Tom Swift and His Great Searchlight Part 16

Our hero focused them on the airship that was swiftly sailing across the open s.p.a.ce in the wilderness but so high up that there was no danger of our friends being recognized. Then the young inventor uttered a cry of astonishment.

"It's Andy Foger!" he cried. "He's in that airship, and he's got two men with him. Andy Foger, and it's a new biplane. Say, maybe that's the new clew Mr. Whitford wired me about. We must get ready for action! Andy in a new airship means business, and from the whiteness of the canvas planes, I should say that craft was on its first trip."

CHAPTER XII

WARNED AWAY

"Tom, are you sure it's Andy?"

"Take a look yourself," replied the young inventor, pa.s.sing his chum the binoculars.

"Bless my bottle of ink!" cried Mr. Damon. "Is it possible?"

"Quick, Ned, or you'll miss him!" cried Tom.

The young bank clerk focused the gla.s.ses on the rapidly moving airship, and, a moment later, exclaimed:

"Yes, that's Andy all right, but I don't know who the men are with him."

"I couldn't recognize them, either," announced Tom. "But say, Ned, Andy's got a good deal better airship than he had before."

"Yes. This isn't his old one fixed over. I don't believe he ever intended to repair the old one. That hiring of Mr. Dillon to do that, was only to throw him, and us, too, off the track."

Ned pa.s.sed the gla.s.ses to Mr. Damon, who was just in time to get a glimpse of the three occupants of Andy's craft before it pa.s.sed out of sight over the trees.

"I believe you're right," said Tom to his chum. "And did you notice that there's quite a body, or car, to that craft?"

"Yes, room enough to carry considerable goods," commented Ned. "I wonder where he's going in it?"

"To Logansville, most likely. I tell you what it is, Ned. I think one of us will have to go there, and see if Mr. Whitford has arrived. He may be looking for us. I'm not sure but what we ought not to have done this first. He may think we have not come, or have met with some accident."

"I guess you're right, Tom. But how shall we go? It isn't going to be any fun to tramp through those woods," and Ned glanced at the wilderness that surrounded the little glade where they had been camping.

"No, and I've about concluded that we might as well risk it, and go in the airship. Mr. Whitford has had time enough to work up his clew, I guess, and Andy will be sure to find out, sooner or later, that we are in the neighborhood. I say let's start for Logansville."

Ned and Mr. Damon agreed with this and soon they were prepared to move.

"Where will you find Mr. Whitford?" asked Ned of his chum, as the Falcon arose in the air.

"At the post-office. That's where we arranged to meet. There is a sort of local custom house there, I believe."

Straight over the forest flew Tom Swift and his airship, with the great searchlight housed on top. They delayed their start until the other craft had had a chance to get well ahead, and they were well up in the air; there was no sight of the biplane in which Andy had sailed over their heads a short time before.

"Where are you going to land?" asked Ned, as they came in view of the town.

"The best place I can pick out," answered Tom. "Just on the outskirts of the place, I think. I don't want to go down right in the centre, as there'll be such a crowd. Yet if Andy has been using his airship here the people must be more or less used to seeing them."

But if the populace of Logansville had been in the habit of having Andy Foger sail over their heads, still they were enough interested in a new craft to crowd around when Tom dropped into a field near some outlying houses. In a moment the airship was surrounded by a crowd of women and children, and there would probably been a lot of men, but for the fact that they were away at work. Tom had come down in a residential section.

"Say, that's a beauty!" cried one boy.

"Let's see if they'll let us go on!" proposed another.

"We're going to have our own troubles," said Tom to his chum. "I guess I'll go into town, and leave the rest of you on guard here.

Keep everybody off, if you have to string mildly charged electrical wires about the rail."

But there was no need to take this precaution, for, just as the combined juvenile population of that part of Logansville was prepared to storm, and board the Falcon, Koku appeared on deck.

"Oh, look at the giant!"

"Say, this is a circus airship?"

"Wow! Ain't he big!"

"I'll bet he could lift a house!"

These and other expressions came from the boys and girls about the airship. The women looked on open-mouthed, and murmurs of surprise and admiration at Koku's size came from a number of men who had hastily run up.

Koku stepped from the airship to the ground, and at once every boy and girl made a bee-line for safety.

"That will do the trick!" exclaimed Tom with a laugh. "Koku, just pull up a few trees, and look as fierce as Bluebeard, and I guess we won't be troubled with curiosity seekers. You can guard the airship, Koku, better than electric wires."

"I fix 'em!" exclaimed the giant, and he tried to look fierce, but it was hard work, for he was very good natured. But he proved a greater attraction than the aircraft, and Tom was glad of it, for he did not like meddlers aboard.

"With Koku to help you, and Mr. Damon to bless things. I guess you can manage until I come back, Ned," said the young inventor, as he made ready to go in to town to see if Mr. Whitford had arrived.

"Oh, we'll get along all right," declared Ned. "Don't worry."

Tom found Mr. Whitford in one of the rooms over the post-office. The custom house official was restlessly pacing the floor.

"Well, Tom!" he exclaimed, shaking hands, "I'm glad to see you. I was afraid something had happened. I was delayed myself, but when I did arrive and found you hadn't been heard from, I didn't know what to think. I couldn't get you on the wireless. The plant here is out of repair."

Tom told of their trip, and the wait they had decided on, and asked:

"What about the new clew; the Fogers?"

"I'm sorry to say it didn't amount to anything. I ran it down, and came to nothing."

"You know Andy has a new airship?"

"Yes. I had men on the trail of it. They say Andy is agent for a firm that manufactures them, but I have my doubts. I haven't given up yet. But say, Tom, you've got to get busy. A big lot of goods was smuggled over last night."

"Where?"