Tom Swift and His Air Scout Part 17

"We'll look along the road first," said Tom. "If we begin to make inquiries at the hospitals there will be a lot of questions asked, and a general alarm may be sent out. Mr. Nestor wouldn't like that, if he isn't in any danger. And it may turn out that he has met an old friend, and has been talking with him all this while, forgetting all about the pa.s.sage of time."

They were now driving along the highway that led from the little suburb where Mr. Nestor lived, to the main part of Shopton, just beyond which was Tom's home. This section was country-like, with very few houses and those placed at rather infrequent intervals. The road was a good one, though not the main-traveled one, and Mr. Nestor, as was known, frequently used it when he rode his bicycle, an exercise of which he was very fond.

As Tom and Mr. Damon drove along, they scanned, as best they could in the light from the young moon and the powerful lamps on the runabout, every part of the highway. They were looking for some dark blot which might indicate where a man had fallen from his wheel and was lying in some huddled heap on the road. But they saw nothing like this, much to their relief.

"Do you know, Tom," said Mr. Damon, when they were nearing the town, and their search, thus far, had been in vain, "I think we're going at this the wrong way."

"Why, so?"

"Because Mr. Nestor may have fallen, and been hurt, and have been carried into any one of a dozen houses along the road. In that case we wouldn't see him. We've pa.s.sed over the most lonely part of the journey and haven't seen him. If the accident occurred near the houses his cries would have brought some one out to help him. He is well known around here, and, even if he were unconscious and couldn't tell who he was, he could be identified by papers in his pockets. Then his family would be notified by telephone."

"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Damon. We may be wasting time this way.

What do you suggest?" asked Tom.

"That we don't delay any longer, but call up the hospitals at once. If he isn't in either of those he must be in some house, and in such condition that his ident.i.ty cannot be established. In that event it is a case for the police. We haven't found him, and I think we had better give the alarm."

Tom Swift thought it over for a moment. Then he came to a sudden decision.

"You're right!" he told Mr. Damon. "We mustn't waste any more time. He isn't along the road he ought to have traveled in coming from my house to his home--that's sure. But before I call up the hospitals I want to try out one more idea."

"What's that, Tom?"

"I want to go to the place where we heard that cry for help."

"Do you think that could have been Mr. Nestor?"

"It may have been. We'll go and take another look around there. Some man was evidently hurt there, and was taken away. We may get a clew.

The lights on the runabout will give us a better chance to look around than we had by the little pocket lamp. We'll try there, and, if we don't find anything, then I'll call up the hospitals."

CHAPTER XVI

THE LONG NIGHT

With the speedy runabout it did not take Tom Swift and Mr. Damon long to reach the place where the Air Scout had been grounded a few hours before, and where they had heard the cry for help. All was as dark and as silent as when they had been there before.

But, as Tom had said, the lights from his electric runabout would give a brilliant illumination, and these he now directed toward the clump of trees whence the cry for help had seemed to come.

"Doesn't appear to have been visited by any one since we were here,"

remarked Torn, as he observed the marks of the new automobile tire in the dust. "Now we'll look about more carefully."

This they did, but they were about to give up in despair and start for the nearest telephone to call up the hospitals, when Mr. Damon gave an exclamation.

"What is it?" asked Tom.

"Something bright and shining!" said his companion. "I saw it gleam in the light of the lamps. You nearly put your foot on it, Tom. Just step back a moment."

Tom did so, and the eccentric man, with another exclamation, this time of satisfaction, reached down and picked something up from the dusty road.

"It's a watch!" he exclaimed. "A gold watch! And it's been stepped on, evidently, or run over by an auto. Not much damaged, but the case is a bit bent and scratched. It's stopped, too!" he added as he held it to his ear.

"What time does it show?" asked Tom.

"Eight forty-seven," answered Mr. Damon, as he consulted the dial.

"Why, Tom, that was just about when we heard the cries for help!"

"Yes, it must have been. Let me see that watch."

No sooner had the young inventor taken the timepiece into his hands than he, too, uttered a cry of amazement.

"Do you recognize it?" asked Mr. Damon, in great excitement.

"It's Mr. Nestor's watch!" cried Tom. "He must have fallen here, and been hurt. It was Mr. Nestor who cried for help, and who was taken away by the autoists. They've probably taken him to some hospital. There's been an accident all right."

Tom and Mr. Damon were of one mind now in thinking that Mr. Nestor had met with some mishap on the road--an automobile accident most likely--and that he was the person who had called for help.

"If they had only answered when we hallooed at them," said Tom, "we wouldn't be in all this stew now. We could have told the strangers who came to his aid who he was, and we might even have taken him to the hospital in the airship."

"Well, it's too late to think of that now," returned Mr. Damon. "We had better get into communication with him as soon as we can, and then send word to his wife and daughter. I hope he isn't badly hurt."

Tom hoped so, too, with all his heart.

There was nothing to do but to get back in the runabout and make all speed for the nearest telephone, and Tom Swift lost little time in doing this. They found a drug store which was open a little later than usual, and at once Tom went into the booth and called up the Shopton hospital. He was well known there, as he and his father were liberal supporters of the inst.i.tution, which was a private affair. Many of Tom's men were treated at the dispensary, and, as accidents were of more or less frequent occurrence at the works, the young inventor had frequent occasions to call up the place.

"Mr. Nestor would ask to be taken there, as it's nearest his home--that is, if he was able to speak," Tom said to Mr. Damon, who agreed with him. There was a little delay in getting the hospital on the wire, but when Tom had it, and was talking to the superintendent, he was rather surprised, to tell the truth, to be told that Mr. Nestor had not been brought in.

"We haven't had any accident cases all day, nor to-night, Mr. Swift,"

the superintendent reported. "Was this some one special you were inquiring about?"

For Tom, determining not to give Mr. Nestor's name, except as a last resort, had merely inquired whether any recent accident cases had been brought in.

"I'll let you know later, Mr. Millard," he told the superintendent, not exactly answering the question. He hung up the receiver, and, opening the door of the booth, said to Mr. Damon: "He isn't there."

"Then try Waterfield," was the suggestion; and Tom did so, though he could not imagine why an injured man, such as Mr. Nestor might prove to be, should be taken as far as Waterfield, when the hospital at Shopton was nearer.

"Unless," he told Mr. Damon, "the people which ran down Mary's father didn't know about our hospital."

The reply from the inst.i.tution in Mr. Damon's home town was just as discouraging as had been the answer from Shopton. At first, when Tom inquired, the head nurse had said there was an accident case at that moment being brought in. Tom was all excitement until she went to inquire the name and circ.u.mstances, and then he learned that it was the case of a little boy who had fallen downstairs at his home and broken a leg. There was no record of any one answering the description of Mr.

Nestor having been brought in that evening.

"Hum! This is getting to be mysterious," mused Tom, as he came out of the booth. "What shall we do--go back and tell Mrs. Nestor and Mary, or communicate with the police?"

"Why not try the Alexian Hospital?" asked Mr. Damon. "That's away over in Centerford, to be sure, but it's more likely to be known to pa.s.sing tourists than either of our inst.i.tutions around here, especially if the autoists were strangers."

"That's so," agreed Tom. The Alexian Hospital was operated under the direction of the Brothers of that faith, and was well known in that part of the state. Often cases of persons who had been injured by pa.s.sing automobiles had been taken there for treatment, for, as Mr.