLES AND WORRIES
                     XXV. A GLORIOUS FINISH




                   Tom Swift and His Airline Express




                               CHAPTER I
                            SOMETHING QUEER


“Ours is sure a great plant!” murmured Tom Swift to himself, with
justifiable pride. “It would be a credit to anybody. No wonder dad loves
it, and so do I. Yes, it sure is a great plant! We’ve had our
troubles—our ups and downs—and our enemies have tried their hardest to
wipe it out.”

Darkness was slowly gathering over the landscape, shrouding in velvety
black the trees which were faintly stirring in the summer breeze. Tom,
following an old-time cowpath across the green meadow on his way home
from town, topped a little rise and caught a glimpse of the high board
fence surrounding the Swift Construction Company’s plant which he and
his father had built up after many years of hard work.

Tom paused for a moment to trace, in the fast-gathering shadows of the
night, the outlines of the various buildings—the foundry, the
wood-working mill, the electrical shop, the hangars where many types of
aircraft were housed.

From some of the tall chimneys faint clouds of smoke arose, for certain
of the industries carried on by the Swift Construction Company required
that furnaces be kept going day and night.

“A great plant—a wonderful plant!” mused Tom. It gave him a certain
sense of pleasure to dwell thus in introspection on the accomplishments
of his father and himself. And it buoyed him up for the work in
prospect—for Tom Swift had a great plan in mind, a plan so great and
daring that, as yet, he had said but little of it even to his father or
to Ned Newton, his old chum who was now an officer of the concern.

“But it can be done! I know it can be done!” declared Tom. “And I’m
going to do it! I’m going to——”

In his mental energy he had unconsciously spoken the last words in a low
voice, but the sight of something just ahead of him in the gathering
darkness caused him to break off abruptly and halt suddenly.
Concentrating his gaze, Tom Swift looked eagerly at a clump of bushes.

“It’s a man,” murmured Tom Swift. “A man, sure enough, and it isn’t one
of our workers, either. None of them would sneak around as he is doing.”

For that described exactly the movements of the stranger of whom Tom had
caught sight in the darkness as he approached the big fence which
surrounded his plant.

“What’s he up to?” mused Tom. “No good, that’s sure. He wouldn’t sneak
along like that if he were on the level.”

Through Tom’s mind flashed remembrances of times when attempts had been
made by enemies of himself and his father to fire the plant. To prevent
this, and to keep strangers away, a high fence had been erected around
the buildings. This fence was protected by wires on the plan of a
burglar alarm, so that, no matter at what point the barrier was climbed,
a bell would ring in the main office and on an indicator would appear a
number to show at what part of the fence an attempt was being made to
scale it.

An effort to break down the barrier, or burrow beneath it, would also
sound the alarm in like manner. So Tom had no fear that the sneaking
stranger, crouching along in the darkness, could get into the midst of
the buildings without notice being given.

“But what’s his game?” thought Tom.

Almost at the instant he asked himself this question he saw the man
crawl behind a clump of bushes. In the natural course of events the man
should have appeared on the other side of the clump. But he did nothing
of the sort.

“He may be hiding there,” mused Tom. “Perhaps waiting for a confederate.
I’ll just have a closer look at this!”

He advanced boldly toward the bushes. There was nothing between him and
the shrubbery, and it was still light enough to see fairly well.
Besides, Tom had extraordinarily good eyes. His astonishment can be
imagined when, on reaching the bush off which he had not taken his gaze
and behind which he had seen the crawling man disappear he found—no
one!

“That’s the queerest thing I’ve seen yet!” exclaimed Tom, rubbing his
organs of vision.

Standing beside the bush which came about to his shoulders, Tom looked
on all sides of it. There was no hollow in the ground, as far as he
could make out, no depression and no other clumps of shrubbery and no
boulders behind which a man might be hidden. Some distance away there
were all of these things in profusion, for the land was wild and
uncultivated outside the plant fence. But there was not a hole, boulder,
or bush near enough to the one beside which Tom stood to have enabled a
man to gain their protection while the young inventor was watching.

“He just crawled back of his bush and then vanished!” said Tom, in a
half whisper to himself. “If only I had a flashlight now——” He was
startled by hearing some one walking toward him out of the darkness
which was now quite dense. “Here he comes!” thought Tom. “Appearing as
queerly as he disappeared. Or else it’s one of his confederates.” He
could see no one, and his hand clutched something in his pocket that
might be used in case he was attacked.

But a moment later, just as Tom’s nerves and muscles were getting tense
in anticipation of a struggle, a cheery whistle broke out in the
darkness, mingling with the now louder sounds of the footsteps, and Tom,
with a cry of relief, called:

“That you, Ned?”

“Sure, old scout!” was the reply. “Oh, there you are!” went on Ned
Newton, as he caught sight of Tom at the same moment the young inventor
glimpsed his friend and financial manager.

“You’re a bit late,” went on Ned. “I waited for you, and when you didn’t
show up I thought I might as well walk in toward town and maybe I’d meet
you.”

“Yes, I couldn’t get just what I wanted until I had tried two or three
places,” Tom answered. “And then I met a man——”

Ned broke into a laugh.

“What’s the idea?” Tom wanted to know.

“Tell that to Mary!” advised his chum. “She may believe that and then
you can tell her another.”

“Whew!” shrilly whistled Tom. “I forgot all about Mary. I promised to
call on her to-night.”

“Sure you did,” laughed Ned. “And I’ve got a date with Helen. You said
we’d go over together and——”

“Clean forgot it!” broke in Tom. “And I can’t go now. I’ve got something
to do.” Quickly he made up his mind to say nothing to Ned of what he had
seen until he investigated a little on his own account. “Here, I tell
you what to do,” went on Tom. “Go on, keep your date with Helen, but
when you get to her house telephone to Mary for me and say I’ll be a
little late. Will you?”

“Pull your chestnuts out of the fire? Is that it, Tom? I reminded you
myself before supper!” laughed Ned. “Well, I don’t mind, for you’ve done
the same for me. I guess Mary Nestor knows you by this time, or, if she
doesn’t, she never will. But what’s the big idea?”

“Oh, I’ve just got a notion in my head,” said Tom. “I want to go to the
office a moment to jot down some memoranda before I forget them. ’Phone
Mary I’ll be over as soon as I can. See you later.”

“Cheek!” exclaimed Ned, and with his merry whistle he hurried off in the
darkness. “I only hope Mary speaks to you when you finally get to see
her,” floated back to Tom.

“Don’t you worry about Mary,” advised the young inventor. “I’ll explain
to her. And tell her I’ll be along in about half an hour. I really
forgot all about the engagement.”

“I’ll say you did!” playfully mocked Ned.

Then, with his chum out of the way, Tom gave himself to trying to solve
the mystery. For mystery he believed it to be. Seeing a man step behind
a bush and, on arriving at the bush, to find nothing of the man there
was surprising, to say the least.

Sensing that it would soon be so dark that it would be useless to
investigate without an illuminant of some sort, Tom made haste to gain
what advantage he could from the fast-fading light. He looked sharply
about without moving from his place behind the bush on the other side of
which he had seen the man disappear. Then, as he could pick up here no
clew to the strange happening, the young inventor moved around to the
other side.

The light was a little better here and Tom saw something that made him
fairly gasp with astonishment. He had moved somewhat away from the bush
and almost at his feet was an opening in the ground.

“This explains it!” murmured Tom, half aloud. “A hole in the ground! He
went down there. I knew he couldn’t have dug himself in as quickly as
that. But that hole! I never saw it before. It isn’t any of our doing.
I’d have known about it if it were.”

All the land there belonged to Tom and his father. It was a big field
surrounding the fenced-in plant, and often the smooth part of the field
was used as a landing place for aeroplanes.

Cautiously approaching the opening in the ground and wondering more and
more how it had gotten there without his knowledge, Tom saw that it had
been closed by some planks placed over it. These were now tossed to one
side, as if they had been hurriedly displaced. Scattered about was loose
earth which had evidently covered the planks, thus hiding them from the
view of a casual observer.

“A secret opening!” murmured Tom. “This is certainly the queerest thing
I’ve ever seen! What does it mean?”

His surprise increased when, as he drew near to the edge of the opening,
he saw a rough flight of plank steps going down into the hole. The young
man caught his breath sharply, it was so astounding. But with Tom Swift
to see and think was to act, and a moment later he began a descent of
the steps into the mysterious hole. It might have been the part of
discretion to wait until daylight, but a secret opening like this, so
near the Swift plant, could mean but one thing, Tom reasoned.

“Some one is trying to put up a game on us,” he decided. “Unknown to us
he has made a tunnel under our plant. There’s something funny here! I’m
going to see what it is.”

Tom had fairly to feel his way down the flight of plank steps. They were
rough and uneven, but solidly built. The young inventor counted them as
he descended so he would know how to come back. Now that his head was
below the level of the ground it was so dark that it was as if a velvet
robe had been wrapped about him.

He counted ten steps down, and was cautiously feeling about with his
right foot extended to ascertain if there were any more, when suddenly
he felt the presence of some one near him. He caught the sound of breath
fiercely drawn in, as if his unknown and unseen companion, there in the
darkness, was nerving himself for an attack.

Instinctively Tom drew back, his hands pressed to the planked sides of
the opening down which he had descended. He could feel, rather than see,
some one leaning toward him. A sweet, sickening odor came to his
nostrils. He felt a hand pressed over his face—a hand that held a damp
rag which gave off that overpowering perfume.

“Here! What’s this? Who—who——” But Tom Swift’s voice became a mere
gurgle in his throat. His legs became limp. His head whirled and he
seemed lifted up and carried through measureless miles of space on the
wings of some great bird.

Then Tom’s senses left him. He knew no more.




                               CHAPTER II
                          WAITING IN THE DARK


Just how long Tom Swift remained unconscious he himself did not know. It
may have been several hours, for when he came to himself he felt a
curious stiffness about his muscles as if he had lain for some time on
the damp ground.

And he was on the ground—a fact he ascertained by feeling about with
his hands, his fingers encountering damp, packed earth and the smooth
surface of stones set in the soil.

“Where in the world am I, and what happened?” thought Tom, as soon as he
could collect his senses enough to do any thinking. “Gee, but I sure do
feel queer!”

There was a sickish taste in his mouth—a sense of sweetness, such as he
remembered followed a slight operation he had undergone some years
before when an anæsthetic had been given him.

“They doped me all right—that’s what they did,” mused Tom. “Ether,
chloroform, or something like that. It knocked me out. But I’m beginning
to feel all right again—no headache or anything like that. But what
does it all mean, and where am I?”

Those were questions not easily answered.

While Tom Swift is trying to collect his senses and to remember, in
their sequence, the events which led up to his queer predicament, may I
take just a moment of your time, if you are a new reader, to tell you
who Tom was?

The first book of this series, “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle,”
introduces you to the young inventor. His father, Barton Swift, was a
widower, living in the old homestead at Shopton on Lake Carlopa. The
Swift home was on the outskirts of the town and in a building not far
from the house Barton Swift began work on a series of inventions which
were destined to make him and his son famous. Tom’s mother was dead, but
Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, looked well after the material welfare of
Tom and his father.

In due time Tom began to follow in his father’s footsteps, working at
small inventions until, when a sturdy youth, he became possessed of a
motorcycle. He bought the machine of an eccentric individual named
Wakefield Damon, who lived in the neighboring town of Waterfield. Mr.
Damon set out to learn to ride his new machine.

“But bless my porous plaster!” the queer man would exclaim in telling
the story, “I never thought the contraption was going to climb trees!”

Which it did, or tried to, because Mr. Damon did not know how to manage
it. The result was that the rider was injured and the motorcycle badly
smashed and Tom, near whose home the accident occurred, became the owner
of the machine.

How he repaired it, added some improvements, and what he did with the
machine are fully set forth in the book. It was the beginning of a long
friendship with Mr. Damon, and also the real start of Tom’s inventive
career.

Those of you who have followed him in his successes, from his motor boat
to “Tom Swift’s Chest of Secrets,”—the volume immediately preceding
this one—need not be told of Tom’s activities. He had made some
wonderful pieces of apparatus and had had some startling adventures. In
some of these his father and Mr. Damon had shared. So, also, had Ned
Newton, Tom’s closest friend and now the treasurer of the Swift
Construction Company.

Mary Nestor, of whom Ned had spoken, was a beautiful girl whom Tom hoped
to marry some day, and Ned Newton was interested in a similar manner in
Mary’s friend, Helen Morton.

As Tom sat there in the darkness, trying to puzzle out where he was and
how he had gotten there, his thought flashed to Mary.

“I wonder what she’ll think?” he mused. “I’d better get to a telephone
and explain. Let’s see. I was coming back from town and I saw some
fellow sneaking along behind the bushes. I met Ned. I went down a flight
of stairs in a hole—though how they could be there and I not know it,
is more than I can fathom. Then they doped me. But who did it and why, I
don’t know. I’ll soon find out, though. Wonder how long I’ve been here?
Feels like a week, I’m so stiff. But I’m not hurt, thank goodness!”

Tom stretched out his arms in the darkness. They responded to the action
of his muscles. But when he tried to get up and walk—well, he simply
could not!

“Chained fast!” cried Tom, aloud. His hands had sought his left ankle
when he found that something held him fast there, and his fingers had
come in contact with a chain.

For a moment he felt a sinking sensation. To be chained fast in the
dark, at the bottom of some cave or dungeon, located he knew not where,
was enough to take the heart out of any one. But not for long did Tom
Swift give way to despair.

He gave a vigorous tug to the chain about his ankle. After all, it might
only be lying across it or loosely twisted. But it needed only one
effort on his part to loosen the links to let him know that he was bound
fast. Whoever had put the chain on his ankle had done so with serious
intentions of holding the young inventor captive.

“Well, this is worse and more of it!” he mused grimly. “What does it all
mean? It can’t be a plot to kidnap me. No one knew I was coming across
the lots, for I didn’t know it myself until the last minute. And seeing
that man sneaking along, discovering the secret stairs—it was all a
series of accidents. Though it’s likely to prove a serious accident for
me if I can’t get loose.”

Tom was nothing if not practical, and first he felt about with his hands
to determine the exact nature of what it was that held him fast. He
discovered, by the sense of touch, that something in the nature of a
handcuff was snapped about his ankle. To this cuff, or leg-iron, was
attached a chain. By following this, link by link, Tom found that the
chain was made fast to a ring of iron which, in turn, was sunk into the
stone side wall of the cave or tunnel in which he now found himself.

How far he was removed from the bottom of the flight of secret steps
where he had been made unconscious, he did not know, any more than he
knew where he was.

Having discovered what it was that held him fast and the nature of the
chain and its fastenings, Tom, who had risen to his feet, stood silent a
moment, listening. It was very black and very still in the cave, if such
it was, and from the earthy, damp smell he concluded that he must be
underground, or at least in some vault or cellar.

By test Tom found that he could move about five feet, such being the
length of the chain. The leg-iron had been snapped or riveted about his
ankle outside of his trousers. It was not tight enough to cause any
pain, but it was snug enough to be impossible of removal.

“They’ve got me as tight as an animal in a trap!” grimly exclaimed the
youth, when, by a series of tugs, he ascertained how securely the end of
the chain was fast in the rocky wall. “Just like a trap, or a prisoner
in an old-time dungeon!” bitterly reflected the young man. “All it needs
to make a moving picture film is some beautiful maiden to come to my
rescue with a file——”

Tom’s spoken words (for he was talking aloud to himself) came to a
sudden end as he clapped a hand to the pocket of his coat.

“I’ve got ’em!” he fairly shouted, and he drew out a small paper parcel
in which were two keen files. They were part of the purchases made just
before stumbling on the mysterious man and finding the steps in the
queer opening.

“Files—the hardest and best made!” he told himself. “They’ll cut
through anything but a diamond. Luck’s with me, after all. They didn’t
know I had these! Oh, boy!”

Everything seemed changed now! Though he was held fast, though he was in
some secret dungeon, hope sang a song of joy in his heart.

For a moment Tom debated with himself as to the best end of the chain at
which to begin filing. It would be more comfortable with that leg-iron
off his ankle, but by feeling it in the darkness he could tell that it
was broad and thick. It would take some time for even the keen, hard
file to cut through it.

“I’ll file through one of the links close to the leg-iron,” decided Tom.
“That won’t leave much to carry around, and it won’t take long to cut
through a link—that is, unless they’re made of case-hardened steel.”

But the chain was of the ordinary sort, made of soft iron, and it did
not take the young inventor long, practiced as he was in the use of
tools, to file apart one of the links. True it was not easy in the
darkness, and, more than once, the file slipped and cut Tom’s hands or
fingers, for he changed from left to right and back to left in using the
file, having taught himself to be ambidextrous in many operations.

At last he could feel that the link was nearly severed and then,
inserting the small ends of the two files in it, he pried them apart.
This leverage broke the thin remaining bit of iron and Tom was free.

That is, he was free to move about as he pleased, but he was still
within the dark cave, and where it was he could not imagine.

“I’ve got to feel my way about,” he told himself. “It’s as dark as the
inside of a pocket.”

So dark was it that Tom had to tread cautiously and with outstretched
hands lest he bump into some obstruction. Whether he was moving toward
the steps down which he had come or in the opposite direction, Tom had
no means of knowing. His sense of touch alone guided him.

He could feel that he was walking along a tunnel, but the size of it he
could only guess at. Then, suddenly, on making an elbow turn, he saw,
glimmering in the distance, a faint light. It was the light of day, Tom
knew, and by that he realized that he had been held captive all night.

“That makes it bad,” he mused. “Dad will have done a lot of worrying
about me, I’m afraid. But I guess I’ll soon be out of here.”

Then, to his ears, came the murmur of voices—voices strange to him. So
faint was the light in the distance that it was of no service to him
where he stood waiting in the darkness; waiting for he knew not what.

The voices increased in loudness, showing that the speakers were
approaching. Then he heard footsteps echoing strangely in the hollow
tunnel.

“If there’s going to be a fight I’d better get ready for it,” Tom told
himself fiercely. He stooped and began feeling about on the ground for a
loose rock or a club. But he could find nothing. Then like a flash it
came to him.

“One of the files! They’re pretty sharp on the handle end. As good as a
knife! I’ll use it like a knife if I have to,” he mused desperately.

He drew one of the files from his pocket, grasped it firmly, and waited
in the darkness for what was to happen next.




                              CHAPTER III
                               MASKED MEN


After the treatment that had been accorded him, Tom Swift rather
welcomed than otherwise a chance to come to grips with the men who were
responsible for his position. Usually even-tempered and generous, just
now he felt eager for vengeance and he would not have cared much if two
men had attacked him at once.

Strangely enough he did not feel weak or ill now. He had, somewhat, when
he first regained his senses after having been overpowered by some drug.
But his brain had cleared and he kept himself in such good physical trim
all the while that even a night of unconsciousness had not sapped his
strength.

The light in the distance did not increase any, from which Tom gathered
that it was full daylight with the sun well above the horizon, and after
that first murmur of voices and the sound of footsteps these sounds did
not come any nearer. Nor did Tom catch a glimpse of any figures between
himself and that little circle of light.

Then from some point outside the cave or tunnel he heard voices calling.
They were louder than the first, and there seemed to be some dispute or
disturbance.

The voices rose to a high pitch and then died away. Silence followed,
and then came the sound of retreating footsteps.

“They’re going away!” exulted Tom. “Now I’ve got a chance to walk toward
that daylight and see where I am. Maybe I’d better wait a few minutes,
though. They may come back.”

He waited what he thought was several minutes and then, hearing no other
sounds of voices or footsteps, began a cautious approach toward that
gleam of light. What a blessed thing light was, after all that black and
clinging darkness!

In silence Tom crept on, advancing one foot after the other cautiously,
and keeping one hand extended to give warning of his approach toward any
obstruction while in his other hand he held the file like a dagger,
ready to use.

But there was no occasion for this. A little later he found himself
standing in a circle of daylight illumination that filtered down an
inclined shaft which led out of a tunnel, such as Tom could now
ascertain he was in. A natural tunnel it appeared to be, with rocks
jutting out here and there in the earthen sides. Roughly the tunnel was
in the form of a half circle, the floor being flat and the roof arched.
The inclined entrance led upward in a gentle slope.

“Well, now to see what’s up there!” said Tom to himself, taking a long
breath and holding his weapon ready. He tensed his muscles and steeled
his nerves for what he felt might be a desperate struggle. Yet he did
not shrink back.

As he advanced cautiously, step by step, up the incline that led to
daylight and the outer world, he felt at first a sense of disappointment
when he saw no one with whom he might come to grips. He had been treated
so meanly that it would have been a source of satisfaction to have had
it out in a rough-and-tumble fight with those responsible.

But, to his surprise, Tom pushed his way out through a tangle of
underbrush and bushes which grew about this end of the tunnel and found
none to dispute him. This surprise was added to when he looked about him
and found out where he was.

“On Barn Door Island!” exclaimed Tom. “Of all places! Barn Door Island!
But how did I get here? It’s miles away from where I went down those
steps near our plant. Of all places! Barn Door Island!”

This was a small island in Lake Carlopa which had been named Barn Door
because, some time or other, one of the early settlers happened to
remark that it was no larger than the door of a barn. The island was at
the end of the lake farthest removed from Shopton and the Swift plant.

“I never knew there was an entrance to a tunnel here!” said Tom, as he
looked about him. “But then I’ve never explored here very much.”

Nor had any of the other lads of Shopton. Barn Door Island was a barren
place—merely a collection of scrubby trees and tangled bushes and great
boulders set down at the swampy end of Lake Carlopa. It was not a good
fishing location and too dreary for picnic parties, so Barn Door was
seldom visited.

“But if I had an idea there was a tunnel entrance here—the beginning of
a passage that led under the lake and under the land right up to our
place I’d have done a lot of exploring, that’s sure!” Tom told himself.
“That’s a natural tunnel, I’m positive of it, at least most of it is.
Somebody went along it until they got to the end near our fence. Then
they broke out, put in those steps and made the plank covering for the
opening. They put earth over the planks so no one would see them. That
part must have been done recently, for we were trying airships out in
that field a month ago and I landed right near that bush behind which
the man disappeared. I know I did, for I remember thinking I might crash
into the fence. So the land end of this queer tunnel has only been
opened lately. This island end must have been here a long while. But
it’s queer no one knew of it. And I wonder what it’s being used for?
Something to do with our business, I’m sure. Our enemies are at work
again!”

Tom quickly reviewed the situation in his mind. Since his Chest of
Secrets had been taken and he had had so much trouble in recovering it,
he had been very cautious about his plans of new inventions. Suspecting
several of his newer employes, he had gotten rid of them and had taken
great precautions, on the advice of Ned and his father.

“But if there’s a tunnel from this lonely island under the lake and
beneath the shore right up almost to our plant, it means that something
desperate is in the wind,” reasoned Tom. “They must have resented my
blundering into it as I did, and they tried to put me out of the way.
After they doped me they must have carried me a long way through the
tunnel, to chain me fast near this end.

“Well, I’m free now, and out in the open. About noon, I should judge by
the sun and by the way my stomach feels,” Tom went on, with a grim
smile, for he was getting hungry and feeling a bit weak now. “I hope it
isn’t more than the next day,” he went on, meaning the day following his
night encounter with Ned.

He looked about him. Barn Door Island was about five acres in extent,
large enough, on account of its wild character, to give concealment to
any number of enemies. But if there were any such here now they did not
show themselves as Tom eagerly and anxiously scanned the somewhat wild
landscape.

“Well, now that I know where I am, though I can’t understand how or why
I was put in that tunnel and chained,” mused the lad, as he looked at
the iron still on his leg, “I might as well try to get back home. It’s
pretty lonesome down here, and I don’t know whether I can signal any one
or not. But it isn’t far to the mainland and I can swim it. Though if
I’m going to do that I’d better file this iron off. No fun swimming with
that bracelet on my ankle.”

He looked about for a place where he could sit down and file in comfort
at the remaining evidence of his recent bondage when, as he approached
the shore, he saw, pulled up close to a rude dock in a little cove, a
small motor boat.

“Well, if this isn’t luck!” cried Tom. “There must be some picnic party
here and that’s their boat. But no—wait a minute! Maybe it belongs to
those men I heard talking in the tunnel. I’ll wager that’s it. And this
is my chance! I’ll appropriate their boat since they treated me like a
roughneck. I’ll get back home, maybe in time to stop their
trick—whatever it is.”

There was not much about a motor boat that Tom Swift did not know, and
it took him but a few seconds to ascertain that this one was in good
working order. No longer considering the need of filing off the
leg-iron, Tom pushed the boat out from the dock, which was merely a few
old logs and planks, and prepared to start the engine.

He turned the flywheel and, almost at the first revolution after he had
thrown the spark switch, the engine was in motion. But even as it glided
out of the little cove Tom was aware of the presence of another craft.
Around one of the points of the cove, as he guided his boat out, the
other swung in, and a glance showed it to be occupied by four
rough-looking men.

Two of them wore masks. The faces of the other two were familiar to Tom,
for they were two of his recently discharged workmen—Kenny and Schlump!

Tom had a feeling that some desperate work was in prospect. The attack
on him, the rendering of him unconscious, his being chained fast—all
this was more than accidental coincidence following his trailing of the
man who had disappeared down in the tunnel.

For a moment those in the second boat remained gazing, spellbound, it
seemed, at Tom, who was rapidly putting distance between himself and
those he felt were his enemies. The boat he had so unexpectedly found
proved to be a speedy little craft. But the other was also.

“There’s Tom Swift now!” cried Schlump, pointing.

“Where?” asked one of the masked men.

“In our boat!” Schlump answered. “Come back here!” he roared, shaking
his fist at Tom.

“Come back nothing!” taunted the young inventor.

“Don’t stop to talk!” shouted one of the masked men. “Speed up! We must
catch Swift at any cost!”




                               CHAPTER IV
                            A NIGHT OF WORRY


About nine o’clock on the night when Tom Swift had witnessed the strange
actions of the man who so mysteriously disappeared, the telephone bell
tinkled in the Swift home. As Tom’s father was reading a scientific book
in which he was much engrossed, Mrs. Baggert went to the instrument.
Half-interested in the conversation, Mr. Swift listened to the one-sided
talk, hearing Mrs. Baggert say:

“Oh, how do you do, Miss Nestor? No, Tom isn’t here. I haven’t seen him
since supper. His father is here. Do you want to speak to him? What’s
that? Oh, all right. Yes, I’ll be sure to tell him.”

“Isn’t Tom over at Mary’s house?” asked the aged inventor, with a shade
of anxiety in his voice as he looked up from his book. He had guessed at
what he had not heard.

“No, he isn’t there, and Miss Nestor is getting tired of waiting, I
guess,” answered the housekeeper.

“Where is Tom?” asked his father.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Baggert replied. “He started for Shopton right
after supper, saying he had to buy some things at the hardware store
before it closed. I heard Mr. Ned tell him not to be late and Tom
promised he wouldn’t. I didn’t know then what Mr. Ned warned him not to
be late for, but I can guess now that it was in calling on Miss Nestor.”

“And he hasn’t arrived there yet,” murmured Mr. Swift. “That’s a bit
odd, for Tom doesn’t usually break his engagements—especially with Mary
Nestor,” and he smiled a little.

“Oh, Miss Nestor told me to say to you that she wasn’t in the least
worried,” Mrs. Baggert made haste to add. “She says she knows Tom is
very busy and something may have come up at the last moment. She says he
promised to take her to see a moving picture this evening. She has been
waiting some time, and she called up to say if he couldn’t come it would
be all right, and she would go to the second show with her mother.
That’s all the message was about.”

“Oh, well, I guess it’s all right then,” returned Mr. Swift, with an air
of relief. “Tom is probably delayed in Shopton, getting what he wanted.
But he should have telephoned, either here or to Mary. It isn’t fair to
keep a young lady waiting like that.”

“Miss Nestor said to be sure and tell him she wasn’t at all put out
because he didn’t come,” said Mrs. Baggert. “She knows it must be some
good reason that kept him away.”

“I hope it is,” said Mr. Swift. “But it isn’t like Tom to stay away
without sending some word.”

As the hours passed and the young inventor neither returned nor
communicated, the anxiety in his father’s mind grew, until, about
midnight when the front door was heard to open, Mr. Swift cried:

“Is that you, Tom? Where have you been? Why didn’t you send some word?
And you have broken your promise to call on Mary!”

“This isn’t Tom,” came in the voice of Ned Newton, who, of late, had
been living at the Swift home. “But you don’t mean to tell me Tom isn’t
here! I was just going to tell him he was in for a bad half hour the
next time he called on Mary.”

“No, Ned, Tom isn’t here,” said Mr. Swift, who had sat up past his usual
retiring hour to meet his son when he should arrive. “And he isn’t over
at Mary’s house, either.”

“I know he isn’t there,” Ned said. “Helen and I stopped in on our way
back from the pictures to find out why we hadn’t seen those two at the
show. We found Mary a bit disturbed because Tom had neither called nor
telephoned. That’s why I was going to tell him he was in for a bad time
when next he sees Mary.”

“But he isn’t here,” said Mr. Swift. “I can’t understand it. He went
over to Shopton directly after supper, Mrs. Baggert says, and he hasn’t
returned.”

“Oh, yes, he came back,” Ned replied quickly. “I saw him.”

“Where?” cried the aged inventor.

“Just outside the big fence—on the landing field, in fact. Tom was on
his way here then. He found what he wanted in some Shopton store, he
told me, and I said he’d better hurry if he was going to keep his date
with Mary. I was a bit late myself, so I left him and hurried on and he
started for the house.”

“Then something has happened to him, for he never got here!” exclaimed
Mr. Swift. “Something has happened!” He was getting excited and Ned did
not like that, for the aged man’s health was far from good.

“Oh, not necessarily,” said Ned, in easier tones than his own feelings
justified. “Tom’s all right, you can be sure of that. He knows how to
take care of himself. Besides, how could anything happen at his own
doorstep, so to speak? He was near the big fence.”

“Well, I’m sure something has happened,” Mr. Swift declared.

But Ned shook his head and smiled.

“More than likely,” he said, “Tom went into his private office to leave
what he had bought in Shopton. Once he was at his desk he saw something
he had forgotten to do, or he was taken with a sudden idea, and he sat
down to make some note about it before it slipped out of his mind.

“It isn’t the first time he has done that, nor the first time he has
made dates with Mary and then forgotten all about them. Don’t worry, Mr.
Swift, you’ll find Tom in his private office over at the works.”

“That is easily settled,” was the answer. “I’ll call him on the
telephone.”

There was an instrument in the living room where this conversation took
place. The Swift home and works were linked by intercommunicating
telephones, and Mr. Swift was soon plugging in on the circuit that
connected with Tom’s private office. While he was waiting Mrs. Baggert
came quietly into the room behind Mr. Swift.

“Is Tom home?” she asked of Ned, forming the words with her lips but not
speaking, since she did not want to disturb Mr. Swift. Ned shook his
head in negation, and a puzzled look spread over the face of the
housekeeper.

“They’re too easily worried,” mused Ned, half-smiling. “Tom is all
right, I’m sure.”

But this certainty gradually disappeared when several seconds went by
and there was no answer to the bell that must be ringing in Tom’s office
at the works.

“Isn’t he there?” Ned could not help asking.

“He doesn’t seem to be,” Mr. Swift replied.

“Maybe he’s on his way home,” Ned was saying when Mr. Swift suddenly
exclaimed:

“Some one is at the ’phone now! Oh, hello, Koku!” he called into the
transmitter. “Yes, I am here. But where’s Tom? Is he there? What? He
isn’t? Has he been there? No!”

The silence on Mr. Swift’s part, following his last word, told Ned and
Mrs. Baggert, more than anything else, how worried he was. He appeared
to be listening to what the giant at the other end of the wire was
saying. Then he spoke again:

“We’ll be right over, Koku. Yes, I’m coming and so is Mr. Newton. Don’t
bring Eradicate? Well, he might be of some help. There’s no use in you
being jealous. Look around until we get there. Tom may be in some of the
other buildings!”

Slowly Mr. Swift replaced the receiver on the hook and then, turning to
Ned and the housekeeper, he said:

“Tom isn’t there and hasn’t been since he left early in the afternoon.
Koku has just made his rounds and hasn’t seen him, but I told him to go
over the place again and have the other watchmen go with him. We’ll go
ourselves and help search. I’m sure something has happened to Tom!”




                               CHAPTER V
                                A CRASH


Adventures in plenty had befallen Tom Swift, and in many of them Ned
Newton had had a share. But always the young inventor had come out “on
top of the heap,” so perhaps Ned was justified in his feeling that
everything would be all right. Still he could understand and appreciate
Mr. Swift’s worry.

Mr. Swift began looking for his hat and neck scarf, this last on the
suggestion of his housekeeper.

A little later Mr. Swift, Ned, and Eradicate, the aged colored servant
who had been in the Swift family many years, were on their way to the
big plant, almost a mile distant. Ned had brought around to the door one
of the small cars Tom used to make trips between his home and the shop,
and it did not take long to reach the main gate in the big fence
surrounding the place.

So many and varied had been the attempts to rob Tom of the fruits of his
and his father’s brains that drastic measures to guard the place had
been put into effect. The big fence, impossible to scale without long
ladders, was one protection. In addition there were burglar alarm wires
along the fence, which wires would give warning of any attempt to get
under it or over it. In addition there was a strip of metal, charged
with a high-power current which could be turned on at will, and this
would give unauthorized trespassers a severe shock. It would not kill,
but would disable for a time.

In addition there were other forms of protection, and so well guarded
were the different gates, by night and day, that not even Tom himself
could get in without due formality. So it was when the party of
searchers arrived, they were not at once let in. The guard at the gate
must first be certain who he was admitting.

“Good lan’!” exclaimed Eradicate. “Dish is plum’ foolishness! Cain’t yo’
look an’ see dat ole Massa Swift hisse’f am heah?”

“They have to be cautious, Rad,” said Ned, as he got out of the machine
to give the password which was used each night. He saw Koku, the giant,
coming down the path inside the fence, and the big man at once
recognized the visitors.

Between Eradicate and Koku there was rivalry and jealousy because each
one wanted to serve Tom without having the other called on. And no
sooner had the colored man caught sight of the giant, as the latter told
the watchman to open the gate, than Eradicate burst out with:

“Hu! Dat’s jest laik de big ninny! Don’t know his own folks! It’s a
wonder to me dat Massa Tom keep him, he’s so dumb!”

“Black man talk much—not do anything!” growled the giant. “Look out or
um be squashed,” and he opened and closed his enormous hands as if he
wanted to clutch the old servant in them.

“That will do now, you two!” warned Mr. Swift. “We came to find Tom. Are
you sure he isn’t here, Koku?”

“Not too sure, master; Not sure much about Master Tom—he go—he
come—no can tell—no can do.”

“That’s about right,” agreed Ned, with a laugh. “Tom certainly goes and
comes without telling any one much about it. But I gathered, from what
he said to me just outside the fence, that he would be right along.
There didn’t seem to be anything special he had to do.”

“Just where was it you met him?” asked Mr. Swift. “Let us start the
investigation from there, you and I, Ned. Meanwhile, I will have all the
other shops called by telephone from the central here.”

He gave orders to this effect to one of the watchmen and then with Ned
went to the place, outside the fence, where Tom had last talked with his
chum. But it was dark, and Ned, naturally, could not point out the exact
spot, even with the aid of a flashlight.

“I think it was here, near this rock and bush,” he said, throwing the
gleam of his little electric torch about.

But the dry, hard ground gave no clews to this superficial examination,
and, as a matter of fact, Ned was about twenty-five feet off in his
calculations, as was demonstrated later. Otherwise he and Mr. Swift
might have seen the hole in the ground and the flight of stairs, for it
was not until some time later that night—near morning, as a matter of
fact—that the plotters replaced the planks and spread earth over them,
thus hiding the secret entrance.

“Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything here,” said Mr. Swift, with an
uneasy sigh as they made a hasty examination of the place. “We had
better go inside and look there.”

But the search in and about the many buildings of the great Swift plant
was no more successful. Every office and shop telephone had been rung.
Some were answered by guards or watchmen who happened to be in the
vicinity at the time the bell rang. But one and all said they had not
seen Tom.

Then there was a check-up of every gate and entrance in the big fence,
and at no place had Tom been admitted. Granting that his protective
plans worked, he could not have entered his own plant without a record
having been made of it, and there was none.

“There’s only one answer to this, then,” said Ned, when the search had
ended.

“What’s the answer?” asked Mr. Swift.

“Tom didn’t come in here after he left me. He must have gone somewhere
else.”

Mr. Swift looked at his watch.

“Do you suppose he could be at Mary’s now?” he asked.

“What time is it?”

“Three.”

“No, he wouldn’t be there at this hour!” declared Ned.

“He might,” replied Mr. Swift hopefully. “When Tom’s mind is busy on his
inventions he forgets all about time. It would be just like him to
forget that it was three o’clock in the morning and go to call on Mary.”

Ned shook his head, but Mr. Swift went on:

“I’m going to call her presently. But there is just one more place I
want to search. It’s in the vault where we keep the Chest of Secrets, as
Tom calls it. There is a private entrance to that he could come in by
and not register the alarm nor be seen by any of the guards. He can
switch off that alarm from his room at the house. I’ll look there. He
may have gone there to see if there isn’t some way out in the trouble
we’re in over the airline express patents.”

“Trouble?” questioned Ned, as they walked toward the vault.

“Yes. Tom and I haven’t spoken of it even to you, Ned, for the thing
really isn’t in such shape that it can be talked about. But Tom has an
idea, it may be nothing more than a dream, that he can establish a line
of travel to cross our continent from New York to San Francisco between
dawn and darkness. In other words, a coast-to-coast service, from ocean
to ocean, by daylight—say sixteen hours—with no change.”

“No change!” cried Ned. “What’s the idea—refueling the planes in the
air? Of course that has been done. But from coast to coast in sixteen
hours without change! It can’t be done!”

“Tom thinks so,” said Mr. Swift. “That’s what he’s working on now. He
has had some new models made, but there is trouble over the patent
rights. Some one is trying to get his idea away from him. It may be that
Tom came to the secret vault after he left you to make sure everything
was all right, and he may be there yet.”

But the vault was unoccupied, nor had it been disturbed. Mr. Swift gave
a hasty glance at several complicated and odd-looking models of aircraft
in the concrete room, looked over a pile of papers, and said:

“Well, they haven’t been disturbed since Tom and I were here last, which
proves my son hasn’t been here. But where is he? I’m beginning to get
worried, Ned. More worried than ever!”

“Oh, he’ll be all right,” was the answer, though in his own heart Ned
Newton could not help feeling apprehensive. “It may be, as you say, that
he made a very late call on Mary, and her folks have probably asked him
to stay all night, as they have done before.”

“I think the matter justifies me in calling Mr. Nestor on the
telephone,” said Mr. Swift, as they emerged from the vault where the
Chest of Secrets was stored. “It’s rather early to ring up anybody, but
I guess they will understand.”

It was about four o’clock now, and already, in the east, a light was
appearing, the sun was heralding the dawn. The early birds were
beginning to sing. It would soon be morning, though not yet time for the
wheels to begin humming in the Swift plant.

Going back to the office, where Koku reported that a second check-up had
failed to disclose the whereabouts of the young inventor, Mr. Swift
called the Shopton central operator and gave her the number of the
Nestor house.

There was some little delay, as was natural when a call is made at that
hour of the morning, but at length Mr. Nestor’s voice was heard.

“Who? Tom? No, he isn’t here—hasn’t been here,” was the message the
aged inventor received. “What’s the matter?”

There was some further talk, and Mr. Swift briefly outlined what had
happened.

“Don’t alarm Mary yet,” Mr. Swift cautioned his friend. “But I fear
something has happened to Tom. I wish you would come over.”

“I will!” Mr. Nestor promised. “I’ll be over as soon as I can dress.”

“Tell him I’ll call for him,” Ned said to Mr. Swift, and this message
went over the wires.

It was fully light when they went down into the yard where the small
auto had been left. And suddenly the silence of the dawn, made musical
by the twitterings of the birds, was broken by an increasing roar and
throbbing noise.

“Airship!” grunted Koku.

“Suah enough!” exclaimed Eradicate, pointing up. “Dere she am!”

The throbbing sound became louder, and a moment later they saw the
plane, a large one, approaching from the west.

“It’s Mr. Damon’s machine!” cried Ned. “What in the world is he flying
so early for? He isn’t sure enough of himself to take that big plane out
alone—he only got it the other day. Great Scott! Look! He’s going to
hit your mooring mast!”

At one end of the big landing field outside the fence Tom had recently
erected a tall steel mast, to which he moored a small dirigible balloon
with which he was conducting experiments. As all looked up they saw Mr.
Damon in his new machine headed straight for this mast.

“He doesn’t know it’s there!” cried Ned. “He’s sure going to hit!”

A moment later there was an alarming crash, and the top of the mast was
seen to break off while one edge of the aeroplane’s left wing crumpled.




                               CHAPTER VI
                            AGAIN A PRISONER


The threat which Tom Swift heard the men in the pursuing motor boat
mutter—a threat to catch him at any cost—was not needed to cause him
to speed up the craft he had appropriated in an endeavor to escape. The
sinister character of the men who wore the masks he could easily guess
at. As to the others, he had begun to suspect them soon after they
obtained work in his plant. Though they were clever mechanics, Tom did
not like Kenny and Schlump and so had directed their discharge.

“They either have it in for me on that account,” mused Tom, as he made
an adjustment to the motor to get more speed, “or else there’s something
deeper in the plot. I guess they must have chained me up after I
blundered into their tunnel. I’d like to know what all this means, but
now is not the time to stop and find out. I must get away and ask
questions afterward.”

It was to be a desperate chase—Tom Swift realized that from the tense
and eager manner of the men in the boat now plowing through the waters
of Lake Carlopa. They were forcing their craft to her best speed in an
endeavor to overtake him.

“It’s a wonder they don’t begin shooting,” mused Tom. “A crowd of men
like that, with two of them masked, won’t stop at shooting. Maybe I’d
better get down a bit.”

He had been standing up in the boat, the better to make adjustments to
the motor, but now, as he thought of the possibility of being fired
upon, he crouched down to give less of a target to the men.

This move of his seemed to be misinterpreted by the pursuers, for one of
them cried:

“There he goes overboard! One of you take after him!” This was shouted
by one of the masked men, whose identity Tom Swift could only guess at,
though he judged all of them to be some of his enemies.

But the young inventor had no intention of jumping out of the boat to
swim for safety. He knew he would soon be overtaken and captured. His
only chance lay in beating the scoundrels in a race. Besides, he was in
no physical condition to endure a long swim. He had been in a most
uncomfortable, cramped position all night, and the exertion of filing
off the chain and going through the tunnel to emerge on Barn Door Island
had tired him. He had had no breakfast, and this lack was now beginning
to make itself felt more than at first.

But as he crouched down in the boat, where only a small part of his body
showed above the rail, he remembered that he had in his pocket some
chocolate candy. He had bought it the night before on his trip to town.

“I’ll make a breakfast on that,” mused Tom.

So as he crouched there in the boat he reached into his pocket, got out
the cake of chocolate, and began to nibble it. In a few minutes he felt
decidedly better. That “gone” feeling had left his stomach, and he began
to relish, rather than fear, the outcome of the impending struggle.

The pursuit had started at the end of the lake where there was no town
or other settlement, but at the pace it would not be more than half an
hour before he would sight his home town.

For a few moments after the wild chase began Tom could hear the men in
the other boat shouting after him:

“Come back here! Stop that boat! It’s ours! Stop or we’ll shoot!”

“Go ahead and shoot!” taunted Tom, hardly believing, after this delay,
that they would go to this extreme. And they did not. Evidently their
plan was to capture him alive.

Tom was so anxious to know whether or not his craft was keeping a
sufficient distance in front of the other boat that he did not pay much
attention to the course he was steering. The result was that, after he
had swung out around a small island he was almost run down by a tug boat
hauling some coal barges from one side of Lake Carlopa to the other.

Tom just had time to give the wheel a quick turn, and he fairly grazed
one of the coal barges. This brought angry shouts from the captain of
the tug who demanded to know:

“What in the name of thunderation are you trying to do, anyhow? Get
yourself sunk? You soft-soaping landlubber, look where you’re going!”

Tom did not reply. He had half a notion to swing about, run up alongside
the tug and appeal for help. Then a wild desire came into his mind to
beat these men alone and single-handed if he could. It would be sportier
that way.

As for his pursuers, when they saw the tug and barges they appeared to
hesitate a moment, as if ready to give up the chase. But when they saw
Tom keep on, they did the same, still chasing him.

For perhaps ten minutes more the chase was kept up. Tom could make out,
by hasty observations over his stern, that three of the men were in
consultation while the fourth one steered.

There now loomed up in front of Tom another island—a larger one than
Barn Door, and he recognized it as the last one in this end of the lake
before he could swing into the wider part of the water through which
there was a straight course to Shopton.

“Once I get past there,” said Tom to himself, “I’m safe. They won’t dare
chase me after that.”

As he neared the island he noticed that his motor was behaving in a
peculiar manner. Every now and then it would miss an explosion. Then it
would cough and wheeze a bit, after which it would go on again.

“What’s the matter, old girl?” asked Tom, for to him machinery was
almost something alive and he talked to it as he would to a human being.
“Are you getting tired?” he asked.

He looked over the working parts. They seemed to be all right. But again
came a miss—then several of them. And finally, with a last cough and
wheeze, the motor stopped altogether.

“No more gas!” exclaimed Tom. Well he knew that last wheeze when there
is nothing more for the carburetor to feed on. He had used up the last
drop of gasoline.

“Guess I’m done for,” mused Tom. “They must have known there wasn’t
enough gas in the tank to carry me far. That’s why they kept on.” He
looked back. The pursuers were perhaps five hundred feet astern, and
Tom’s boat was so close to the island that he knew, with the headway
still on, he could reach the shore.

He turned the prow toward the little cove and as soon as he was near
enough he leaped over the bow, landing on the rocky shore, and ran up
into the fastness of the island, which was covered with scrubby trees
and bushes.

He looked about for a good place where he might conceal himself. He was
sensible enough to know that to try to fight four men was taking on odds
that were too heavy. He saw a little recess in the rocks, and squeezed
into it.

A moment later he heard the voices of the men as they steered their boat
up against the one he had deserted. Then he heard them jumping out on
the gravelly beach.

“We’ve got him now!” one remarked.

“He can’t get away,” added another.

“Not unless he swims for it—we’ve got both boats!” said a third.

“He won’t try swimming—we could easily overtake him in our boat,”
declared the fourth scoundrel, and Tom sensed that this was true.

“Scatter now, and find him!” one of the men ordered, and the hiding
youth could hear them crashing about in the bushes looking for him. It
was a foregone conclusion that they would find him sooner or later. Tom
had not had time to look for a good hiding place, being under the
necessity of taking the first one that offered.

So it was no wonder that, a few minutes after he had landed on the
island, he heard some one coming nearer and nearer. He tried to force
himself farther into the crevice of the rocks, but it was no use. His
movements dislodged some small stones which fell with a rattle.

“Here he is!” cried a voice.

The next moment Tom was looking into the leering face of Kenny, and then
along came Schlump.

The latter held a revolver, and even without this weapon Tom would have
been forced to submit, for the two masked men soon came to the aid of
their companions. Tom felt that discretion was the better part of valor
in this instance. Besides, he hoped, by submitting quietly now, to
escape by strategy a little later.

But he thought he would try a little bluff and bluster first, so he
addressed the men with righteous indignation.

“You fellows have nerve!” he exclaimed. “What do you mean by treating me
this way? I’ll have you all arrested for this and sent up.”

“Yes. Like you did Barsky, I suppose,” sneered one of the masked men.

Tom started at the mention of that name. Barsky or Blodgett, for he used
both names, had been concerned in the theft of Tom’s Chest of Secrets.
Barsky had been arrested, together with Renwick Fawn, and had been sent
to jail.

“But maybe they have escaped,” thought Tom. “Maybe these two men are
Fawn and Barsky.” He closely observed the actions of the men, but
neither of them threw out his elbow in a jerky manner, which had been a
characteristic of Fawn, nor were any of Barsky’s peculiarities
observable in the other masked individual.

“Cut out the talk,” advised Kenny to the man who had mentioned Barsky’s
name.

“What do you want of me?” boldly demanded Tom.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” answered Schlump.

But his intention of keeping secret the reason for their bold acts was
not shared by the masked man who had spoken of the imprisoned Barsky.
For approaching Tom and shaking his fist in the lad’s face the scoundrel
exclaimed:

“You’re trying to beat us out of our invention, but it can’t be done!
We’ve got you now where we want you!”

“Your invention—what do you mean?” asked Tom, genuinely puzzled.

“The airline express car,” was the unexpected answer. “That’s our
invention, and we’re going to get patents on it ahead of you! We don’t
intend to let you cheat us out of it. You stole our ideas and models,
but we’ll use your models if we have to and get the patents that way.”

“You must be crazy!” exploded Tom. “Your invention! You don’t know what
you’re talking about! That car is my own and my father’s idea! As soon
as I get away from here I’ll make you sweat for what you’ve done to me!”

One of the men laughed in a sinister manner.

“It will be a long while before you get away from here!” he boasted.
“You’ll stay a prisoner even if we have to ship you to the South Seas!”




                              CHAPTER VII
                                THE PLOT


Closing in on Tom, the four men soon had him securely bound with ropes.
He felt there was little use in struggling against such overwhelming
odds. He must conserve his strength until he could use it to better
advantage. For the young inventor did not intend to remain any longer
than he could help a prisoner of these four men on this lonely island.
For it was a lonely island.

Though nearer that end of the lake where Shopton was located, still this
little irregular circle of land, rocks, and shrubbery known as Loon
Island was a lonesome place. Its name might indicate that, for in times
past many loons made their nesting place on the island, and the loon is
a very shy bird—it loves not human company.

“There isn’t much chance of any one visiting here to rescue me,” mused
Tom to himself as he submitted tamely to being bound. That is, he
submitted with seeming tameness, making no struggle. But, truth to tell,
he was boiling within at the indignity put upon him and he was wild with
righteous rage against the men for their threats to steal his idea of
the great airline express.

However, there was nothing to do now but to let the four scoundrels work
their will upon him. They were not unduly rough, but they took great
care in the tying of the ropes. Then one of them noticed the ring of
iron and the few dangling links on Tom’s leg.

“He filed off the chain!” exclaimed one of the masked man. Like his
companion he kept his face covered. As for Kenny and Schlump, they did
not appear to mind being recognized. Perhaps they felt that Tom would
know them even with masks on, so they did not go to the trouble to
disguise themselves.

“I guess I have never seen the other two, and that’s why they want to
hide their faces from me,” mused Tom. “They don’t want me to recognize
them again if I should happen to see them with their masks off. But I
may, for all of that.”

Tom had keen and observing eyes, and now, foiled in an attempt to see
the faces of the two masked men, he began studying their peculiarities
so he might know them again. He studied their walk, their actions, the
way in which they used their hands and the tones of their voices. Often
a person may be recognized by his voice alone. And Tom remembered how he
had recognized Renwick Fawn by that man’s elbow peculiarity. But he
could not place these two.

“Yes, he filed the chain off all right,” admitted Kenny. “We might have
known he’d do something like that. We should have bound his hands.”

“They’re bound now,” grimly remarked Schlump, as he tightened the knots
on the rope around Tom’s wrists. It was so closely drawn as to be
painful, but Tom did not murmur. He was not going to let these men know
that they were hurting him.

“We’d better take that leg bracelet off,” went on one of the masked men,
the larger of the two.

“Why so?” asked Schlump.

“Because the links on it might rattle just at the wrong minute,” was the
answer, and the man made a peculiar motion, pointing off to the mainland
which Tom could see in the distance as he stood on Loon Island.

In a few moments the young inventor was freed from the leg-iron. It was
not heavy, and gave him no particular discomfort, but, all the same, he
was glad to be rid of it.

“Made me feel too much like an old slave on the chain gang,” he told
himself. What the man had said about the necessity of keeping quiet on
Loon Island came to Tom with force now. He had a wild idea of setting up
a yelling that might attract some passing oarsman or motor boat man. But
he gave this idea up very soon.

“I might get help, and then, again, I might not,” Tom thought. “If I
didn’t get it, these fellows would be angry at me and they might beat me
up. I want to keep a whole skin as long as I can. I can do better work
if I’m not injured. I wonder what their game is, anyhow? It’s a bold
one—I’ll say that. And to think I made it easier for them!”

For that is exactly what Tom had done. Thinking it over as best he could
amid the whirl of ideas in his brain, he came to the conclusion that he
had fallen into his present plight purely by accident. The men could not
have known that he would follow that mysterious, disappearing stranger.
They could not have known he would go down the flight of secret steps.
But he had, through a chain of circumstances, and when the scoundrels
found him in their power they proceeded with their plans. Tom had
actually played into their hands.

Of course he might have escaped had the motor boat contained but another
quart of gasoline, but this was one of the times when Fate played
against the young inventor.

Having made their prisoner secure, leaving one of their number to watch
him, three of the men went down to the two boats. Tom could hear them
laughing as they discovered the plight of the craft he had jumped into.

“Good thing you were short on gas, Kenny!” some one said. “Otherwise he
might be on the mainland now.”

“Yes,” was the answer. “Well, he’ll be on mainland, anyhow, by night.”

Tom wondered what this meant. But Schlump, who was guarding him, gave no
sign.

All the remainder of that day Tom remained a prisoner on Loon Island
with the four men watching him. They seemed to have some human feelings,
for they gave Tom water to drink and loosed his hands so that he could
eat some of the food they brought to him from the boat in which they had
pursued him.

The prisoner was grateful for the food, and more so for the hot coffee,
which Kenny made over a fire he kindled. This coffee put heart into Tom,
and he felt much better after drinking it.

He was worried, not so much over his own plight, as over what his father
and his friends might think about his sudden and mysterious
disappearance. That his father would worry, Tom well knew.

But Tom would not give his enemies the satisfaction of asking them their
intentions. He preferred to wait and see what would happen.

“They must be going to take me to the mainland,” thought Tom, as he
recalled what had been said. “It’s hard to tell whether I’ll have a
better chance to escape there or here. I’ll just have to bide my time.”

It seemed that the day would never pass, but at length the shadows grew
longer and Tom, who had been thrust into a rocky cranny behind a clump
of bushes, realized that night was settling down. It would be the second
night of his absence from home and he could imagine the anxiety among
his friends.

“They won’t know what to think,” reasoned Tom.

Just before dark another meal was served to the prisoner, and then one
of the masked men approached the young inventor with a gag in his hands.

“You’ll have to wear this,” he said roughly. “I wouldn’t trust your
promise not to yell when we’re crossing the lake. I’m going to fix it so
you can’t shout for help!”

And this he did, binding Tom’s mouth securely. It was impossible for him
to make himself heard five feet away. Then, when the ropes on his legs
and ankles were looked to and made more secure, the prisoner was lifted
by two of the men and carried to the larger boat—the one in which the
scoundrels had pursued the youth.

He was laid down, with no great gentleness, on one of the side seats,
and a little later, under cover of darkness, the trip from Loon Island
to the main shore was begun.

Where he was landed Tom did not know—he could not see any familiar
landmarks. Nor was he given much time to look about, for no sooner had
he been carried out of the boat than he was bundled into a waiting auto
and the machine was driven off over a rough road.

By the unevenness of the highway and by the damp smell all about him,
Tom concluded that he was being taken through the woods. For an hour or
more the journey lasted and then he saw that the machine had stopped in
front of a lonely house set in the midst of the trees.

At the sound of the screeching brakes of the auto a door of this house
opened, letting out a flood of light, and a voice asked:

“Have you got him?”

“We sure have!” answered Kenny. “Anybody been here?”

“Not a soul. It’s as quiet as the grave. Take him right upstairs.”

Before Tom quite realized what was happening he felt himself being
carried up a flight of steps. He knew he was being taken into a small
room, which, from the closeness of the air, seemed not to have been
opened for a long time. He was placed on a pile of bags, or something
soft on the floor, and a moment later his captors hurriedly left,
locking the door behind them.

“Well, this is worse and more of it!” mused Tom, as he lay still a
moment. He was on his back. His position was most uncomfortable and he
began to roll over cautiously. He did not know but what there might be
holes or trap-doors in the floor. He did not want to fall through.

He got over on his side and then, to his delight, he felt the gag
loosening in his mouth. By rubbing it on his shoulder he managed to get
free of it, and this was a great relief. He could breathe more freely
now.

Moving cautiously around, his eyes saw a little sliver of light coming
through a crack in the floor. Getting as near this as he could, Tom
looked down. He saw below him, gathered about the table, five men. Two
were Kenny and Schlump. The other two he saw were his other captors, the
masked men. The fifth man seemed to be the keeper of the lonely cabin.
They were talking in cautious tones, but the crack in the floor acted as
a sort of speaking tube, and Tom thus heard mention of the plot against
him.

“If we can’t do anything else,” muttered one of the men, “we’ll blow up
the Swift plant and those airline express models, too. Then there will
be no question about us getting the patent. That’s what we’ll do—we’ll
blow up the plant!”

“When?” some one asked.

“To-morrow!” came the quick answer.

Tom felt a sinking at his heart. Here he was, bound and helpless, in the
hands of his enemies who were hatching a vile plot against him and his
father. Blow up the Swift plant! It was terrible to contemplate!

Tom began to struggle fiercely to release himself.




                              CHAPTER VIII
                            MR. DAMON’S NEWS


“Bless my gasoline tank, I’m afraid I’ve done some damage!” cried
Wakefield Damon.

“If you haven’t damaged yourself you’re lucky,” grimly commented Ned.

“No, I guess I’m all right,” said the eccentric man as he climbed out of
his plane. He had managed to bring it to a level landing on the ground,
though it was more by good luck than by good management.

He had flown over from Waterfield in the early morning, and either had
not seen, or else had forgotten about, Tom’s new mooring mast on the
edge of the landing field. Straight for the big steel pole Mr. Damon had
steered his craft, to swerve it at the last moment so that only one edge
of a wing scraped it.

However, that impact was sufficiently forceful to snap off the top of
the mast and crumple the airship’s wing.

“You got out of that pretty well,” commented Ned, as he made sure, half
by feeling and half by an inspection of the odd man, that he was not
injured. A casual inspection proved, too, that the plane was not as
badly damaged as at first feared.

“I’m sorry about that mooring mast,” said Mr. Damon. “You must tell Tom
to send me the bill for repairing it, Mr. Swift. By the way, where is
Tom? I have some news for him.”

He looked about the assembled group formed by Ned, Mr. Swift, Koku, and
Eradicate. Something of their anxiety must have showed on their faces,
for Mr. Damon asked:

“Has anything happened to Tom?”

“We don’t know,” answered Ned.

“We can’t find him,” went on Mr. Swift gravely. “Do you know where he
is, Mr. Damon?”

“Me? No, I haven’t seen him,” was the answer. “But I have some news,
just the same.”

“News!” cried Ned. “What kind of news?”

“Not very good, I’m afraid. I’ll tell you about it.”

“How did you come to be flying so early in the morning?” Ned wanted to
know.

“I came over specially to tell Tom the news,” was the answer. “I thought
flying would be the quickest way. I tried to telephone, but I couldn’t
raise you on the wire, Mr. Swift.”

“We have been using the wires to communicate with different parts of the
plant,” said the old inventor. “That is probably why you could not get
us. But I am anxious to hear anything about Tom.”

“I wish I could give you direct news of him,” went on Mr. Damon. “Bless
my rubber boots! I’m so excited I hardly know which end I’m standing
on—what with colliding with the mooring mast and all that! I wonder if
I have damaged my new plane much?”

“Not much,” Ned reassured him. “We can soon put it in shape for you. But
you can hardly fly back in it, and you might as well come into the
private office and tell what you know.”

A little later, Koku and Eradicate having been sent to the house to tell
Mrs. Baggert to telephone out to the works in case Tom arrived home, Mr.
Swift, Ned, and Mr. Damon faced each other in the private office of the
missing young inventor.

“What’s all this about Tom not being found?” Mr. Damon wanted to know.

Quickly Ned told what had happened—that he had seen Tom outside the big
fence, that the young inventor was expected to call on Mary, and that he
had not appeared at the young lady’s house.

“And since then we can’t find a trace of him,” concluded Ned.

“Well, what I heard a little while ago may serve as a clew,” stated Mr.
Damon. “Let me see now, where shall I begin?”

Ned was so impatient that he felt like telling the odd man to put on
plenty of steam and begin anywhere that would give news of Tom.

But the “blessing man,” as the old colored servant called Mr. Damon,
must do a thing in his own way or not at all, and he was not to be
hurried. So, having marshaled in his own mind what he wanted to say, he
began:

“I have been away on a business trip and I only arrived home at two
o’clock this morning. I got off the sleeper at the station, and, feeling
hungry, I went into one of those lunch wagons across the street to get a
bite to eat before going home and to bed.

“Well, while I was eating in this lunch wagon, and I must say the cook
has a very clever way of frying eggs—while I was there two men came
in—no, it was three men—wait a moment now, I can’t quite be sure of
that,” and to Ned’s exasperation Mr. Damon began examining his own
recollection to make sure whether it was three or two men.

“Now I remember!” he exclaimed triumphantly, to Ned’s great relief.
“First two men came in, and then, later, a third. The first two were
queer individuals—I thought they might be criminals, ‘stick-up men,’
you know, and I guess the fellow who ran the lunch wagon did, also, for
I saw him slip his revolver out from a drawer and put it near the gas
stove where he could get it in a hurry.

“But there was no need. The men were quiet enough. They ordered
hamburger steak and onions—a vile combination, I’ll say—and coffee.
While they were eating the third man came in—now I have it right—and
as soon as the two who had previously entered saw him one of them asked:

“What about our quick friend?”

“‘The speedy one is chained up where he can’t do any harm,’ is what the
third man said. Then they laughed and the third man also ordered
hamburger steak and onions and they began to eat as if they were
half-starved.

“I didn’t pay much attention to them at the time, for I was in a hurry
to get home—I had told my wife I would arrive at midnight, but the
train was late and I knew I’d have to explain why I was out at that
hour. So I hurried up with my meal and was coming out when one of the
men happened to say:

“‘Well, this will put the airline express matter right in our hands!’ It
wasn’t until then, as I was coming out and heard this remark, that I
began to suspect something.”

“The airline express!” exclaimed Mr. Swift. “Why, that’s Tom’s latest
idea!”

“I know it is,” said Mr. Damon. “That’s what made me suspicious. Then I
put two and two together—they had spoken about ‘our quick friend,’ and
the ‘speedy one,’ and now I know by those words that they meant Tom.”

“It begins to look like that!” cried Ned. “But what was it they said
about him—that he was tied up?”

“‘Chained up,’ was the expression they used,” Mr. Damon said. “I at once
made up my mind that some of Tom’s enemies were plotting against him and
I decided to come right over and let him know. I waited a moment after
coming out of the lunch wagon, and saw the three plotters disappear down
a street that led to a wharf on Lake Carlopa. Then I caught a
night-cruising taxi and made for my hangar. I decided to try to call you
first by telephone, and, if I couldn’t raise you to warn you to look
out, I would aeroplane over and give the alarm.

“Well, I couldn’t get you on the wire, so I roused my mechanic and we
wheeled the plane out to my landing field. I didn’t even bother to call
up my wife, for I knew she wouldn’t let me go, and I started off
and—here I am.”

“Lucky to be here, too, after hitting that mast,” murmured Ned. “But
what do you think this all means?”

“It means trouble for Tom, I’m sure of that,” said Mr. Swift. “His
enemies have captured him, I’m afraid. That’s what that talk about being
chained up means.”

“It does look suspicious,” agreed Ned. “We’d better start at the
beginning again and make another search. We can do it better now that we
have daylight. Tom has certainly disappeared in a very mysterious
manner.”

“You can count on me to help!” cried Mr. Damon. “Bless my police
whistle, but I wish I had grabbed those three scoundrels when I had the
chance! They have Tom a prisoner, I’m sure!”

“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Ned, holding up a warning hand. “Some one is
coming!”




                               CHAPTER IX
                              KOKU’S ALARM


Footsteps could be heard coming along the hall that led to the private
office where Ned, Mr. Damon, and Mr. Swift were conferring over the
mysterious disappearance of Tom Swift.

“That isn’t Eradicate or Koku,” observed Ned, for well he knew the
curious, shuffling gait of the colored man and the heavy tread of the
giant.

“Sounds like a lady,” announced Mr. Damon.

“Probably Mrs. Baggert,” said Mr. Swift. “She will be terribly anxious
about Tom—she’s like a mother to him.”

But it was not the kind, elderly housekeeper. A moment later Mary Nestor
hurried into the room, her face and manner showing that she was worried
and excited.

“Have you found Tom?” was her first inquiry, even before she nodded in
greeting.

“No, Tom hasn’t showed up yet,” Ned answered with as much cheerfulness
as he could put into his voice. “But he’ll be along soon—we hope.” He
felt forced to add that last, for as the hours passed and no word came
from Tom, even the optimistic Ned began to lose heart.

Then it was that Mary Nestor showed her true grit and spirit. Instead of
sitting down and sighing or crying, she assumed a firm air and said:

“When he didn’t come over last night I had a feeling that something had
happened to him. I can’t explain it, but I had that feeling. Now what
have you done to find him, and what else remains to be done?”

“There’s system for you!” exclaimed Ned admiringly. “Well, here’s the
situation.” Then he related to Mary what they knew of the case, stating
that he had met Tom the evening before just outside the big fence.

“Then that was the last any one has seen of him?” said the girl.

“Yes, the last, as far as we can find out,” Ned answered. “When all the
men report for work we will have each one questioned. It is possible
some of them may have seen Tom after I did.”

But this hope soon faded. A check-up of the entire factory force
resulted in nothing.

“The next thing to do,” decided Mary, “is to begin at the point where
you saw him, Ned, and make a careful examination of the ground, to see
if there is any evidence of a struggle. It is possible that Tom was
overpowered and carried off soon after you left him.”

“I don’t see how that could happen without his giving an alarm,”
answered the young financial manager of the Swift plant. “But we’ll go
over that place with a fine tooth comb.”

With the help of Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor, who had followed his
daughter, this was done. Of course Koku and Eradicate insisted on
joining in the search, and had it not been that the matter was now
getting serious it would have been laughable to watch the giant and the
colored man. Each was jealous of the other, each was fearful that the
other would be the first to discover Tom.

But nothing was found that would indicate in any way what had happened
to the youthful inventor. The men who had used the secret flight of
steps and the tunnel to carry Tom away had returned soon after
overpowering him and had covered the opening to the underground stairs,
scattering earth and débris over the planks so that a casual examination
would disclose nothing wrong.

A closer inspection might have disclosed signs of fresh earth scattered
about, but this kind of examination was not made.

By this time every one connected with the Swift factory knew of the
young inventor’s disappearance, and work was ordered stopped for a time
while a minute search was begun. Tom was looked for in all possible and
in some impossible places, but all to no effect.

The day passed. Mary remained at the Swift house in order to be close at
hand if Tom should return unexpectedly.

Ned began to look and feel blue and depressed when night came again and
there was no sign of Tom. But, in contrast to this, Mary was outwardly
more cheerful.

“Somehow,” she said, “I feel that we shall have news of Tom before
morning.”

“What makes you think so?” asked Ned.

“I don’t know—but I have that feeling,” answered the girl. “You know if
Tom has been caught and taken away, night would be the best time for him
to escape, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would,” admitted Ned. “But I can’t believe that he has been
captured.”

“I can,” Mary asserted. “I have had a feeling for some time that Tom
would be in danger as soon as he tried to go ahead with that new
invention of his—the airline express. It always has happened so from
the time he made his first speedy motor boat until he put his valuable
papers in the Chest of Secrets. Always some enemies have been on his
trail. And you don’t imagine they’re going to stop and let him alone, do
you, when he’s got something as big as this airline express almost
perfected?”

“Well, of course there are always scoundrels ready to take advantage of
what an inventor does,” admitted Ned. “But this airline express has been
kept so secret I thought only a few of us knew of it.”

“That’s what Tom hoped,” Mary said. “But only a few days ago he told me
he had had to discharge two men because he suspected them. I forget
their names—something like Renny and Hemp.”

“Kenny and Schlump,” corrected Ned. “Yes, he told me about those men.
But still, and with all you have said, I can’t believe Tom has been
captured.”

The day passed and night came. Mr. Swift remained at the private office
in the plant until nearly ten o’clock, hoping that some word would come
from Tom; but none did, and an hour later Mr. Damon insisted on taking
the old inventor home.

“Koku and I will stay here,” volunteered Ned. “And, after all, Tom is as
likely to go home or send some word there as he is to come to the plant.
So we can divide our forces.”

This was done, and Ned and the giant settled themselves down for the
night’s vigil. Several hours passed, and all was quiet at the plant. Ned
was dozing when the big man, who had been sitting at a window from which
he had a view of the big fence, suddenly arose and whispered:

“Somebody come!”

“Somebody coming? What do you mean, Koku?” asked Ned.

“Man try climb fence,” went on the giant, pointing out of the window.
“Koku see him! Koku get him! Bust him all up in slats!”

“Wait a minute!” cautioned Ned, as he caught hold of the big man who was
about to rush from the room. “No one can get over, through, or under
that fence without setting off the alarm. It would ring here as well as
in other parts of the plant, Koku, and the bell hasn’t tinkled. You must
have fallen asleep and dreamed it.”

“Koku saw man on fence!” insisted the giant. “Maybe so him cut alarm
wires.”

“Even cutting the wires would ring a bell,” insisted Ned.

“Maybe Master Tom hisself come and try get away from bad mans by climb
fence,” went on the giant, whose English left much to be desired.
“Master Tom—he know how climb fence and no ring bell.”

“That’s possible,” admitted Ned. “Tom rigged up the burglar alarm on the
fence and he might know a way to beat his own game. Maybe you’re right
after all, Koku. We’ll go and take a look. Where did you see the man on
the fence?”

“There,” said the giant, and he pointed out the place to Ned, who stood
beside him in the open window. “Look—there him now!” cried the big man.

Ned had a glimpse of a figure trying to scale the high fence. In the
darkness, illuminated only by a little light from the waning moon, the
young financial man could not be sure whether it was a man or an animal.
Even then he was wondering how it was possible for any creature to get
up on the fence without sounding the alarm. And while Ned was thus
wondering the alarm went off with a sudden clang that was startling.

“Now we catch ’um!” cried Koku, as he raced from the room, followed by
Ned.

The alarm, ringing simultaneously in different parts of the plant,
summoned a number of watchmen. As the alarm gave the location on the
fence where the attempt had been made to scale it, the forces gathered
there, Koku and Ned being the first to arrive.

But when a search was made with oil lanterns and electric torches no
trace of an intruder could be found. The ground was hard and dry near
the fence and no footprints were observed.

But Ned and the giant were sure an attempt had been made by some man to
get into the Swift plant. That this was not Tom went without saying.

“They had Tom a captive somewhere,” said Ned later, when he related the
incident to Mr. Damon and Mr. Swift. “And thinking that with Tom out of
the way it was safe to try to get in, that’s what they did. But they
didn’t count on the electric alarm.”

“I wish we could have caught that fellow!” murmured Mr. Swift.

“I’d ’a’ kotched him ef I’d a bin dar!” declared Eradicate with a
scornful glance at the giant. “Dat big man am too stiff to run! Better
let ole ’Rad stay on guard de rest ob de night!”

“Hu!” taunted Koku. “Yo’ so small burglar man eat yo’ up!”

The remainder of the night brought nothing further—neither an alarm nor
a capture. Morning came, the second day of Tom’s disappearance, a
disappearance that was just as strange as at first. Mary and the others
were greatly worried now, and Mr. Swift was beginning to think that it
would be best to notify the police and broadcast his son’s
disappearance.

It was in the afternoon, when Ned, Mr. Damon, Mary, and Mr. Swift were
in the private office discussing plans, that the telephone bell rang.
Ned made a jump for it, for though the signal had sounded several times
during the day, each time only to have some routine work matter
discussed over the instrument, still every time he heard the bell Ned
felt certain it was a message from Tom. And this time his hopes were
rewarded.

“Hello! Hello!” called Ned into the transmitter. Then, as he listened,
what he heard made his eyes open wide with wonder. For over the wire
came the voice of the young inventor himself, though faint and showing
evidences of a great strain.

“Hello, Ned!” came from Tom. “I’ve just escaped! Watch the plant! Get
Father to safety. Look out for bombs! I’ll try——”

Then the voice died away to silence.




                               CHAPTER X
                              TOM’S PLIGHT


Desperation gave Tom Swift unusual strength as he lay bound and
seemingly helpless in that upper story of the lonely cabin. Though the
ropes about his wrists and ankles seemed very tight, he had a feeling as
he strained his arms that he was going to get free. That talk he heard,
floating up from the room below where, through the crack, he could see
the conspirators gathered, gave him fierce energy.

“So that’s their game, is it?” mused Tom, as he heard the plot to blow
up the plant. “They want to put me out of the way so they will have a
free hand to wreck my plant and get the plans and models of the airline
express cars and airships. I don’t believe they ever thought of
inventing that sort of combination craft themselves. They are trying to
steal my ideas. Kenny and Schlump must have hatched the plot. Oh, but
I’ve got to get loose and warn Dad and Ned!”

It was this very necessity for quick action that emboldened Tom and gave
him the fierce energy to struggle to get free of his bonds. He was glad
the gag had come loose, for with that in his mouth, hindering his
breathing, he could not have worked as hard as he did—he would have
suffocated.

But now he could breathe easily, and he had need of all his spare wind
in the exertions that followed the overhearing of the plot of the men
who had captured him.

Luckily ropes, however strong, are capable of being stretched if one
pulls on them long enough and often enough. And though it hurt Tom to
force his bare wrists against the hemp strands, he kept at it until he
found he could move his hands more freely. He wished he might find a
projecting nail or some sharp object in his prison, against which he
could rub his bonds to sever them. But he dared not roll about much for
fear of making a noise and so bringing his captors upstairs. Once they
discovered that he was making an attempt to escape, they might chain him
fast or move him to some other prison whence it would not be so easy to
get away.

“Once I’m free of these ropes I know I can get out,” Tom told himself.
“I’m only on the second floor, I can tell that, for I counted the stairs
as they carried me up. And if I can get a window open I can jump to the
ground, if I don’t find some sort of a vine or a rain-water pipe that I
can climb down. But the first thing to do is to get these ropes off my
hands and feet.”

Tom knew that once his hands were freed it would be a comparatively easy
matter to loosen the ropes on his ankles. All his energies, then, must
center on his hands. They were tied behind his back, with several coils
of rope wound about the wrists. Again and again Tom strained on these
until, at last, he felt that he could draw out one hand.

It was not easy, even when he had done this much, but he kept at it, and
finally had one hand altogether freed. The exertion had made him sweat
and had tired him greatly. He panted for breath as he lay there, while
below him he could hear the murmuring voices of the plotters.

A little rest brought back Tom’s breath and gave him renewed strength
for what he had yet to do, which was to free his ankles. But he had
accomplished the hardest part, which was to get his hands loose. It was
not easy, however, to loosen the knots in the ropes about his feet, and
it was several hours before he managed to free himself completely. One
reason for this was the tightness of the knots, and another was that,
occasionally one or more of the men below would come upstairs and flash
a gleam from an electric torch into the room where Tom was a prisoner,
to make sure he was still safe.

But the young man could tell, by the movement of chairs below, when this
inspection was coming, and each time he was ready for it. He assumed on
the floor the same position he had held when still bound and he wound
the ropes back again on his wrists so it could not be seen, from a
casual inspection, that they were loose. And he also placed the gag in
his mouth.

Because of the necessity for stopping work every now and then to assume
the position of a bound prisoner, Tom was longer engaged in freeing his
feet than otherwise would have been the case.

Consequently it was almost morning when he was able to stand up and move
about freely. Cautiously he crossed the room, pausing at every board to
make sure it would not squeak and betray him, and at last he reached a
window through which the faint rosy streaks of dawn were coming—the
second morning that Tom had been away from home.

“Now to see if I can get this window open,” mused Tom. He scarcely hoped
to find that it would open readily, and he was not greatly disappointed
when he found it fastened. By the morning light, now growing stronger,
and by feeling, he ascertained that the sash was held down by nails
driven over the edges of it into the frame.

A claw hammer would have taken these nails out in a second of time, but
Tom had no claw hammer, and the files by which he had removed the chain
from his leg had been taken from him.

“But maybe by bending the nail back and forth often enough I can either
loosen it enough to pull it out or I can break it off,” he told himself.

He felt that he must now work quickly. For some time there had been
silence in the rooms below him, and he guessed that his captors were
sleeping, thinking him securely bound and locked in.

“But they’ll awake soon and start getting breakfast,” Tom decided.
“They’ll bring me up some, and then they’ll see that I have loosened the
ropes. I’ve got to get away before they come up to feed me.”

His fingers sought a wedging nail and began to bend it back and forth.
At first it gave only a little, but eventually it moved more and Tom’s
hopes rose.

It was now getting lighter every minute. Tom felt that each moment was
precious. Unless he got the window open soon and could manage to escape
through it, he would be discovered.

“There!” he exclaimed with a breath of relief as he at last broke off
one nail. “Now for the other.” The second proved easier, for after
working it backward and forward a number of times and twisting it about,
Tom pulled it out. Now the window could be raised, and this he did
cautiously.

He waited a moment after lifting the sash and listened. There was no
sound from below, and he thought that the men were still sleeping. He
put his head out and looked down. To his dismay the window was higher
above the ground than he had hoped, and there was on that side of the
house neither a vine nor a rain-water pipe that he could descend.

“I’ve got to jump for it!” he grimly decided. “But that grass below
looks soft.” There was a big clump of green below the window. Tom
climbed out, sat down on the sill, edged himself over and then hung by
his hands a moment. This reduced the length of his drop by his own
height. He hung there a moment and then let go.

Down he plunged, coming to a stop on the earth with a thud that shook
him greatly. He seemed to lose his breath and a sharp pain shot through
his left ankle.

“Guess I’ve sprained it,” he mused. The pain was actually sickening, and
made him feel faint. Through an open window on the first floor he heard
some one exclaim:

“What was that noise?”

“What noise?” asked another.

“It sounded like some one falling.”

“Guess you were dreaming! Get up and make some coffee. I’m half
starved.”

“All right,” said the one who had first spoken. “But I’ll just have a
look at that bird upstairs. He’s cute—maybe he’s got away. I’ll have a
look at him before I get breakfast!”

“I’ve got to run for it—and right away!” thought Tom desperately.
“Though how I’m going to do it with a sprained ankle is more than I
know. But it will never do to let them catch me again.”

The grass was tall and rank under the window. It would afford the
fugitive cover until he could get to some better shelter. He began
crawling through it, deeming this safer than trying to stand up and run.
His concealment would be better in this position and it would take the
strain off his hurt ankle. He hoped it was only a sprain and not a
break.

He had not crawled more than a hundred feet from the old house before he
heard coming from it shouts that told that his escape had been
discovered.

“Now I’m in for it!” he mused. Just ahead of him he saw a brook, not
very deep but rather wide. “If I stand up and run they’re sure to see
me,” he reasoned. “And if I crawl I’ll leave a trail in the grass like a
big snake. If I can get to the brook and crawl along in that I may throw
them off the trail for a while.”

It seemed the best thing to do, and while the men back at the house were
running about “in circles,” so to speak, Tom crawled to the brook, and
then, having no particular choice, since he did not know where he was,
he began crawling upstream. He did not hope to throw his enemies off his
trail long in this way, nor did he. They were soon shouting as they ran
down the grass-covered and weed-grown yard, for the open window had told
them which way he had gone.

The trick of going into the brook confused them for a while, but Tom
knew they would separate into two parties and soon trace him. He was
desperate and at his wits’ end when he saw just ahead of him on the edge
of the stream an old barrel, partly embedded in the sandy shore. He
could get into this without leaving the water, and as its open end was
turned rather upstream he might escape observation.

It did not take him long to get into the barrel. He took care to leave
no tell-tale trail, and his strategy was well carried out, for a little
later, splashing their way upstream, ran two of the men—Tom could see
them through a hole in the closed end of the barrel.

“But I’d better not stay here,” the lad mused. “They’re sure to come
back, and the next time they might take a notion to investigate this
barrel. I’ll strike across country until I get to a house. There must be
people living around here.”

Tom never liked, afterward, to recall that journey. It was a painful one
because of his injured ankle. He got a tree branch, which he used as a
crutch and hobbled along on that. Once or twice he fainted and sank to
earth in a stupor. How long these periods of unconsciousness lasted he
could not tell. He dared not call out for fear of bringing the men on
his trail.

Through the woods and across a swamp he pulled himself along, and at
last, in the afternoon, as he could tell by the sun, he dragged himself
out on a road and saw a white farmhouse a little way down it.

“I—I guess I’m all right now,” faltered the exhausted youth.

It was a much surprised farmer who a little later saw a tall young man,
obviously hurt, almost crawling up the front walk. Before the farmer
could ask any questions Tom shot one at him.

“I’ve got to get an important message off at once. Have you a telephone?
I’ll pay for using it!” There was something businesslike in Tom’s voice,
weak and weary as it was, that impelled the farmer’s respect in spite of
Tom’s rather disreputable appearance.

“Come in,” the man invited. “Looks to me like you’d better telephone for
a doctor while you’re at it!”

“That can wait,” gasped Tom. “Something else is more important. Show me
the telephone!”

A little later he was gasping to Ned his message:

“Just escaped! Watch the plant! Get Father to safety. Look out for
bombs. I’ll try——”

Then Tom Swift fell over in a faint.




                               CHAPTER XI
                             THE EXPLOSION


David Knowlton, the farmer upon whom Tom had called so unceremoniously,
was scarcely more surprised by the sudden falling over of the young man
in a faint than he had been at his eager request for a telephone.

“Great bullfrogs!” cried Mr. Knowlton, as he hurried to pick Tom up and
lay him on a lounge in the room. “What’s all this goings-on, anyhow?
What’s it all mean?”

“Is he dead?” asked Mrs. Knowlton, who hurried into the room, having
followed Tom and her husband when she saw the stranger come up to the
house.

“I don’t know, Sarah,” was the answer. “But first hang that telephone
back on the hook. The inspector told me never to leave it off when we
weren’t using the line and I guess this fellow is through using it.”

So the telephone went back on the hook, which defeated the plans of
frantic Ned Newton, on the other end, if not to hold further talk with
Tom, at least to learn from what station he was telephoning his message
of warning. In vain did Ned appeal to the central operator to
re-establish the connection.

“Unless you know the number of the party who called I can’t connect
you,” she reported, and Ned knew, from previous attempts, that it was
useless to carry the effort further. He could only hope that Tom would
call again to relieve their minds. All they knew now was that he was
alive, but that something dire portended.

Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Knowlton, kindly souls that they were, ministered
to Tom Swift. The farmer’s wife brought out her bottle of camphor, and a
sniff of this potent spirit, with some rubbed on his forehead, soon
brought Tom out of his faint. Then he was given a drink of water, which
further helped in restoring his failing energies.

“If they come for me, don’t let them get me!” begged Tom, sitting up on
the couch. “Help me to get back! I must travel fast!”

“You need a doctor, that’s what you need, young man!” decided Mr.
Knowlton. “You aren’t fit to travel. You’ve done too much of that
already, from the looks of you, and that foot of yours is in bad shape,”
he added, as he saw the swollen ankle. Tom’s shoe laces were almost
bursting from the pressure of the swelled flesh, and the farmer had to
cut them to loosen them. This gave Tom some relief, but the hardships he
had gone through, the anxiety, and being without proper food so long,
had so weakened him that he went off in another faint before he could
tell his story.

“Call Doctor Prouty,” advised Mrs. Knowlton. “We’ll never get to the
bottom of this until this young man is in his right mind.”

Luckily the physician was in his office in the village and drove out in
his car as soon as the farmer had telephoned. A hasty examination showed
that Tom was suffering from exhaustion more than from anything else, and
a little warm milk, followed later by more substantial food, soon gave
the youth energy enough to tell the main points of his story.

“And if these men come after me—which they may do,” he said to Mr.
Knowlton, “you won’t let them get me, will you?”

“I should say not!” cried Mrs. Knowlton before her husband could answer.
“The idea! You poor boy!”

While the doctor was giving some directions as to what should be done
for Tom, one of the hired men on the place came to the door of the room
and reported:

“There’s a couple of men outside who want to see you, Mr. Knowlton.”

“All right—I’ll see them,” answered the farmer grimly. “Now don’t you
worry!” he told Tom, as the youth started to say something. “Just leave
’em to me.”

Mr. Knowlton found two unprepossessing characters awaiting him on the
side porch. He recognized them at once from Tom’s description.

“Have you seen a young man passing here?” asked one of the twain. “He
has escaped from an insane asylum and we want to take him back before he
can do any damage. He has a delusion that he is a great inventor, named
Tom Swift, and he will likely tell a very plausible story. Have you seen
him?”

“Tom Swift is in my house now,” said the farmer slowly.

“Is he? That’s good! We’re glad you have him safe!” cried the taller of
the two men, with a quick glance at his companion. “Poor fellow—he
needs care. We’ll look after him. Much obliged for having taken him in.”

“Wait a minute,” went on the farmer, as the two men endeavored to push
past him into the house. “Where are you going?”

“To get the patient and take him back to the asylum.”

“Well, I’d wait a bit about that if I were you,” went on Mr. Knowlton
grimly. “Now look here,” he went on, producing a shotgun from behind one
of the porch pillars. “I’ll give you fellows just one minute to run down
the road and make yourselves scarce in any direction you like. Just one
minute, and several seconds of that have already passed!” he added
significantly, as he raised the gun.

“But I say—look here!” broke out one of the men.

“Half a minute gone!” said the inexorable farmer.

“You don’t understand!” began the other plotter.

“I understand how to use a shotgun!” said Mr. Knowlton. “There’s about
fifteen seconds of that minute left and——” He cocked the gun.

But the two men did not stay to argue longer. With black looks and
shaking their fists at the imperturbable farmer, they ran out of the
gate, and with a grim chuckle Mr. Knowlton returned to Tom to tell what
had happened.

“Thank you—a whole lot,” said the young inventor. “They are desperate
men. They are going to blow up my factory. I must get back at once and
look after my father. He is an old man—he may not take my telephone
warning seriously. Nor may Ned. I must go there myself!”

“But you aren’t fit to travel!” expostulated Mrs. Knowlton. “One of the
hired men could go.”

“No, I must make the trip,” decided Tom. “I’m all right now—except for
my ankle. Have you an auto?”

“Oh, yes, we have a flivver,” said the farmer.

“Then lend it to me—or sell it to me!” cried Tom. “I must make this
trip at once—before night. Where is this place, anyhow?”

“You’re in Birchville,” was the answer. “It’s about thirty miles to
Shopton from here.”

“I can make it!” cried Tom. “I can hobble along and make the trip in the
auto. You’ll let me go, won’t you, Doctor?”

“Well, since you’re so set on it, I reckon I’ll have to. As you say,
there’s nothing much the matter except a sprained ankle, and if some one
will drive the car for you——”

“I’ll drive!” cried the farmer. “I want to see this thing through now. I
didn’t like the looks of those fellows with their lie about an escaped
crazy man. I’ll drive you home, Tom Swift!”

A little later they were on the road, and though the flivver made good
time, still to Tom it seemed only to crawl. It was evening now, and
rapidly getting dark.

Just before setting out he had again called Ned on the wire, telling his
manager where he was, briefly relating what had happened, and again
warning about the danger of bombs.

“Don’t worry, Tom,” Ned had ’phoned back. “We’re so glad you’re safe;
nothing else matters. But we’ll be on our guard.”

The lights of Shopton were in view. Mr. Knowlton drove his car down the
slope that led to the Swift plant, the electric gleams of which could be
made out now.

“I guess everything’s all right,” Tom said, with a note of relief in his
voice.

But he had hardly spoken than there came the sound of a loud explosion.

“There goes something!” cried the farmer.

“I’m afraid so!” exclaimed Tom. “I wonder if that was at my plant? Oh, I
do hope Ned and my father took all precautions!”

As the echoes of the explosion died away the little car carrying Tom and
the farmer lurched forward.




                              CHAPTER XII
                           A DANGEROUS SEARCH


Immediately after receiving the mysterious message from Tom, a message
that seemed to come out of the air, Ned Newton made a frantic effort to
get the operator at central to trace the call. But if one has ever tried
to do this he knows how difficult it is. Unless one can give the
telephone number of the party to whom he has been talking, and who made
the call, if one is cut off there is little chance of the communication
being re-established. Ned found this out to his sorrow.

“What is his number?” asked the telephone girl in a matter-of-fact way.

“His number? Great Scott, didn’t I tell you——”

“I’ll give you the manager,” went on the bored operator.

But the manager could give no more satisfaction than his helper. He
promised to trace the call and let Ned know what success he had.

“But I know what the answer is already,” Ned remarked in disgusted tones
as he gave up vainly rattling the hook. “We won’t hear another word from
Tom until he calls us himself. But we are sure of one thing—he’s
alive.”

“Did he give you any particulars?” asked Mr. Swift.

“Bless my telephone book, who’s been treating him this way?” demanded
Mr. Damon.

Ned repeated the message as it came to him:

“Just escaped! Watch the plant! Get Father to safety! Look out for
bombs! I’ll try——”

Then the voice had died away.

“It’s as we suspected,” commented Ned. “He has been captured by some of
his enemies and held a captive up to a little while ago. Then he got
away. Good old Tom! You can depend on him for that!”

“But it seems to me we should do something,” declared Mary, very much in
earnest.

“Bless my eyeglasses, that’s what I say!” cried Mr. Damon. “Come
on—we’ll get in my airship—it must be repaired by this time—and we’ll
rescue Tom! Don’t lose any more time!”

“But we don’t know where he is,” said Ned. “It would be worse than
useless to go scouring around the country looking for Tom in an airship.
He might be only five miles from here or he might be five hundred.”

“Yes,” agreed Mary Nestor. “The thing for us to do is to follow Tom’s
advice—watch the plant, get Mr. Swift to a place of safety, and look
out for bombs.”

“Are you actually going to hunt through the plant for hidden bombs?”
demanded Mr. Damon.

“Certainly,” Ned answered. “It’s the only thing to do after Tom’s
warning message. While I don’t know what the game is, I think it likely
that his enemies kidnapped Tom to get him out of the way so they could
have a free run of the plant to search for and take away his models and
papers of the newest invention—the airline express. Well, they got Tom,
but he managed to escape, and their first attempt to sneak into the
plant was a failure.

“Now they may have secreted some time bombs around the place. These may
go off any minute, but, it is probable, they have been set to explode
after dark. They hope to throw the place into confusion, and then to
rush in and get what they want. But Tom has put us on guard.”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Damon. “Then, as I understand it, we are now going to
search for bombs that may go off at any minute?”

“That’s right,” assented Ned.

“Well, I’m glad I carry a large accident insurance,” said the eccentric
man, forgetting to bless anything just then.

“Oh, there may not be much danger,” Ned stated. “If the plotters hope to
get Tom’s models and papers it isn’t likely they would use bombs of very
great force. To do so would be to blow things so much apart that they
couldn’t get anything out of the ruins.

“So I think they will use bombs with only a small charge of
explosive—enough to make a lot of noise, smoke, and confusion. But if
we can find them first—the bombs, I mean—and put them out of business,
we’ll be all right.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Damon, “providing they don’t find us first and put us
out of business. It doesn’t take much of a bomb to blow a man sky-high.”

“No,” grimly admitted Ned. “But that’s the chance we have to take.”

“Yes, it’s a chance,” said the odd man, and then he and Ned began their
perilous work—for it was perilous in spite of what the young manager
had said—while Mr. Swift and Mary Nestor returned to the house.

The heads of the various factory departments were called into
consultation and instructions given them to search their respective
quarters with minute care to discover any possible bombs. Koku and
Eradicate were also called in and with Ned and Mr. Damon formed a
separate searching party.

It was Koku who found the first bomb. The giant was looking in a pile of
rubbish in one corner of a certain shop when he made a dive for
something and cried:

“Cannon ball—like strong man throw in circus. I stronger than circus
man—I toss cannon ball!”

Ned was just in time to stop him, for the giant had picked up a round
iron object and was about to use it to exhibit his great strength when
the manager cried:

“Hold it, Koku! That’s a bomb!”

And so it proved to be—a bomb with a time arrangement for firing it,
set to go off in about two hours. Ned quickly disconnected the firing
arrangement and the bomb was put in a pail of water.

Efforts were redoubled to find the dangerous “cannon balls,” as Koku
called them, and in a short time three more were discovered in various
parts of the plant. They were all set with time fuses which had more
than an hour yet to run, so the bombs were rendered harmless with no ill
effects to the searchers.

But it was when the shadows of evening were falling, and Ned and the
others had about given up expectation of finding more bombs, that Ned
unexpectedly came across one hidden in a refuse box outside of Tom’s
private office.

It needed but an instant’s look to show that this was timed to go off
almost immediately, which fact, when Ned discovered it, caused him to
shout:

“Look out! This is a live one!”

He hurled it from him, toward a pile of lumber in the shop yard. There
was a deafening report—a shower of planks and boards rose in the air
and settled back again with a crash, while a cloud of smoke filled the
air.

“Just in time!” cried Ned. “If that had gone off here it would have
killed all of us.”

And as the echoes of the explosion died away a voice was heard shouting:

“Is any one hurt? Father, are you there? Ned, is any one hurt?”




                              CHAPTER XIII
                           AN OMINOUS MESSAGE


Curious, indeed, was the chance, coincidence, or fate—call it what you
like—which brought Tom Swift on the scene, in company with Mr. Knowlton
in the runabout, just as the bomb which Ned tossed away exploded near
the lumber pile. Tom and his friend felt the force of the blast, but,
aside from a stunned feeling and the shock, they were unhurt, and after
a momentary stopping of the car Mr. Knowlton sent it on again.

But Tom was anxious to know what had happened; hence his cry as he saw
the flash and heard the blast so near his plant and his volley of
questions as soon as Mr. Knowlton brought the car to a final stop. And
Ned, hearing his friend’s cry, first marveled and then rejoiced.

“Tom! Tom!” he shouted. “Are you there?”

“Yes,” was the answer. “But what happened? Is my father all right?”
There was so much smoke from the bomb that Tom could not see far ahead,
especially as it was now dark.

“Your father is all right—he’s back home with Mary,” Ned informed Tom,
as the latter got out of the car to limp toward the entrance gate near
his private office. “And the plant isn’t damaged. Come in and I’ll tell
you about it.”

“Are these your friends? Are you sure everything is all right?” asked
the cautious farmer, as he saw Tom preparing to go in through the big
gate in the high fence. One of the men had hastened to open it when it
was certain that Tom was outside.

“Yes, everything is all right,” was the answer. “This is my factory—my
friends are here. But my enemies have been trying some of their tricks.
Luckily the tricks didn’t work. But don’t go,” begged Tom. “I want you
to meet Ned Newton and my father. He’ll want to thank you for aiding
me—for bringing me back here.”

“Oh, shucks! That wasn’t anything!” expostulated Mr. Knowlton. “Anybody
would have done the same. I won’t stop now. I’m in a hurry to get back
home—my wife will be worried. But she’ll be glad to know you got here
safe and found your friends. Come out and see us some time.”

“I will,” promised Tom, and then as his benefactor drove away, Tom and
Ned rushed toward each other to shake hands, while Mr. Damon brought up
the rear, murmuring:

“Bless my insurance policy! Bless my rubber boots! If this isn’t most
astonishing!”

“Are you all right, Tom?” demanded Ned, anxiously looking over his chum.
“But you’re hurt!” he cried.

“Only a sprained ankle,” explained Tom, who was hobbling about. “I had
to jump out of a window. But is Dad all right? What was that explosion?”

“One of the bombs you warned us about. We found four—this was the fifth
and just about to go off. I fired it away not a second too soon. It
chewed up some of your spare lumber. I guess it’s the last. But where
have you been? After the first message of yours we didn’t know what to
think until you telephoned again that you were on your way in. What’s it
all about?”

“Trouble, I guess,” answered Tom. “Some gang is after me and the new
airline ideas and patents. They’re desperate. Wait until I ’phone to the
house to let Dad and Mary know I’m all right, and then I’ll explain.
Why, hello, Mr. Damon!” Tom exclaimed as he saw his eccentric friend.
“Did they get you over here to hunt bombs?”

“He overheard some talk which gave us an idea of the desperate men who
were after you,” stated Ned. “He came over in a hurry, and——”

“Too much of a hurry, I guess,” broke in Mr. Damon, in rather
crestfallen tones. “I smashed up your mooring mast, Tom.”

“That’s a small matter—easily mended. I’m glad you weren’t hurt. I’ll
tell you everything in a few minutes.”

Tom limped into his office and soon was conversing with his father and
then, at more length, with Mary. They were rejoiced to learn that he had
escaped and was safe. Then began the telling of the two-sided story—the
events leading up to the explosion of the bomb Ned had hurled away just
as Tom arrived.

Tom related how he had seen the strange man disappear behind the bush,
how he had followed, had gone down the secret steps, and how he awoke
out of a doped stupor to find himself a prisoner. Then he told of being
taken to the lonely house and how he had escaped.

Ned, in turn, related their anxiety when Tom did not come home, and told
how they had searched for him before and after the arrival of Mr. Damon.

“We sure were glad to hear your voice over the wire,” Ned stated. “But
somebody cut us off.”

“No, I fainted,” Tom explained, “and Mr. Knowlton or his wife hung up
the receiver without trying to carry on the talk, which, if they had
done, would have told you everything. But the doctor soon pulled me
around and the only thing really the matter with me now is this swollen
ankle. But that will soon go down and then I’ll get after these fellows
and finish work on my airline express. Now tell me where you found the
bombs.”

Ned did, stating that one had been found near Tom’s office.

“Well, there may be more bombs,” Tom said. “I won’t be satisfied until
we have gone over all this plant again. We can’t afford to take chances.
But I’ll move my airline express models and patent papers—that is, the
preliminary ones—to a place of safety in my Chest of Secrets.”

This was done, and then another careful search was made of the premises.
No more bombs were found and Tom announced his intention of going home
to get some much-needed rest.

“But how do you suppose, with all your guards, Tom, and the electrical
fence, those fellows planted the bombs?” asked Mr. Damon.

“I don’t know,” replied the young inventor. “I’m afraid there is
treachery somewhere in our working force. Without the aid of
confederates those plotters couldn’t have put the bombs in here. I’ll
have to make an investigation. But for the present the danger is past, I
think.”

They were all in need of rest and quiet after the exciting two days
through which they had passed, especially Tom, and when he reached home
Mrs. Baggert insisted on putting him straight to bed, in which place, to
tell the truth, the young inventor was not at all averse to spending
some time.

The following day things had rather quieted down at the plant. The
resulting débris was swept up, and the shattered lumber pile, devastated
by the bomb, was examined for remnants of the infernal machine. Several
pieces of cast iron were picked up, and Tom said he would investigate
them to try to discover, if possible, where the bomb was made. It
appeared to have contained no missiles, being merely a hollow shell
filled with explosives, set to go off at a certain time, and Ned had
hurled it away not an instant too soon.

“The first thing we’ve got to do,” decided Tom, a few days later, when
he was able to be about without his crutch and with much of his former
energy restored, “is to investigate that secret stairway. Maybe some of
the fellows are still on Barn Door Island.”

But the delay, short as it was, had given the plotters time to vanish
and to destroy some of their work. The stairs were in place, but after
tearing up the planks, after the soil had been swept away, there was
revealed only a blind passage. The tunnel had been caved in a short
distance from the secret steps and it was impossible to traverse it.

The same conditions prevailed on Barn Door Island. The place where Tom
had emerged from the tunnel was found, but a short distance back in the
passage dirt and rocks were piled up, preventing a further examination
being made.

“Maybe they’re walled up in the tunnel under the lake,” suggested Mr.
Damon.

“Not likely,” Tom said.

“They probably cleared out after their bold plan didn’t succeed,” Ned
remarked.

“Yes, they’ve gone for a time,” Tom admitted. “But that doesn’t mean
it’s forever. They’re still at large and they won’t give up so easily.
I’m afraid for the success of my airline express plans. But I’m going to
work on them.”

That Tom’s fears were well grounded was borne out a few days later when,
as the young inventor sat at his desk, his private telephone rang. Tom’s
own instrument had a number not in the book and was known only to a few.
Unless this number were given to the central operator Tom’s ’phone bell
would not ring.

But ring it did on this occasion, and over the wire came this ominous
message:

“Look out for yourself, Tom Swift! We’ll get you yet!”




                              CHAPTER XIV
                          THE AIRLINE EXPRESS


Like a flash Tom Swift realized that this warning had come from those
daring enemies of his who were still at large—the same men, Kenny and
Schlump and the two masked ones, who had kidnapped him. He could realize
their rage at his escape, their anger at the foiling of their plot to
blow the place up by bombs, or, if their intention was not to cause
serious damage, but only confusion, during which they might rob—this,
too, had been frustrated.

For a moment the sinister character of all that had taken place stunned
the young inventor. The danger under which he was, came to him with a
sickening realization and he sat for a moment holding the receiver in
his nerveless hand.

He was brought back to a sense of realities by hearing the somewhat
distant voice of the operator asking:

“What number, please?”

That stirred Tom into action.

“Look here!” he cried into the instrument. “You don’t realize how
important this is! I’ve received a threat over the wire! I must
trace——”

“Hold the line,” interrupted the girl in a matter-of-fact tone, and, for
a moment, Tom felt hopeful that he could thus get on the trail of those
who sought to injure him. But while he was even thus hoping another
voice broke in on his thoughts saying:

“This is the manager, have you any complaint to make?”

“Oh—no!” exclaimed Tom in despair, realizing how useless it was to try
to trace the call thus. He was going through much the same experience
Ned had gone through the time Tom called him from the farmhouse and then
fainted. “I’ll call and explain. This is Tom Swift speaking,” he told
the manager. “I want to trace a call that came over my private wire, but
I can do it best by a personal visit, I believe.”

“We will do all we can for you,” the manager said, for she knew the
Swift concern was a large and important one. “It is often difficult to
trace stray calls that may be made from any of a hundred pay stations.
But I will help you all I can.”

“Thank you,” said Tom, and hung up the receiver. Then he fell into deep
thought.

As he had feared, the danger was not over. His enemies were only biding
their time. They had failed in their first efforts, but they were not
going to give up. The sinister threat was enough to disclose that.

Deciding that quick action was the best way to trace the mysterious
call, Tom at once summoned Ned and they visited the local telephone
exchange. There the records were gone over, but aside from establishing
the fact that the call was put through from the Waterfield central,
nothing was established. From just what station the threatening man had
spoken, Tom could not find out. That it was a man’s voice he was
certain, but whether or not it was one of the four or five who had held
him prisoner in the lonely house Tom could not decide.

“But there’s something in the fact that the call came from Mr. Damon’s
town,” said Ned. “And he overheard men talking about you the time he was
eating in the lunch wagon. It begins to look, Tom, as if the
headquarters of the gang was in or near Waterfield.”

“Yes, it does,” agreed Tom. “I think we’ll take a run over there. I want
to see Mr. Damon on business, anyhow. And we can take in that old house
where they had me tied up. I want to see if I can get any clews there.”

However, a visit to the lonely shack, which Tom located after some
difficulty, was without result. It had long been uninhabited, and the
owner, when found, said he knew nothing of the men who had been in it.
This Tom and Ned could well believe. A search through the premises
revealed nothing of any value as a clew. The ropes which Tom had
discarded when he made his escape had been taken away, or it might have
been possible to trace the place where they had been bought.

“I guess Waterfield is our next and best hope,” remarked Ned, as he and
Tom came away from the lonely house.

“I think so,” agreed the young inventor. “Mr. Damon may have heard
something more.”

They found the odd man contemplating his new plane, which had been
repaired and taken back to his own private hangar.

Mr. Damon led his visitors to his private office, and there Tom told the
latest happenings. But Mr. Damon was unable to throw any light on this
new development, nor was he able to trace the men he had overheard
talking in the lunch wagon. He had tried to get the police to locate
them, but without avail.

“Well, we’ll let that go for the present,” decided Tom. “Now for
something else—my latest idea, so to speak. I heard you say, the other
day, Mr. Damon, that you had some loose funds you wished you could
invest in a paying undertaking.”

“That’s right, Tom, so I have, bless my bank-book!”

“Well, I’m thinking of forming a company to exploit my airline express.
I find that a large part of Father’s funds and mine are tied up in such
a way, in our other inventions, that I can’t get enough ready cash in a
hurry, and I need considerable to start this new method of travel. I
thought perhaps you might be interested.”

“I think I may be, Tom,” said Mr. Damon. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, it’s like this,” began the young inventor. “You know over in
Europe and here, too, though to a much more limited extent, great
interest is being manifested in travel by aeroplane—I mean travel by
private parties. They have aeroplanes now that carry ten or twelve at a
time over the English Channel. You can also fly from Paris to Berlin and
between other European cities. In fact, they have regular routes of
travel there. But here we have only a few which might be called
experimental if we exclude the air mail which is a great success between
New York and Chicago and western points. Now what I plan is this: An
airline express from New York to San Francisco, a
straight-across-the-continent flight by daylight—say from sunrise to
sunset.”

“What do you mean, Tom?” cried Wakefield Damon. “Do you mean to tell me
you can build an aeroplane that will cross the continent in twelve
hours?”

“Not in twelve hours, perhaps,” replied Tom, with a smile. “Though I’m
not ready to admit that’s impossible. But there are more than twelve
hours from sunrise to sunset—or rather, from dawn until dark. I’ll set
the time at sixteen hours. That ought to be easy.”

“But you spoke of making the trip continuously—without change,” said
Mr. Damon, to whom Tom’s idea was not altogether new. “None of the
aeroplanes we have at present can do that—it’s all of three thousand
miles. The British transatlantic fliers didn’t make as long a journey as
that, though of course they were in more danger, flying over the ocean.”

“Probably it wouldn’t be a non-stop flight,” said Tom. “The air mail
doesn’t do that—different planes are used. It’s just the same in making
a transcontinental trip in a railroad train. No one engine makes the
entire trip, nor does a single train crew. But it is possible to get in
a sleeping car in New York and stay in the same car until you get to San
Francisco. The car is merely coupled to different engines, made up into
different trains at certain designated places.”

“Is that your plan?” asked the odd man. “I thought you said you were
going to run aeroplanes, not railroad cars.”

“I am, if I can make a go of it,” replied the young inventor. “But it
will be a combination aeroplane and railroad coach. Here is my idea in a
rough form.”

He laid before Ned and Mr. Damon a sketch of a large and powerful plane
and also a sort of coach on wheels. The two were shown separately and in
combination.

“You see,” went on Tom, pointing out the different features, “the
passengers would take their places in this coach—a sort of glorified
automobile—at the first landing field, on Long Island. There this car,
which will hold half a dozen or more, will be fastened to the aeroplane
by clamps. The aeroplane will take off, and make an airline for Chicago,
which will be the first of two stops to be made between New York and the
Pacific coast. Landing on the Chicago field, the autocar will be
detached and rolled, under its own power, to the second aeroplane which
will be in waiting. It will be clamped fast to the chassis, and if the
passengers happen to be asleep they will not be awakened, any more than
they would when a Pullman sleeper is taken off one train and put on
another.

“As soon as the car is clamped to the second plane that one starts and
flies to Denver. There it descends, the car is rolled to the third
plane, in waiting, and that sets off, landing in San Francisco about
sixteen hours from the time the start was made—a daylight trip across
the continent.”

“Can it be done?” asked Mr. Damon.

“I think so,” Tom answered. “I plan now on making one trip each way
every week. There will be three laps of approximately one thousand miles
each. Figure five hours to a lap, that would mean a flying rate of two
hundred miles an hour—not at all impossible. We’ll charge a fare of one
thousand dollars each way. There’ll be money in it, Mr. Damon. Do you
want to go in with us?”

Instead of answering Mr. Damon rose and tiptoed his way softly to the
door, where he stood intently listening.




                               CHAPTER XV
                             A TRIAL FLIGHT


Tom Swift and Ned Newton watched the odd man curiously. Afterward Ned
said he thought Mr. Damon had gone to the door to ascertain if his wife
might be eavesdropping, since she did not altogether approve of many of
the things he did in connection with the young inventor.

“I thought maybe he was going to get his checkbook,” Tom said later. He
was always a very hopeful individual.

But when Mr. Damon returned to his seat after his tiptoeing visit to the
closed door he remarked in a low voice:

“You can’t be too careful.”

“About what?” asked Tom, impressed by his friend’s manner.

“About letting your plans become known before you are ready to spring
this new airline express on the public,” was the answer.

“Why, you don’t suspect any one in your own house, do you?” asked Ned.

“Not my wife, of course,” Mr. Damon answered. “But there have been
several queer characters around here of late. Several men have called,
trying to get me to hire them as a valet. Bless my necktie, as if I
needed a valet! Of course I sent them away, but yesterday the maid let
another one in while I was busy in my study, and the fellow had the
impudence to walk right up to my door. My wife caught him standing there
listening after the maid had gone away, and Mrs. Damon sent the fellow
flying, I’ll tell you.

“I suspect, Tom, that he had something to do with the gang that is
trying to get your new apparatus away from you. He must know that I am
your friend and often go on trips with you, and possibly he thought he
might get some information here, in a sneaking way. That’s why I wanted
to make sure no one was out in the hall listening. It’s all right. I
looked out through the crack and no one is there. Now go on with your
explanation.”

Tom did, elaborating on his plans for a big aeroplane in two sections,
the part where the passengers were to be carried being like a big
autocar, able to move under its own power.

“It is this feature that will save a lot of time,” he explained. “After
the first aeroplane starts from Long Island the passengers will not have
to move out of their seats until they reach San Francisco. Or, if we
start at night, in case it is found desirable to have overnight trips, a
man can go to sleep in New York and awaken at the Golden Gate, that is,
if he wants to sleep that long.”

“It’s a big undertaking!” said the odd man.

“But Tom can carry it through if any one can,” declared Ned.

“The worst of it is that it’s going to take a mint of money,” sighed the
young inventor. “That’s why I’m calling on you and some of my other
friends to take stock, Mr. Damon. How does it strike you?”

To the credit of Mr. Damon be it said that he did not hesitate a moment.
He held out his hand to his friend and said:

“I’m with you, Tom Swift! I’ll invest all I can afford. I wish it was
more, but I’ve spent a lot on that new aeroplane of mine that I nearly
smashed. However, I have a few dollars left in the bank. Though you
needn’t say anything to my wife about this,” he went on in a low voice
as he got out his checkbook.

Tom and Ned smiled as they gave a promise of secrecy, and a little later
the young inventor left with his first contribution toward financing the
airline express—a check for five thousand dollars.

Tom Swift spent busy days during the next few weeks. Like all new
enterprises, this one was not easy to start, though many of Tom’s
friends, whom he approached with a plea that they buy stock which would
pay big dividends if the plan succeeded, at once purchased blocks.
Others required more persuasion, and not a few said they would buy stock
if they could see the machines in operation.

“That’s what we’ve got to do, Ned,” decided the young inventor, when it
was evident that the enterprise might fail through lack of capital.
“We’ve got to show these Missouri birds that we can fly this combined
auto and aeroplane. Gee, I’m sorry now Dad and I have all our ready
money tied up in those other matters.”

“But can you build a trial machine?” asked the treasurer of the Swift
concern.

“I can as soon as my patent papers come through from Washington,” Tom
said. “That’s where the hitch is now. After all the machines we have
made in our plant, it would be queer if we couldn’t build a speedy
aeroplane of extra power and also a chassis to clamp on to carry the
passengers. That’s where the patent comes in—the method of combining
the two.”

“But I understood that the patents had been allowed,” said Mr. Damon,
who was present. “That was the latest advice from your Washington
lawyer.”

“Yes, I know. But several matters have come up since then. Some one is
trying to throw a monkey wrench into the gear wheels, so to speak, and I
suspect it is the same gang that tried to put me out of the way—the
scoundrels headed by Schlump and Kenny. I think I shall have to make a
trip to Washington myself.”

“Be careful, Tom,” warned Ned Newton. “They may get you on the way
there.”

“I guess I can look out for myself,” was the answer.

But when Mary Nestor heard what Tom proposed to do, she added her
warning to Ned’s. However, Tom was firm and then Mary delivered her
ultimatum.

“If you go to Washington, I’m going, too,” she declared.

“Good!” cried Tom. “I’ve been wanting a little excursion with you, Mary,
and we’ll make a party of it and take Ned and Helen along. That will be
fun!”

“That’s the idea!” Ned declared. “It will be a bold gang that dares to
start anything with the two girls along.”

It may be mentioned here that Tom’s patents were really of a three-fold
nature. One consisted of the peculiar construction of the passenger car
to be used in the ocean-to-ocean flight, the second was a patent on the
method of clamping this car to the aeroplane, and the third covered the
method of manufacturing the duralumin alloy of which the car and a part
of the aeroplane were to be constructed. Ordinary duralumin is composed
of ninety-four per cent. aluminum and the rest copper and magnesium; but
Tom had a secret formula of his own, not only for mixing these
ingredients, but also in the melting and forging processes. His
duralumin he considered stronger than any ever used in an aeroplane and
it was at least three per cent. lighter in weight than any which had
ever been offered to him.

There is nothing like going yourself when you want a thing done, as Tom
found, and he had not been many days in Washington, whither his three
friends accompanied him, before he had matters connected with his
patents straightened out and he was assured by a high government
authority that his claim was original, valid, and would eventually be
allowed, thus giving him the sole right to make airline express machines
for a limited period.

Perhaps this action of the patent authorities was hastened when an old
army officer, a friend of Tom’s father, heard about the matter and
declared such a machine would be of great value to the United States in
case of another war.

This officer impressed his views on certain friends of his in the patent
office, and the result was that the usual leaden wheels in that
institution began to move more rapidly.

“If you can wait long enough,” said General Malcolm, who had been of
such service to Tom, “I believe I can even get you a government
subsidy.”

“How long would it take to get the government to invest money in this
new undertaking of mine?” Tom wanted to know.

“Oh, probably two or three years. A bill would have to be introduced in
Congress—it might take four years.”

“I expect to make the first flight inside of a month,” Tom laughed.

Tom and his friends returned to Shopton, and then followed many
strenuous days and nights of work for the young inventor. Those who had
faith in Tom and those who knew and understood Ned Newton’s unusual
knowledge and judgment in financial matters so talked to their friends
that eventually outsiders put one hundred thousand dollars into the
scheme and this, together with the money Mr. Damon and other
acquaintances subscribed and with what Tom and his father had, gave them
enough cash to build three planes and two cars.

Essentially there was nothing new or startling in the construction of
either of these machines. My readers are all familiar with the general
outline of an aeroplane. Beneath the fuselage which held the engine and
a cockpit for the pilot and his helper was built a heavy frame to which
could be clamped the passenger car.

This car was like a Pullman parlor car combined with a sleeper. It had
some folding berths and also some easy chairs. There was a small dining
room and a buffet kitchen, and many conveniences were installed. Tom
limited the number of passengers to be carried on any one trip to ten,
saying he could enlarge the cars if he found the machine was going to be
a success.

In due time the two cars and the three planes received their last coats
of varnish, the powerful engines were installed after a rigid block
test, and one day Tom announced to Ned that all was in readiness for a
trial flight.

“Want to come along?” asked the young inventor.

“Sure!” was the quick answer. “Anybody else going?”

“Yes. Mr. Damon is game and Father insists on accompanying us. I think
I’ll take Koku along—he might come in handy in case anything should
happen.”

It was decided to make the start from the big field outside of the Swift
plant, and one morning one of the planes and its accompanying passenger
car was rolled out on the level stretch. To make the test under the same
conditions that would prevail when the airline express was in service,
Tom and his friends entered the passenger car at one end of the field.

“We will imagine,” explained Tom, “that we have just landed here from
the plane that brought us from Long Island to Chicago on the first lap
of the transcontinental flight. Now we will run over and attach
ourselves to the other plane.”

As has been said, the passenger car could move under its own power, as
can an automobile. Tom started the motor and skillfully guided the car
under the waiting aeroplane. In a moment workmen had fastened the
clamps.

“Let her go!” Tom called to the pilot in the aeroplane, and the big
propellers began to revolve with a thundering sound. The engine seemed
working perfectly and a moment later the whole machine—the airline
express—began to roll forward across the field. There was a moment of
doubt as to whether or not the aeroplane would raise itself and the
heavy weight it had to carry, but Tom had made his calculations well,
and, to his delight and that of his friends, the machine began to soar
upward.

“Hurray!” cried Ned. “She’s doing it!”

“Yes, we’re off on the first real flight, anyhow,” agreed Tom.

“It works better than I expected,” Mr. Swift said. All along he had been
a bit skeptical about this new scheme.

A little later they were sailing over Lake Carlopa and Mr. Damon,
looking down from one of the observations of the car, said:

“Aren’t we flying a bit low, Tom?”

“Yes, I think we are,” agreed the young inventor. “Put her up a bit!” he
signaled to the pilot through the speaking tube.

Back came the answer:

“I can’t! Something has gone wrong! I’m losing power! I’m afraid we’re
in for a fall!”




                              CHAPTER XVI
                              JASON JACKS


Just for a moment or two Tom Swift wished he were in the motor cockpit
of the plane instead of in the passenger car with his father and his
friends. He had an idea he might so manipulate the controls as to cause
the falling plane to increase speed and keep on flying until a safe
landing could be made.

But in an instant this idea passed. Tom had full confidence in his
mechanician, and realized if Harry Meldrum could not prevent a fall Tom
himself could not, for Meldrum, taught in the Swift school of flying,
was a thoroughly competent and resourceful airman.

“What’s wrong?” Tom asked his engineer through the tube.

“Oil pump has blown out a gasket! The engine is heating. It’s got to
stop soon and we’ll have to come down—in the lake, I guess,” was the
grim finish of the report.

“Well, I’ve landed in worse places,” remarked Tom.

“Is anything going to happen?” his father wanted to know.

“I’m afraid there is,” the young inventor answered. “We’re being forced
down. I thought everything was all right with the machinery, but you
never can tell.”

“Bless my accident insurance policy! Do you think we’ll go down right in
the water, Tom?” gasped Mr. Damon.

“It begins to look so,” was the reply. “But perhaps better there than on
land—there won’t be such a shock. The plane has floating compartments,
and so has this car—I had them built in as a precaution against water
landings. I don’t believe there will be any real danger.”

There was no doubt about it—the plane was gradually settling lower and
lower—ever coming nearer to the surface of Lake Carlopa.

“She’s slowing up, Tom,” remarked Ned, as he listened to the throbs and
pulsations of the motor above them.

“Yes, I’m afraid we’re in for it,” came the response. “Can’t you make
any emergency repairs, Meldrum?” he asked the mechanician.

“Bert’s trying, but it doesn’t seem of much use,” was the answer. Bert
Dodge was the assistant engineer, and fully as competent as his chief.

“This settles one thing,” remarked Tom, as he glanced out of the car
window. “On the next flight I’ll have a duplicate oiling system
installed.”

“Brace yourselves, everybody! We’re in for a ducking!” came the cry.

The next moment the big new aeroplane and its attached passenger car
plunged into Lake Carlopa with a mighty splash. For a moment it seemed
that they would be engulfed and all drowned before they could make
egress from the plane and car. But Meldrum had guided the machine down
on a long angle so that the water was struck a glancing blow. In effect,
the lower surface of the car and the tail of the plane slid along the
surface of the water for some distance. This neutralized some of the
force of the impact, and then, though the machine settled rather deeply
in the water, it did not sink. The air compartments prevented that.

However, help was at hand. A number of motor boats were out on the lake,
their occupants watching the trial flight of the new airline express.
When it was known that an accident had happened, these craft speeded to
the rescue. As soon as the boats drew near the men in the plane and
those in the car climbed outside and thence were taken off in the boats.

“Looks as if it was going to be a total loss, Tom,” said Mr. Damon
gloomily, as the craft settled lower and lower in the water.

“It’s bad enough,” Tom admitted, ruefully shaking his head, as the boat
that had taken him off circled about the _Falcon_, as Tom had christened
his first machine. “But even if she sinks to the bottom I believe I can
raise her. The lake isn’t very deep here.”

However, it was not quite as bad as that. The _Falcon_ was only partly
submerged, and there she lay, water-bound, in the lake. Her actions
decided Tom to install more air-tight compartments and make the car
lighter, which would insure its floating higher in case of another water
drop.

“Well, there’s nothing more we can do now,” decided the young inventor.
“If you’ll take me ashore, please,” he said to his rescuer, “I’ll make
arrangements for getting the _Falcon_ out.”

He gave orders to this effect as soon as he reached his shop, and when
Mr. Swift, with a dubious shake of his head said:

“I’m afraid this is a failure, Tom! It’s too much for you.” The young
inventor with a determined air answered:

“I’ve never given up anything yet, and I’m not going to begin now! I see
where I made some mistakes and I’m going to correct them.”

And when the plane and the car were raised and brought to shore—being
found to have suffered little damage—Tom started his reconstruction
work with more vim than before.

However, the accident, while it was not a serious one from a mechanical
standpoint, had a bad effect on Ned’s campaign to raise funds for
putting the airline express into actual service. True as it is that
nothing succeeds like success, nothing is more dampening to a money
campaign than failure. Capital seems very timid in the face of failure,
and deaf ears were turned to Ned’s urgent appeal to the public to buy
stock. For while Tom was working on the mechanical end, Ned looked after
the business interests.

“Well, Ned, how goes it?” asked the young inventor at the close of a
hard day’s work when Tom himself had been much cheered by the progress
he had made in lightening his passenger car and installing a dual oiling
system on the plane.

“It doesn’t go at all,” was the somewhat gloomy answer. “People seem
afraid to risk their money. If you could only make a successful flight,
Tom, or get some millionaire to invest about a hundred thousand dollars
without really seeing the thing fly, we’d be all right.”

“I think I’ll be more successful in the first proposition than in the
second,” replied Tom, with a smile. “I don’t know many millionaires who
are letting go of dollars in hundred thousand lots.”

“In fact, Tom, we’re almost at the end of our financial rope. We’ve got
just about enough to complete the improvements you have begun.”

“After that I’ll try another flight. If that succeeds I think public
confidence will be restored,” returned Tom. “If we fall again—well——”

“You’ll give up, I suppose,” finished Ned.

“Not at all!” was the quick reply. “You’ll find some other means of
financing the thing. This is going to succeed, Ned! I’m going to make
it! We’ll go from ocean to ocean by daylight!”

Tom banged his fist down on his desk with force enough to spill some ink
out of the bottle, and then, getting up from his chair, began putting on
his coat.

“Where are you going—out to hunt for a kind millionaire?” asked Ned.

“No; that’s your end of the job. I’m going for a ride with Mary,” was
the smiling reply. “I want to get some of the cobwebs out of my brain. I
can’t do any more now, and I promised Mary I’d take her for a spin in
the electric runabout. It’s working all right, I suppose?” he asked, for
Ned had been using that speedy machine in his financial campaign.

“Yes, it works well, Tom—faster than ever. And I hope things will take
a turn for the better to-morrow.”

“So do I. See you later,” and Tom was off to keep his appointment with
Mary Nestor.

Tom and Mary were riding along a quiet country road back of a little
village when Mary observed just ahead of them an old man driving a horse
hitched to a light carriage.

“Speaking of millionaires, Tom,” she said, “there goes one.”

“Where?” he asked.

“There! Jason Jacks. He has several millions, it’s said, but he holds on
to them. Father knows him.”

“Lucky boy!” exclaimed Tom. “I wish I were you, J. J.!”

“Well, I don’t!” came promptly from Mary. “If you were Jason Jacks, I
wouldn’t be out riding with you, Tom Swift!”

“Why not?” he demanded quizzically.

“Because he’s old, he hasn’t any teeth——”

“Well, you don’t want to be bitten, do you?” joked Tom.

“No, of course not. But he’s got a mean disposition, he’s homely——”

“Thanks!” interrupted Tom, with a laugh. “That’s an implied compliment,
I take it.”

“Take whatever you like,” laughed Mary.

“I’d like to take a few thousands from Millionaire Jason Jacks,”
retorted the young man. “Still, if you feel that way about him, Mary,
I’m just as glad to be what I am,” and Tom—well, it is affairs of no
outsider what he did just then.

The look which passed between him and Mary changed in a moment to a
glance of alarm as the girl pointed to the carriage ahead of them and
exclaimed:

“Oh, Tom! I believe that horse is running away!”

“I pretty near know it is!” was the answer, as Tom began to speed up the
electric runabout.

“Oh, Mr. Jacks will be thrown out,” went on Mary. “He doesn’t seem to
know how to manage that animal! And there’s a dangerous part of the road
just ahead—it goes around a curve and close to the edge of a cliff! Oh,
Tom, what are you going to do?”




                              CHAPTER XVII
                           THE AIRLINE STARTS


Mary Nestor’s reason for putting her question to the young inventor was
because Tom was speeding up the electric auto and guiding it along the
road in the direction of the runaway horse. For that the animal was in a
frenzy and was now running away was apparent to both the young people.

“What are you going to do, Tom?” repeated Mary.

“I’m going to save Mr. Jacks if I can before he gets to the dangerous
part of the road,” answered the young inventor. “If I can run up
alongside of him, I may be able to lift him out of his carriage in case
there is a likelihood of his going down the gully. Is the road very
narrow there, Mary?”

“Yes, it is—hardly wide enough for two between the side of the cliff on
the left and the edge of the gully on the right.”

“Then there’s not much chance of driving the runabout between him and
the edge of the gully,” reasoned Tom. “I might go in myself. Luckily
he’s driving on the left side of his buggy and this car has a right-hand
drive. I can reach right over and grab him. And when I get near enough
to do that, Mary, I want you to take the steering wheel of this car and
hold it steady. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try, Tom.”

“You’ve got to do it if we’re to save his life.”

“Very well then, Tom, I will,” returned Mary in a quiet voice, and Tom
knew she would not fail him. “How fast the horse is going!” she added.

The light buggy whirled around a curve on two wheels in a manner to make
Mary catch her breath. Tom gave a low whistle. Then as the runabout made
the same curve, Tom saw that the road ahead was straight but narrow. On
one side, the left, rose a high cliff of rock, and on the right hand was
a deep gully, the road running along its very edge.

“Oh, Tom, do you think you can catch him in time?” asked Mary anxiously.
“There’s another curve, just ahead, and if the horse goes around that as
fast as it is going now it will go over the edge and Mr. Jacks will be
killed!”

“I’ve got to get him before that happens,” declared Tom grimly. “The
horse will never be born that can beat my runabout.” Not idly had Tom’s
electric machine been called “the speediest car on the road,” and now it
surely was speeding.

Though the frantic horse did his best, it was naught against the power
of the batteries concealed in Tom’s car, and in a few moments the young
inventor was driving along the narrow road on even terms with the
swaying carriage in which sat a white-faced man. He was sawing on the
reins and trying by his voice to halt the horse, but without effect.

“The curve is just ahead, Tom,” warned Mary.

“All right,” he answered. “You take the wheel now. I’m going to stand
up, reach over, and pull him into this car. Keep close to the face of
the cliff—it’s our only chance!”

A moment later Tom rose in his seat, and as his hands left the steering
wheel Mary leaned over and took charge of guiding the car. Exerting all
his strength, Tom caught hold of Mr. Jacks under the arms and fairly
pulled him from his seat. Luckily the old man was frail and light, or
Tom could not have done it.

“Here! Here!” cried the frightened horseman. “What—what——”

But the breath was fairly choked out of him as Tom hauled him into the
runabout and jammed him down on the seat between Mary and himself. Then
Tom grabbed the wheel, and put on the brakes with all his might, for the
dangerous curve was just ahead.

On sped the maddened horse, the buggy bouncing up off the uneven road.
Just as the runabout slowed to a stop the mad animal swung around the
curve. It did not make it, for its speed was too great, and a moment
later Mary gave a cry of pity as the ill-fated brute shot over the edge
of the cliff, dragging the light buggy with it. There was a rattle of
gravel, a shower of stones, a weird cry from the horse, which must have
sensed its doom, and then the end came.

Down the precipitous cliff had plunged the animal, crashing to death on
the rocks below amid the splinters of the little carriage. Up above on
the road, close to the rocky face of the cliff, sat the three in the
runabout—a trembling, aged man, a white-faced girl, and Tom Swift,
flushed by his exertions.

“Well—well,” stuttered Jason Jacks, when he could get his breath, “I
guess I’ve had a narrow escape. My—my horse went over the cliff, didn’t
he?”

“I’m afraid he did,” answered Tom grimly.

“Well, I’m just as glad,” went on the millionaire.

“Oh, Mr. Jacks!” exclaimed Mary.

“Ha! you know me, do you, young lady? Well, the reason I said that is
because if he’s that kind of an animal, likely to run away without
warning on a dangerous road—as he did—I don’t want ever to drive him
again, and I wouldn’t want anybody else to. I only bought him the other
day, and I’m glad I found out his trick in time. But let me see—you
know me. Do I know you?” and he glanced sharply at the now blushing
girl.

“I think you know my father, Mr. Jacks,” she replied. “He is Mr. Nestor,
and I have seen you at our house.”

“Oh, of course! To be sure—Mary Nestor. Well, I’m much obliged to
you—and more obliged to this young man for saving my life. What’s your
name?” he asked bluntly.

“Tom Swift.”

“Tom Swift. Oh, yes, I’ve heard that name before. You have a plant in
Shopton, haven’t you? You make motor boats and such things?”

“Yes, I have invented a few things,” Tom modestly admitted.

“Um—yes,” murmured the millionaire. “I’ve heard of you. Well, I’m too
much upset to thank you properly now. Could you leave me at my home?”

“Glad to,” answered Tom. “Do you want to drive around the road at the
bottom of the cliff and find out about your horse?”

“I guess there isn’t much left of him, young man,” was the grim answer.
“He’s had his last run. It was a narrow escape for me. How did you
happen to be right on the spot?”

“Just by chance,” Tom replied.

He drove back to the millionaire’s home, declining an invitation to come
in. Then Tom and Mary went on, and when later in the evening he left her
at her home, she said with shining eyes:

“Oh, Tom, suppose he should?”

“Should what, Mary?”

“Give you ten or twenty thousand dollars for saving his life? He could
well afford to do it—he’d never miss the money—and then you could
finish the new airline machines.”

“I don’t want any reward for saving lives, Mary. Besides, he’d have to
give you a share. If you hadn’t been with me I never could have saved
him.”

“Nonsense, Tom!”

“No nonsense about it!”

It was the next day that Jason Jacks called at Tom Swift’s office,
driving up in a handsome two-horse carriage with a footman in livery.
For the old millionaire was eccentric and liked to imagine he was living
in the old times. He never could be induced to ride in an automobile.

“I’ve come to reward you, Tom Swift, for saving my life,” began Mr.
Jacks, taking out his check book.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Tom, firmly but in respectful tones, “you can’t
do anything of the kind.”

“Can’t do what?” Mr. Jacks asked sharply.

“Reward me for saving your life. Any one else would have done the same
if he had had the chance, and I would have done the same for any one
else.”

“Yes—I suppose so,” slowly admitted Mr. Jacks, and it was easy to see
that Tom’s refusal pleased him rather than otherwise. “Human life can’t
be bought, though I hold mine at a high price. But look here, young man,
since you won’t accept a reward, will you let me do you a favor in
return for the one you did me? That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” admitted Tom.

“Well, then, I’ve been making inquiries about you, and I hear you are
trying to launch a new invention. I don’t go in much for those things
myself—I have no use for aeroplanes, motor boats, or automobiles,
though I admit they have their place in the world, and I own stock in
several motor companies. But I won’t ride in them.

“Now, I hear you are contemplating an airline express to San Francisco,
but you haven’t had much success with it so far. Am I right?”

“Yes,” admitted Tom. “I have no hesitation in saying I am a bit short of
cash to complete some improvements.”

“Then will you let me help finance the thing?” asked Mr. Jacks. “Oh, on
a strictly business basis,” he added quickly, as he saw Tom about to
refuse. “I’ll buy stock the same as I would in any other enterprise, and
if it succeeds I expect to be paid my profit, the same as other
investors. If it fails—well, it won’t be the first time I have lost
money, though I don’t make a practice of that,” and he chuckled dryly.

“I’d be glad to sell you some stock,” said Tom quickly.

“All right then, young man, we can do business. I’ll have my secretary
see you in a few days. I don’t like to be under obligations to anybody.”

“Neither do I,” retorted Tom; “and I feel sure that you will get a good
return on what you invest with me. I’m going to succeed.”

“Well, if you do half as cleverly as you did when you pulled me out of
that runaway, you’ll win!” predicted Mr. Jacks.

A few days later he invested fifteen thousand dollars in Tom’s new
enterprise, taking stock to that value, and promising that if Tom could
make six successful trips each way, between Long Island and the Golden
Gate, carrying passengers as arranged, he would invest one hundred
thousand dollars more and perhaps even a larger sum.

“Hurray!” cried Tom when he heard this news from Ned, who, of course,
had attended to the details of this matter. “Now our success is
assured!”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” exclaimed Mary, when he told her.

Busy scenes were the order of the day and night at the Swift plant after
this much-needed new capital was paid in. Tom kept his men busy making
improvements in the _Falcon_, and at last the day arrived when a final
test was to be made.

Once more Tom, Ned, Mr. Damon, Koku, and some others took their places
in the car. Mr. Swift declined to come, saying it was too much for his
nerves. The car rolled over the field, was clamped to the chassis of the
big aeroplane, and up in the air it rose.

This time there was no accident, and off above the lake and over the
country soared the _Falcon_, flying beautifully. “It’s a success!” cried
Ned.

“I want to make a test landing and see how long it takes to unclamp the
car and fasten it to the other plane,” said Tom, before he would permit
himself to exult.

This test was successfully met, and up rose the second plane, carrying
the car, just as if the scene had taken place on the field in Chicago,
the end of the first lap of the proposed airline express.

Not until then did Tom permit himself to see visions of complete
success. But after another landing had been made and when the car had
been rolled to the third plane, it was evident that the scheme could be
carried out. The third plane did not go up, not being quite ready.

“Of course,” Tom said to his friends when they were talking it over,
“this doesn’t mean that we can make the time which I hope is
possible—sixteen hours from coast to coast—but I’m going to make a big
effort for those figures.”

In the next few weeks matters were rushed to completion. A landing field
was secured on Long Island, another in Chicago, one on the outskirts of
Denver, and the last one at the Golden Gate. The route was mapped out
with care, and guide posts and signal towers were placed in position.

Then, on a certain day, after many exhaustive tests, it was decided to
inaugurate the first schedule of the airline express. The two planes had
been sent, one to Chicago and the other to Denver, while the third was
waiting on the Long Island field, where the passenger car had been
taken.

Newspaper reporters, cameramen, moving picture operators, and many
spectators were on hand.

“All aboard!” cried Tom, as he gave the signal to start. As he was about
to close the door of the car, which would soon be soaring aloft, a boy
ran across the field and thrust into the hands of the young inventor a
piece of paper.

“What is it?” demanded Tom.

“Message for you! Man gave me a dollar to deliver it just as you
started,” panted the boy.

Then, before he could answer, though he had an ominous feeling, Tom felt
the car being lifted off the ground. The airline express had started!




                             CHAPTER XVIII
                                CHICAGO


Strange and mingled were the feelings Tom Swift had as his great
experiment was started. There was exultation mingled with apprehension.
Exultation that he had at last triumphed over many difficulties and the
plots of his enemies and had reached the point of starting the service
which might revolutionize travel. Apprehension lest he might fail, and
also apprehension over this latest happening—the giving to him of this
note.

It had a sinister appearance—this hasty message delivered in such a
manner. It was in keeping with some other things that had happened of
late.

But Tom’s chief concern now was to see that his new craft got safely
into the air and on its way. He could deal later with those who sought
to steal from him the fruits of his labor and his brain.

So, overcoming his natural curiosity to see what the note contained, Tom
resolutely thrust it into his pocket and gave his whole attention to
directing the management of the _Falcon_, which was the plane and
accompanying car selected to hop off on the first leg of the
transcontinental trip. The other planes were named, respectively, the
_Eagle_ and the _Osprey_.

This last name was chosen by Tom as fitting for the plane in which he
hoped to ride when he sighted the Pacific coast and ocean. For the
osprey is a fish-hawk, and Ned agreed with Tom that it was a most
appropriate name for a craft in which they hoped to sight an ocean with
its millions of fish.

Tom, together with Ned, Mr. Damon, and some assistants, rode in the
hanging car, while in the cockpit of the aeroplane above them were Harry
Meldrum and Bert Dodge, the two able mechanicians. Once he had seen for
himself how the car behaved, Tom intended to take his shift in the
cockpit, piloting the plane part of the time.

Tom had invited Mr. Jacks to make the first trip, but the eccentric
millionaire, whose money had enabled the initial planes to be finished
and who had promised to invest a hundred thousand dollars more in case
Tom could successfully complete six round trips, had smiled as he shook
his head.

“None of that for me!” he had answered. “Runaway horses are dangerous
enough, without tempting fate in the shape of an aeroplane. I wouldn’t
go up for a million dollars, Tom. But I wish you all success!”

And success is what Tom hoped for as the craft rose from the ground on
this, its first official trip.

“Well, Tom, she’s moving!” exclaimed Ned, as they rose higher and higher
on a long slant off the landing field and headed toward the west.

“Yes, we got off in good shape,” agreed Tom, as he noted various
instruments and gages on the walls of the car which indicated their
speed upward as well as forward and gave their height above the earth.

“It certainly is fine,” asserted Mr. Damon. “Bless my upper berth! it
beats traveling in a Pullman. And if you can do as you say, Tom, and
keep us in this car right through to the end of the journey in San
Francisco, it will be a marvel. No change, nothing to worry about, and
traveling as clean as in a bath tub! It’s great! Bless my toothbrush,
it’s great!”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say there was nothing to worry about,”
remarked Tom, with a laugh, as he signaled to the mechanician for more
speed.

“What do you mean—that letter the kid gave you?” asked Ned, in a low
voice.

“No, I haven’t looked at that yet. Probably it’s from some one who
begged for a free ride,” Tom answered. “But I mean the race isn’t over
until we have sighted the Golden Gate. We’ve got to be there before dark
to make a success of this airline express, and we’ve got to travel
pretty fast—averaging two hundred miles an hour for over fifteen hours.
I hope we can do it, but I haven’t given up worrying lest we fail.”

“Oh, we’ll do it all right!” declared Mr. Damon.

“Sure!” added Ned, though, truth to tell, he could understand and
appreciate Tom’s feelings, knowing, as he did, something of mechanics
and the slight defect in a piece of machinery that might throw all
calculations out.

The _Falcon_ was now rapidly gaining height and speed, though,
comfortably housed as they were in the car, the occupants felt no
unpleasant sensations.

If one has ever ridden in an aeroplane he knows the swift, easy, gliding
motion of the car. It is like nothing on earth, for there is absolutely
no motion felt as in riding in an automobile or motor boat. There are
none of the bumps of the roads, nor the swaying or rolling of water
travel.

Of course there are “air pockets,” and when these are encountered even
the best airship may take a sudden drop, which sensation is slightly
felt. And if one exposes one’s face or hands or other part of the body
to the rush of air, there is a most distinct sensation felt. But the
cowl of the cockpit protects those in it from the terrific rush of wind,
the pressure of which at two hundred and six miles an hour, is
tremendous; and of course those housed in the car felt nothing.

So it was like making a journey in a dream, almost, and once the
passengers were up above the earth there was nothing by which their
progress could be gaged, as there is in a railroad train, when telegraph
poles, fence posts, and the scenery seem to rush past at great speed.

So perfectly were the powerful motors running that in a short time the
gages showed that the great speed of two hundred miles an hour had been
attained. But Tom wanted to do better than this, especially on the first
part of the journey, between Long Island and Chicago.

“The more time we make on the start the less we’ll have to worry about
when we begin on the third lap—over the mountains,” he said to Ned.
“I’ll go up into the cockpit myself soon. I just want to see that
everything is all right here.”

This did not take long. A full complement of passengers was not carried
on this initial trip, and there was more than room for all of them in
the comfortable chairs. Koku had to be content with a bench, for no
ordinary chair was large enough for him, and to his delight Eradicate
was allowed to take charge of the small kitchen, where a buffet lunch
would be served at noon, and other refreshments as needed.

“Ah eben gib dat giant suffin in case he git hungry,” chuckled
Eradicate, who seemed to forget his jealous enmity against the big man
in his delight at being near Tom and allowed to serve.

After making a round of the car and seeing that everything was well, Tom
signaled up to Meldrum that he was going to take charge of the driving
of the plane, asking Meldrum to come down below. There was an enclosed
companionway, or ladder, by which the plane cockpit could be reached
through the roof of the detachable car.

“Hadn’t you better look at that note before you go up?” suggested Ned,
motioning to the pocket in which Tom had put the letter the boy had
delivered to him at the last minute.

“That’s so—I almost forgot about it,” said the young inventor, with a
laugh. “But it’s too late to answer it—we’re quite a way from the
starting point.”

This was true. It had taken only a few minutes for them to soar over New
York City, with its forest of tall buildings, then over the Hudson,
across Jersey City, and so out on the long straight air line that led to
Chicago.

Tom pulled out the crumpled missive and ripped open the envelope. As he
read the few lines a look of anger came over his face.

“What is it?” asked Ned.

“Read it yourself,” Tom answered.

And Ned scanned these lines:

    “Look out for yourself. You have started but you haven’t
    finished. Our time is coming.

                                                 “The Masked Two.”

“Well, of all the nerve!” cried Ned.

“Haven’t they!” said Tom. “But it will take more than threats to make me
give up this project. I haven’t got my final patent papers, but I will
when I finish these trial trips. I need to make only five more after
this, and then Jacks will put in a lot of money. It was lack of ready
money that was holding me back—once I have plenty of cash I can snap my
fingers at those fellows!”

“Only five more trips,” murmured Ned. “And this one hasn’t finished its
first third, Tom. But we’ll do it! The Masked Two can go jump in the
lake.”

“You said it!” exclaimed Tom. “I’m not going to worry any more about it.
Come on up in the plane with me.”

But though Tom declared that he was not going to worry over the matter,
still he could not altogether dismiss it from his mind. He had left his
aged father at home in charge of the works, and though there were
faithful men around him and every safeguard that ingenuity could devise,
still those sinister enemies might find some way of breaking through the
cordon and damaging the plant or injuring Mr. Swift. So, in spite of his
brave words, Tom worried.

“However, we’re in touch with them all the while by wireless,” Ned
remarked, as Meldrum and Dodge descended when Tom had assumed charge of
the controls, with Ned to help him. “You can always send and receive
messages, and so you’ll know when anything happens.”

“Yes,” agreed the young inventor. “I almost forgot about that. I can
keep in touch with home that way. I’ll wireless back soon, and see how
everything is.”

This Tom did after he had speeded up the plane a little, once he found
the motor was working well after warming up. They were now high in the
air, hastening west.

Ned sent off the message through the ether waves. A powerful radio set
had been installed, and Tom could talk directly to his father, which he
was soon doing.

“We’re making fast time, Dad,” he told him. “How are things back there?”

“All right, Tom. You made a fine start. I only hope you keep it up.”

“We will. And look out for yourself. Our enemies haven’t given up.”

“I’ll be on the watch, Tom. Good-bye and good luck!”

For over four hours Tom and Ned, by turns, with occasional relief from
Meldrum and Dodge, kept the motors running at top speed. And it was not
quite mid morning by the clock when Ned, taking an observation, cried to
his friend:

“There’s Chicago below us, Tom!”

“Good!” exulted Tom Swift. “We’ll finish the first leg a little ahead of
time!”




                              CHAPTER XIX
                                 DENVER


Tom, by his calculations and by computing their rate of speed for the
past five hours, was already pretty sure in his own mind that they would
reach the City of the Lakes at least within the time limit he had set
for himself. But he was, nevertheless, glad of Ned’s confirmation.

“Now if they have everything in readiness at the field, we won’t lose
much time in detaching this car from the _Falcon_ and in hitching it on
to the _Eagle_,” Tom remarked to his chum as he prepared to make the
landing.

“It wouldn’t do any harm to wireless them and make sure,” Ned suggested.

“No, you’re right. Go ahead and do it. And, by crickity grasshoppers!”
cried Tom, as he looked at the gasoline and oil gages, “we’re getting in
just by the skin of our teeth, too.”

“How come?” asked Ned.

“We’ve got just about enough gas left to make the field,” Tom said. “I
didn’t realize we’d used up quite so much. The engine was cold when we
started so early in the morning, I guess, and it took more fuel to pep
it up. I’ll take along a bit extra on the next two legs.”

“A good idea,” suggested Ned, as he began working the wireless
instrument, to call the operator at the Chicago landing field. He was
not long in getting him, for Tom had made his arrangements well, and
those associated with him in the airline express were anxiously awaiting
his arrival.

“We’ll land in about three minutes,” Ned sent the message. “Is
everything in readiness for a quick change?”

“All O. K., sir,” was the reply, for a former army flier was in charge
here and he held to the traditions of the service.

“Better send word back to Dad,” went on Tom, as he banked the plane
slightly in readiness for bringing it up into the wind to make the
landing on the big field just below them. Off to the left was the
glistening lake, and Tom had a momentary glimpse of the wide and
beautiful Lake Shore Drive, Chicago’s principal boulevard.

“Did you get him, Ned?” asked the young inventor, as he noted below him
the crowd that had assembled to await his landing. Word of the
sensational attempt to link the two edges of the United States by a
dawn-to-dark flight had been broadcasted all over the country.

“Yes, your father’s all right,” reported Ned, who had been listening.
“He sends his congratulations and so does Mary.”

“Is she there?”

“Yes, and anxious for your success,” reported Ned.

“Tell her I’ll talk to her after we hop off on the other leg,” directed
Tom, and then his attention had to be given to making a safe landing—no
easy feat when it is remembered that he had no ordinary aeroplane to
bring down, but a heavy car attached to it and passengers to look after.

But he was successful, letting the _Falcon_ gently down to the ground
with scarcely a perceptible jolt, and then rolling gently along the even
field toward the place where the other plane was in readiness, with
motors slowly turning over.

“Lively now!” cried Tom to the men who gathered about him—trained
workers from his own shops who had been sent on ahead to make the
changes. “Every second counts, boys!”

A curious crowd surged forward to see the daring men who had set out to
do their best to annihilate time and space. The throng would have
overwhelmed the plane and its occupants, thus preventing the quick shift
of the car, but for the fact that mounted police, whose aid Tom had
enlisted, kept the curious ones back a certain distance. As it was,
however, there was another small army of movie cameramen, newspaper
photographers, and reporters on the scene, anxious to get the news.

“Will you please stick your head out of the window, Mr. Swift! Thanks.
There! I got you!” Thus spoke one of the newspaper cameramen. Meanwhile
others were clicking their shutters while the movie men were
industriously grinding the cranks of their machines.

“What were your sensations? Did anything happen on the trip? Do you
think you’ll make the next leg on schedule?”

These were only samples of the scores of questions that were fired at
Tom by the newspaper reporters as he sat in the car while it was being
unclamped from the first plane ready to run, under its own power, to the
other plane a short distance away.

Tom answered as best he could, while Meldrum piloted the car carefully
through the mass of men eager for information. They were the only ones
allowed to approach closely, for Tom well knew the value of newspaper
and movie news-reel publicity. He wanted his venture to be well known,
since he needed much capital to put it on a paying basis, and the more
people who knew about it the better chance he would stand of getting
capital into the venture.

So Tom, and Ned occasionally, answered all the questions, gave a brief
summary of the first thousand miles of travel and told something of
their expectations.

“All ready?” called Tom anxiously, as he looked at his watch. The change
was taking a little more time than he had counted on.

“All ready, sir!” came the answer.

“Let go!” Tom called to his new mechanician Sam Stone, who, with his
helper, Jim Waldo, was to do most of the driving on the second lap of
the journey. Of course Tom would take the wheel now and then to relieve
the pilot, who was, necessarily, under a great strain.

The throttles were opened and the twin motors responded with a
thundering volume of explosions which sent the _Eagle_ across the field
at ever increasing speed, carrying the car and its passengers with it.
Then, like some great bird, true to her name, the _Eagle_ rose into the
air.

Chicago seemed to drop rapidly below the passengers as the plane mounted
higher and higher, and her nose was pointed due west. Tom took anxious
observations of the various gages, noted the increasing speed, and
seemed well satisfied until he scanned the weather reports which one of
his assistants handed him. They had just come in from the government
observatory in Denver, and as Tom laid them back on the operator’s table
there was a worried look on his face.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ned.

“There’s a report of storms ahead,” was the answer. “But we may be able
to go above them. Strong head winds, the report says. They are likely to
delay us. But we won’t worry until we have to. And now what do you say
to something to eat, Ned?”

“I’m in favor of it,” was the answer. “We had breakfast a bit early,”
which was true enough.

“Then tell Rad to serve up what he has,” directed the young inventor to
another colored man who had been brought along to wait on the table,
since Eradicate insisted on doing the cooking.

It was nothing new for Ned, Mr. Damon, and Tom to eat while traveling at
high speed far above the earth. They had made many trips in dirigible
balloons and other craft, sometimes remaining up almost a week at a
time. But this was the first occasion where so much depended on
long-continued speed, and the meal which was soon served was more or
less interrupted as Tom left the table to ascertain what progress they
were making.

On the whole, it was satisfactory. As hour after hour passed, the time
being whiled away by communicating back to Shopton now and again—Tom
holding his promised conversation with Mary—it began to look as if the
great project would succeed. It was an hour after lunch when Tom,
peering down toward earth through a pair of powerful binoculars,
announced with exultation:

“There’s Denver!”

“On time, too!” exclaimed Ned. “Tom, we’re going to make it!”

They had just come down from the plane cockpit, where Tom, with Ned’s
help, had been guiding the craft.

“Yes, it looks as if we had two-thirds of our journey behind us,” the
young inventor was saying when from the galley came the cry of
Eradicate:

“Fire! Fire! She’s on fire!”




                               CHAPTER XX
                            A MOUNTAIN STORM


Tom Swift had to think of many matters when he planned his airline
express. He was aided, however, by his past experience in manufacturing
aircraft and he had made many journeys above the earth and had been in
many kinds of peril.

Not the least of these were fires, and Tom well realized the danger of
ignition in a craft necessarily so frail as a flying machine heavier
than air. So in building the _Falcon_, the _Eagle_, and the _Osprey_ he
had taken into consideration this menace and had installed certain
fire-fighting apparatus.

In order that this might be used to the best advantage, Tom had
instructed his men in a fire drill, similar to that used on ships at sea
when the call to fire quarters is sounded at unexpected intervals to
accustom the passengers to acting sanely in times of excitement.

Now, as Eradicated warning cry sounded forth, Tom did not lose his head,
but at once pulled the level of the automatic signal which informed
those in the plane above, as well as those in the car, that they must
prepare to fight for their lives.

“Put on the parachutes!” Tom cried, for there was one of these
life-savers for every person on board. As you know, all the mail-plane
fliers now wear these “umbrellas,” as do all army fliers. The parachute
is made from a particular kind of raw silk cloth. It can be folded into
a very small compass, and is strapped around a flier’s body by means of
leather belts going around his legs and waist. On the waist belt is an
iron ring, and as the person jumps from a burning plane, or one that is
crippled and falling, this iron ring is pulled.

Immediately it releases the cords that hold the parachute in folds and
the silk spreads out in the form of an immense umbrella. The air,
getting under this, acts as a brake, and the person comes to the ground
much more gently than otherwise would be the case. Even with the
parachutes, however, there is danger in the fall, if it happens to be in
a tree, and often there is peril in falling into the water. But, with
all those, there is much more chance for life than if none is used.
There is, too, always the danger that the parachute will not open in
time, but this happens so rarely that it need not be considered.

“Bless my door mat!” cried Mr. Damon, fumbling with the straps. “I hope
I don’t get this thing on backward!”

“This is the way it goes!” cried Ned, who already had his adjusted.

Tom, likewise, had adjusted his safety device, and now the young
inventor, thinking regretfully meanwhile of this sudden ending of his
hopes, began to prepare for “abandoning ship.”

“Come here, Rad!” he called, for though the colored man’s voice had
issued from the galley with the warning cry of fire, the man himself had
not appeared. “Hurry, Rad!” cried Tom.

A moment later his old servant showed himself.

“What happened, Rad?” cried Tom. “Quick! Is the kitchen on fire? The
automatic chemical sprinkler ought to have worked!”

“No, Massa Tom,” answered the old colored man. “De kitchen didn’t cotch
fire—jes’ dis pie whut I was makin’ fo’ yo’. I put her in de oven ob de
gaskoliny stove, and den I forgot it. ’Case why? ’Case dat big giant got
hungry an’ wanted me to fix him up suffin to eat. An’ when I were doin’
dat mah pie burned! Look, it’s laik a piece ob charcoal.”

“And do you mean to tell me, Rad, that you raised an alarm of fire just
because a pie burned?” cried Tom, somewhat sternly.

“Suah, I did,” was the answer. “Why not? It was a fine pie!”

“Well, bless my insurance policy!” exclaimed Mr. Damon while the others
stood listening, hardly knowing whether to laugh or not. “You sure did
give us a scare, Rad!”

“I should say so!” murmured Tom. “Whew, but I’m glad it wasn’t true! It
would have meant the end of my hopes. Mr. Jacks wouldn’t invest any more
money if we burned up on the second third of our trip. But are you sure
everything’s all right, Rad?”

“Yes, Massa Tom, eberyt’ing but dish yeah pie!” and ruefully the old
colored fellow held out the remains of the pastry.

“Well, I’m glad it was no worse,” replied the young inventor. “I guess
we can take these off,” he went on, as he began loosening his parachute
belt. The others did likewise, and then word was relayed to the
mechanicians in the plane above that all was well and that there was no
need to leap out.

“Well, then we’ll descend on Denver in the way we originally intended,”
decided Tom, for they were now over that interesting and historic city.

The same scenes were enacted here as had taken place in Chicago. A big
crowd was on hand to welcome and cheer Tom Swift and his comrades, and
the natural western exuberance of the people was a little too much for
the police. Tom had difficulty in piloting the unclamped car through the
mass of curious ones to the waiting _Osprey_, the propellers of which
were slowly whirring in anticipation of the flight to the Pacific coast.

But after answering many questions of the reporters and posing for his
photograph and for the movie men, Tom at last was in the car beneath the
third aeroplane. It was now well on in the afternoon, and if the
originator of the airline express hoped to do the entire distance in
sixteen hours it behooved him to “get a hustle on,” as Ned expressed it.

“The hardest part of the trip is ahead of us, Tom,” his manager said.

“I know it is,” was the answer. “Over the Rockies. But the predicted
storm hasn’t come to the scratch, and I’m glad of that. It means quite a
gain in time not to run into bad weather.”

“Better wait before you crow,” said Ned. “We have about six hours of
riding ahead of us, and there’s no telling what we may meet with.”

Tom was glad to note, by inspections of the various gages, that the
_Osprey_ was doing better in regard to speed than either the _Falcon_ or
the _Eagle_. She fairly roared and soared her way into the air after
leaving Denver, carrying aloft, in the car beneath her, the young
inventor and his friends.

Tom got the wireless apparatus to working and after some difficulty
succeeded in establishing communication with his home, where he talked
to Mrs. Baggert.

“Your father is lying down, taking a nap,” reported the housekeeper.
“Yes, he’s all right. But a queer message came in over the local office
telephone a little while ago, Tom. Wait, I’ll repeat it to you. I
answered, because no one else was around, and I heard a voice saying:
‘Tell Tom Swift not to count his chickens before they’re hatched!’ And
then a man’s voice laughed. I tried to find out who it was and where the
message came from, but I couldn’t.”

“Oh, well, don’t worry about it,” Tom advised Mrs. Baggert, though he
himself felt not a little anxious. “They’re still up to their old
tricks, Ned,” Tom reported to his financial manager.

“Well, they can’t get at us while we’re up here,” Ned answered.

“No, but we aren’t at San Francisco yet, and something may happen
there,” Tom replied. “I do hope they won’t make any more trouble for
Dad.”

“He will be well looked after by Mrs. Baggert and the others,” was Ned’s
consoling reply.

On and on roared the _Osprey_, like the great hawk whose name she bore,
winging her way toward the great open space of the Pacific. The hours
rolled around, and they were crossing a wild and desolate rocky region
when suddenly the comparative stillness was broken by a loud, booming
sound, as if of an explosion.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Ned, and Tom, who was making a log record of
the trip, looked up apprehensively.

“Thunder!” answered Mr. Damon, who was sitting near one of the
observation windows. “I just saw a flash of lightning. I guess we’re
running into a storm.”

There was no doubt of it a few moments later. With the _Osprey_ rushing
forward and the mountain storm coming to meet the craft, it was only a
short time before the airline express was in the midst of a violent
outburst of the elements.

“Whew, this is fierce!” cried Tom, as there came a blinding flash,
followed by a terrific clap, and then, almost immediately after, by a
shower of rain as if a cloud had burst above them.




                              CHAPTER XXI
                            THE GOLDEN GATE


Caught in the very center of a fierce mountain storm, the _Osprey_ was
now battling her way above the jagged and towering peaks of the Rockies,
fighting for every inch in an endeavor to reach San Francisco within the
stipulated time. Though by the clock there were several hours of
daylight still remaining, it was so dark and gloomy in the stormy
mountain region that it seemed as if night had fallen.

“But we may pull out of it yet!” cried Tom to his friends, as he saw to
it that all the openings of the traveling car were tightly closed. For
once the air, under high pressure because of the velocity of the wind,
gained an entrance, it might do serious damage. But Tom had foreseen
that they might run into storms, and had so built his car that a few
pulls on certain levers would close everything save the protected
ventilators.

Through these fresh air came in and the foul air was expelled, but rain
could not enter. It was different in the aeroplane above the car,
however. There the mechanician and his assistant were pretty much in the
open, though there was a cowl of heavy celluloid to protect their faces
and Tom had rigged up an extra hood to keep off some of the rain and
snow that might be encountered on the trip. But from the very nature of
their calling, aeroplane pilots must fly with much of their bodies
exposed to the elements.

When they expect to go to great heights and encounter cold of such
intensity that it is hard to conceive of it, they wear suits in which
are woven wires of high resistance. A low voltage electric current,
passing through these wires, warms them, just as is done in some of the
warming pads used in bed by invalids. In this way the blood of the
daring aviators is kept circulating.

But as Tom did not expect to go very high on his airline express trips,
there was no need of these electrically heated suits, and none had been
taken along. However, he had taken into consideration that they might
run into rain, and rubber coats had been provided.

“I’ll go up and relieve Ted Dolan,” remarked Tom to Ned, for the third
crew of pilots had been taken on at Denver to make the final hop to the
Pacific coast. Dolan was an experienced airman and had for his helper
Art Wright. But they had not taken their rubber coats up in the cockpit
with them, for when they left Denver the weather was all that could be
desired.

“I’ll go with you,” offered Ned. “I’d like to see just how bad this
storm is.”

“It’s a humdinger all right,” declared Tom, as he glanced out of an
observation window while waiting for Eradicate to bring the storm
garments from a locker.

“Bless my nose-guard, I’ll say it is!” chimed in Mr. Damon. “I never saw
a worse one.”

“Oh, we’ve been in just as severe ones before,” observed Tom, in what
seemed a cool voice. “When we were trying out the flying boat I remember
a storm when I thought we never would get through it. This is bad
enough, but the _Osprey_ can buck it I think.”

“Ah knows Massa Tom gwine to pull us through all right,” said Eradicate,
with a glance at Koku. “Ah isn’t scairt, no how!”

“Huh! Black man talk big—but him knees shake all same,” sneered the
giant.

“Whose knees am shakin’, big man? Whose knees am shakin’?” demanded the
colored servant, as he strode toward the big fellow. It seemed as if he
might try to punch Koku.

“That will do,” commanded Tom in a low voice. He had troubles enough on
hand without a fight starting between his two helpers.

A signal was given for Wright to descend to the cabin, and when he came
down Tom went up through the enclosed ladder.

“Is it bad up there?” he asked his workman.

“Bad?” was the reply. “Say, you ought to feel it!” He was wet
through—as dripping as though he had fallen into a tub of water.

When Tom took charge of the cockpit Dolan descended, glad enough to get
out of the way of the stinging pellets of rain, driven by the hurricane
wind. He, too, was soaked. Ned followed his chum up into the cockpit,
and, though they were protected by goggles, helmets of leather, and
rubber coats, they felt the force of the storm.

What with the roaring of the motors, the howl of the wind, the crash of
thunder, and the rattle of the rain, it was impossible for the two to
communicate, even though they had speaking tubes running from the
forward cockpit to the one built aft.

The young inventor, who had taken personal charge of piloting the big
plane through the storm, that it might arrive on time, soon realized
that he had his “work cut out for him,” as he said later. While it is
not at all unusual for aeroplanes of even less power than the big ones
Tom used to fly through storms, still there is always the element of
danger.

But Tom’s _Osprey_ had one advantage. Because of the heavy car slung
below it, the center of gravity was thus made much lower than usual, and
this served to keep the craft steady.

Tom glanced at the oil gage, at the gasoline indicator, and at the
needle of the dial which showed their height above the ground. He had
noted the tips of several jagged peaks below as they flew over them, and
he realized that while they might be up sufficiently high in flying over
level ground, they were not when traversing the Rocky Mountains.

“A little drop and we’ll scrape some of those stone teeth,” thought Tom.
“I’m going up a bit.”

He was in much more comfortable circumstances than had been the two men
whom he and Ned relieved, for the storm garments protected him and his
chum. Consequently Tom could give more undivided attention to managing
the craft. His first act was to increase the speed of the motor and tilt
the elevating rudder to send them higher.

“He’s going to try to rise above the storm,” decided Ned, though this
was not actually Tom’s idea. He merely wanted to be a little farther
above those towering mountain peaks.

The _Osprey_ responded well, and soon they had lost sight of the jagged
“teeth,” as Tom called them. But the storm was not to be cheated in this
way, and still raged around them.

“Why doesn’t he go higher?” thought Ned. “He’s often flown at a greater
elevation than this and in bigger machines. Once he’s above the clouds
he’ll be out of the storm and into sunshine,” for the sun was still
above the horizon, though invisible to the travelers on account of the
masses of storm vapor.

However, Tom did not want to take too many chances. He felt that his
craft was doing quite well as it was, forging ahead, though at some loss
of speed, and if he could keep her there he would make the journey
safely, though he began to figure now on losing an hour or two from his
schedule of sixteen.

For a time the storm seemed to abate a little, and they were
congratulating themselves that they had ridden through it, when, all at
once, it burst over them with redoubled fury. So powerful was the wind
that once or twice the _Osprey_ seemed actually to stand still.

Of course that might not really have been the case. Wind seldom obtains
a velocity of more than a hundred miles an hour, even in the worst
storms, and Tom’s craft was keyed up now to do at least two hundred
miles, which was double that of the wind. But it may well have been that
her speed was cut down by half, and from what developed afterward Tom
was inclined to think this was the case.

But with a fierceness of spirit that equaled the fierceness of the
storm, Tom drove his machine on. He was determined to finish this first
trip at least pretty nearly on schedule. It would mean a wonderful
amount of prestige for him if he could, and almost insure the success of
the undertaking.

Though at one time, during a terrific outburst of wind, lightning, and
rain, it seemed as if they would be utterly overwhelmed, Tom was
skillful, and brought the _Osprey_ around and straightened her out of a
dangerous side slip.

Then, almost as suddenly as the storm had begun, it stopped. The machine
slid out of the region of wild disturbance into daylight. Ned, peering
past Tom, looked ahead. He saw something that caused him to cry:

“The Golden Gate!”

“Yes,” shouted back Tom, “that’s San Francisco just ahead of us. But
we’ve lost about two hours!”




                              CHAPTER XXII
                           KENNY BREAKS DOWN


The quiet following the storm came as a great relief to Tom and Ned,
alone up there in the cockpit of the plane. Though their friends were
within a few feet of them, they really seemed quite isolated, for they
could neither see nor hear the others in the car below them.

“Well, I’m glad we’re out of that,” remarked Tom, with a long
breath—the first, seemingly, that he had taken in some time.

“Same here!” commented Ned. They were able to converse now by means of
the speaking tube which connected the forward and aft cockpits, having
only to overcome the roar of the motors and not the fierce rattle of the
storm.

“And I guess if we do it inside of nineteen hours we’ve accomplished a
lot,” went on Tom. “The Broadway Limited thinks it’s doing wonders if it
goes from New York to Chicago in eighteen, but we have them skinned by
several miles.”

“You said it!” cried Ned, with justified enthusiasm. “But do you think
you’ll lose all of two hours, Tom?”

“Fully that,” Tom admitted, rather ruefully. “I did hope we might make
it in sixteen hours and a few minutes, as I said we could do. But that
storm actually cut two hours, if not more, off our schedule. However, it
can’t be helped.”

So rapidly was the _Osprey_ making time now that it seemed as if the
Golden Gate were rushing forward and opening wide to receive the
wonderful craft and her occupants. It is the sun, setting in a glory of
gold outside the harbor of San Francisco that gives the poetical name to
the city, as much so, perhaps, as the yellow nuggets it produced in the
days that never will return.

There came a signal from the car. It was Ted Dolan calling up to Tom:

“Do you want to be relieved?”

“Thank you, no,” the young inventor answered. “I’ll stick now and make
the landing.”

“I thought you might want to do so,” Ted said. “But if the storm played
you out, Art and I will take her for a little while and you and Mr.
Newton can come up again just before making the landing.”

“No, I’ll stick,” announced Tom. “How about you?” he asked his chum.

“I’m game, of course. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. They ought to
reward you publicly in some way, Tom!”

“Reward! What for?”

“For establishing this airline express—crossing the United States in
the daylight hours of a single day.”

“Reward nothing! If I can do it, the only reward I want is for Jason
Jacks and others who can afford it to invest money in the project and
get it firmly established.”

“Oh, they’ll do that all right, Tom. Is that the landing field below
us?”

Ned pointed to a green level stretch outside the city of San Francisco.
They had approached it rapidly, for the _Osprey_, as if determining to
live up to her name, was fairly zooming toward the Pacific.

“That’s it,” was the answer. “There’s quite a crowd there, too! Hope I
don’t muss anybody’s hair as I go down. Confound the people! Why don’t
they know enough to keep out of the way when they see an aeroplane
coming down right among ’em?”

Well might Tom ask this, for the crowd, which had assembled in
anticipation of seeing the landing, was swarming all over the field in
spite of the efforts of the police to keep a free place for the machine
to come down.

“I’ll give ’em a bit of a scare,” decided Tom. Quickly shifting the
rudder of his plane, it appeared for a moment as if he was going to
crash down where the crowd was thickest. With yells of alarm the people
scattered, and this left a clear space, which was what Tom wanted.

“Now for a landing, Ned!” he called to his chum. “Mark the time!”

“Mark it is!” answered Ned, who sat with his watch in one hand and a
pencil in the other, ready to make the record on the official slip of
paper he held on his knee. “It’s over eighteen hours, though, Tom,” he
said regretfully.

“I’m afraid it is, Ned. But it can’t be helped. Better luck next time!”

“Hope so,” was the response.

A moment later, amid the wild and enthusiastic cheers of the crowd, Tom
brought the _Osprey_ to earth, the first time she had touched it since
leaving Denver. The car landed with a gentle thud, rolled along a little
way and then came to a stop while the crowd of reporters, cameramen, and
general curiosity seekers rushed forward in an overwhelming wave. It was
a reproduction of the same scenes that had taken place in Chicago and
Denver, only this was more intensified, for it marked the end of the
journey.

But before Tom would reply to the score of questions hurled at him by
the reporters he called to Ned:

“What time do you make it?”

The manager figured rapidly.

“Eighteen hours and sixteen minutes from Long Island to San Francisco,”
he answered.

“Not so bad,” murmured Tom. “But we’re going to do better than that the
next time.”

And then, as he stepped down from the plane, he was surrounded by an
excited and curious crowd.

“Tell us about it! What was the exact running time? Did you have any
accidents? How do you feel? When are you going to make the return trip?”

These, and dozens of other questions, were fairly volleyed at Tom by the
newspaper men, and he answered as best he could. By this time he was
used to the printed publicity that followed his work, and he knew the
value of it. So he was always courteous and kind to the reporters and
photographers, patiently posing for the latter and letting them take as
many pictures as they wanted.

It was a great feat, and every one realized that. As soon as
enterprising reporters had telephoned the facts in to their papers in
San Francisco, whistles were blown and bells were rung to celebrate the
event. Tom was a popular hero, much as he disliked the role.

The news of his arrival was flashed back over land wires and by means of
radio to New York and the East, though Tom did not wait for Mary and his
father to receive the good news in this indirect way. As soon as he had
given the reporters the gist of the story, speaking of the terrible
storm through which they had run, Tom had his operator get in touch with
his home on the radio. In a short time Tom’s voice was heard in the
house at Shopton where Mary, her father and mother, and Mr. Swift had
been sitting, anxiously waiting. It was night there, though still
daylight in San Francisco.

“I’m all right, Dad!” reported the young inventor. “Didn’t make it quite
as speedily as I hoped, but I’ll do better on the return trip. How’s
Mary?”

“She’s all right,” answered Mr. Swift. “She will speak to you in a
moment. But, Tom, be careful. I’m worried about you. A number of
mysterious messages have come in over the telephone wires during the
day. I’m afraid your enemies are still on your trail.”

“Well, maybe they are, Dad, but I think I have given them the slip,”
laughed Tom. “Anyhow, they couldn’t stop me from making this one trip.
And now let me talk to Mary.”

They were soon in conversation and the girl was greatly relieved to
learn that Tom and his friends were safe.

“But do be careful, won’t you?” she begged.

“I sure will!” Tom promised. “Don’t worry! I haven’t seen any of those
fellows out here. Guess it was too far for them.”

He was soon to learn, however, that this was not the case.

Bidding Mary good-bye over the radio and promising to talk to her again
as soon as he could, Tom shut off the power on the wireless and made
preparations for having his machine guarded during the night. Except for
some of the mechanicians who would sleep on board, the others were to go
to a hotel. There they would get some much-needed rest and prepare to
make the return trip in a few days. Tom wanted time, however, to have
the engines carefully gone over. Also he wanted to communicate with the
crews in Denver and Chicago and have them alert and ready to speed him
on his way when the return trip should be made.

A hasty inspection of the _Osprey_ showed that the plane had sustained
no damage in flying through the storm, but could, after a few
adjustments, make the return journey.

“Well, what do you say to a good bath, Ned, and a lobster supper?” asked
Tom of his chum, when they had summoned an automobile which would take
them and Mr. Damon, with Eradicate, to the hotel.

“That sounds good to me,” Ned answered.

“Koku he stay and guard machine,” announced the big giant proudly, for
Tom had informed him that was to be his duty.

“Don’t let anybody near it,” cautioned his master.

“Anybody come—Koku make ’um all full holes,” was the grim answer.

“Mebby Ah better stay, too,” suggested Eradicate.

“No, I want you with me, Rad,” Tom said. “I need looking after and so
does Ned. We brought only one suit of clothes each, and they need
pressing.”

“Dat’s whut I’ll do!” said the old colored man. He was pleased thus to
serve his master.

So great was the interest manifested by the papers in Tom’s exploit that
he could hardly get away from the reporters long enough to eat. At last
he had fairly to beg them to give him a few minutes of quiet, and
reluctantly they consented.

But after he had bathed and dined they were at him again, so it was long
past midnight when Tom was really free. Mr. Damon, tired with the
unusual trip, had retired, and thus Tom and his financial manager found
themselves left pretty much alone.

“I don’t feel a bit like sleeping,” Tom said, “I’d only toss and tumble
if I went to bed.”

“Same here,” agreed Ned.

“What do you say if we take a run out to the plane?” asked Tom. “I’d
like to make sure she’s all right, even with Koku and the others on
guard. There’s altogether too much curiosity about her.”

“I’m with you—come on.”

A taxicab took them out to the landing field, but, being a new man, the
driver made a wrong approach and found himself on a blind road, half a
mile from the _Osprey’s_ landing place.

“Never mind,” said Tom, when the man offered to go back and approach by
the proper route. “We can make better time by walking across lots. This
will do.”

Tom paid and dismissed the driver and then he and Ned made their way
through the darkness, somewhat illuminated by the moon, toward the place
where the craft rested. Their approach was unnoticed, which was
beginning to make Tom think that perhaps Koku was not as active on guard
duty as he might have been, when suddenly from the bushes just ahead of
them a man sprang. He started to run away, but Ned, sensing something
suspicious in his movements, sprang forward and caught hold of him.

“Who are you?” cried the young financial manager. “What have you been
doing? Show a light here, Tom,” for Ned knew his chum carried a pocket
flashlight.

When the gleam was thrown on the man’s face Tom cried:

“Kenny! You here!”

Then, to the surprise of Tom and Ned, the fellow broke down and actually
began to whimper as if his spirit was broken.

“I give up, Mr. Swift!” he exclaimed. “I can’t fight against you! It’s
too big a thing you’ve done. Nobody else could have done it. I’m through
with those fellows! But look out—they’ll ruin you if they get the
chance. Now have me arrested if you want to—I’m done!”

He stood there, making no effort to escape, a broken, dejected man.




                             CHAPTER XXIII
                            ANOTHER CAPTURE


Tom Swift could not understand this attitude on the part of Kenny. The
fellow had been one of the four (including the two mysterious masked
men) who had captured Tom in the tunnel and had held him a prisoner on
the island in the lake. Kenny had seemed as relentless and vicious as
any of the four who were intent on getting away from Tom his patent on
the airline express.

Now, after an easy capture, Kenny had broken down—given up—and
professed to be sorry. It did not seem natural. No wonder Tom and Ned
were on their guard.

“What were you doing back there at the plane, if that’s where you were?”
demanded Tom, while Ned held the prisoner fast.

“Yes, I was near your plane, but I didn’t do any damage—I—I just
couldn’t,” Kenny faltered.

“Were you going to do any damage?” Tom inquired sternly.

“I was—if I could—yes,” was the reply. “They wanted me to blow it up
or damage it in some way, so you couldn’t make the return trip. But I
hadn’t the heart to do it—I just couldn’t bring myself to it, Mr.
Swift—I just couldn’t.”

“Who do you mean wanted you to blow up my machine?” asked the young
inventor. “Was it Schlump and those two masked men? Who are they,
anyhow?”

“Yes, it was them. But I can’t tell you who those other two are,” was
the reply. “It would mean death to me if I squealed. But I’m through. Do
what you like with me, only don’t let those fellows get hold of me. I’m
done for if you do.”

“How do you know but what you aren’t done for now?” asked Ned grimly.
“We’ve got you fast, and your confession is enough to send you to jail.
Kidnapping is a serious crime, you know.”

“I don’t mind going to jail,” whimpered Kenny. “That would be better
than being killed—never knowing when the blow was going to fall. If I’m
in jail they can’t get me. And they’ll try to, for they’ll soon know I
didn’t carry out my end of the bargain.”

“Well, you’re going to jail all right!” declared Tom. “It may be the
best and safest place for you, and I surely will feel better when you’re
behind bars. But what’s the game, anyhow? Why should Schlump and those
two masked men want to do me harm?”

“I can’t tell you,” Kenny faltered. “I have betrayed them enough as it
is, and I’m not going to say any more. I give up—that’s enough for
you—and I warn you to look out. Now all I want is protection from them.
Have me locked up; I deserve it.”

This Tom and Ned had decided at once to do. But they were still
suspicious over Kenny’s sudden breakdown after his capture. That might
be a plot to throw them off the track, to enable the other plotters to
get in their work. Tom resolved to be on his guard.

Koku and some of the others in the plane car had come out on hearing
voices, and in a few words the young inventor explained what had
happened.

“I keep him,” said Koku significantly, as he took hold of Kenny.

“Don’t let him kill me!” pleaded the prisoner.

“He won’t hurt you—that is, if you don’t try to get away,” said Tom
grimly.

“I’m not going to. I’m through, I tell you. Why, if I had wanted to I
could have blown you to pieces half an hour ago. Go over there and
look!” he exclaimed, pointing to a spot near some empty boxes and cases,
that had contained materials used in preparing the landing field.

“Take a look, Ned,” suggested Tom, handing his chum the flashlight.

In a few minutes Ned came back bearing an object, at the sight of which
some of the workmen cried:

“It’s a bomb! Look out!”

“The firing apparatus has been taken out—here it is,” said Kenny, and
he took something from his pocket. “It can’t go off the way it is,” he
added.

A quick inspection on the part of Tom proved the truth of this. A bomb
had been concealed in the rubbish, and, had it gone off, it very likely
would have wrecked the _Osprey_, and, possibly, have injured or killed
those in the car.

“But I couldn’t do it,” confessed Kenny. “I had it all ready to plant
and was going to set the time fuse when I weakened.”

“Why did you do that?” asked Tom, still suspicious.

“To tell you the truth, it was because I couldn’t bear to wreck such a
fine machine as you have made,” Kenny admitted, and there was a bit of
pride in his voice and look. “I’m a good mechanic,” he went on. “You
found that out in the shop before I was discharged, didn’t you?” he
asked.

“Yes, you were an expert in your line,” admitted Tom.

“Well, I got in bad company—maybe that’s how you can account for it,”
proceeded Kenny. “I’m not defending myself—but I got in wrong and bad.
You did right to fire me—but then I wanted my revenge. I was in the
crowd that saw you come down to-day,” he told Tom. “The gang sent me on
here to finish the job which they couldn’t do in Shopton because you
were too well guarded. They figured it would be easier here, and it was.
I didn’t have much trouble hiding that bomb.

“But when I saw you come sailing in and knew you had almost done the
journey as you said you’d do it—in sixteen hours—I just didn’t have
the heart to destroy the machine. It would be like a man running his pet
auto into a stone wall deliberately. I didn’t have the heart. You
needn’t believe me, but that’s the truth.”

“I do believe you—in that, at least,” Tom said. Being a mechanic
himself he could understand another workman’s love for a wonderful piece
of machinery. “But that doesn’t let you out, Kenny,” said Tom sternly.

“I know it doesn’t, Mr. Swift. I’m not asking to be let off. I’m better
in jail as it is. I don’t want those fellows to get me, for they’ll know
I double-crossed ’em. Lock me up—that’s all I ask. I’m down and out!”

He really seemed so, and was as honest as he could be under the
circumstances. Strange as it may appear, his love for machinery in the
abstract, his delight in a perfect piece of work, had overcome his
promise to his confederates. Tom believed this much of his story.

The police were notified and Kenny was taken to jail, on the technical
charge, in lieu of another, of unlawfully possessing explosives. For the
time fuse found on him contained a charge heavy enough in itself to have
done considerable damage.

“Well, that’s one out of the way,” commented Tom to Ned after Kenny had
been taken off.

“Yes. But there are three left, according to his talk, and maybe more,”
said the manager. “What are you going to do about them?”

“I’m going to carry on—fly back to New York Tuesday,” was the answer.
“But at the same time I’ll be on the watch. It is hardly possible that
any more of the gang are out here. They depended on Kenny, and he
double-crossed them, to our advantage. And they won’t have time to start
anything at Denver or Chicago—they can’t get there in time. They’ll
know, of course, by watching the papers, that nothing happened to us
here. They can argue either that Kenny failed or threw them down—it
doesn’t matter which they decide on. But their next move will be made at
the Long Island field—if they move at all.”

And, thinking it over, Ned came to the same conclusion.

Accordingly preparations were made for the return trip of the _Osprey_
to Denver where the _Eagle_ would pick up the car and carry it to
Chicago.

There were enthusiastic scenes as Tom hopped off early Tuesday morning,
when it was hardly daylight. He had sent a message the night before to
Mary and his father, telling them of the start.

Tom’s trip back to the East was even more successful than his trip out,
and he made better flying time by the hour, for no storm was
encountered. The same wild scenes of greeting when he landed in Denver
and Chicago were witnessed again, and word of his progress was flashed
by wireless and telegraph as he passed over city after city on his way
home.

In due time he reached the landing field in Long Island and received a
roaring welcome. The first round trip had been made successfully, and
but five more remained to be made before the rich Mr. Jacks would put in
enough money to insure the financial success of the new enterprise. And
once it became known that Jacks had invested others would do the same,
Tom reasoned.

So it was with a feeling of pride and satisfaction that Tom went back to
Shopton to tell his father and Mary all the details. He decided to let a
week elapse before trying another journey, as there were some mechanical
changes he wanted to make in the car.

Then came the second round trip, the time being cut down a little, but
not enough to satisfy Tom.

On the third one he was so long delayed by a storm that his time was a
half hour more than on his first trip west. However, he was still within
the daylight stipulation, and Mr. Jacks announced himself satisfied thus
far.

“Three more round trips, and I’ll come in on a big scale,” said the old
millionaire. “It begins to look feasible, Tom Swift.”

“It is feasible, Mr. Jacks,” was the answer. “You’ll see!”

However, the millionaire came very near not “seeing,” for the night
before the sixth round trip was to start something ominous happened out
at the Long Island hangar.

Tom and his friends had gone to a hotel there, to be in readiness for an
early morning start. The young inventor had inspected the machinery and
found everything in perfect order. Koku and Eradicate had been left on
guard, their differences for a time being patched up. Each one was proud
of his part in the night’s work.

It was shortly after midnight when Eradicate, carefully marching around
his end of the plane, thought he detected a movement in the bushes. The
old man’s eyesight was none of the best, much as he disliked to admit
this, but he decided he would do better to summon Koku, which he did.

“Maybe dere’s somebody ober dere, big man,” whispered Eradicate,
pointing.

The giant was like a cat—he could see in the dark. For a moment he bent
his gaze on the bush indicated by the colored man. Then with a roar of
anger the big fellow rushed forward, jumped into the shrubbery and came
out, dragging after him a struggling man.

“Let me go! Let me go!” cried this individual. He tried to get something
out of his pocket, but Koku held his hand until other watchmen came with
lights, and then it was seen that the prisoner was Schlump. An ugly
sight he was, too, his face inflamed with rage. Koku pulled his hand
from the pocket and found that Schlump was clutching a deadly bomb with
a time fuse which shortly would have set it off. But some of the
mechanics soon rendered the infernal machine harmless, and Schlump was
taken before Tom.

“So, we’ve caught you, have we?” asked the young inventor.

“So it seems!” Schlump snarled. “But you’d better try to save yourself!
The others are still after you! I’m not the only one! And you haven’t
got me yet—not quite!”

With an unexpected and quick motion he broke away from Koku and ran off
in the darkness.




                              CHAPTER XXIV
                          TROUBLES AND WORRIES


Instantly the scene just outside the hangar where the plane and the car
were kept was in confusion. So quickly had Schlump given his captor the
slip that, for a moment, every one was stunned. Even Tom Swift,
accustomed as he was to emergencies, did not know what to do. But this
hesitation was only momentary.

“Get him!” shouted the young inventor. “We’ve got to get him! Scatter
and round him up!”

“Turn on the searchlight!” yelled Ned.

“By golly!” chuckled Eradicate, who had seen the man get away from the
giant, “dat big man ain’t so smart whut he t’ink he am.”

“Never mind that now, Rad!” ordered Tom, a bit sternly. “Forget your
fights with Koku and see if you can find this fellow! We want to
question him and see if we can’t get on the trail of the masked men and
others who are trying to queer my plans!”

“Yes, sah,” humbly answered the colored man. “I’ll cotch him!”

But this was more easily said than done. Though the big searchlight was
flashed on, its beams crossing and recrossing the field about the hangar
like a giant’s finger, the plotter was not picked up. The chances were
greatly in his favor, running off in the darkness as he had, and after
an hour’s search it became evident that he was not to be caught.

“Come back,” Tom advised his friends and the workmen. “We’ll have to let
him go,” he added, as they made their way back to their temporary
headquarters. “We got the bomb away from him, and we’ll take care that
he doesn’t approach near enough the remainder of the night to plant
another. We’ll have to organize a patrol, Ned.”

“I guess that’s right,” assented the financial manager. “We can’t take
any chances.”

Reluctantly Koku gave up the search, for he felt it was his fault that
Schlump had escaped.

“Nex’ time I sot on him!” declared the giant.

“He’ll be like a pancake when you get up,” chuckled Ned.

The rest of the night every precaution was taken to prevent any damage
being done to the plane or the car. Men walked about the hangar in
relays, and the slightest suspicious object or movement was at once
investigated. Nothing happened, and when the first glimmer of dawn
appeared, Tom made ready to hop off on what he hoped would be the last
trip before he would fulfil the conditions of Jason Jacks.

“Those fellows must know that everything depends on my completion of the
six round trips, Ned,” said the young inventor as he took his place in
the car, while Meldrum and Dodge went to the cockpit of the aeroplane.
“They think if they can put me out of business I won’t get the money to
complete the patent work and establish the line as a practical concern.”

“I suppose so,” agreed Ned. “But how do you think they know that?”

“Oh, there has been a lot of talk over the financing of this thing. You
know that,” remarked Tom. “It isn’t extraordinary that some of these
plotters would get to hear about it. I wish we could have held on to
Schlump, though.”

“So do I! He might have given information that would help us catch those
other two—the ones you say wore masks. I wonder who they could be?”

“I have an idea,” said Tom. “I’ll tell you later if my suspicions are
correct. But now we’ve got to get busy. I’m going to try to break the
time record this trip. If I do it will please the old millionaire. Then,
when we come back from San Francisco—if we do—and make it somewhere
near the sixteen hours, he’ll put in the rest of the cash.”

“And believe me, we’ll need it!” exclaimed Ned, in such fervent tones
that Tom asked:

“Why, is our bank balance low?”

“Well, it isn’t anything to boast of,” Ned answered. “You know we had to
dip into it pretty heavily to finance this thing—not only in building
the planes but in securing the landing fields and paying the men who
look after them.”

“Yes, it has taken a bit of money,” admitted Tom. “But then, after we
are successful, and I’m sure we shall be, we’ll get it all back, and
more, too.”

“Yes,” agreed Ned. “Well, let’s go!”

He followed Ned and the others into the main compartment of the car
which had been clamped to the aeroplane in readiness for the start.
Though Ned did not tell Tom, the finances of the Swifts were in a very
precarious state just then. Of course the firm owned much property and
many valuable patents, but the Swift Construction Company had drawn
largely on its credit, borrowing from the banks, and to raise more cash
meant the stretching of the credit to a danger point. By selling some of
their holdings, cash could have been raised, certainly; but no business
man likes to sacrifice any of his principle, and Ned was a good business
man.

In order to keep the airline going, Ned had been forced to use some of
his own money which he had saved, though he did not tell Tom this for
fear it would worry him. And then, when it was found that more cash was
needed, Ned had spoken of the matter to Mary Nestor, having already
gotten all Mr. Damon could spare.

“Take all I have!” exclaimed the girl. “I’m glad to invest it in
anything Tom has to do with.”

“No, we won’t take it all,” Ned had replied. He knew she had quite a
large sum that she had inherited from her grandmother, and it was in her
own name. “But if you could lend a few thousands and not worry if it was
lost for a time, we could use it nicely.”

“Take it!” generously offered Mary. “But what do you mean about being
lost for a time?”

“I mean that even if this airline express project fails in the present
instance,” replied Ned, “that Tom will eventually succeed with it and
pay off his debts.”

“Of course he will!” said Mary proudly.

“And even if this is a complete failure,” went on Ned, “and we must, as
a business proposition, take that into consideration, Tom will start
something else that will pay big and he’ll get back all he loses on
this. So it isn’t as if I were asking you to throw your money away.”

“Take all I have!” exclaimed Mary impulsively.

But Ned was content with a comparatively small sum. And it was on this
money and some of his own, together with what remained from the original
sale of stock, that the last two trips were financed. If they
failed—well, Ned did not like to think of that.

So in blissful ignorance of the sword of failure that was hanging over
his head, suspended, as it were, on a thin thread of dollar bills, Tom
prepared to make this last trip.

It was hardly daylight when they hopped off, careful watch being kept by
the men at the hangar lest, in the last moment, Schlump might slip up
and toss a bomb that would kill, injure, and destroy. But nothing
untoward happened, and soon the plane and its accompanying car was
speeding away over the New Jersey meadows while behind the travelers the
east grew lighter and lighter as the sun slowly mounted in the heavens.

Aside from the anxiety of all on board to make the best time possible on
this trip, nothing unusual occurred during the first lap. Tom had to
stop a quarrel between Eradicate and Koku, for the colored man could not
refrain from taunting the giant over letting Schlump get away. So
infuriated did the big man become under the taunts of Eradicate that he
might have done the latter an injury had not Tom sternly forbidden all
further mention of the incident.

Chicago was reached safely, almost half an hour ahead of the schedule,
which fact, when Tom ascertained it, made him exclaim:

“Fine! If we can keep that up we’ll do better than sixteen hours to the
coast. We’re going to push the motors for all they’re capable of from
now on.”

“Better not strain ’em too much, sir,” suggested Sam Stone, who was to
pilot the _Eagle_ part of the way on the second lap. “We don’t want to
break anything.”

“No,” said Tom, “we don’t want to break anything but records. How has
everything been here? Any signs of those rascals?”

“Well, there have been one or two suspicious fellows loitering around
the hangar,” reported the mechanician. “But we warned them away. They
didn’t blow us up, at any rate.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Tom. “They tried it on Long Island,” and he
related the Schlump incident. “He’ll probably wire his confederates out
here or in Denver or San Francisco to muss us up if they can—anything
to prevent this last trip from succeeding. So we must redouble our
precautions.”

“We’ll do that,” agreed Stone.

The _Eagle_ at first did even better than the _Falcon_, and it seemed as
if the hop between Chicago and Denver would be a record-breaker. But
slight trouble developed about halfway across the plains, and though it
was remedied, still they were forty minutes late, which not only ate up
the half hour they had gained on the first lap, but cut ten minutes from
the remaining time.

“But we’ll make it up on the last lap!” declared Tom, with confidence.
“Push her for all she’s got in her, boys!” he said to Dolan and Wright,
who climbed into the cockpit at Denver.

They got off to a roaring start, rose high in the air, and then headed
straight for the Golden Gate.

“I sure will be glad when the last trip is over,” remarked Mr. Damon,
who sat in the car near Tom and Ned.

“Why, are you getting tired of it?” asked the young inventor.

“No. But my wife doesn’t speak to me, and she says she won’t as long as
I take these crazy air trips. But I said I’d come on the last trip with
you, Tom, and I’m going to stick!”

“Well, I hope you don’t drop out now,” grimly joked Ned, as he looked
from an observation window to the earth, several thousand feet below.

“Bless my feather bed, I should hope not!” cried the odd man.

Tom kept note of the distance traveled and the time used, and as several
hours passed and the figures grew a pleased smile came over his face.

“It begins to look as if we’d make up all we lost and more too, Ned!” he
cried to his chum.

The whistle of the tube communicating from the car to the cockpit sent
out a shrill summons.

“Hello! What is it?” called Tom.

“You’d better come up here, Mr. Swift,” answered the voice of Art
Wright. “Dolan seems to be knocked out and the motor is behaving very
queerly. I’m afraid it’s going to die on us!”




                              CHAPTER XXV
                           A GLORIOUS FINISH


“Stand by, Ned!” ordered Tom, in a low voice. “Get ready to follow me up
above,” and the young inventor made ready to ascend the enclosed ladder
to the cockpit overhead.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ned.

“I don’t know; but it looks like dirty work. I’m afraid they’ve got us,
after all!”

“How could they?”

Tom did not stop to answer, but quickly ascended the ladder. Ned, in a
few words, told the others the alarming news that had come down from the
cockpit, and then stood ready to carry out Tom’s orders.

The young inventor, crowding into the narrow space of the after cockpit,
found Wright managing the machinery, for the planes had a dual control
system. In the forward cockpit Ted Dolan was slumped down in a heap.

“What’s the matter?” cried Tom, when he reached Dolan’s side.

“I don’t know,” the mechanician answered weakly. “It’s something I
ate—or else I’ve been doped. My stomach seems caved in and I can’t see.
I’ll have to quit, Mr. Swift—sorry——”

“Don’t worry about that!” exclaimed Tom. “Ned and I can finish the
trip—if the engine’s all right.”

“But that’s just the trouble,” went on Dolan, in a weak voice. “She
isn’t acting properly.”

“Seems to be some obstruction in the oil feed line,” said Wright.

“Use the other,” Tom promptly advised.

“They’re both feeding slowly,” was the answer. “If the oil stops, we
stop too!” Tom well knew that.

“You get down to the cabin, Dolan,” advised the young inventor. “Mr.
Damon will look after you—he’s a traveling medicine chest. But have you
been eating or drinking with strangers?”

“Nothing like that, Mr. Swift—no, sir! I only ate meals I was sure of,
and at the hangar too. I never drank anything but water—not even sodas,
for I know they can knock you out in hot weather. I think somebody got
in the hangar and doped my food.”

“It’s possible,” admitted Tom. “How about you?” he asked the assistant.

“I’m all right—I can stick.”

“Well, we may need you later. You go down now with Dolan and look after
him, and send Mr. Newton up here.”

Having given these orders, Tom began looking over the machinery. He was
engaged in this when Ned came up to help, reporting that Mr. Damon was
looking after the ill mechanician.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ned.

“Oil feed supply,” was the short answer. “You run the plane, Ned, and
I’ll take the pipe down and clean it. We can run on one line while I’m
working on the other.”

It was a few minutes later, when Tom had the pipe uncoupled, that he
uttered an exclamation of anger and surprise.

“What is it?” cried Ned.

Tom held out a piece of cork. It had been stuffed into the pipe in such
a way that for a time enough oil would pass to keep the motors running,
but the cork would gradually swell and eventually would completely clog
the pipe, shutting off all oil.

Without oil an engine will soon heat up, until, because of friction, the
bearings, slide rods, pistons and cylinder walls may become red-hot.
When that occurs the engine naturally stops. And when the engine of an
aeroplane stops the plane falls. It is not like a dirigible that can
sustain itself.

“Dirty work!” bitterly murmured Tom, as he worked with all possible
speed to replace the pipe, for the secondary oil supply was fast
failing. The plane was losing speed rapidly.

“Somebody must have got in, put some sort of dope in Dolan’s food or
water, and also clogged the pipes,” said Ned.

“Right!” snapped out Tom. “But we aren’t beaten yet!”

And they were not. By hard work the young inventor got the other oil
line cleaned, and then the _Osprey_ at once picked up speed. However,
much valuable time had been lost, and Tom was anxious lest the motors
might have been permanently damaged by running without sufficient oil.

But they must carry on now, at all hazards, for they were within
striking distance of their goal. They at last settled down into the San
Francisco landing field after dark—a poor record, nearly twenty hours
having been consumed since starting.

“Lucky I’m not on a strict time limit for these six trips,” commented
Tom as, tired and exhausted from work and worry, he climbed out of the
cockpit, followed by Ned. “Jacks didn’t stipulate that we must keep to
the sixteen-hour schedule for these six trips. His only condition was
that we must fly continually from coast to coast, with landings only at
Chicago and Denver, and we’ve done that.”

“Through good luck and management,” commented Ned. “But we’ve got to be
mighty careful, Tom, on the last trip back. They’ll be out to do us if
they can and spoil our chances of getting that hundred thousand dollars
from Jacks.”

“You said it! Well, we’ll do the best we can.”

Extraordinary precautions were taken about the hangar that night. Men
continually patrolled the place, and even newspaper reporters and
photographers were looked upon with suspicion. None but those with
unquestionable credentials were allowed within the enclosure.

Tom had intended starting back to New York about three days after his
arrival, but the accident to the oil line decided him to have the
cylinders reground and new pistons put in.

“We want to make the last lap a record,” he said.

The delay was nerve-racking but it could not be helped. Tom was in
communication with his father and Mary, and they, too, were eager for
his success. All was well at home, Mary reported, and close guard was
being kept on the Long Island hangar.

“They may try to blow us up when we make our last landing,” said Tom
grimly, to his manager.

“They’re equal to it,” was Ned’s answer. “What about Chicago and
Denver?”

“I’m wiring the men there to be on the watch.”

At last the overhauling of the _Osprey’s_ motor was finished, and after
a test preparations for the trip back were made. Word that this was to
be the final test of the airline express had been broadcast, and the
papers all over the country were on the alert for news. It was almost
like a presidential election.

In the half-light of a cold dawn Tom and his friends took the air from
the San Francisco field. As they mounted upward Ned happened to glance
at a calendar hanging on the wall of the car.

“Did you know that, Tom?” he asked.

“Know what?”

“That this is Friday the thirteenth?”

“Well, what of it?” asked the inventor.

“Don’t you believe in luck?”

“Yes, when it’s with me!” Tom said, with a chuckle. “Not otherwise. I
saw a black cat as we were taking off, and I guess that will neutralize
Friday the thirteenth. Don’t worry!”

There seemed to be no cause for worry on the first leg of the final
trip. They got off very well, and under the care of Dolan, who had
recovered from his indisposition, the _Osprey_ winged her way across the
mountains like the bird whose name she bore.

They were well ahead of their schedule when they landed in Denver, and
luck was with them on the second lap, when Stone and his helper, with
occasional relief from Tom and Ned, piloted the _Eagle_ on its eastern
journey.

“Well, Tom, old scout, it looks as if we were going to come through with
flying colors!” cried Ned, as preparations to land in Chicago were being
made.

“I hope so,” was the answer.

There was a quick change of the car from the _Eagle_ to the _Falcon_ at
the Chicago field, and Tom was about to give the signal to take off when
a man with a reflex camera came dashing across the field. There had been
a score of newspaper pictures taken, as well as many feet of movies, and
Tom and Ned thought this man was a late-comer.

“Just a moment, Mr. Swift—please!” he cried, as he ran forward, his
head almost inside the camera.

Tom was used to this plea from the hard-working newspaper
picture-takers, and though he was anxious to be off he delayed a moment.
He knew it might mean the discharge of a man if he came back without a
picture he had been ordered to get.

A reflex camera, as those interested in photography know, is one with a
focal plane shutter, exceedingly rapid in action. It is much used in
news photography. The operator raises a hood, which serves the same
purpose as the black focusing cloth in the photograph gallery. To get
sharp pictures it is necessary to focus up to the last moment. In the
reflex camera the operator can see the image of the picture he is about
to take on a ground glass. When the focal plane shutter is released this
ground glass automatically drops out of the way.

Something in the actions of this man aroused the suspicions of Tom. He
looked at him keenly for a moment as the fellow ran forward, his head
almost inside his camera. Then, with a cry, Tom leaped out of the window
of the car, and, like a football tackler, threw himself on the man. He
knocked the fellow down, grabbed the camera and threw it as far as he
could in a direction where there were no spectators.

“Look out!” yelled Tom. “It’s a bomb!”

So it proved, for when the “camera” landed there was a sharp report and
a puff of smoke, followed by a shower of dirt.

“I’ve got you, Schlump!” yelled the young inventor. Tom twisted the
fellow’s hands up on his own back as he rolled him over on his face and
sat on the scoundrel.

Schlump it proved to be. He had hoped to get close enough not to be
recognized by holding his face down in the fake camera. And he almost
succeeded, adopting the guise of a newspaper photographer. The camera
was but an empty black box with a fake lens. Inside Schlump held a bomb
with a slight charge of powder in it. He dared not use much for he,
himself, would be close when he hurled it.

But Tom had sensed the danger in time, and by his prompt action had
saved himself and his friends from injury, if not death, and had saved
the plane from damage.

“Hold him! I’ll prefer charges against him after I reach New York!”
cried Tom, as police officers hurried up and took the plotter in charge.

“You’ll never get to New York!” boasted the prisoner.

But Tom did not let this threat worry him. Making a hurried explanation
to the police captain in charge of the squad of officers, Tom saw the
prisoner led away and then he took his place again.

“A narrow squeak, that,” commented Ned.

“Just a little,” admitted Tom, with a smile. “And now for the last lap.”

The _Falcon_ roared her way into the air amid the cheers of the throng,
and the final stage of the journey was begun. At first it was feared
lest some hidden defect might develop in the motor. But none did, the
machinery working perfectly.

“They didn’t get a chance this time,” Tom decided. “And from the fact
that Schlump tried so desperately at the last minute to disable  us with
a bomb, shows, I think, that they have fired their last shot.”

But there was danger still in store for the daring aviator and his
friends. They had made exceptionally good time from Chicago and were
approaching the Long Island field. Tom was jubilant, for the record
showed the best time yet made.

“There’s the field!” cried Ned, from the after cockpit where he was
helping manage the plane. Tom had decided, as was his right, to pilot
the last stage of the journey himself.

“You’re right!” admitted the young inventor as he gave a glance
downward. “And there’s a big crowd on hand to welcome us.”

As they swung around into the wind, a puff of smoke was seen to arise
from the hangar.

“Look at that!” cried Ned.

“Fire!” exclaimed Tom. “They may be trying to burn the place!”

Lower and lower the machine dropped, and those aboard could see the men
in charge of the hangar making frantic signals for them not to drop too
close to the big building. Tom heeded this advice, and swung down well
away from the increasing volume of smoke. The _Falcon_ came to a stop,
and the young inventor and Ned climbed out of the cockpit.

“What’s going on?” cried Ned to some of the workmen.

“Two masked men set the place on fire,” was the answer. “But we’ve
caught them, and the fire will soon be out. We were afraid you would
come too close.”

“Whew!” whistled Tom. “They’re keeping up the fight until the last
minute. So you caught the masked men, did you? Good! I’ll have a look at
them in a moment. But what’s our time, Ned? We’ve completed our schedule
and fulfilled our contract, but I’d like to know what actual running
time we made this last trip in.”

Ned did some rapid figuring. Then he uttered a cry of delight.

“What is it?” asked Tom.

“Fifteen hours and forty-six minutes!” was the answer. “The best time
ever made! You’ve broken all records, Tom!”

“I’m glad of it,” was the modest reply.

“And so am I!” cried a voice, and Mary pressed her way through the
milling throng to—well, what she did to Tom is none of your business
nor mine, is it?

“Well, young man, you did what you said you would,” came in the rasping
voice of Jason Jacks. “Any time you want that hundred thousand dollars,
or two hundred thousand, just let me know. I didn’t believe much in this
thing when you started, but you have proved that you can run an airline
express between New York and San Francisco. There’s a big future in it,
I believe!”

“So do I,” said Tom quietly. “And now I’d like to see who those masked
men are.”

When the men were brought before the young inventor and stripped of
black face-coverings, they proved to be none other than Renwick Fawn and
the man who variously called himself Blodgett and Barsky—the men who
had endeavored to steal Tom’s Chest of Secrets.

“I thought so!” said the young inventor. “So it was you who were back of
this, with Kenny and Schlump. Well, we have both of them and now we have
you.”

“But I thought these two were in jail,” said Ned wonderingly.

“They either escaped or bribed their way to a parole,” returned Tom.
“But they’ll go back now.”

And back went Fawn and Barsky to the prison from which, by means of
political influence, they had been paroled. They had wanted revenge and
had also tried, by corrupting Kenny and Schlump, to steal the airline
express patents. But their plans had been frustrated.

“Did you really suspect, Tom, that the two masked plotters were Fawn and
Barsky?” asked Ned.

“Not at first,” was the answer. “Fawn has gotten over that queer trick
of throwing out his elbow that surely would have given him away, and
both men disguised their voices when they talked. They wanted to escape
recognition, for they knew they might be sent back to jail on the old
charges. Well, they’ll do double time now—on the old charge, and for
trying to kidnap me, as well as setting fire to the hangar.”

“They played a desperate game,” commented  Ned. “To think of digging
that tunnel and going to all that work to get your patents.”

“They didn’t dig the tunnel,” Tom answered. “It’s a natural one. They
just made an entrance to it near our fence—that much of the digging
alone was new. The rest was natural. I may find a use for that same
tunnel, too. It’s a good thing to know about. And now, Ned, I’m going to
take a little vacation.”

“You deserve it!” answered the manager.

Thus the last of Tom’s enemies were caught and sent away. Mr. Jacks was
as good as his word, and not only invested largely in the new enterprise
himself, but got his friends to do so, so that the money Ned and Mary
had put in to bolster the sinking fortunes at the last minute was fully
repaid them.

“I’d never have let you risk your savings, Ned, or you either, Mary, if
I had known it,” said Tom, when the story was told him. “Suppose I had
failed?”

“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t fail!” answered Ned.

“So did I,” whispered Mary.

And that’s that!

                                THE END




                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES


Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.