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!”