Tom Swift and His Air Scout Part 2

This last achievement was the perfecting of a machine to aid in the great World War and you will find the details set down in the volume which immediately precedes this. "Tom Swift and His War Tank," it is called, and in that is related how he not only invented a marvelous machine, but succeeded in keeping its secret from the plotters who tried to take it from him. In this Tom was helped by the inspiration of Mary Nestor, whom he hoped some day to marry, and by Ned Newton, a chum, who, though no inventor himself, could admire one.

Ned and Tom had been chums a long while, but Ned inclined more to financial and office matters than to machinery. At times he had managed affairs for Tom, and helped him finance projects. Ned was now an important bank official, and since the United States had entered the war had had charge of some Red Cross work, as well as Liberty Bond campaigns.

Somehow, as she sat there in the craft which seemed disabled, Mary Nestor could not help thinking of Tom's many activities, in some of which she had shared.

"Oh, if he falls now, and is killed!" she thought. "Oh, what will happen to us?"

"It's all right, Mary! Don't worry! It's all right!" cried Tom, through the speaking tube.

"What's that? I can't hear you very well!" she called back.

"No wonder, with the racket this motor is making," he answered. "Why can't something be done so you can talk in an aeroplane as well as in a balloon? That's an idea! If I could tell you what was the matter now you wouldn't be a bit frightened, for it isn't anything. But, as it is--"

"What are you saying, Tom? I can't hear you!" cried Mary, still much frightened.

"I say it's all right--don't get scared. And don't jump!" Tom shouted until his ears buzzed. "It's all nonsense--having a motor making so much noise one can't talk!" he went on, irritatedly.

A strange idea had come to the young inventor, but there was no time to think of it now. Mentally he registered a vow to take up this idea and work on it as soon as possible. But, just now, the aeroplane needed all his attention.

As he had told Mary, there was really nothing approaching any great danger. But it was rather an anxious moment. If Tom had been alone he would have thought little of it, but with Mary along he felt a double responsibility.

What had happened was that the craft had suddenly gone into an "air pocket" or partial vacuum, and there had been a sudden fall and a slide slip. In trying to stop this too quickly Tom had broken one of his controls, and he was busily engaged in putting an auxiliary one in place and trying to rea.s.sure Mary at the same time.

"But it's mighty hard trying to do that through a speaking tube with a motor making a noise like a boiler factory," mused the young inventor.

Tom worked quickly and to good purpose. In a few moments, though to Mary they seemed like hours, the machine was again gliding along on a level keel, and Tom breathed more easily.

"And now for my great idea!" he told himself.

But it was some time before he could give his attention to that.

CHAPTER III

THE BIG OFFER

Working with all the skill he possessed, Tom had got the aeroplane in proper working order again. As has been said, the accident was a trivial one, and had he been alone, or with an experienced aviator, he would have thought little of it. Then, very likely, he would have volplaned to earth and made the repairs there. But he did not want to frighten Mary Nestor, so he fixed the control while gliding along, and made light of it. Thus his pa.s.senger was rea.s.sured.

"Are we all right?" asked Mary through the tube, as they sailed along.

"Right as a fiddle," answered Tom, shouting through the same means of communication.

"What's that about a riddle?" asked Mary, in surprise at his seeming flippancy at such a time.

"I didn't say anything about a riddle--I said we are as fit as a fiddle!" cried Tom. "Never mind. No use trying to talk with the racket this motor makes, and it isn't the noisiest of its kind, either. I'll tell you when we get down. Do you like it?"

"Yes, I like it better than I did at first," answered Mary, for she had managed to understand the last of Tom's questions. Then he sailed a little higher, circled about, and, a little later, not to get Mary too tired and anxious, he headed for his landing field.

"I'll take you home in the auto," he cried to his pa.s.senger. "We could go up to your house this way--in style--if there was a field near by large enough to land in. But there isn't. So it will have to be a plain, every-day auto."

"That's good enough for me," said Mary. "Though this trip is wonderful--glorious! I'll go again any time you ask me."

"Well, I'll ask you," said Tom. "And when I do maybe it won't be so hard to hold a conversation. It will be more like this," and he shut off the motor and began to glide gently down. The quiet succeeding the terrific noise of the motor exhaust was almost startling, and Tom and Mary could converse easily without using the tube.

Then followed the landing on the soft, springy turf, a little glide over the ground, and the machine came to a halt, while mechanics ran out of the hangar to take charge of it.

"I'll just go in and change these togs," said Mary, as she alighted and looked at her leather costume.

"No, don't," advised Tom. "You look swell in em. Keep 'em on. They're yours, and you'll need 'em when we go up again. Here comes the auto.

I'll take you right home in it. Keep the aviation suit on.

"I wonder what Mr. Damon could have wanted," remarked Tom, as he drove Mary along the country road.

"He seemed very much excited," she replied.

"Oh, he almost always is that way--blessing everything he can think of.

You know that. But this time it was different, I'll admit. I hope nothing is the matter. I might have stopped and spoken to him, but I was afraid if I did you'd back out and wouldn't come for a sky ride."

"Well, I might have. But now that I've had one, even with an accident thrown in, I'll go any time you ask me, Tom," and Mary smiled at the young inventor.

"Shucks, that wasn't a real accident!" he laughed. "But I do wonder what Mr. Damon wanted."

"Better go back and find out, Tom," advised Mary, as they stopped in front of her house.

"Oh, I want to come in and talk to you. Haven't had a chance for a good talk today, that motor made such a racket."

"No, go along now, but come back and see me this afternoon if you like."

"I do like, all right! And I suppose Mr. Damon will be fussing until he sees me. Well, glad you liked your first ride in the air, Mary--that is, the first one of any account," for Mary had been in an aeroplane before, though only up a little way--a sort of "gra.s.s-cutting stunt,"

Tom called it.

Waving farewell to the pretty girl, the young aviator turned the auto about and speeded for his home and the shops adjoining it. His father had not been well, of late, and Tom was a bit anxious about him.

"Mr. Damon may bother him, though he wouldn't mean to," thought Tom.

"He seemed to have his mind filled with some new idea. I wonder if it is anything like mine? No, it couldn't be. Well, I'll soon find out,"

and, putting his foot on the accelerator, Tom sent the machine along at a pace that soon brought him within sight of his home.

"Is father all right?" he asked Mrs. Baggert, who was out on the front porch, as though waiting for him.

"Oh, yes, Tom, he's all right," the housekeeper answered.

"Is Mr. Damon with him?"

"No."

"He hasn't gone home, has he?"